Feedback on Hard Bounces Campaign

[Mariah_Menende1]

I am looking for your feedback on an operational campaign to manage hard bounces.

The action we want to take on hard bounces email invalid is to:
• DELETE the email address from our system
• Create a task for sales team to call to get a new one

Here is my Smart Campaign:

1. Smart list

(this smart list was already in the system- not sure what category is, is that a Marketo system setting?)

2. Flow step

Is Change Data Value on Email Address to 'null' the right approach?

Is there anything I may have overlooked or not considered?

How do you manage hard bounces?

Thank you for your feedback!

[SanfordWhiteman]

Definitely would not just delete the existing address. You want that to be archived to a field -- it can be a Textarea field holding multiple old addresses.

The email address can be critical for [a] proving that you knew the person once, [b] not having sales just reenter the same broken address, and [c] ensuring that the recipient hasn't simply blacklisted Marketo.

[Mariah_Menende1]

Yes, that's good feedback! So, in that case, I would add a Change Data flow step to move the email address to the textarea field and THEN null out the email address?

Also, are you familiar with the Smart List constraint for Category 2? 

[SanfordWhiteman]

Yes, that's good feedback! So, in that case, I would add a Change Data flow step to move the email address to the textarea field and THEN null out the email address?

Yep.

Also, are you familiar with the Smart List constraint for Category 2? 

Category 2 means when talking with Marketo the recipient's server claimed the address was invalid.

This doesn't mean it's actually nonexistent on the wider net, though.

A mailserver is free to use a "does not exist" response code for mall it doesn't want -- either b/c it's suspected spam, because its owners don't permit marketing messaging, or because of a deliberate blacklist. Doesn't mean you couldn't contact that same address outside of Marketo -- and it could even change over time, esp. if you move to a dedicated IP @ Marketo.

So it's vital to know the address you had before. If someone gives you the same address, you know you had another type of problem. Of course, not necessarily a solvable problem, but you don't want to get caught in a loop of failing to send to the same address after putting in legwork to "fix" it.

Another thing that's lost in the mythologizing of hard bounces is that failures at the DNS or TCP level are soft bounces. A typo in a domain doesn't fix itself and is just as much in need of attention.