How to avoid exceeding API call limit, because of (one off) bulk email

[Anonymous]

Hi All,

I wish to send a very large amount of emails a couple of times a year (over 50,000 receivers), take for instance a product introduction.

Unfortunately this results in a massive amount of api calls, which usually exceeds the daily limit of calls. This will than result in shutting down of our current flows.

Is there a cost efficient solution to fix this? Like neglect some of the API calls on certain emails, or something different. I don't want a subscription to a bulk emailing program.

Thanks for your help!

Ronald

[Anonymous]

Have you explored if disabling sync temporarily is an option with your Netsuite <> Marketo integration?

[SanfordWhiteman]

Would be simple to disable the Marketo API user (though not programmatically yet) but then you're depriving yourself of the data when you need it.

[Anonymous]

How would I be able to disable the API user? And wouldn't this conflict all information send through Munchkin? And therefor kill all other workflows as well. Some of the flows we use are about usage on our platform.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Munchkin API calls are not counted toward your daily REST and SOAP limit. So I don't see the relevance. You need to be explicit about everything you're doing as none of us can figure out why API consumption is necessary. Tell us everything you're doing with the API: which endpoints you're calling and why.

[Anonymous]

They aren't counted as our daily limit? Wow than I'm a bit lost as well.

How will I ever be able to explain everything than happens in our instance, I will have to dive in to it now, because I have no idea why this amount is rising so much with bulk mails. Any idea how and where I can get a look in the individual calls?

[Grégoire_Miche2]

HI Ronald,

In the admin->webservices, if you click the number of API consumed, you will have the detail per API user. Hopefully (and this is strongly recommended), you will have different users for the various applications.

-Greg

[Anonymous]

Thanks all of you for contributing to a solution and better understanding from my side.

I've seen that area before, unfortunately there isn't much distinction between functionalities that we use.

That's why I always thought it must have been the Munchkin code. Any other ideas?

[SanfordWhiteman]

I've seen that area before, unfortunately there isn't much distinction between functionalities that we use.

By "distinction" you mean all your API users are evenly dividing the API calls, and all of them equally increase when you send, to the point that limits are exceeded?

What are all the different integrations you have running? Something is just not right here.

[Anonymous]

With distinction I mean, what Greg referred to earlier, users per application.

Right now 95% of the calls are with one user. As I haven't setup the the instance I don't know exactly what is happening and why.

My next step is to sort out if and what we are sync(ing) and how this is done... Will get back to you guys as soon as I have more details.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Ronald,

One first sanity move you can make is to have the various apps using the API to use different Marketo API Only users. This will enable you to track who is faulty one.

-Greg

[SanfordWhiteman]

OK, please let us know.

[Valerie_Whitin2]

We have a very similar issue, although we are hitting those limits at least once or twice a week, every time we send a large email blast (~70k). We are currently using NetSuite as our CRM system so every time we send an email or make mass updates to leads in Marketo we will hit our API limits for the day. It sometimes can take 2-3 days to clean out the back log of leads waiting to sync to NS or other technologies we have synced with Marketo.

The only solution we have found that works for now is breaking up our large email sends over two days and aim for Saturday and Sunday sends as well. This prevents the API limits from blocking our inbound leads from getting to our sales team on working days. I would be curious if you are able to come up with any other solutions as this is something we are constantly struggling with as well, and Saturday sends are definitely not ideal for us. 

[Anonymous]

Yeah that's how we're trying to avoid the limit right now as well, but it's vulnerable for mistakes and quite some work.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Valerie,

As for Ronald above, I do not understand why sending emails would consume API calls. Can you explain a little more your process here ?

-Greg

[Valerie_Whitin2]

Hi Gregoire,

We're actually not entirely sure why it makes us hit those limits either. The triggers used to force the sync are based on lead activities (clicks email, visits web page, form fill, interesting moments etc.). We have removed all interesting moments tied to email activity to see if that would help mitigate the issue, but it hasn't. And as awesome as I think our emails are, we aren't getting that many email clicks or visits off our email blasts. So, we aren't exactly sure why the full email list is being synced when we send email blasts. Marketo support hasn't been much assistance in figuring this out, other than telling us we could buy more API calls.

Oh also, I should mention that we are using Muv as our integration partner (between Marketo and NetSuite).

Valerie

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Valerie,

And as awesome as I think our emails are, we aren't getting that many email clicks or visits off our email blasts.

It might be because one of your leads is clicking many times (antispam do) and is triggering the sync multiple times. Try to add a time limit (run once every ...) to your trigger.

-Greg

[Anonymous]

Our main amount of api calls are used by the Munchkin code. So every time a lead visits our website, it sends his behaviour over to Marketo.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Also pls move the thread to Products as that's where it should be located. ("Central" being for general mktg topics and not Marketo product support.)

[SanfordWhiteman]

NetSuite uses inbound Marketo API calls?  Sheesh. Didn't know it was that primitive as opposed to SFDC sync. You can of course pay for more API calls from Marketo, but it'll cost ya...

[Valerie_Whitin2]

Yeah...it is rough. NetSuite is a very "special" and "fun" tool to integrate with Marketo.

And yes, we have explored purchasing extra APIs but unfortunately likely won't be able to swing that in the budget until next year some time (hopefully!).