Product Documents

Apple recently announced new features in their upcoming iOS and macOS releases which are designed to protect data from third parties. A broad set of FAQs on the potential impact can be found on Adobe Experience League. We have provided an additional set of Marketo Engage-specific FAQs below. Since the new features have not yet been released by Apple, much of the information below is speculative. We plan to post updates as we learn more, so please stay tuned.  UPDATE: iOS 15 is now generally available on both iPhone and iPad.  We have conducted tests using iPhones running iOS 15 with Mail Privacy Protection enabled.  Please see updates to this FAQ below (in red).    Will this impact email open-tracking in Marketo Engage?  Highly likely. Early reports suggest that the open-tracking pixel contained in Marketo emails may be obscured and downloaded as a background process, irrespective of how you interact with the email. It is possible that an email open could occur without opening the email, which could artificially inflate the number of email opens. Also, the timing of when an email open activity is generated could be impacted since it may be decoupled from the actual open.  UPDATE: Yes, we confirmed that unopened emails can trigger an email open activity.   Test Methodology We used a batch campaign to send a test email to 5 testers with Mail Privacy Protection enabled on their iPhones.  We instructed each tester to not open the email and then waited 1 week before checking results.  Create a static list of test leads Create a batch campaign to send an email to members of static list Run campaign once Wait for 7 days and inspect campaign results   Observations After the 7 day wait, we found that 3 of the 5 unopened emails had open email activities logged in Marketo.  These activities were “machine-generated” due to a background load of the open-tracking pixel that occurs when Mail Privacy Protection is enabled.  For the 3 machine-generated opens, we found that 1 occurred within minutes of delivery, and the other 2 occurred several hours after delivery.    We then had testers go ahead and open the delivered emails.  For the 2 emails that did not machine-generate an open,  we found 2 email open activities were logged as usual.  For 3 emails that did machine-generate opens, no additional open activities were observed as expected.  This is because Marketo only ever records a single email open activity for any given campaign/mailing/lead combination.   We ran same test with Mail Privacy Protection disabled and did not observe any machine-generated opens.   To summarize: When Mail Privacy Protection is enabled, some delivered emails will have machine-generated opens, and the timing of when machine-opens occur is unpredictable. When Mail Privacy Protection is disabled, no machine-generated opens occur. Will this impact email link click tracking in Marketo Engage?  It is unlikely that tracked links will be impacted.  UPDATE: No, we confirmed that click email activities are logged as expected.  No change here.   Which product areas within Marketo Engage might be affected?  While there is no immediate impact right now, here is a quick look at the potential areas of impact within Marketo Engage.   Assuming that email opens may not be accurately trackable in the native Mail app, and that a user’s IP address will be altered by the native Email app and the Safari browser, we have identified the following areas of potential impact.  Activities It is hard to predict what the impact will be on the “Open Email” activity. For example, if the open-tracking pixel request is generated even though the email is not actually opened, then email opens could be overcounted. Also, the time of the open-tracking pixel request could differ from the time of the actual email open. Finally, there are activities that contain a “Client IP Address” attribute which may not be as accurate as before (Visit Web Page, Fill Out Form, Click Link, Unsubscribe Email).  UPDATE: There is no way to identify which open email activities are machine-generated, and which are not.  Machine-generated opens will likely increase the overall number of opens, but by how much is hard to know.   The User Agent on iOS15 has changed to simply “Mozilla/5.0”.  Since some activities contain metadata that is derived from User Agent, some of this metadata has changed (Platform, Device, User Agent, Is Mobile Device).   Open Email Activity - Before iOS15 Open Email Activity - After iOS15   This could impact your smart lists should they leverage these attributes as constraints.   Here is an idea that could help provide insight into iOS15 adoption.    First, build a smart list that looks for leads that have opened email using an earlier version of iOS. Since at the time of writing, iOS15 is only available on iPhone/iPad, we limit results to those devices only. Click on the People tab and record the number of list members (in lower righthand corner). Next, add another filter to smart list for leads that have opened email using iOS15. Since at the time of writing, iOS15 user agent is "Mozilla/5.0", we limit results to that browser only.  This provides the list of leads that have opened email using a prior version of iOS and using iOS15 in past 30 days.  Click on the People tab again and record the number of list members. You can then compare the two results and gain insight into iOS15 adoption.     Here are some of our test results over the past 30, 60, and 90 days. Date of Activity (in Past) 30 Days 60 Days 90 Days Device iPhone/iPad 23,723 38,901 52,964 Device iPhone/iPad & Browser Mozilla/5.0 1,160 2,621 3,444 iOS 15 Adoption Rate 4.9% 6.7% 6.5%   From this list, you can inspect the lead activity history and identify when a lead switched over to iOS15. Your mileage may vary!   Reporting Email opens can be inferred through email link clicks without the open-tracking pixel being activated, but reporting may be impacted. The “Opened”, “% Opened”, and “Clicked to Opened Ratio” columns in Email Performance Report columns may contain less accurate data. Also, any open-related measures or fields in Revenue Cycle Analytics Email Analysis Report may contain less accurate data.   UPDATE: There is no way to identify which open email activities are machine-generated, and which are not.  Machine-generated opens will likely increase the overall number of opens, but by how much is hard to know.   A/B Testing If you use Opens as Winner Criteria, then test results may be impacted since this criteria relies on accurate email open tracking.  UPDATE: See Reporting (above).   Web Personalization The “Location” and “Industry” firmographic Web Segments may not match as they had before. This is because the segment attributes are derived by doing a lookup using the client IP address.  UPDATE: See Inferred Fields (below).   Inferred Fields Since client IP address may not be as accurate, Inferred Fields may be impacted. Send In Recipient Time Zone can use inferred fields to calculate time zone (as a fallback when known location fields are not populated). Lead to Account Matching can also use inferred company name field in matching logic. UPDATE: The client IP address behavior on iOS15 has changed.  To allow users to hide their IP addresses from websites and network service providers, requests now go through an Apple proxy server. The proxy server assigns an IP address from a pool of users grouped by their approximate location.  As a result, the location information stored in Marketo inferred fields will be less precise.  Best practices for using inferred data can be found here.   As a Marketo Engage user, what can I do now to prepare for this change?  Review your usage of product areas described above and assess potential impact. Reduce dependency on email open rates. Look for activities from the click onward to measure engagement. Think about how you measure success of your email campaigns and how email opens fit into your overall methodology. Gather device and OS data to understand potential impact. This can be done using either Email Insights or Smart Lists as described here.  UPDATE: Reduce dependency on email open rates.   As a Marketo Engage user, what should I be thinking about in the future?  Email opens are not the most important indicator for measuring success of your email campaigns. Email is the vehicle by which you drive your customers to a landing page to convert via filling out a form or other action. Web page visits, link clicks, and form fills are the high value activities that you should concentrate on.    Geographic and firmographic data based on client IP address lookup is not entirely accurate since many IP addresses return data for the Internet Service Provider instead of the actual user. In some cases, an IP address lookup will return no data at all. An alternative could be to use a third-party data enrichment service.    Privacy changes are transforming email as we know it. Changes to proxies, location data, and blocked email opens present new challenges to email measurement. Here are Deliverability resources that may prove useful to address those challenges:  Optimizing Marketo Engage Email Deliverability  Email Deliverability 101: 4 Tips to Inbox Success 

