Opening a Sent email and becoming the cookie owner = False Positives

[Anonymous]

We just recognized a case in which the salesperson, after sending an email using Marketo Send and Track, went into his Outlook Sent folder and opened the email for review.

Seemingly, HE then became the owner of the tracking cookie. When we look into the Activity Log of the prospect in Marketo, it matches the web journey of the salesperson!

To test this, we had the salesperson visit pages on our website. Sure enough, it showed up in the prospects Activity Log.

First, this activity by the sales person was revealed as email open false positives.

Now, it is showing as web page view false positives as well.

All Marketo is telling us is "Don't do that" - in regards to the sales person opening his Sent mail. You can't stop a person from looking in their Sent folder.

What is a solution for this?

[Josh_Hill13]

Yes, that happens and is well known.

The solution is to NOT do that. Salespeople get themselves tagged all the time. You can try to clear their cookies too.

[Anonymous]

Humorously, I had already told Sales that I'm not going to ask Marketo because they will simply say "Don't do that". Thanks for the confirmation.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Merely opening the email doesn't change the cookie association, though of course it logs the Opened event.

Visiting a Munchkin-enabled site is necessary for Munchkin to reassociate. So they had to be doing more than just looking at the email, FTR.

[Anonymous]

If they opened the email and then (without clicking an email link) visited the website, do you think that they (the salesperson) could associate themselves under the prospect's cookie? Or would they have to click the link in the email?

[SanfordWhiteman]

They have to click a tracked link.

[Ashley_White1]

Sanford Whiteman​

Sanford, Are there any solutions to prevent recipients of a forwarded email to not be falsely cookied? Meaning, if someone is forwarded an email from a subscriber they wont be "known" as the original person when they visit a tracked link?

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Ashley,

Not good to start again a very old thread. Always better to open anew one.

There is no miracle here. How could Marketo telle the difference between the email being forwarded and the same person clicking the email on a different device ?

Try to get them fill out a form and Marketo will understand that this is a new person.

-Greg