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Included in this article Overview Data you’ll get from Email Bounces Bounce Categories Hard Bounces Soft Bounces Bounce Details Building the Directory 1. Create 6 custom fields 2. Create a Program to house everything 3. Create a Static List 4. Create two Smart Campaigns Smart Campaign One - Logging Email Bounces with Bounce Details Smart Campaign Two - Remove Leads From the List After Successful Deliveries 5. Create Custom List View Showing Bounce Details Overview Bounce activities carry details for why the email was bounced, but it’s housed within the activity log entry, not in a field on the lead record, so it’s difficult to export that data. This article will show you how to extract that information to create a directory of leads bouncing emails and how to make the list automatically update. This will also create counters for bounces and successful re-deliveries after bounces happen. Data you’ll get from Email Bounces Bounce Categories Email bounces come in different types depending on why the email was bounced; Hard Bounces or Soft Bounces. Hard Bounces Hard Bounces come in two types, Category 1 and Category 2. Category 1 bounces are emails that have been marked as spam by the recipient mail server. Many email servers monitor blacklists or spam traps, so after de-listing with them, leads that have had a Category 1 bounce previously may be able to receive emails again. Category 2 bounces occur due to an email address that is invalid or doesn’t exist. Soft Bounces Soft Bounces come in three different types, Categories 3, 4 or 9. Category 3 bounces are usually temporary, caused by full mailboxes, timeouts, or throttling. Any email with this designation has been retried for up to 24 hours (36 for AOL). Category 4 bounces are caused by technical problems, Transient Failures, Admin Failures, DNS Failures. Any email with this designation has been retried for up to 24 hours (36 for AOL). Category 9 bounces are unknown, undetermined or gibberish details. Any email with this designation has been retried for up to 24 hours (36 for AOL). Bounce Details When an email is bounced, the recipient mail server includes details of why it was bounced. These are created by the admin of the recipient mail server and vary greatly, but most will give some explanation that can give valuable information. Email Bounce Codes Building the Directory 1. Create 6 custom fields You’ll need 6 custom fields, two DateTime fields, two Score fields, and two String fields Name the DateTime fields “Bounce Date” and “Email Delivered After Bounce”. Name the Score fields “Email Bounces” and “Deliveries After Bounces” Name the String fields “Email Bounce Details” and “Email Bounce Category” Directions for creating Custom Fields can be found here: Create a Custom Field in Marketo 2. Create a Program to house everything Use a default program type and name it "Directory of Leads Bouncing Emails". Info on creating programs can be found here: Create a Program 3. Create a Static List This static list will be your actual directory that contains all of the leads that are currently bouncing emails. Name it "Active Bounce List". Info on creating a static list can be found here: Create a Static List 4. Create two Smart Campaigns These two Smart Campaigns are what will be used to add and remove leads from your active bounce list. Info on creating Smart Campaigns can be found here: Create a New Smart Campaign Smart Campaign One - Logging Email Bounces with Bounce Details Your first Smart Campaign will be used to listen for any email bounces that occur. The campaign will populate the “Bounce Date”, “Email Bounce Category” and “Email Bounce Details” fields. It will then add one point to the “Email Bounces” score field which can be used to count how many bounces have occurred per lead. Lastly, the campaign will add the lead to the static list which will be an active directory of leads who are bouncing emails. Campaign Smart List Use the two triggers of “Email Bounces” and “Email Bounces Soft” in the Smart List. Set both triggers to “is any” so that they will fire whenever any email bounces for any reason. Campaign Flow The Flow of the campaign will have 5 flow steps. The flow will use a System Token and some Trigger Tokens, which can be used to pull details out of the action that activated the trigger. In this case, the Trigger Tokens will be pulling out the details on why the emails were bounced. That info is in the bounce message and is logged in the lead's activity log. Normally you'd have to comb through the activity log one at a time to find these details for each individual lead. This method, however, will pull the details out automatically for all leads. Flow Step 1: Change Data Value Attribute: “Bounce Date” New Value: {{system.dateTime}} Flow Step 2: Change Data Value. Attribute: “Email Bounce Category” New Value: {{trigger.category}} Flow Step 3: Change Data Value Attribute: “Email Bounce Details” New Value: {{trigger.details}} Flow Step 4: Change Score Score Name: “Email Bounces” Change: +1 Flow Step 5: Add to List List Name: “Active Bounce List” Smart Campaign Two - Remove Leads From the List After Successful Deliveries Campaign Smart List The Smart List of the campaign will need a trigger for “Email is Delivered” set to “is any” and also a filter of “Member of List” looking just for leads that belong to your Static List. This way, the campaign will only apply to leads who have had an email bounce but have then had an email successfully delivered afterwards. Campaign Flow The Flow of the campaign will have 3 flow steps to do the following; log when the email was delivered, add a point to the "Deliveries After Bounce" Score Field, and remove the lead from the "Active Bounce List". Flow Step 1: Change Data Value Attribute: “Email Delivered After Bounce” New Value: {{system.dateTime}} Flow Step 2: Change Score Score Name: “Deliveries After Bounces” Change: +1 Flow Step 3: Remove from List List Name: Operational.Active Bounce List 5. Create Custom List View Showing Bounce Details The custom fields you’ve created for email bounce information won’t show automatically in the view of your list. You can create a new view of the list to show just this information so that when it is exported it will give you only the email bounce information you need. Once the list has the necessary details, it can be exported with those columns included so that you can work with it. You can identify emerging trends and issues with your deliverability by looking for common themes among the bounce details. Directions for creating Custom Views can be found here