October 2021 Update https://nation.marketo.com/t5/product-documents/update-to-deprecation-of-programmatic-form-submission-methods/ta-p/317522#M1062 In January 2021, we released the Submit Form API endpoint to give Marketo Engage integrators the ability to submit to Marketo Forms through a supported and authenticated REST endpoint. Thanks to customer feedback we were able to identify a lack of parity for critical functionality such as correct handling of duplicate records and support for Program Member Custom Fields. These issues blocked some integrators from successfully onboarding onto the Submit Form API endpoint.   In our August release, we have enhanced the Submit Form endpoint to handle duplicate records the same way as Marketo forms. When there are duplicate records that match an email address submitted to the form, the endpoint will update the record with the most recent Last Modified Date.   In our October 22, 2021 release, we plan to release support for Program Member Custom Fields for the Submit Form REST API endpoint. We understand that integrators will need time to update and test these new changes before they can fully onboard onto the Submit Form endpoint. To allow additional time for migration, we are delaying blocking programmatic POSTs to the /save2 endpoint to our January 21, 2022 release. This will be the final extension.   Programmatic submissions to our form endpoints remain unsupported despite this delay. Please work to update integrations submitting via this method to one that is supported: Marketo Engage forms on Landing Pages or using the embed code, our Forms2.js API, or the Submit Form API endpoint. April 2021 Update   In November 2020, we announced that we will forbid programmatic Form POST submissions to our /save and /save2 endpoints beginning May 7, 2021. The reason for this change is to reject methods of unsupported form submissions used by bots to fill customer databases with spam data.   We understand that many customers may need more time to update the integrations to use a supported method such as the Forms2.JS API or the Submit Form REST API endpoint. We have decided to extend the deadline in which we will begin blocking all programmatic Form submissions to take place on October 15, 2021. Programmatic FORM submissions continue to be unsupported and while we are temporarily delaying enabling validation to reject these submissions, we cannot ensure uninterrupted submission following  upcoming product and infrastructure changes.   For customers that still wish to block this method of form submission to address bot attacks,   will allow you to opt-in to form submission validation on your subscription. This validation will check that form submissions are coming from Marketo Forms, Forms2.js API, or the Submit Form REST API and will reject it otherwise. This is expected to block many common sources of bot attacks.   However, if you have a form integration that currently uses programmatic Form POST to submit lead data, enabling this feature will also block your Form submissions. We encourage all customers to migrate to a supported method of form submissions as soon as possible to protect their subscriptions from bot attacks.   The original announcement is below for reference. The details remain the same aside from the schedule to block programmatic form POST submissions.   What’s changing? In our May 7, 2021 release, Marketo Engage will be making changes to our form platform to protect the stability and security of our infrastructure:   Forms 1.0 will be fully deprecated, resulting in loss of functionality of any remaining Forms 1.0 assets still in use. Marketo Engage will begin rejecting form submissions made through unsupported methods, such as programmatic form POSTs to the leadCapture/save and leadCapture/save2 endpoints.   Why is this change being made? On August 1, 2017, Marketo Engage deprecated the Forms 1.0 editor, removing the ability to create or edit Forms 1.0 assets. This change will complete our end of life efforts for Forms 1.0.   In addition, we have found that our Form endpoints “leadCapture/save” and “leadCapture/save2” are common targets for bot attacks. To protect the stability of the Marketo Engage infrastructure, and to aid customers in maintaining a clean database, we are completely disabling the “leadCapture/save” endpoint and enforcing checksum validation on the “leadCapture/save2” endpoint.   What customer action is required? Forms 1.0 deprecation Provisioning of Marketo Engage subscriptions with the ability to create Forms 1.0 assets ended December 31, 2014. If your subscription was provisioned after this date, then it will not have Form 1.0 assets. Forms 2.0 assets will be unaffected by this change.   Marketo Engage subscriptions provisioned before December 31, 2014 may still  be utilizing Forms 1.0 assets on their landing pages and website. These forms will need to be remade in our Forms 2.0 editor and replaced wherever they are still being used.   Programmatic Form POST deprecation Some integrations may be performing programmatic form POSTs to “leadCapture/save" or “leadCapture/save2” to submit data into Marketo Engage databases. This method of data ingestion has always been unsupported and will cease to work as part of this deprecation. All integrations using programmatic form POSTs must be updated to use our Forms 2.0 API, Push Lead REST API, or the Submit Form REST API endpoint releasing in the January 2021 release.   Customers using native Forms 2.0 assets on pages and/or the Forms 2.0 API do not need to take any action. Checksum validation will work natively with these supported methods.   What happens if customers don’t act? Customers that fail to replace any in-use Forms 1.0 asset with a Form 2.0 asset will find that their customers will be unable to submit to their 1.0 Forms.   Customers using integrations that perform programmatic Form POSTs to the “leadCapture/save” or “leadCapture/save2” endpoints will see these integrations fail, resulting in loss of form submission data.   Is my Form 1.0 or 2.0? Forms 1.0 and Forms 2.0 have different look and feel:   Forms 1.0 Forms 2.0 Marketo subscriptions provisioned after December 31, 2014 will only have Forms 2.0 assets.

