Product Documents

Apple iOS 17 and Apple OSX Sonoma will introduce changes to how Safari opens URLs with tracking parameters in order to protect user privacy. Details on these privacy changes can be found on Apple’s website https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/06/apple-announces-powerful-new-privacy-and-security-features/   Our teams have tested the beta versions of these operating systems to learn how these changes will impact Adobe Marketo Engage emails. We have found that URLs containing our tracking parameter mkt_tok will be impacted in some scenarios by these changes. The mkt_tok parameter is used to help associate browsers to known leads using Munchkin and to render the correct email with the View As Webpage link.   Impact on links in emails The impact these changes have on links in emails will be dependent on whether your links have tracking enabled. Tracked links go through our redirection service which preserves URL parameters when browsing Safari in non-private browsing mode. Links that are not tracked are more susceptible to URL parameters being stripped by Safari. For more information on how to enable or disable link tracking please refer to this documentation https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/marketo/using/product-docs/email-marketing/general/functions-in-the-editor/disable-tracking-for-an-email-link.html     Action Track Link Include mkt_tok Resulting URL Impact Open link from Mail or copy/paste link from Mail into Safari ✓ ✓ URL resolves at destination with mkt_tok and third-party parameters intact. Click is tracked. Parameters not stripped. Open link from Mail or copy/paste link from Mail into Safari ✓ X URL resolves at destination with third-party parameters intact. Click is tracked. Parameters not stripped. Open link from Mail or copy/paste link from Mail into Safari X X URL resolves at destination. Third-party parameters may be stripped. Third party solutions may be impacted by stripped parameters. Open link from Mail or copy/paste link from Mail into Safari Private Browsing ✓ ✓ URL resolves at destination with mkt_tok and third-party parameters stripped Click is tracked. Browser is not associated to known lead via Munchkin. Third party solutions may be impacted by stripped parameters. Open link from Mail or copy/paste link from Mail into Safari Private Browsing ✓ X URL resolves at destination with third-party parameters stripped. Click is tracked. Third party solutions may be impacted by stripped parameters. Open link from Mail or copy/paste link from Mail into Safari Private Browsing X X URL resolves at destination. Third-party parameters may be stripped. Third party solutions may be impacted by stripped parameters.   In general, tracked links in emails will not be impacted by these changes in non-private Safari browsing as our redirection service will retain the URL parameters. If the link in the email is not tracked, then URL parameters may be stripped by Safari. If the link is opened in Safari Private browsing, then mkt_tok and some third-party parameters will be stripped regardless of whether the link is tracked and goes through our redirection service. Impact on View As Webpage links Testing has shown some impact on View As Web Page links. Action Method of inserting link Resulting URL Impact Open link from Mail or copy/paste link from Mail into Safari "Include View as Web Page" option in Email Settings URL resolves through tracking service and mkt_tok not stripped No change. Open link from Mail or copy/paste link from Mail into Safari {{system.viewAsWebpageLink}} URL has mkt_tok value stripped View As Web Page does not load and returns an error page Open link from Mail or copy/paste link from Mail into Safari Private Browsing "Include View as Web Page" option in Email Settings URL has mkt_tok value stripped View As Web Page does not load and returns an error page Open link from Mail or copy/paste link from Mail into Safari Private Browsing {{system.viewAsWebpageLink}} URL has mkt_tok value stripped View As Web Page does not load and returns an error page   Our service requires the mkt_tok parameter in the URL to render the personalized version of the email; when this parameter is stripped by Safari it will result in an error page being returned instead.   View As Webpage links that are inserted by the token {{system.viewAsWebpageLink}} are not decorated with CNAMEs and do not navigate through our tracking service and will see their mkt_tok values stripped when opened in Safari as a result. This will result in the user getting an error page.   The change will also affect all View As Webpage Links opened in Safari Private Browsing on iOS 17 and Sonoma regardless of how the links were generated. This also includes View As Webpage links in emails sent before the release of these new operating systems.   Our team has identified a solution to build our View As Web Page links in a way that will not be affected by these privacy changes. This change is currently scheduled for our October 24, 2023 release. View As Web Page links generated by {{system.viewAsWebpageLink}} and View as Web Page links opened in Safari Private Browsing on iOS 17 or OSX Sonoma will not function between when the device is updated to one of those operating systems and our October 24, 2023 release.   To lessen the impact on users opening links in Safari, please use the “Include View As Web Page” option in Email Settings instead of the {{system.viewAsWebpageLink}}. Unfortunately there is no workaround that can be offered in the interim for users using Safari Private Browsing.   As we continue to learn more about these changes, we will continue to update this post.   FAQ Q: Will click tracking be impacted by these changes? A: No, click tracking that create Clicked Link in Email activities will not be impacted by these changes.    