Featured article

(Article Updated - August 2024) Overview A blocklist is a database of IP addresses or domains that have been associated with the sending of unsolicited commercial email or spam. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and business email networks use information from blocklists to filter out unwanted email. As a result there can be a drop to inbox delivery rates if the IPs or domains involved with sending email are listed on a blocklist. Marketo’s Email Delivery and Compliance team monitors blocklist activity on our IPs and domains daily. When an impactful listing occurs, we reach out to the blocklist, attempt to identify the sender that triggered it, and work with the blocklist organization to get the listing resolved. There are thousands of blocklists, most will not have a significant impact on your delivery rates. Below, we have compiled a list of the blocklists that commonly appear across our sender ecosystem. Each blocklist has been grouped into a top tier (Tier I) by most impactful, to the bottom least impactful tier (Tier III). These may have little to no impact across our sender network. Tier I Blocklist Spamhaus (SBL) Impact: Spamhaus is the only blocklist that we categorize as a Tier I for a reason: it has by far the greatest impact on delivery. It is the most well-respected and widely used blocklist in the world. A listing at Spamhaus will have a negative effect on your ability to deliver emails to your customer’s inbox and can cause bounce rates of over 50%. Evidence suggests that most of the top North American ISPs use Spamhaus to inform blocking decisions. How it works: Unlike many blocklists, Spamhaus lists senders manually. This means they are proactively watching sender activity, collecting data, and base listings on a number of variables. Most commonly senders are listed for mailing to spam trap addresses that Spamhaus owns. Sometimes Spamhaus will list senders based on recipient feedback as well. Next Steps: Please note that every Spamhaus email can be quite different depending on the information provided and the nature of the listing . Because Spamhaus has multiple types of listings, the remediation steps are based on which type of blocklisting has occurred. We have listed the most common types to affect Marketo customers, from most to least impactful. Impact can range from a full block of top severity, to a partial block that is less severe (CSS Data, DBL). If remediation isn’t performed and the problem not addressed, these listings can increase in severity and turn into a full blocklisting. Spamhaus Blocklistings Types SBL (full blocklisting) Considered the most impactful. Remediation steps: Our team monitors closely for Spamhaus listings. Once alerted to the listing, we send an email notifying the customer, and reach out to the Spamhaus contact to start the remediation process. Only a Marketo delivery team member should be in direct correspondence with the Spamhaus contact, to speak on behalf of the customer, and to relay their questions and instructions, ensuring quick resolution and reduced impact. Senders that trigger this listing on a shared IP range will be moved to a more isolated, penalty range (IPB), so as not to impact the other shared senders. Those affected on a Dedicated IP, only impact their own sending and will not be moved. However, depending on the severity of the issue, our team may need to revoke a customer’s ability to send any emails until full resolution. The listing will last until Spamhaus is satisfied that the offending sender has taken the appropriate steps to mitigate the problem. SBL CSS Customers are alerted of the listing with an email containing all the information needed to immediately begin the remediation process. This is part of an automated trigger listing, that allows for a customer to delist directly on the Spamhaus website, after they’ve completed remediation. Remediation steps: Customers will go to the Spamhaus IP lookup website, at https://check.spamhaus.org, where they can check on the status of their IP and continue to monitor it in real time, until it is no longer listed there. Follow the remediation and delisting instructions provided, and check for specific details in the blocklist notification email. DBL (Domain blocklisting) Customers will receive an email notification