In January 2021, we released the Submit Form API endpoint to give Marketo Engage integrators the ability to submit to Marketo Forms through a supported and authenticated REST endpoint. Thanks to customer feedback we were able to identify a lack of parity for critical functionality such as correct handling of duplicate records and support for Program Member Custom Fields. These issues blocked some integrators from successfully onboarding onto the Submit Form API endpoint.   In our August release, we have enhanced the Submit Form endpoint to handle duplicate records the same way as Marketo forms. When there are duplicate records that match an email address submitted to the form, the endpoint will update the record with the most recent Last Modified Date.   In our October 22, 2021 release, we plan to release support for Program Member Custom Fields for the Submit Form REST API endpoint. We understand that integrators will need time to update and test these new changes before they can fully onboard onto the Submit Form endpoint. To allow additional time for migration, we are delaying blocking programmatic POSTs to the /save2 endpoint to our January 21, 2022 release. This will be the final extension.   Programmatic submissions to our form endpoints remain unsupported despite this delay. Please work to update integrations submitting via this method to one that is supported: Marketo Engage forms on Landing Pages or using the embed code, our Forms2.js API, or the Submit Form API endpoint.   Previous announcement: https://nation.marketo.com/t5/product-documents/updated-april-2021-upcoming-changes-to-the-marketo-engage-form/ta-p/306631

One of the biggest gains to productivity you can employ with Executable Campaigns is the ability to pass the token context of the parent campaign to child campaigns.  This allows you to template your campaigns to use contextual data from the parent and then put it into practice within reusable executable campaigns.  It also allows you to set up My Token values as defaults, and then override them by setting them in the calling campaign.  Let’s take a look at an example: Evaluating activity scores   Evaluate Activity Score   Most Marketo subscriptions use activity or behavioral scoring to some extent, and executable campaigns make it easier than ever to create an effective activity scoring model.  By using the same My Token keys in the parent and child campaigns we can craft an activity scoring campaign that can be used by any triggered activity in a single workspace.  This is what a basic templated scoring flow looks like.  The interesting moment is configured to stamp that activity log with the parent campaign name and ID for debugging purposes, and should be omitted for performance reasons in production.   Note how the Change Score step has a Change value of {{My.Activity Score}}.  This is defined as +0 in the Evaluate Activity Score program, so if executed with overriding the token context, or if the value is not defined in a calling campaign, then that will be the value used:   Calling the Campaign   Suppose you want to score when someone fills out a particular form, but you also want to apply a score when they are created by filling out that same form.  In this case you would need two campaigns, each with their own parent program.  Our New Lead campaign needs to listen to the “Person is Created” activity, needs to execute the Evaluate Activity Score campaign, and needs {{My.Activity Score}} to be defined:       Configured this way, our New Lead campaign will call the child campaign with the parent campaign’s context and increment the score by +15 and then move on to the rest of the flow. For our campaign that’s listening for a form fill, but not creation, we only need to configure the trigger and My Tokens differently:     When a lead qualifies for a run through our Evaluate Activity Score campaign, we see that the Person Score is correctly incremented by +15 when it goes through our campaign:   Working with this pattern   This pattern can be applied and modified to work with many different scoring and lead lifecycles.  There are a few things to keep in mind, though: If you are nesting executable campaigns, I.e., using the Execute Campaign step within an executable campaign, you need to set Use Parent Token Context to true through each layer where you need to use token context in the child campaign.  Using folder-based My Token inheritance can help ensure a value is set in all of your relevant folders.  For example, if all of your scoring listener programs and campaigns live in a single folder tree, you can set a {{My.Activity Score}} at the top level folder, which can then be overridden at the local program level. My Tokens that you want to override in an executable campaign should be set in both the child and the calling campaign, as well as any campaigns between the initial caller and the ultimate child. As designed, each campaign that wants to call the Evaluate Activity Score campaign, needs to be in its own program (or Campaign Folder) in order to have its own specific {{My.Activity Score}} token.  More than one score per program needs either multiple “Change Score” steps in your evaluator campaign, each with a distinct score token, e.g. {{My.New Lead Score}} = +15 vs. {{My.Form Fill Score}} = +5 vs {{My.Unsubscribe Score}} = -10, or a distinct campaign for each score-activity pair that you want to score distinctly Pair this with the suggested categorization model for Executable Campaigns for best results.

