Forwarding a Marketo Email

[Mikes_Jones]

Hello,

Just want to clear something up.

If I create a Marketo email with a link, and then use a smart campaign to send it out to a list of Internal Employees, and than those internal employees forward the email to their respective clients, will that have an adverse effect on reporting?

If one of the clients clicks the forwarded email, which was intended for an internal employee, will Marketo recognize that it's a new person or will the cookies in the email lead Marketo to believe that the original recipient is clicking the link?

Thanks!

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

Emails don't have cookies.

The unique URLs generated by Marketo for link tracking -- http://branding.example.com/1234354 -- are linked to the lead who receives the original email.  If you forward your email, the links still refer to you.

[Mikes_Jones]

Got it.

I saw that Marketo has a "Forward to a Friend" feature that apparently solves this, though it seems like you can only forward to one "friend" at a time, which could be timely.

Thanks though!

[Anonymous]

Here's where the problem starts ...

Yes, the links refer to you.

So when you forward the mail and somebody else opens it, it counts as you opening it.

And if they click a link in the mail, it counts as you clicking the link.

And if they have anonymous cookies on their computer, those anonymous cookies are now linked to you and count as your activity.

And [this is the most problematic part] if they fill out a form with personal information, it overwrites YOUR personal information and you basically become them.

That's why MKTO introduced "Forward to a friend" - so you can send the info without your tags.

What I often do when I forward MKTO mail is either copy the content and then paste just text-only into a new mail, or go through the to-be-forwarded mail and remove all of the hyperlinks and/or delete all of the images.