How Can I Suspend Marketing Indefinitely

[Traffic_Agency]

I have a list of inactive records that I don't want to remove from my database but I want to move them to marketing suspended so they don't receive emails. My question is, how can I make sure that they are moved to marketing suspended and stay there indefinitely? The only way I want them to be able to receive emails again is if I manually set their Marketing Suspended status to False.

[AnneMarie_C]

Traffic Agency‌

Marketing Suspended is a field that you control when and how it changes. Records can only attain this status if they are manually changed or a change data value flow step is utilized. The system will not return the status to False unless it is told to do so by a user.

[Michael_White]

Best way is to run a campaign with a Change Data Value flow step to update their "Marketing Suspended" value to TRUE.

Obviously you'd want to look for any workflows you have today that could potentially move them back without you manually initiating it. Marketo doesn't have any built-in workflows that would do this, so as long as you or your predecessors haven't set up anything in the past (and no other users in your instance manually change it themselves), you should feel confident that they will stay as Marketing Suspended = TRUE.

[Traffic_Agency]

Thanks for the reply, Michael. Do you know where I could find these workflows you mentioned to make sure that there aren't any rules that would interfere? 

[Michael_White]

Well that's the thing -- if you had any, it'd be a manual one that somebody built in your instance, so it could theoretically have been built anywhere.

If you want to be really sure, try running a smart list to see any records who have had a Data Value Was Changed activity for Marketing Suspended where the new value was set to FALSE. If you see anyone, have a look at their log to determine how that happened -- might shed some light on any Smart Campaigns that are in play.

[Eli_Haugen1]

An easy way to do this would be to go to the admin menu, select field management, and look for the Marketing Suspended field. There's a "Field Used By" section that will show all lists, smart campaigns, etc. where that field is used. 

[SanfordWhiteman]

Being slightly nitpicky... but Used By won't cover all the bases. A field can be updated by API, form post, webhook, import, or sync, and it won't appear as an explicit Used By. That can make things really hard to track down, but you cross your fingers and hope everything is documented.