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.       

In late 2020, Apple announced their intent to add a new feature to their Intelligent Tracking Prevention implementation in Safari called CNAME Cloaking Defense, to be rolled out with the release of Safari and IOS 14.  Like many of the other efforts in Apple’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention schemes, this feature is designed to limit the lifespan of cookies set by hosts which have a CNAME pointing to a domain name which does not match the visited page’s domain name to seven days.  Since Munchkin JS uses cookies set by a CNAME, and the underlying host to which the CNAME ({your instance}.mktoweb.com) points will never match the domain name of a visited page, cookies set by Munchkin in Safari 14 browsers will be capped to a seven-day lifespan.  While the reduction in cookie lifespan will have some effect on tracking known leads, traffic from Safari generally represents less than 10% of requests handled by Munchkin.      There are no apparent easy solutions to this issue, and each would require significant intervention both on the part of Adobe engineering and subscribers.  Adobe will continue to explore long-term options for improving consistency and accuracy of web tracking behaviors, but at this time we have decided not to take any extraordinary measures to try to circumvent this change and restore long lifespans for Munchkin cookies.  Instead, we have decided to focus on our efforts to integrate Marketo web tracking with the Adobe Web SDK so that all Adobe Marketo Engage customers can benefit from our best-in-class web tracking solution.  We will have more information to share when we are closer to release of this solution. 

Deprecation of Email V1 began almost two years ago and beginning with the March maintenance release to London & Netherlands subscriptions on March 17th, 2021 and all other subscriptions on March 19th, 2021, all API support for V1 emails will be ended.  After this release, any attempts to interact with V1 emails via the Asset APIs will result in errors and no actions taken.  All known remaining users since February 24th, 2021 have been notified, but it is possible that there are still integrations which may attempt to interact with these assets.  The most common types of affected integrations are services which offer digital asset management, translation, and localization.    If you do observe integration failures as a result of this change, you will still be able to upgrade problematic assets by editing and approving them.  Once an email asset is upgraded to V2, you should be able to resume using it with integrated services. 

How does Marketo Engage define a Sales Insight “Active User”? If a sales rep has interacted with the Sales Insight panel in the last 30 days, we consider him//her to be an active user once we remove duplicates user.  Every week, we look at our logs over the last 30 days for certain types of activities that a unique user would do within our Sales Insight panel. Here is the list of activities that are considered as product usage: Marketo tab: Clicking on Best Bets tab and the following actions within the tab Clicking on Edit & Create New View Clicking on “Hide” option Clicking on My Watch List tab and the following actions with the tab Clicking on Edit & Create New View Clicking on “Remove” option Clicking on Web Activity tab and the following actions with the tab Clicking on Edit & Create New View Choosing time frame option from drop down Clicking on Anonymous Web Activity tab and the following actions with the tab Clicking on Edit & Create New View Choosing time frame option from drop down Clicking on My Email tab and the following actions with the tab Clicking on Edit & Create New View Clicking on email link to preview email Clicking on Lead feed and the following actions with the tab Subscribe to an Interesting Moment from lead feed Visualforce panel on Contact/Lead/Account/Opportunity: Clicking on 4 tabs: Interesting Moment, Web Activity, Email, Score Clicking on “Full List” hyperlink at the bottom of the visual force page to access full list Marketo tab Top Nav (only on lead/contact) Choosing “Add/Remove to watch list” from actions drop down, clicking on “Go” button Choosing “Add to Marketo campaign” from actions drop down, clicking on “Go” button Choosing “Send Marketo email” from actions drop down, clicking on “Go” button Clicking on Interesting Moment tab and the following actions with the tab Clicking on “Subscribe” option Clicking on Web Activity tab and the following actions with the tab Clicking on Web page link Clicking on page/referrer link Clicking on Email tab and the following actions with the tab Clicking on email link to preview email When a sales user navigates to any CRM layout that has Sales Insight, the panel loads automatically. The loading of panel is not considered as actual usage. We only consider users who actively interact with the panel.    How does Marketo Engage determine how many Sales Insight (MSI) users I have? We generate a report that logs certain types of activities that an “active user” would do and then remove duplicate users. If there has been one or more of these activities in the last 30 days, we consider this to an individual active user   How do I pull a list of my Sales Insight users? Please reach out to your CSM. He/she will be able to provide your usage report for you.   How do I limit Sales Insight usage? You can monitor Sales Insight seats by creating a Sales Insight profile and assigning it to a Sales Insight Layout or to any existing layout you would like to use. Detailed instruction can be found here - https://docs.marketo.com/display/public/DOCS/Setting+up+Sales+Insight+for+your+Team   How do I start monitoring Sales Insight seats as an existing user? The next time you upgrade your package, rather than installing upgrade for all users you can install it only for admins or for specific profiles you’ve created for Sales Insight. Detailed instruction can be found here https://docs.marketo.com/display/public/DOCS/Upgrading+Your+MSI+Package   How do I determine which version of MSI we are on? In your Salesforce CRM. Click on Set Up > Search for “Installed Packages” in Quick Find search field > Look for “Marketo Sales Insight” under Package Name column > Look for corresponding version number under “Version Number” column  

