Lot of great ideas on this topic within the community so I pulled together a bunch for this post. Please add your own best practices so we can continue to improve.
The original article is too long for a community post so feel free to read it here if you want to get all the reasoning behind the conventions.
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Excerpt from Get Your Names Straight - Best Practice Naming Conventions for Marketing Automation.
A poor naming convention strategy is kind of like an 7-year old trying to make a cake–eventually things are going to get messy. This might be fun in the confines of your kitchen but messiness has no place in marketing automation. Naming inconsistencies reduce reporting effectiveness, cause marketing inefficiencies and reduce marketing automaton power.
Avoid inconsistancies like "Trade show, Houston 2014" and "July 2014 Event in New York." The below convention is one of several you can adopt within your organization for program level naming. These conventions enable organizations to quickly search for similar assets, programs, etc. while allowing for users to sort programs chronologically. You may also want to adopt a complementary naming approach for Lead Source, Content Asset and other reportable items.
The Program Convention………….
[Abbreviated Program Type]-[4-digit Year]-[2-digit Month]-[2-digit date]-[Program Description]-[Location or Content Type]
Optional for larger organization is to add the program manager’s initials at the the end. You can also add other items like target audience if applicable.
Examples:
WB-2014-10-15-The-ABCs-of-Marketing
A webinar in October on the The ABCs of Marketing
WS-2014-10-Best-Practices-WP
Best Practices Whitepaper published on the website on Oct 23, 2014. Note that the day of month is not included as that level of granularity is probably not needed for a content asset. Of course, if you want it, add it in.
RS-2014-12-10-Get-Productive-Dallas
Roadshow in Dallas in December 2014
OA-2014-12-Tech-Target-Nurturing-Success-CS
OA-2014-Q4-Tech-Target-Nurturing-Success-CS
OA-2014-Q4-Tech-Target
This is a case study on Nurturing Success that is promoted via the Tech Target Online Advertising channel in December.
Other Resources From the Marketo Community
Special shout outs to Kyle McKay (@OpFocusKM), Josh Hill (@jdavidhill), Elliott Lowe (@elliottlowe), Stanislas Berteloot (@berteloot), Michelle Tiziani (@MichelleTiziani), Adam Waterson (@AdamInBloom), Michelle M and others who have provided a ton of tips on this subject.
· https://community.marketo.com/MarketoDiscussionDetail?id=90650000000PXJyAAO
· https://community.marketo.com/MarketoDiscussionDetail?id=90650000000PRjIAAW
· https://community.marketo.com/MarketoDiscussionDetail?id=90650000000PBnnAAG
· https://community.marketo.com/MarketoDiscussionDetail?id=90650000000PcikAAC
Read the full article in this blog post.
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