Tips for cleaning up a messy instance?

[Amy_Goldfine]

I just started at a new company that has been using Marketo for a few years, and the instance is really disorganized. There's no naming convention or organizational structure. In some cases, pieces of what should be one program are split over several. In others, what should be several separate programs are combined into one. There are operational flows in marketing programs. Etc.

I realize I have to do a full-scale overhaul, and I'd appreciate any advice! How should I go about auditing and prioritizing? What should I tackle first? What do I need to be super careful about?

[Devraj_Grewal]

Amy,

Here is a pretty standard best practice for organizing Marketing Activities: Best Practice: How to Organize your Programs - Marketo Docs - Product Docs

I would also use the Campaign Inspector to easily see the flows of your smart campaigns so you can organize them into their appropriate programs.

[Amy_Goldfine]

Thanks! That's a great doc. I know how it should be organized, but I'm not quite sure how to actually get there!

[Darrell_Alfons2]

I would see if you can archive stuff. You can probably archive a little too much since it won't deactivate the campaigns.

And then start cleaning and organizing the way you would a house. One area at a time! I think many refer to Marketo instances as mansions actually.

Start with one channel or group of channels to get them streamlined and slowly start working backward.

One of the things I do for 5-10 minutes a day is delete stuff, not old campaigns, but all that random stuff like audit smart lists, test email programs, email templates that didn't work out etc. Not to sound cheesy, but that translates to 50 minutes of deleting a week, 200 minutes a month, you get the idea.

[Josh_Hill13]

These are all good tips.

How to Conduct a Marketo Audit - Marketing Rockstar Guides

Without seeing all the problems you have, I'd say approach it systematically. What are the biggest wins to making progress? What is the progress?

1. Naming & Org is a good place to start.
2. Identify the bottlenecks, if you know of any.
3. Decide what to rebuild first - lifecycle? program templates? existing standing programs? Pick ONE.
4. I usually leave Lifecycle issues until later since it can be delicate to change. Depends on the org.
5. Be prepared for this to take awhile if your instance is very old or highly used.