Support for Formula fields in batch campaigns was deprecated in 2013 and a notification was added to the product documentation here: Formula Fields. Currently, if a user attempts to schedule a batch campaign with an email that contains a formula field token WITHOUT spaces in the field name, the UI will show an error message saying this is not supported. However, due to an anomaly in the UI, if a user attempts to schedule a batch campaign with an email with a formula field token WITH spaces in the field name, the batch campaign will run. This UI issue was addressed in the January 2021 release of the product.   After March 19, 2021, these unsupported Formula Field tokens WITH spaces will no longer render correctly. Consequently, the tokens, and not the expected replacement strings, will appear in the final email. The deprecation is necessary to place all clients on a new, faster campaign processing platform.  To avoid further issues we recommend migrating the Formula Field tokens to Email Script Tokens immediately. Please refer to the following article which discusses how to use this option: https://docs.marketo.com/display/public/DOCS/Create+an+Email+Script+Token   If you have further questions about this issue, and/or best practices on migrating to Email Script Tokens, please contact Technical Support.  We want to ensure you have all the information you need to address the issue.   Kind Regards, The team at Adobe

Here are a few helpful tips regarding assigning a record to a queue when using the Sync Person to SFDC flow step:     If the record flowing through the flow step is a Marketo only record a new SFDC lead will be created SFDC Lead any field updates will be synced from Marketo to SFDC and the owner will change to the Queue SFDC Contact a new SFDC lead will be created The value in Marketo for Lead Owner for any records assigned to a SFDC Queue will be empty   Additional resources for learning about the Marketo integration with SFDC.

  The SFDC is Deleted field can be used to identify a SFDC Lead or Contact which used to be in SFDC but was deleted and now only lives in Marketo. Typically the record is deleted from SFDC for a specific reason and most customers will honor the deletion in SFDC by also setting up a smart campaign to also delete the record from Marketo.    If you decide to keep the deleted record (SFDC Lead or Contact) in Marketo to nurture it, the next time the record flows through the SYNC Person to SFDC flow step Marketo will insert it into SFDC as a new lead record. A strategy should be in place to make sure you're not syncing/inserting records you really don't want.   If you decide to delete a SFDC Lead or Contact in Marketo only you should only do it if you have a custom sync rule set-up. Otherwise the next time the record is updated in SFDC it will sync again to Marketo with a new Marketo ID.    Here are the steps to delete a SFDC record which is syncing to Marketo: Create Smart Campaign Set Smart List Set Flow Change Data Value of the "Sync to Marketo" field to False Wait 1 hour Delete record from Marketo only Schedule Run once     Additional resources for learning about the Marketo integration with SFDC.

If you create a multi-select field in SFDC, let's say it called "Product of Interest," it syncs as a string field in Marketo. If multiple values have been selected in SFDC, they will be separated by a semicolon, e.g. Frosted Flakes;Cheerios;Wheaties. If you use this field on a form, you will need to change the field type to Select to allow for multiple selections. If someone fills out the form and chooses Frosted Flakes and Cheerios, this will overwrite the existing values in the field and the field will now only say Frosted Flakes;Cheerios. These will resolve correctly in the SFDC multi-select field. If you don’t want to overwrite existing data create a Marketo custom field for your forms. Call It “Product of Interest for Web Forms” and set it up on the form exactly as you would have set up the multi-select field. Next create a smart campaign like the following in Marketo: Smart List: Trigger, Data Values Changes, Attribute – Product of Interest for Web Forms Flow: Change Data Value, Attribute – Product, New Value – {{lead.Product of Interest}};{{lead.Product of Interest for Web Forms}}. Now, if you fill out the form and choose Frosted Flakes and Cheerios on the form, the "Product of Interest for Web Forms" field will say Frosted Flakes;Cheerios and the Product field will say Frosted Flakes;Wheaties;Cheerios. This will resolve to the correct values in the multi-select list in SFDC.   Additional resources for learning about the Marketo integration with SFDC.

What’s changing?  Beginning in January 2021, we will be rolling out two email tracking-related security improvements over the course of several months.  In Q3 of 2020, a new version of the Outlook Plugin will be available that also contains a security improvement.  This document serves to provide a high-level overview of the changes that are coming.  We will follow up with additional information as those dates draw near.    Background: Email Link Tracking  By default, links in emails have tracking embedded which allows you to see who clicked which link, how many total links were clicked, etc.  Link tracking is configured via the Insert/Edit Link dialog box from within the email editor.   Predictive Image Tracking  When using Content AI, you can configure email images to be predictive.  Predictive images have an URL and are configured via the “Make Predictive” menu item within the email editor. Alternatively, you can select “Enable Content API” menu item within the email editor. Changes:  Tracking Link Length  When link tracking or predictive image is enabled, the original URL specified is converted into a “tracking link” that points to a Marketo tracking server.  The format of a tracking link looks something like this:  http://mkto-q1234.com/Y0b020YU00000001NPR0wR0  After this change, the identifier at the end of the URL will be slightly longer.  Tracking Parameter Expiration  When a tracked link or predictive image is clicked from within an email, the Marketo tracking server logs a “Click Email” or “Click Predictive Content” activity and then redirects user to the original URL specified.  The tracking server appends the “mkt_tok” query parameter which is used in conjunction with Munchkin JS to associate the Munchkin cookie with the known lead that clicked on the email link, and with the campaign that sent the email.  After this change, mkt_tok will expire 6 months after the email was sent.  As a result, if a lead clicks on a link in an email that is older than 6 months, the webpage visit activity will be anonymous, and campaign association will not occur.  This is the same behavior as when tracking is disabled.  Outlook Plugin  With these changes a new upgrade of the Outlook plugin will be released. The new plugin will no longer support offline mode, and users will be required to have an active connection to the internet when sending emails. Users who do not have an active connection will see the following message when clicking the Marketo Send and Track button:     Why is this change being made?  The tracking parameter expiration and tracking link change are additional steps in providing a more consistent and more secure experience with Marketo’s forms.  This change is a continuation of the work done last year when we released Form Pre-Fill Feature Upgrade.  The Outlook Plugin update was made to standardize on using common email tracking-related functionality across our products.    What customer action is required?  Aside from the Outlook Plugin upgrade, no additional action is required.  The new plugin will be available as part of the Q3 2020 release so customers can upgrade. As part of the Q4 2020 release users will receive a message in Outlook asking them to upgrade before continuing to use the plugin.     How does this impact customers?  Tracking Links and Predictive Images  If a tracked email link or a predictive image is clicked by an anonymous lead in an email that is over 6 months old, the known lead will not be associated with user’s Munchkin cookie.  This is the same behavior when tracking is disabled.  Form Pre-Fill  If a tracked email link or a predictive image is clicked in an email that is over 6 months old, and the click sends user to a landing page containing a form with pre-fill enabled, the form will not pre-fill.  This is the same behavior as when tracking is disabled.  Outlook Plugin  All users must update the Outlook Plugin by Q1 2021. 