alerting of the company domain being listed. The email will contain specific information to help narrow down and identify which email source likely triggered it within Marketo. It’s important to note that any email sent from outside of Marketo, that contained the company domain, is suspect. This means, if the sender uses multiple IPs and/multiple email platforms, then any of those could be the source. Remediation steps: Follow the detailed instructions in the email, which will also provide a link to the Spamhaus Domain reputation checker webpage, to check the real time listing status of the affected domain. Once the email source is identified and cause addressed, this customer will follow the online instructions to request to be delisted. Tier II Blocklist SpamCop Impact: SpamCop is not used by any of the major North American ISPs to inform blocking decisions, but it makes it to the Tier II list because it can have a significant impact on B2B email campaigns. SpamCop is considered a Tier I one blocklist for B2B marketers but a Tier II for B2C marketers. SpamCop is a dynamic IP blocklist, that can affect a single IP or a subset of IPs Typically, the block will automatically lift within one business day, but can take longer for relisted IPs. To have triggered a SpamCop listing likely means the sender has a list management problem that should be addressed. How it works: SpamCop lists IPs for one of two reasons: Either the email hit SpamCop spam trap addresses OR A SpamCop user has reported the email unwanted. Most of SpamCop’s spam traps are previously valid addresses that have not been active for 12 months or longer. Remediation steps: If you are seeing a significant number of bouncing emails caused by a SpamCop blocked IP but aren’t sure if your email activity triggered the listing, first identify whether you are sending on a shared sender network or not. If sending from a shared IP range when this occurs, you or any other customer sending from the same network may have contributed to the IP block. This IP block will automatically get dropped within a business day. For those on a Dedicated IP that trigger a listing, refer to the above remediation steps and resources, to address the list management issue. Tier III Blocklist (Low/ No impact ) These are considered the lowest tier and therefore cause the least impact across the Marketo sender ecosystem. Some of these blocklists were more impactful at one time, while others are only impactful based on the sender region (Manitu). Others still can suddenly flare up (Lashback). There are also many blocklists that are ignored (0spam), and are not taken seriously because they do not provide any means to delist once on the list (NoSolicitado) or that they charge money to have the listing removed ( UCEPROTECT ). The pay-to-delist model is not well respected in the email industry. When using blocklist tool checkers, such as MXToolBox, many blocklists will appear, but very few are relevant. Here is our selection of Blocklists you may come across that are least impactful: Project Honey Pot SpamAssassin URIBL/SURBL DrMX PSBL 0spam HostKarma Ascams ZapBL Barracuda Trendmicro Inc. Cloudmark Proofpoint Invaluement ISP Blocklists Some ISPs use internal blocklists to make blocking decisions. Examples include AOL, Yahoo, Gmail, Outlook and Hotmail. If your IP is being blocked by one of these networks, and those networks have a large presence in your lists, a block of this kind could have a noticeable negative impact on delivery. Marketo monitors for significant ISP blocks. Those experiencing deliverability issues with emails not making it to the Inbox and bulking in the spam folder may benefit from additional services with our Email Delivery Consultants. Remediation Steps: Email Delivery Compliance Team works to resolve any ISP blocks. ISP blocks are are usually resolved or lifted within less than 24 hours of a delisting request. Customers experiencing significant blocks for Microsoft domains (outlook.com, live.com, microsoft.com), can submit a request to the delivery team to seek mitigation on their behalf. Additional Resources: Blocklist Deep Dive Abuse Report Deep Dive What is a spamtrap, or spam trap, and why does it matter? Blocklist remediation Blocklist resolution flowchart Successful lead reconfirmation What is a blocklist?

