Organizing Marketo Database: Naming convention

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone,
My company has been using Marketo for the past 2 years, but has not implemented an organized naming convention. Consequently, many of the titles for campaigns, assets, programs, etc are not consistent. My question is, is it worth it to go back during the past 2 years and perform a 'clean-up' of the our database and to start implementing a naming convention now? 

Thanks!

[Josh_Hill13]

If you have the time, YES.
 

Definitely agree on the naming now and keep it going forward too.

[Kristen_Malkov1]

If you're going to be reusing assets or doing any reporting from the previous campaigns, it may be worth your time to rename them. However, a detailed folder structure is probably MORE worthwhile since folders make it easier to select what you want for reporting purposes. Otherwise, if you're doing everything yourself and not reusing anything, just move forward. 🙂

[Dory_Viscoglio]

Hey Abe, as Kristen suggested I think it will be good enough for your reporting going forward if you've bunched things into at least a yearly folder, or maybe into folders by type of campaigns so that you can more easily report on them going forward. Especially if you aren't sure how much you're going to need to go back to older campaigns, it probably isn't worth the effort to rename 2 years worth of programs. 

And like everyone else said, I'd definitely develop a structure for moving forward!

[Nicole_Mossinge]

I have taught my clients for years to use good foldering and naming conventions when building out their Marketo instance. I am currently working on a project with Product Management to seed a better folder structure in every new Marketo instance. I can't wait for this to go live...

I do highly recommend organizing into folders, even retroactively, and using archives for everything that's no longer active. Once you are done reporting on the item, and won't reuse it, it's best to delete it from Marketo so that it doesn't slow your tree search.

I propose to break things down into a few main category folders:

- "Active Marketing Programs" (everything that you are currently buidling or running)
- "Marketo Program Templates" (we use this to seed templates our clients can clone and reuse)
- "Operational" (for Data Management, Lead Lifecycle, Scoring, and everything elsle that doesn't communicate with your audience)
- "Sales Insight" (for Interesting Moments, Sales Emails, Sales Requested Campaigns)
- "_Archive" or "Z-Archive" (folder converted to Archive for everything that is no longer active but still needs to be reported on; use "_" or "Z" at the beginning, so it sorts at the end of the tree)

This allows you to open only the folder with the relevant content of what you are working on.

As to program names - I don't think it's a bad idea to rename the programs that you are still reporting on. It could be a lot of work, though.

As a baseline for the program naming, we now recommend the following format:

[Abbreviation of Program Type] [YYYY]-[MM]-[Optional DD] [Brief Description]

This helps you to sort your reports by program types, and then by the time they were activated. Plus you can still have a short description of the contents.

Examples of Program Type Abbreviations:

ES = Email Send
ENG = Engagement Program
LE = Live Event (formerly called "Roadshow")
LI = List Import
NL = Newsletter
OA = Online Advertising
PPC = Pay Per Click
TS = Tradeshow
WBN = Webinar
WC = Website Content
WF = Web Form (e.g. Contact Us Form)

Examples of Program Names:

ES 2013-03-27 Widget XYZ Intro
NL 2013-11 Newsletter
OA 2013-10 Google PPC
TS 2013-04-06 Trade Show Name Here
WBN 2013-04-22 Webinar Topic Here

Larger companies often prefix this with abbreviations for product lines or geo-territories. Again, the above is just a baseline to start from.

If you want to take this a step further, you can organize your Campaign names as well. I alwyas suggest to start with a two digit number, followed by a dash, followed by a neutral description that will still make sense after you clone the program:

[Two Digit Number]-[Campaign Description]

I personally go as far as using naming conventions for Local and Global Assets as well, but not everybody is on-board with this.

DO NOT use any "dots" in your Program, Campaign, or Asset names! The dot shoudl be reserved as the separator between Program Name and Campaign or Asset name.

Hope you find this helpful.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for sharing your model! This is extremely helpful!

[Ken_Ungaro]

So our organization is requesting that I build all new naming conventions in Marketo to match our salesforce instance.  Not ideal because it is campaign based verses the tactical structure that I've grown to use in Marketo over the last 5 years.  With that said, is there any operational challenges with using "underscores" between terms verses 'dashes", in marketo naming conventions?

Furthermore, does anybody who is integrated with Salesforce have a good example of Marketo naming structures?