The Duplicate Fields filter can be used to identify duplicate person records based on a field.  Typically, the Email field is used for this purpose, but other fields may be used as well (Full Name, Last Name, SFDC Type, UpdatedAt).  In Q1 2021 we will be making a change to the comparison behavior of the Duplicate Fields filter.  The comparison will be case-sensitive for all fields except for Email.   Legacy Behavior Match was case-insensitive for all supported fields.   New Behavior Match remains case-insensitive for Email field, but changes to case-sensitive for remaining supported fields.   Example Here is a smart list named “Duplicates” that uses Duplicate Fields filter with Full Name filter.   Since legacy behavior is case-insensitive, the two person records below qualify for the list.  This is because a case-insensitive comparison between “wilma flintstone” and “Wilma Flintstone” is true.   The new behavior is that neither of the two person records above qualify for the list.  This is because a case-sensitive comparison between “wilma flintstone” and “Wilma Flintstone” is false.   Customer Impact If using only the Email field in Duplicate Fields filter, then no impact.  If using any of the other supported fields, then fewer persons are likely to match the filter.

During  2020, Marketo deployed infrastructure updates to improve batch campaign performance as described here.  As a result, there was a slight change in behavior when using Head Start for Email Programs.   Legacy Behavior The “Send Email” activity was generated when a campaign started executing at its scheduled time followed shortly thereafter by generation of the “Delivered Email” activity.    New Behavior  The “Send Email” activity is now generated when head start starts executing 12 hours ahead of scheduled time.  As a result, the “Send Email” activity is logged 12 hours earlier than it had been.  There is no change to the timing of the “Delivered Email” activity.   Example    Before Email Delivery - Email program scheduled time on Nov 6, 2020 at 1:30am EST with head start enabled - Initial status is “Waiting to run”  - Status changes to “Processing started, waiting to run” at Nov 5th, 2020 at 1:30pm EST   - Activity log “Send Email” at Nov 5th, 2020 at 1:29pm EST   - Email Performance Report shows Sent and Pending count    After Email Delivery  - Email Performance Report shows Delivered count and no emails in Pending   - Activity log “Email Delivered” is as expected at scheduled time   Customer Impact - Smart List Filters - If using “Was sent email” filter, this should be changed to “Was delivered email” filter - Communication Limits - Communication limits are calculated using "Send Email" activities so scheduling can be impacted - Email Performance Report - Emails remain in “Sent/Pending” state for 12 hours - Activity Log - "Send Email" and "Delivered Email" entries are now 12 hours apart

Forms serve as a valuable point of entry to your Marketo Engage database for your prospective and existing customers to express interest in your business. They also serve as a portal for malicious actors to flood your database with junk data, hoping to trigger emails to use in phishing attacks, to overwhelm your business services, or to DDoS our platform. We are rolling out enhancements to strengthen the security of Marketo Engage forms to address this growing problem in the industry.   These features are releasing throughout Q3 2020 and will be available to all Secured Domains for Landing Pages customers. No changes to your forms or landing pages are needed to take advantage of these enhancements.   EDIT: We have delayed the rollout of our form field validation to Q1 2021 to ensure a high level of quality.   Bot Spam Blocking We have identified bot patterns common among most spam attacks on Marketo Engage forms. These patterns were identified by examining form data captured in bot attacks for values that were impossible to have been submitted by a human submitter. This new feature will introduce server-side validation on standard Marketo Engage form fields that will reject submissions of illegitimate values that match these bot patterns.   Sever-side form field validation Today, Marketo Engage forms enforce field data rules with client-side Javascript validation that is easily circumvented by bots or users that disable scripting in their browsers. To address this, we are enhancing forms with server-side validation of form field rules. These include: • Validation of field type. For example, checkbox form fields must be submitted with boolean values; numerical form fields cannot contain alphabetical characters, etc. • Presence of required fields • Values in Select type fields must match the configured list of values • Configured max length of field value is not exceeded • Numerical values fall within the configured minimum and maximum values Submissions to Marketo Engage forms that fail validation will return an error with the offending field highlighted with an error message.    Frequently Asked Questions:   Can my business define its own custom logic for rejecting form submissions based on submitted field values? Unfortunately, not at this time.   Should my business continue to use CAPTCHA, honeypots, or Javascript validation on our forms? We anticipate these enhancements will reduce the need for solutions such as CAPTCHA or honeypots, but they can still serve as an additional layer of security against bots for your forms. Custom Javascript validation will continue to give your business granular control over form field validation on your landing pages and web pages.   Will you block specific IP addresses we commonly see associated with spam? IP addresses on the internet are often dynamic and are recycled by ISPs to be used by multiple devices. Blocking an IP address could result in legitimate visitors unable to fill out your forms. It is also trivial for an attacker to switch to a different IP address or use a distributed network of IP addresses to spam your forms, which makes IP address blocking an ineffective long-term strategy.