Issue You created a picklist field in SFDC and want to know if that field will sync down to Marketo with the field type of picklist. Solution Marketo has a picklist option in form fields, but not in Lead Database fields. When you sync a field from SFDC that has the type of picklist, this field will show in Marketo with a type of String. However, when you create a form, the field type for your field will show as "select," which is a picklist.

Issue You have been sending live emails (non-samples) to yourself or colleagues to test functionality of an upcoming email blast, and even though you may be opening the email, you are not seeing the open email activity on the Lead Activity Log. Solution Note that there may be a slight delay between opening the email, and the activity displaying on the Log. Marketo considers an "open" to be when the images in the email are downloaded, specifically a single-pixel tracking image. The recipient may be receiving the emails and viewing them, but not downloading the images. This would not count as an "open." Please note that since text-only emails have no images, so they will never log an Open activity. If the images are being downloaded, and you are still not seeing the activity after about 5 minutes, check to make sure there are no duplicate leads that are logging the activity instead. If you need further assistance, please contact Marketo Support.

Issue Updating an Email Template is creating a draft for existing emails without the desired changes Solution When changes are made to an Email Template in the Design Studio that is already in use and those changes are approved, it will create a Draft for any existing Email that was created from that Template. If the draft is not reflecting changes you would like to see made, you may have included the changes within a mktEditable or Editable class <div> tag. The content within a mktEditable class element within an email template are ignored from any changes as they are considered to be "default content". Any content within these elements will not see any changes made to them based on changes to the template, and will only be seen when creating a new Email asset. You can update an editable section to remove it's editable status, however this will remove any changes to the content done in any email. You can see which elements can be classified as Editable here: https://docs.marketo.com/display/public/DOCS/Email+Template+Syntax

Issue Is there a way to prevent opening a new browser window when a mailto/email address link in an email is clicked? Solution The reason why the link clicked in an email redirects to a new browser window occurs is because the link is a tracked link. As per design of Marketo tracked links, they are required to be loaded in a browser first which is why the mailtolink/email address clicked is loading in the browser first. If you wish to load the link clicked in the same window and not redirect to a new browser window, you will need to disable tracking on the link. https://docs.marketo.com/display/public/DOCS/Disable+Tracking+for+an+Email+Link

Issue No data appears in the Email Performance Report (configured for a specific time frame) even though emails have been sent to the leads. Solution The reason why the leads who were sent the email do not appear in the email performance report configured for a specific time frame is because the Sent Date filter is based on the first date that the email was sent to a given lead. Email Performance Peports only show data for the first time an email was sent. If you send the same email multiple times to the same leads, reports intended for later sends will not include leads who first received the email outside of the report's time frame. Apart from that, it is also worth to check if the email performance report has any additional smart list filters that the leads may not qualify for.

Issue Email Link Performance report on the same email shows more clicks compared to clicks in the Email Performance Report. Solution Email Performance Report clicks shows the total number of leads who has clicked any link in that email. This count is independent of any links and how many times a lead has clicked any link on that email. Email Link Performance shows the number of unique people who clicked each link. It shows the number of leads who clicked that particular link. The same lead could’ve clicked another link. So in the total it would be counted as 2 leads in the report but in reality both are same leads. This is the reason why you see Email Link Performance report shows more clicks compared to clicks in the Email Performance Report

Issue How do you delete the data in Marketo Custom Object records, or in specific fields on the custom object if the the custom objects have already been created and approved? Solution Marketo Custom Objects are not accessible via the User-Interface. API calls must be utilized in order to delete this record data. You can delete the records via the 'Delete Custom Objects' call Delete Custom Objects If you are interested in extracting any of the existing data, you can use the following GET call. You will need to make a 'Get Custom Objects' call Edit Custom Objects Here is an additional resource that may be useful and relevant List Custom Objects

Issue Admin > Sales Insight > Licensed Seats displays the number of seats used in the last 30 days. How is this calculated? Solution The number of seats used is calculated by the number of unique SFDC users that have loaded either the Sales Insight panel on a Lead/Contact/Account/Opportunity page layout or accessed the Marketo tab in the past 30 days. Who This Solution Applies To Customers with Sales Insight for Salesforce