Executable campaigns are a powerful new feature designed to allow you to make your campaign logic modular, reusable and maintainable.  However, staying within the limit of three nested executables can be difficult when your campaign trees get complicated.  This article describes a simple method of classifying your executables into three categories to help you stay within the nesting limits while also remaining productive.    Three Categories for Executable Campaigns  This classification system has three categories with simple definitions:  Tier 1: These campaigns may not be executed by other executable campaigns  Tier 2: These campaigns may not execute other Tier 2 campaigns  Tier 3: These campaigns may not execute any other campaigns      By classifying your campaigns in this way, and abiding by their restrictions, you can avoid bumping up against the nesting limit.  Now we have a way to avoid the nesting limit, but how should you map your existing campaign logic and lifecycles into these categories? Let’s look at Tier 3 first, as it is the foundation of this model    Tier 3 – Task/Unit - May Not Execute Any Other Campaigns  Tier 3 cannot execute any other campaigns, and this is where individual tasks should be implemented.  Your organization can define what a task is in this context, but I think that it is useful to borrow the definition of unit from software development: A unit is the smallest testable part of any software.  In the context of Marketo, a unit is the smallest testable part of any campaign.  Let’s look at a common example for lead lifecycles: Taking a country input and outputting a country code to a different field.      The above is an abbreviated example using flow-step choices to match the value of Country to a particular country code.  Supposing we wrote a test for this, we would expect a lead who enters the flow with an empty value of “United States of America” to receive a Country Code value of “US”.  This or similar steps could be a unit for your business, but you do not need to limit your units to single steps.  Your Tier 3 task campaigns should tend to be short sequences of work which are used in multiple contexts    Tier 2 – Orchestration – May Not Execute Other Tier 2 Campaigns  Tier 2 (as well as Tier 1) are more flexible than Tier 3 campaigns as they can execute other campaigns themselves.  These executables can be used to string sequences of other campaigns together alongside standalone flow steps.  An example would be a Standard Data Enrichment campaign.  Where normalizing a country code is a unit or task, this is a sequence of one or more data enrichment tasks that can be maintained and modified separately from the logic of the individual tasks themselves    Tier 1 – Last-Mile – May Not Be Executed by Other Executable Campaigns  You may find that your business does not need to use Tier 1 campaigns, and that you can satisfy your organizational needs with just Tier 2 & 3 campaigns.  However, Tier 1 campaigns allow an additional layer of flexibility for you to manage your campaigns.  Typically, one of these campaigns will call a mix of individual flow steps, and Tier 2 & 3 campaigns to assemble a flow for a typical lifecycle event, like a Standard New Lead Flow.  These typically include data enrichment, normalization, scoring, and routing flows, which can be created as tier 2 or 3 campaigns.       

[FAQ attached below this article]   What's Changing? On August 31, 2020, Marketo Engage will implement a new retention policy specifically for Sent & Delivered Email activities. Under this policy, data for these two activity types will be stored for a rolling 90-day period from the activity date for use in Smart Lists. This is a change from the current default retention period of 25 months, and from the current Extended Data Retention subscription option period of 37 months.   Upon the policy taking effect, data older than 90 days for these two activities will be deleted and no longer available for export. Any Smart List with the “Was Sent Email” and “Was Delivered Email” filters (including NOT Was Sent and NOT Was Delivered) should be updated to ensure the maximum lookback date is 90 days.  If the lookback date is greater than 90 days, the Smart List will continue to function, but only activities that are 90 days old or less will qualify.   Why? In 2020, we are improving critical parts of the underlying Marketo Engage infrastructure, including Batch campaign processing, similar to the Trigger campaign improvements made in 2019. This new infrastructure, in combination with the new retention policy, is expected to result in shorter lead time with large email sends and faster segmentation processing to deliver significantly faster processing to our customers. Note, the revised retention policy is one, among several, aspects that come together to deliver this improved performance, but broadly speaking reduced retention helps with faster database look ups and search across the run-time infrastructure.     What's NOT Changing? Aggregated data – including Reports, Dashboards, and Analytics – will not be affected by this change (unless they reference a Smart List with these activities).  The new policy will not affect any activity type other than Sent and Delivered (for example, Was Opened activity data is not affected). Further, this change does NOT affect Engagement Program casts.   What Customer Actions Are Needed? First, you'll want revisit where and how you're using these two activity types. Audit your Smart Lists and ensure the date ranges for these two activity types are less than 90 days - if you must use a date greater than 90 days, we suggest running a process to export to an external system. You will need to create this before the new retention policy takes effect on August 31, 2020.  Information on how to export activities using APIs can be found on our Developers Documentation website.   We appreciate you understanding as we move toward an enhanced Marketo Engage experience for all customers. Please download and review the FAQ attached below for further suggestions, workarounds and additional information.