What’s changing?  On October 16, 2020, Marketo will deploy new versions of line, bar, column and pie charts throughout the Marketo Engage Application.  This includes all reporting features, as well as data visualizations that appear in the Marketing Activities screen.    How will this change impact customers?  Customer impact will be minimal.  The content of the new visualizations will be identical to that of the previous ones, with some improvements to axis labels and legend positioning to maximize use of the plot area.    Why is this change being made?  The previous visualizations were implemented using Adobe Flash, which will reach its official end-of-life on December 31st, 2020, and as a result the charts needed to be rebuilt using a different charting library.    What customer action is required?  No customer action is required.  The new visualizations will automatically appear in the Marketo application following Marketo’s product release on October 16, 2020. 

What changed?  Operators are used within Filters, Triggers, or Flow Steps to define selection criteria.  The list of operators available for use for a given field depends on the field type (e.g. Integer, String, Date).  A list of field types and their operators can be found here.   In the June 2020 release, we removed both the “is” and “is not” operators for Float field types.  As a result, these two operators are no longer available in filters, triggers, or flow steps that use the Float field.  Filter Trigger Flow Step What didn’t change (yet)?  The “is” and “is not” operators still exist in Marketo Sky, but we will be removing them as soon as possible.  Until these operators are removed, please refrain from selecting them within the Marketo Sky interface.  Otherwise, you run the risk of adversely impacting your campaigns.  Why is this change being made?  Float fields store an approximation of a value, not the literal value.  For example, a float field could store “10.5” as “10.5995485730481245” or something similar.  So "is 10.5" would not qualify.  As a result, comparisons using “is” and “is not” were not consistent.  In some cases, comparisons worked as expected, in others they did not.  To eliminate this ambiguity, we removed these operators as choices.  What action is required?  If you are currently using “is” or “is not” operator for Float field in a filter you must change your filter to use a different operator.  We recommend using either “between” operator.  For example, suppose you are using a filter with “is” operator to match the number “10.5”. To correct, replace ”is” with “between” and supply a range that encloses the number.  In this example we use the range from “10.5” to “10.6” to enclose the number ”10.5”. How can I determine if I am using “is” or “is not” operator with Float field?  1. Gather a list of Float fields using the Marketo REST API.  The Describe endpoint returns a list of all person fields with their data types.  Search the response body for “float” to identify all Float fields in your instance.  2. Identify places where a given field is used by going to Admin > Field Management and searching for the given field name.  Select the field and see “Field Used By” for a list of places where used. What if we don’t take this action?  Since results can be inconsistent, you may not be identifying audiences correctly.  Some persons could be erroneously included or excluded from a campaign or smart list.  In addition, some trigger campaigns could execute or not execute based on an inconsistent comparison.

[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.  

