Can hard bounces be reset? Undeliverables data modeling question.

[Anonymous]

We are creating our undeliverable data model and could use some info on how bounces are handled in Marketo.

Here is the current scenario/model:

We have a customer who's email bounces. We feed the generated email notice though a database exporter into a data routine that marks the customer's account with a warning flag. The customer comes in and updates their email address and a teller clears the flag.

We are putting together the marketo version and I'm not sure how to get the info back into our core system because there won't be the bouncebacks to export. We will be doing api calls and I was wondering how the bounces are marked and cleared in marketo. What data points are there and do the hard bounces automatically clear when a new email address is updated to the file?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Carol

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Carol,

In Marketo, you have 2 information :

• Email invalid field (lead object) that you can uncheck if necessary, for instance after you have fixed a typo in a email address
• Activity logs that log hard bounces (and soft BTW) and on which you can filter using the "Email Bounced" and "Email Bounced Soft" filters. There are triggers available as well.

-Greg

[Anonymous]

Hi Carol,

As Greg mentions, when a Marketo email hard bounces the "Email Invalid" field is set to True on a lead.

As we also work fix/update the email, we have a smart campaign set up in our Data Management folder which listens for the Email Address field to change and is responsible for re-setting the Email Invalid field back to False.

That is, we assume the fix is legit and we'd like to re-qualify the lead for future mailings.

[Josh_Hill13]

I would think hard about the system.

Hard bounces rarely invalidate the email. Usually this is Email Suspended for 24 hours, then the email is released into the wild. Instead, setup the following system:

• Email Hard Bounces with Spam Reason Code = Email Invalid=T
• Hard Bounces x2 = Email Invalid=T; BL =T
• Spam Trap=Invalid=T
• Competitor - whatever you want, but usually Black List=T
• Soft Bounce x3 in 30 days, Suspend or Invalidate
• Email Invalid Reset - if email changes AND invalid=T, then invalid=F (this does what you want if the email is fixed)

Email Suspended is a system field and not usable or changeable.

And so on.

So if you wanted to flag bounces, you can use the system above along with some sort of push to another system. You can sync Email Invalid or Black List to another system or even send an email if you wanted. One client asked that all Customer Bounces are put into a smart list and sent to someone once a week.

Your other system can send back a clear flag as well or pushes an Invalid=F if needed.