Performance issue in nurture track!

[Anonymous]

We have this nurture track and it is as simple as following steps but we have big database:
Let’s say 100000 leads qualify to go through campaign (which is a trigger)
 
1.       Smart List: - Campaign is requested
2.       Flow :
a.       Add to SFDC campaign(Campaign A)
b.      Wait 5 min
c.       Remove from flow if (does not have lead status-A)
d.      Wait 5 min
e.      Request campaign A is member of Smart list 1 otherwise campaign Z
f.        Wait 1 week
g.       Request campaign B is member of Smart list 2 other wise campaign Z
h.      Request Campaign Z
3.       Schedule- Run every time
I was wondering if anyone has suggestion to improve the Marketo performance on lead processing.
It has been 4 days and leads are still getting processed at Step- 2e(above).
 
If the number is low then it gets processed in no time but because we have so many leads, our other campaigns wait in the queue with low priority. It is really frustrating to lead scoring and other filled out form triggers wait days to trigger.
Any suggestion will be helpful!
 
Thanks,
Rani

[Anonymous]

Some of the factors that will slow down smart campaign process are:

• Size of your database
• Structure of your smart list
  • "is" is faster than "starts with" and both are significantly faster than "contains"
  • Activity / change filters take longer to evaluate than field filters, especially if the time period you are evaluating is long
  • Smart lists within your smart list take longer to evaluate than static lists
• Marketo's system load.  If you have several items in the Campaign Queue, that will slow things down, but you have no control over high loads on shared servers at Marketo's end.

The Speed Expectations for Common Actions help article may be of interest.

You may want to vote for the Improve Speed Idea.

[Anonymous]

Hi Rani,

There isn't quite enough information in your post for me to know exactly what is slowing things down. However, I have a few suggestions:

• Use the Program to SFDC Campaign sync instead of the Flow Step. It operates in batches and is faster
• What is in your Smart List 1 or 2 above? The complexity of those rules is probably the single biggest impact on speed here

-Erik

[Anonymous]

Thanks Erik.
My nurture track is actually simple traffic cop (based on the community)and the only issue is it is getting choked due to number of leads.(thousands)
Imagine I have 100,000 of leads in one track but then the same lead is has lead scoring and other triggers.
Since in nurutre tracks the leads in camapign queue are showing up as meedium priority and lead score camapign and fills out form triggers are even after those , it is just slowing down the sale process. Wish I could priortise my queue, but that is not an option.
If you are interested in learning more about it Erik , I can certainly walk you through the scenario, which is actually just Marketo Lead proceesing performance issue since the logic works fine for smaller number of leads.

Thanks
Rani

[Anonymous]

Makes sense, based on your description I had assumed it was a traffic cop. My point above was just that the relative complexity of your Smart List 1 and Smart List 2 can have a big impact on processing time. If the list is simple, we go pretty fast, if it isn't, it can take a lead a few seconds to be handled.