Constantly finding faults with Marketo

[Anonymous]

Yep, SPF and DKIM are set up properly. That was Marketo's fall back and they kept insisting that was the problem, until they finally verified it was set up correctly themselves.

[ChristinaZuniga]

I'll validate you Regina - the SPF and DKIM mean almost nothing when you're on the shared IPs. I had the exact same problem when we set up our instance and they also put us on trusted IP. It's virtually impossible to send an email to anyone who has any semblance of a spam filter when you're using the shared IPs because the server reputation is so terrible. What that indicates about the other companies using the shared IPs that brought the server reputation so low...I couldn't say, but I couldn't even send internal tests because my own company was rejecting emails from Marketo sent on it's behalf!!!!!

As for your other issues, sounds like your average implementation with some bumps in the road. My recommendation is to make friends with a support person, I did and he has been invaluable in tracking down what I need.

[Anonymous]

Cheers Christina - glad to know I'm not alone! Has it been better since on the trusted IP?

[ChristinaZuniga]

Hi Regina,

Yes, it's night and day. Our deliverability is fantastic and the only issues we have is from bad email addresses, which are quickly removed. Although we don't send much email right now (we're reevaluating our market strategy and re-doing personas with the plan to roll out specific nurtures), we do expect to ramp that up and so the 75K email limit per month on the trusted IP is a tough one. Especially when we have to cull or delay emails weeks.

[Josh_Hill13]

They usually put firms who get blacklisted on the lower ranked shared IP. They will put you on a better IP if you prove you cleaned your list. I have a lot of recommendations on this site and my personal site.

[ChristinaZuniga]

Hi Josh Hill​, they may move blacklisted people to different, lower ranked IPs, but when those people are blacklisted they're on the common IP addresses. Just because they're then moved doesn't mean that the IP address they were on doesn't suffer negative consequences.

Based on my talks with support when I implemented, this isn't uncommon - even though they move IP addresses around and try to rehabilitate them before making them available in the common pool, those IP addresses don't have a good reputation. Then you throw new Marketo users onto them and of course we'd see bad deliverability. In my case I wasn't able to send any emails! Not even to my own email address.

This wasn't my fault - my list is good, I have an opt in model and this was a warm list - I moved from another system to Marketo. This was 100% due to others misusing their Marketo instance and I suffered for it until I complained enough and Marketo put me on the trusted servers. It sounds like most people have to do this.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Yep, SPF and DKIM are set up properly. That was Marketo's fall back and they kept insisting that was the problem, until they finally verified it was set up correctly themselves.

For oryxalign.com? It's only "correct" if you want the record to be

     v=spf1 mx -all

You have a whole other mangled record in there that will never be used (one that includes Mandrill and Marketo).

Luckily your SPF has no meaning unless you're paying Marketo extra for branded sender service.

You have no Marketo DKIM record set up for oryxalign.com.

You can tell me the actual domain, if that's not it, and I'll really check the records, since Marketo doesn't always get this right.

[Anonymous]

Hi Sanford, thanks for your unsolicited "help". I do have a DKIM record set up properly for the domain that we're using - I have plenty of experience with deliverability so I'm quite confident in my setup, my internal IT department has verified it for me (as we're an IT company, I trust them), and Marketo's internal tech team has verified it as well, so appreciate the offer, but I don't need you, someone I don't know from Adam, to look into it for me. This post wasn't for troubleshooting, and frankly, this is exactly the same response I got from Marketo for weeks until I finally got through to someone who would understand that the issue was their shared IPs, not my setup.

Apologise if this is a bit of a harsh response but I've reached my limit with condescension from people who refuse to acknowledge that the problem is Marketo, and instead try to place the blame on my setup.

[SanfordWhiteman]

In no way am I shifting blame from Marketo and the inherent problems with underpoliced shared IPs. Everything that others have said is accurate.  Indeed, as I pointed out, SPF is irrelevant for most Marketo customers, yet they continue to officially require that mktomail.com be present in all customers' SPF records, which is a waste of time.

Nevertheless, if your domain is oryxalign.com, its SPF record does not include Marketo (and does not include Mandrill and some other providers that exist in a second, perhaps outdated, SPF-like TXT record that will never be parsed because it doesn't have the correct structure). This isn't condescension, merely clarity.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your clarity. Luckily, oryxalign.com isn't our domain, so we're all good there Thanks!