Issue Lead didn’t fill out the unsubscribe form but the unsubscribed reason states that “Customer complaint received from ISP” Solution There is an arrangement between an email sender and an Internet Service Providers (ISPs) called a feedback loop. When the lead marks your email as spam, this loop allows the email sender to notify the email sender (Marketo) that they have marked it as spam. Marketo automatically changes the value of the field “unsubscribed” to “True” and the unsubscribed cause as "Customer complaint received from ISP" for the lead. You can learn more about feedback loops in the below document. Feedback Loops (FBL)

Issue You need to revert a data value change for a field on multiple leads. Solution There is no way through the UI to "undo" a data value change (unless it was a boolean field, in which case there are only two possible values.) You can certainly use a Smart List to identify whose values have changed, but there no way to go back to the old value (unless it's stored elsewhere in another field or through another data store, along with the API). However, you can use the API to extract the data value change activity from the activity log, which would include the old and new values, extract the original values, then use the API to rewrite the old values back to the lead record. http://developers.marketo.com/rest-api/lead-database/activities/#data_value_changes

Issue You receive the below sync error notification which states "CANNOT_INSERT_UPDATE_ACTIVATE_ENTITY: [process/workflow name]: System.LimitException: Apex CPU time limit exceeded" Solution The error means that you have one or more triggers running when the leads are inserted that consume too much CPU time. You are hitting what are called SFDC Governor limits. This is really something you need to review with your SFDC admins and developers. Consider moving some workflows from Triggers (synchronous) to batches (asynchronous).

Issue You create a new field on the Lead and Contact objects in SFDC and two fields are created in Marketo, one mapped to Lead and the other mapped to Contact. Solution You will see this behavior if the an SFDC field is created on two objects across more than one sync cycle, one before a sync cycle starts and the other one during or after the sync cycle completes. To ensure both the lead and contact show up mapped to the same custom field Marketo, do the following Disable the global sync in Marketo. (Admin > Salesforce) Create the field on your desired objects in SFDC. Make sure they both have the same API name. Re-enable the global sync in Marketo, allowing the field in both objects to sync down to Marketo at the same time. If you find yourself with multiple fields in Marketo after the sync, contact Marketo Support to have the fields merged or remapped as necessary.

Issue Issue Description Even though the Success Path Analyzer and the RCE report may be looking at the same thing (e.g the conversions from one stage to another), the numbers in Success Path Analyzer and RCE Conversion Ratio will not match. Solution Issue Resolution Success Path Analyzer is telling you that records are flowing from one stage to another, for example a record moving from Cold List to MQL, the conversion rate will display the rate from this stage to the next stage. If you look at the RCE Conversion Ratio, this is not tracking just the conversion from the first stage on the Success Path Analyzer to the second but instead this tracks all the conversions from this stage to another (eg. Cold List to MQL, Cold List to Attempting). Thus resulting in a much higher conversion percentage as the RCE is not bound to the green path from the Success Path Analyzer. Who This Solution Applies To Customers using RCE, Customers using Success Path Analyzer

Issue You would like to have a list of leads who will get blocked from receiving emails when you send email via campaign or program due to Communication Limits. Your Communication Limit setup can be found in the Admin Panel and looks something like this. This is a article attached image Solution You can create a Smart List with the below setup and this list will show you the list of the people who will hit communication limit when you try to send an email. This is a article attached image To learn more about Communication Limits and how they work, you can review this article.

Issue You want to use Slack with webhooks to be able to customize the integration a bit more than using it as a Launchpoint service. Solution We will assume you have already created your App within the Slack API page we will cover everything after that here. 1) Make sure you are logged in so you can access your App through the Slack API page. 2) Select your App: 3) From here you will want to select the "Incoming Webhooks" from underneath "Features": 4) Use the on/off toggle to the right of the title "Activate Incoming Webhooks" 5) Select the "Add New Webhook to Workspace" button to create a new URL that we will use for our webhook within Marketo: 6) Select where you want to post, either at a specific user or channel: 7) Now we are directed back to the page we were one, hit the copy button next to the Webhook URL to copy the URL as we will need it for a later step. 😎 Login to your Marketo instance and navigate to the Admin section. 9) Select Webhooks 10) Select Create Webhook. For the following fields assign the appropriate values: Webhook Name* = What ever you want to name Description = A description of what the webhook is used for URL* = Here is where we paste the URL we copied before Request Type* = POST Template = This is the information you want to send to your slack channel/user It should in the following format: payload={"text": "DEVELOPER SITE ALERT: {{lead.First Name:default=edit me}} {{lead.Company:default=edit me}}, {{lead.Email Address:default=no email address}}" } Request Encoding Token = None (You can change this if you want) Response Type = None 11) Click create and now we are ready to call our webhook and send necessary data to our users in Slack!