If you have not heard or seen it yet, in the Fall 2016 Release, we were super excited to launch our Content AI (Predictive Content) for Email. This included a revamp of the Content AI App (previously known as Predictive Content).   Content AI is an Application Marketo offers that helps you auto-discover your content, engage your web visitors and email recipients with the most relevant, recommended content powered by machine learning and predictive analytics. See more in Docs here:Predictive Content - Marketo Docs - Product Docs   Here are regular FAQs on Content AI we hear from customers and those interested in the App:   General   Where do I learn more about Predictive Content? Marketo.com Website Product Page: Content AI Recommendations - Marketo Customer Success Story using Content AI : Case Study​ / Webinar Video​ Webinar: Behold the magic of Predictive Content​ Marketing Nation Summit 2016: Predictive Content: Amplify your content through machine learning Request a demo from your Account Manager   How do I find the Content AI App? Is it the same as Web Personalization? Content AI is a paid for stand alone App offered by Marketo. It is a separate product to Web Personalization. If you have purchased the Content AI App, you will see a Content AI icon on your My Marketo page. If you are interested in hearing more about the App, speak to your Account Manager.   Setup   Do I need the RTP Javascript tag to enable Content AI on my website and landing pages? The set up process for Content AI (See Getting Started Docs​) includes adding the RTP Javascript Code onto all pages of your website, including landing pages. This helps us to "listen" to your web activity, to auto-discover your content and display it on your web or email channels as Content AI outputs.   Are there any restrictions on where the content resides? Does that content have to reside in Marketo or can it be in any CMS? The RTP Javascript tag is agnostic to CMS platforms, meaning it works on all types of CMS platforms. Once the tag is on your site, we can discover and track all your content (PDF, embedded video, HTML pages) and use it for Content AI . So, the content does not have to reside on Marketo or Landing Pages or Design Studio. The Content AI part that the marketer prepares based on the discovered content and the part that is shown Predictive on your website or within an email is managed and controlled within the Marketo Content AI App.   Content Discovery   How does Content AI discover my website content? Marketo Content AI "listens" to your website activity, and when any web visitor clicks and views a specific content piece (HTML, PDF, Embedded Video, PPT) on your domain, we capture and discover the content title and content URL and start tracking the content's views and engagements. This  discovered content piece is then displayed under the All Content page. For set up details of Content Discovery see: Getting Started with Predictive Content.   Does the Content AI reporting also show which content has the highest engagement? Yes, the All Content page shows all web content (html pages, videos, pdf, etc...) on your domain that web visitors viewed. These results can be displayed from highest views to lowest.   On the Content AI page, the reporting shows how many web visitors or email recipients clicked on theContent AI piece and can also be sorted to see which was the most engaged piece of Content AI per channel (web or email) or overall.   Tracking Content   How many contacts or content do I need to start using Content AI ? Content AI relates to web content. Content Discovery will find in most cases, we have seen hundreds of content pieces on your domain. The marketer can then go ahead and approve and enable these discovered content pieces for Predictive Content. You can also manually add content pieces to the collection. It is recommend you have 10-15 pieces of content enabled for Predictive (for any channel) to start and keep adding more to this.   Can you create your own Conversion Criteria? We track and display the views on content and also clicks on Content AI . In addition, the metrics we show are conversions (direct and assisted) per content piece, which shows attribution to the content piece in bringing in new People. Conversions: The number of visitors who clicked on recommended content and completed a form in the same visit Assisted Conversion: Visitors who clicked on recommended content in a past visit and completed a form later Currently, you cannot create your own conversion criteria.   Content AI Algorithm   Can you clarify on how the algorithms predict the content? The Content AI algorithms use machine learning and predictive analytics to decide and recommend which pieces of content are relevant for each visitor or email recipient individually. We use a mixture of algorithms that are constantly optimized and improved for best performance and results analyzing clicks and conversions. The algorithms are based on trending, popular content viewed on your website, new pieces of content added to your site, and also takes into account URL paths and user behavior clicks and visits.   Will Content AI show content the visitor or email has already received? There are certain checks and validations in place in order to provide the best experience for the end user receiving Content AI . These include: The Recommendation Bar will not recommend a piece of content the web visitor is currently browsing The Rich Media Recommendation will not show repeat predictive content on the same page and if the user clicks on a piece, we will not recommend the same piece of content they clicked on during that visitor's session. In Predictive Content for Email, a email recipient will not see the same Predictive Content more than once in follow up emails sent with Predictive Content in them.   Does Predictive Content now take into consideration any type of segmentation? So predictive content for segment A versus segment B? No, it is not related to segments, and this would be more of a rule-based style Web Personalization campaign. Instead, Predictive Content takes into account many variables to calculate before producing the Predictive outcome result for each visitor. Predictive Content can also be categorized and shown per category in the Rich Media and Email. See more here: Set Up Categories in Predictive Content   Is the Predictive Content picked at random, or is it based on customer criteria? The Predictive Content is prepared and approved by you. You also select the look and feel of the outcome and where it will appear on your site or in your email body. However, in the end it's the Algorithm that decides which of the approved Predictive Content pieces is best to show the current web visitor or email recipient.   Displaying Predictive Content on Web or Email   What are the Character Limits (Char limits) for predictive content on Web and Email?   Content Name: 255 Chars Bar Title: 110 Chars Rich Media Title: 50 Chars Rich Media Description: 215 Chars Email Title: 50 Chars Button Label: 17 Chars   The char limits are in place in order for the text to fit into the defined styling and look for the bar, rich media and email layout.   Can you see which pieces will be promoted in the email before sending the email? As the marketer, you can prepare and approve the piece of content for each source (email, web). In the end, the Predictive Algorithm decides what the end user will receive. For Predictive in Email, you can preview the layout and category of the Predictive Content, however the Predictive image is not seen until the recipient opens the email, so what you see in the preview is just an example, and will not necessarily be the image the recipient sees. See the process for setting it up and previewing Predictive Content in Email here.​   Can we use only Marketo landing pages, or anything under our company webpage domain? Yes, you can define all html pages, including landing pages, as content pieces to use in predictive. You can also manually add new pieces of content to the application.   Do you recommend Predictive Content for Marketo landing pages? Particularly Thank you pages? Predictive Content for web in the form of the Recommendation Bar or Rich Media is suited for all types of pages. We have customers using rich media on their home page (3 pieces of Predictive Content in horizontal format) below the fold of the home page. We have the Bar running on Blogs or Resources pages. A Thank You page or Thank You email is a great use case to add Predictive Content as these pages or email, usually do not have any call to action, and adding Predictive Content can help create more clicks and engagement by the viewer. You can categorize your predictive content for Rich Media and Email so it would be recommended to show on that Thank You page Predictive Content related to the thank you submission (eg. white paper, case study, webinar, blog post).   Can you alter the code of the predictive content to be flush with a font style/coloring? Predictive Content Rich Media for Web can be styled accordingly with font and colors. See here: http://developers.marketo.com/javascript-api/web-personalization/rich-media-recommendation/​. Predictive Content for Email is a Predictive image generated upon email open, so it is offered as 8 different fixed layouts and the Marketo user selects one. See documentation here: Enable Predictive Content in Emails.   Can you use categories in the "web" or "rec bar" versions like you can in emails? You can use Categories in Rich Media for Web and in Predictive for Emails. Currently, the Recommendation Bar does not support categories. Categories allow you to group your content and present predictive outcomes on web (rich media) or email. For example, you can work only with blogs, or with content in a particular language.