Using Marketo in China

[Anonymous]

Does anyone here have a multi-country instance of Marketo and send emails to those in mainland China. If so, what processes do you have set up to increase the chances of deliverability? We have workspaces and lead partitions created, so there would be a specific partition and workspace for Chinese leads.

Does having a dedicated IP for the Chinese marketers help?

Aside from font size, language choice and other content specific guidance are there any other tips to increase deliverability?

Thanks!

[Josh_Hill13]

Can you describe more about the issue you are having?

I haven't heard of specific issues, however, they do have a giant Firewall. I suspect that your IP or shared Ip and domain could be harder to access from inside China. If you have local staff, you should ask them for guidance.

[Anonymous]

We have marketers in China who have expressed interest in using Marketo (they aren't currently) and they are wondering if they need anything extra implemented to increase deliverability. The local team have come to my team for guidance and having not done email marketing in China before, I need some assistance from the community.

[Josh_Hill13]

without more info on their current situation, I suggest asking Marketo's team.

Kiersti Esparza​ ?

[Anonymous]

There isn't any current situation to share - they don't do any email marketing currently, want to start and just want to make sure they are doing all they can to increase their chances of getting through the massive firewall.

I asked Marketo support and they only provided information regarding font size, salutations, links etc.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Support probably wants (understandably) to distance themselves from discussions about IP blocking.

As a general rule (though your site-specific experience may differ) you'll get better deliverability if you relay emails from Marketo via an IP that's closer to (though not likely on) the mainland, i.e. HK/TW. And dedicating an IP in the States to your web presence is better than risking collateral damage on shared hosting. But it's a bigger question than just the technical components.

[Kiersti_Esparz1 · Accepted solution]

Katie,

One of my first posts in the Community a few years ago was an article about navigating email delivery into China, this can be a more challenging region to deliver to.  This article gives high level guidance: Navigating email delivery into China

Marketo takes sending into China very seriously and it is one of the regions we monitor closely.  If an unexplained drop in delivery rates occurs we investigate quickly. We have "tuned" the sending speeds into Chinese networks to that we are sending as quickly as possible without aggravating their filters or inbound email networks.

I do recommend sending from a dedicated IP if you have the email volume to support that.  When you send from a dedicated IP we are able to negotiate with providers like qq.com for whitelisting.  This allows customers to send higher volumes into qq.com than customers sending from our shared IPs.  If you are already on an IP please reach out to Marketo Support and ask them to escalate you to Marketo's Email Deliverability Team so we can negotiate this whitelisting on your behalf.  If you are interested in discussing a dedicated IP reach out to your CSM to initiate that discussion, they will likely get someone from my team in a meeting to talk this through with you.

At the end of the day most of the same email best practices apply when sending into China: permission is very important so that people expect your email and will not complain, removing non-responders over time to keep your email sends to an active an engaged audience is important and ensuring that your email content drives further engagement so people are opening your email and navigating to your site and establishing a direct relationship with your brand.  All of these will send signals to the Chinese email networks that your email is wanted and should be delivered to their customer's inboxes because you are driving engagement.

If you are having any other specific issues, let us know.  We may be able to escalate to the network you are seeing issues with or do our own troubleshooting to understand and explain the drivers behind issues you are seeing.

Thank you,

Kiersti

Kiersti Esparza, CIPP/US | Director, Email Privacy & Deliverability | Marketo, Inc,

PS - Thank you Josh Hill for highlighting this for me!

[Anonymous]

Thanks Kiersti!

[Sara_Greer]

Related questions:

Can you confirm that Marketo will allow data (list uploads) using Chinese (traditional and simplified) characters? I'm assuming the answer is yes based on this article: Import a Non-Latin Characters List - Marketo Docs - Product Documentation

More importantly, can emails be sent via Marketo using email addresses that are in Chinese? I'm not able to find a clear answer and I desperately need an answer to this.

Thanks

[SanfordWhiteman]

Can you confirm that Marketo will allow data (list uploads) using Chinese (traditional and simplified) characters? I'm assuming the answer is yes based on this article: Import a Non-Latin Characters List - Marketo Docs - Product Documentation

Yes, CJK is supported for generic string fields.

More importantly, can emails be sent via Marketo using email addresses that are in Chinese?

No, SMTPUTF8 is not supported (e.g. the field email is not a generic string field but has special treatment).