Issue Description How do the links (both Marketo and Non-Marketo) populate in the dropdown of Visited Web Page trigger or filter? Issue Resolution These links are fetched from any of your leads' activity logs. The values in the dropdown of the "Visited Web Page" will show if there is any lead who visited a webpage and this webpage or link is stored in the activity log of the email (may be in past). It the expected webpage doesn't show up in the dropdown list, then none of the leads have visited that page at least once. You can create a test lead for yourself, visit the desired webpage to get this added in the dropdown.

Issue You receive the error "Failed: cannot retrieve values for sfdc id" when trying to sync a record between Salesforce and Marketo. Solution You can get this error message if the lead owner associated to the lead is not visible to the Marketo sync user. To troubleshoot this issue, do the following" Log into Salesforce using the Marketo sync user listed in Admin > Salesforce Confirm the record is visible to the Marketo sync user. Confirm the lead owner associated with the record is visible to the Marketo sync user. If the lead owner is not visible to the Marketo sync user, work with your SFDC Admin to allow the sync user to see it, or change the lead owner to something that is visible to Marketo. Once this is done, try the sync again.

Issue While going through the steps of this doc - Create a Custom Field for CRM Discovery - step 3 asks you to choose "Named Account" as the object for the field to be created on. Sometimes, that "Object" option is not available when creating a custom field. Solution The ability to select the Named Account object for a new field to be created on is a feature that must be enabled for your Marketo instance. If you come across this issue, simply submit a support case requesting that the "ABM Custom Fields" feature be enabled in your instance. Who This Solution Applies To Customers with Account Based Marketing

Issue Description You want to prevent a situation where you create or sync a new field on the Lead and Contact objects in SFDC and two fields are created in Marketo, one mapped to Lead and the other mapped to Contact. Issue Resolution You will see this behavior if the an SFDC field is created on two objects across more than one sync cycle, one before a sync cycle starts and the other one during or after the sync cycle completes. To ensure both the lead and contact show up mapped to the same custom field Marketo, do the following Disable the global sync in Marketo. (Admin > Salesforce) Create the field on your desired objects in SFDC. Make sure they both have the same API name. Re-enable the global sync in Marketo, allowing the field in both objects to sync down to Marketo at the same time. If you find yourself with multiple fields in Marketo after the sync, contact Marketo Support to have the fields merged or remapped as necessary. Who This Solution Applies To Customers integrated with Salesforce

Knowledgebase

Maintaining a Directory of Leads Bouncing Emails

Top Blocklists - What You Need to Know

Picklist Field Type in SFDC and Marketo

Marketo Does Not See an "Opened Email" Activity

Email Template Updates Not Reflected in Existing Emails

Mailto Link Clicked in Email Opening New Browser Window

Email Performance Report Returns No Data

Email Performance Report and Email Link Performance Report Showing Different Click Counts

Deleting Marketo Custom Object Record Data

How ‘Seats Used’ Is Calculated for SFDC Sales Insight

Email Unsubscribed Reason ‘Customer Complaint Received from ISP’

How to Revert Data Value Changes

SFDC Sync Error “LimitException: Apex CPU Time Limit Exceeded”

Moving Design Studio Assets to a New Instance

Creating a New Field in SFDC Creates Two Fields in Marketo

Success Path Analyzer Conv % vs RCE Conversion Ratio (all types)

Identify Leads That Have Reached Their Communication Limit

Creating Slack Notifications using Webhooks

Links/URL showing in Visited web page trigger

Syncing Record to SFDC Fails With Error Cannot Retrieve Values For SFDC ID

Unable to Select an Object When Creating an ABM Custom Field

Prevent a Newly-Synced Field in SFDC From Creating Two Fields in Marketo