Problem with Lead.First Name Token in an email Preheader

[Carl_Delafonta2]

Hello,

I am recently having some issues with the Lead.First Name Token when using it in an email preheader. I am using the token as follow :

Hello {{lead.First Name:default=}}

The token is used in both the preheader and in the body of the email. In the email preheader, I saw some cases where the first name is not the right one while it appeared correctly in the body of the email. Sometime, the first name appeared correctly in both the preheader and in the body of the email. This is a bit confusing because I am using the token the same way in both the preheader and in the body.

Here is an example that I saw this week. The lead first name in Marketo is : ''Jean-Charles''. Here is what he received :

Email's Preheader

Email's Body text

This is really frustrating to see that some leads are receving en email and it says ''Hello Bj'' in the preheader... I have open a case with Marketo for this issue and they weren't able to reproduce it. However, it has happened a few times so far. Has this issue happened to anyone before ? If someone has an idea as of why this is happening, feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Thank You!

Carl

[Jon_Wright]

We've also discovered this the hard way with the pre-header displaying seemingly random first names instead of the lead's first name. I have raised a ticket with support but very annoying that it's not clearer that these tokens are not supported, more annoying that rather than just displaying the default it displays another name, but this only seems to occur on live email sends, not tests. Also, when I sent 2 emails to myself I got a different name each time!

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Our recommendation is to prefer a Pre-header module with snippets and tokens, rather that use the default feature.

-Greg

[Carl_Delafonta2]

Hello Justin Cooperman​,

I was wondering if you got the chance to look at this issue ? I never really got a proper response from Marketo Support, as no one was able to reproduced it. However, Scott, who replied to this case, also experienced this problem with the lead first name token.

Thanks!

Carl

[Justin_Cooperm2]

Hi Carl,

I'm referring to the Marketo Preheader field shown here in the Email Settings dialog. It will not support lead tokens at this time. As said before, tokens will work anywhere in the body of the email itself (and some customers may have their own preheader field in the body of the email...)

Email Editor v2.0 Overview - Marketo Docs - Product Documentation

Thanks,

Justin

[Denise_Greenb12]

Hi Justin,

Would it make sense to have Marketo generate and error message if someone puts a token in the pre-header area - or if that's too hard - add hint text warning people it isn't supported? I've never tried to do this myself but reading through the thread, this seems like one of those areas that could very easily be overlooked (because you can't tell when you send a sample as opposed to a real email). It's so easy to implement the preheader (kudos to you for that) that it may not occur to people to read through the documentation. Plus if you have an email where the top of the email is a salutation with a first name token, when you check the box to enable the preheader, the preheader is autopopulated with the salutation - including the token - which A) doesn't populate correctly and B) gives people the misleading impression that tokens work in the preheader. Again - nothing to trigger a documentation check.

Denise

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Denise,

log an Idea. I'll add it here: Email editor 2.0 is leaving room for a v2.1

-Greg

[Denise_Greenb12]

Hi Greg,

I'll do that next week and let you know.

Denise

[Jon_Wright]

Agree with these points. Also given that we've used program tokens in the pre-header without a problem (at least that we know of) we assumed that tokens worked, and didn't see any need to prove otherwise. The fact that it can display a completely different value and not the default value surely means there should be a more prominent way of preventing people using this.

[Dan_Stevens_]

According to this thread ( ), there's been an enhancement ticket open since last May.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Carl,

The reason why you had no answer to your question yet is because you posted it in the wrong place. Community Help and Feedback is for suggestions and questions about the community site. You should move it to Products

How is you preheader set? Are you using Marketo built-in feature in email 2.0 or are you using a custom one in your template?

-Greg

[Carl_Delafonta2]

Hi Michel,

Thank you for your response. I didn't know about this. I just moved it to the products section.

My preheader is set using Marketo build-in feature in email 2.0. I still haven't figured out why the issue is happening once in a while. Do you have any ideas ?

Thank you!

Carl

[SanfordWhiteman]

It's specifically the two letters "Bj"? Does that first name belong to anyone else in your database? Can you post the full HTML (please use syntax highlighting) of the preheader?

[Carl_Delafonta2]

Hi Sanford,

In my exemple, it was ''bj'' but the name changes once in a while. I had the issue with other first names as well. But yes, all the first names that I have seen so far where from leads in our database.

The issue is not happening for just one email but many emails that we are sending. I have seen cases in nurture programs and email send programs. I'm using Marketo build-in feature in email 2.0 for the email preheader. Here is an example :

Thank you!

Carl

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Justin Cooperman​,

I suppose this one is for you

And is the use of tokens here supported by Marketo?

-Greg

[Justin_Cooperm2]

Tokens aren't supported in the WYSIWYG preheader. It will work if you use your own custom one that is part of your template.

Justin

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Justin,

Thx, I was suspecting something like that

-Greg

[Justin_Cooperm2]

I remember some other community threads that discussed it previously, but can't find them now. Search in here is painful

[Carl_Delafonta2]

Hi Justin Cooperman​,

I still have some concerns related to this issue. I have seen some cases where the {{lead.First Name}} token generated the wrong name in the body of an email and in the email subject line. It happened for one of our nurture email. You can see the ticket I have open with Marketo Support for more info and screenshots related to this issue (Case no. 00745941).

Also, I was wondering, what happens if I don't use the Marketo Preheader fonction? From my understanding, If I don't check the preheader box in the email settings, Marketo will use the first caracters of the body text of the email as a default preheader. If the body text of the email contains some tokens, will they be supported in the default preheader ?

Thank you for your help on this!

Carl

[Justin_Cooperm2]

Regarding the first point, the tokens should always be replaced with values corresponding to the person being sent the email. I will take a look at the support case, not sure what happened in your specific case.

Regarding the second point, Gregoire already explained a bit, but it is only the Marketo Preheader feature in "Edit Settings" that won't support lead tokens. If you don't enable the Marketo Preheader (it isn't enabled by default anyway), then your email will simply go out with HTML as your Email Template is constructed for. Email clients generally use the first text available to show as the preview, but you could of course put your own preheader in the top of your template to make this happen. Generally it's a hidden/not visible region that would just serve to fill the preview for your email. Any token would work there, since it's just part of the body of the email itself. All tokens work in the body of a Marketo email.

Justin

[Scott_McKeighe2]

Is a fix for this issue on the roadmap soon? I just discovered this as well, and the output our customers are seeing pivot between a token's default value (e.g., Hello Friend), or someone else's first name.