Subscribers unable to open marketo links

[tina]

Hi! We sent out our first few marketo emails. Previously we were using mailchimp. For both platforms, we have the sent via [platform] and have not utilized DNS setup to have the emails come from our domain. We did not have any reports of subscribers unable to open links in our mailchimp emails, but have had a report regarding our marketo email. 

The person who was unable to click the links in our marketo email: 

- is able to click the links in our previous mailchimp emails

- is able to open the links when I send them without the marketo tracking link

- the error:

Thoughts on how to fix this? Or workarounds? Perhaps making a plaintext version more easily accessible? I don't want to remove the marketo tracking, but I also (obviously) want everyone to be able to access our email links. Please let me know if I can provide other information that would be helpful. Thank you!

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

Hi Tina,

This message is coming from an internal security proxy (as you probably already know, as you blurred it out).

Most likely the proxy is blocking domains with the pattern mkto-*.com. (As opposed to only blocking mkto-ab410149.com, that would be very targeted.)

Doesn't mean there's anything Marketo is doing wrong, of course: it's just that an org that doesn't like redirector pages may have a list of known patterns. They could just as easily have blocked your MailChimp domain but didn't have it on the list.

You can solve this problem by setting up a branding domain (= click tracking domain) in Admin » Email.  It's not related to the envelope sender domain, nor is it related to the From:/Reply-To: domain: those are both different contexts.

[tina]

Thank you @SanfordWhiteman! Although we use ethical email practices (e.g., we don't buy lists), our IT was hesitant to set up the brand domain. They are worried about being marked as spam and that affecting our domain, even if we use a subdomain (that if the subdomain gets flagged so could the main domain). 

[SanfordWhiteman]

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They are worried about being marked as spam and that affecting our domain, even if we use a subdomain (that if the subdomain gets flagged so could the main domain). 

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Hmm... you can register another private domain if this is a deep worry. (Although you won't end up on a DNSBL unless you truly send spam.)

But as long as you keep using the default mkto-*.com and that remains on the customer's internal blacklist, you can't get around it.

[Darshil_Shah1]

What tracking link are you talking about here? Also what is the requirement of adding any sort of tracking link when Marketo logs all the activities including clicks for an email sent..

[SanfordWhiteman]

What tracking link are you talking about here?

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It's the standard, out-of-the-box Clicked Email tracking domain (not branded).

[Darshil_Shah1]

Gotcha, yeah it has to do with IP/domain blacklisting and there seems no issues from the Marketo side!