Using block list to manage audience users?

[Erica_Dipyatic]

Hello community - question regarding Block List. 

We need to exclude deactivated users from our audience lists for distribution.  In our case, a deactivated user is someone who no longer has access to our software - we're a SaaS company. I'm not referring to deactivated user within our company and using Marketo. 

An initial thought, in an effort to not disrubt the current processes of the MA production team is to change a users Block List status to True when our newly created field "Is Deactivated" is triggered to True.  Are there implications that we should consider before doing this, that could impact the users domain? We're trying to avoid having a is deactivated list that the team has to add to all distributions going forward. 

Everything I'm finding within Marketo/Adobe regarding block or black lists centers around Spam. Documentation within Marketo/Adobe is limited to non-existing on what is a Blocklist (IMO).  And how is can, should and shouldn't be used. 

Thank you much!

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[Michael_Florin]

Yes, you can absolutely use "Block Listed = true" for this purpose. It might even be the perfect candidate for your use case, as it even suppresses people from receiving emails when the email is operational.

Block Listed is an interesting field. It looks like a system field, yet Marketo doesn't do anything with it systematically. It's totally up to you which people you might want to flag this way.

Another option would be to delete these people from Marketo. Is there any value in keeping them?

[Erica_Dipyatic]

Thanks, Michael.  We're evaluating the reason/value of keeping.  Appreciate your time to provide feedback. 

[SanfordWhiteman]

The system Block Listed field may be appropriate, but not on its own. You also need to populate a Block Listed Reason field to explain why these people are flagged this way (prepend a timestamp to the value, like “2024-08-24: Deactivated software user”).

Setting Block Listed has no affect on how Marketo treats the recipient domain.

[Erica_Dipyatic]

Thanks, Sanford. Adding a date is something we have considered, thinking hold for a while and then if no activity with our product triggers them back into a user, remove.  Appreciate your time to provide feedback.