Being able to respond to SpamTraps

[Robb_Barrett]

I recently did an audit on the new instance of Marketo I'm moving into and discovered a TON of bad leads and bounces due to blacklisting. Looks like this has been going on for a while - people were getting lists from who knows where, uploading them and the emailing the heck out of them. I did some lookups....mostly SpamCop got us.

When I looked at the records I saw a distinct pattern.  After some random number of emails had been sent one would finally open and there would be a flurry of clicks - before the email even registered as opened the clicks would start.  Sometimes 5 or more clicks within a minute or two.

I'd like to use this knowledge to build an anti-spam campaign. I can't stop people from emailing bad records but I can put something in place that will unsubscribe a record when it sees this kind of activity.

Also, can I ask what institutionalized workflows you guys have put into place to prevent a higher spam score?

[Grégoire_Miche2 · Accepted solution]

Hi Robb,

That's a very interesting observation!

I would try a trigger + filter configured as is:

For a start, I would put them in a list, when I could observe them, and if it seems to capture the right leads, I would then automate the unsubscribe.

-Greg

[Robb_Barrett]

Thanks, Greg.  I just implemented this by writing them to a Suspects list where I intend to monitor them.

[SanfordWhiteman]

I hope this SL works, but if it's actually what I think it is, it's chasing all the links in the email (including the tracking pixel = open) and there could be cases where everything is completed within the timer granularity.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Sanford,

I agree it may not work, which is why I was suggesting first to add the leads to a list and observe...

-Greg

[Josh_Hill13]

In addition to what Greg said, you can absolutely stop this behavior:

• build better preference center
• automate list cleaning
  • any hard bounce=invalid
  • competitors=blacklist
  • hard bounce with spam code=invalid
  • soft bounce x3 = suspend or invalid
  • known spam traps or bad emails like info@ = blacklist
• Buy StrikeIron  / Informatica.

[Robb_Barrett]

Josh Hill wrote:

In addition to what Greg said, you can absolutely stop this behavior:

• build better preference center
• automate list cleaning
  • any hard bounce=invalid
  • competitors=blacklist
  • hard bounce with spam code=invalid
  • soft bounce x3 = suspend or invalid
  • known spam traps or bad emails like info@ = blacklist
• Buy StrikeIron / Informatica.

Great ideas, but I can't FORCE every email to go through me. If I could, would that make Marketo a best practice? The point is that I manage the operational workflows so Marketers can do the day to day.

But I think you have some good ideas here. These are things I'll def be thinking about.

[Josh_Hill13]

Robb,

I know a lot of companies are list buy happy and this is NOT a good practice and it's the primary reason for bad reputation. But, you absolutely should use the automated version of my bullets to minimize the future and current impact. You can easily hit 95% deliverability with those methods, even with list buys.

But yes, as the admin, I absolutely would enforce this and make everyone adhere to best practices and upload procedures. Tell the marketers that each address that fails on the first try should be sent back for a refund, if they aren't already doing that. And if Sales is responsible, just tell them to send the list to you for import or evaluation.

[Robb_Barrett]

The thing is, we have 14 child companies under one umbrella, scattered across the world sharing an instance of Marketo. We try to enforce standards but we do a lot of tradeshows or 3rd party partnerships. I can't enforce behavior, I have to put in processes to minimize impact.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Robb,

One of the practices we put in place on company that buy a lot of leads is to use a secondary emailing system outside of Marketo. Each tile we have a list of uncertain quality, we load it to that email system and send some emails with links to Marketo landing pages.

• The hard way from there is to let people in Marketo only if they fill out a form (full permission)
• The softer way is we take all people who at least clicked and not clicked more that 1 or 2 per range of a few minutes and we import them to Marketo.

Of course, if you really trust the lists, then you can keep loading them to Marketo.

You will discard a lot of these purchased leads but at list you will protect your Marketo server reputation.

-Greg