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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 have a Marketo form embedded on a non-Marketo page. When you open developer tools in your browser you see: "Error loading form: Object error: true errorCode: 400 message: "Subscriber <Your Munchkin ID> is not valid" " Solution The form embed code you are using is looking for your instance in the wrong place. Check the URL when you first log in to Marketo, make sure the sub domain in that URL matches what is in your embed code. For example: If you see app-sjst.marketo.com/ then make sure you have that same "app-sjst" in your embed code. Please note: This may vary between your sandbox and production instances.

Issue Additional domains or subdomains need to be configured for Web Personalization (RTP). Solution If you want to add a new domain, check your subscription or contract to see how many additional domains are included. Your Customer Success Manager should be able to provide this information If not all entitled domains are configured in Marketo, reach out to support to add the domain(s) If all entitled domains are configured in Marketo, reach out to your Customer Success Manager to purchase more. If you wish to add a subdomain, reach out to support as additional subdomains do not incur a cost.

Issue You want to measure who clicks a specific link that uses a query string from a landing page, but when you try to use this logic in a smart campaign or smart list, it tells you the URL can’t be found, even though you can see the URL embedded on the landing page. Solution If you are using the link "marketo.com/company/contact/?firstname=test", then you need to seperate the url into the link and the query string. The root domain (Link in the filter/trigger) will be marketo.com/company/contact/ and the query string (from Add Constraint dropdown) will be firstname=test. This will allow you to correctly track the links you are wanting. Make sure that you have the correct Web Page associated as a constraint as well. This is a article attached image This is a article attached image For a better understanding of what query strings are, they are the parameters that are preceded by the "?" in the url. Detailed Doc :- on UTMs and Query string parameters :- Tracking Lead Sources Using UTM Parameters

Issue You've been using Marketo for a while and have started noticing that Smart Lists take longer to process than before. There are multiple filters in your Smart List ranging from really specific attributes about a person to really broad geographical information. Solution The best performance will come when you order the smart list filters from most restrictive to least restrictive. Since your entire database is checked against the first filter, if we can narrow down the number of leads which move on to the next, there are fewer and fewer leads who qualify for each of the subsequent filters. Many times, the processing difference will be minimal. However, as your database grows, the penalty on efficiency can grow over time. If you haven't checked it out already, take a peek over at our product documentation for smart list best practices: https://docs.marketo.com/display/public/DOCS/Best+Practices+for+Smart+Lists

Issue Are Smart List filters that accept text values case-sensitive (e.g. First Name, Last Name)? Solution Smart list filters are NOT case-sensitive. For example: If you use the smart list filter 'First Name is John', it will return leads with First Name 'John' or 'john' with a lower case 'j' Vice versa: If you use the smart list filter 'First Name is john', it will return leads with First Name 'john' or 'John' with an upper case 'j'

Issue Can Interesting Moments and Web Activity be written on the Account object in SalesForce? Solution Marketo does not have permissions or capabilities to write to the account object. Marketo can only write data to the Contact or Lead Object in SalesForce. If you want to have that data recorded on the Account object, you would be able to setup a custom SalesForce work flow to add that data to a field or as an activity in SalesForce. This data will not be usable or recognized by sales insight however.

Issue REST API call, Get Lead Activities, is returning 603 error Solution Error 603 refers to 'access denied' where authentication is successful but the user doesn’t have sufficient permission to call this API. Additional permissions may need to be assigned to the user role. http://developers.marketo.com/rest-api/error-codes/ Go to Admin > Users and Roles Select API User and identify what role it is assigned to (e.g. API role) Go to Roles and check the permissions assigned to the API role Check to see if the API role has 'Read-Only Activity' or 'Read-Write Activity' permission In order to make a Get Lead Activities REST API call with the API user, the API role of the user must be modified to have permissions to 'Read-Only Activity' or 'Read-Write Activity'. If you use Workspaces and Partitions, make sure the API User has the necessary access to the workspaces/partitions being called.

Issue How do the links (both Marketo and Non-Marketo) populate in the dropdown of Visited Web Page trigger or filter? Solution The drop-down shows a limited number of options. 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). If the expected webpage doesn't show up in the dropdown list, first try typing it in and letting the autocomplete offer the URL. If you type it in and it still doesn't show as an option, then none of the leads have visited that page at least once. You can create a test lead for yourself and visit the desired webpage to get this added in the dropdown.

Issue How to re-subscribe records who are already unsubscribed. Solution Once the person is willing to resubscribe to receive your emails, either of the following can be done: Smart Campaign: Change Data Value of "unsubscribed" to false.You can either use a Smart Campaign to execute this flow or can just go with single flow action ( select the lead, Person actions > Marketing > Change Data value; Attribute: Unsubscribed, New Value: False.) You can manually change unsubscribe from True to False. To do this, go to Lead database, click on the lead ( whom you need to unsubscribe), go to lead Info tab, look for unsubscribe field , remove the tick or check off the unsubscribe field checkbox.

Issue The Results tab of a Smart Campaign with a filter for 'Send Email' is has more entries than the Send Email count on the Email Performance Report. Solution Page through the results as some Send Email activities will be 'Skipped Lead/Person already used up Daily/Weekly communication limit.' Also, if some of the leads were sent the same email previously, outside the time frame of the report, they will not be included because they report only looks at the first time any given email was sent to a lead. Subsequent sends of the same email will not be included in the report.

Issue The webhook error type "The remote server's SSL certificate or SSH fingerprint was rejected" occurs when the SSL certificate is being used on the main domain and not Sub-domains. Solution Check the URL in Admin > Webhooks Click on the webhook in the right corner. For example, if the URL is, onlineservices.test.marketo.com, the certificate needs to be valid on *.test.marketo.com and not just *.Marketo.com. Check this by verifying the certificate on "sslshopper.com" and all the certificates will be listed as Subject Alternative Name's if the certificate is valid on the sub-domains. For example: For Google.com "sslshopper.com/ssl-checker.html#hostname=google.com", the certificate is valid on *.Google.com as well as all the subdomains as listed in SAN's.

Issue Salesforce is going to change your instance sub-domain from NA#1.salesforce.com to NA#2.salesforce.com. What measures should you take in order to make sure that our sync works? Solution Marketo accesses SFDC with the API login endpoint, so a change in the login domain that you use would not affect the Sync user. Marketo and SFDC sync should continue to work irrespective what domain SFDC belongs to. If a change happened to SFDC that affected the sync user, such as its credentials or the SFDC OrgID changed, then Marketo would need to be updated If there is an issue with your sync after updating the SFDC domain, try the following to resolve the issuce. Change your SFDC Sync User's password. Issue a new security token. Re-enter the credentials within Marketo Admin >Salesforce. If it doesnt resolve the sync issue, contact Marketo support and they will be able to help you out.

Issue In the Landing Page Performance reports, what do the Conversion and New Name columns refer to? Solution Conversions and Conversion % in the Landing Page Performance report reflect the number of times someone filled out a form. This conversion rate counts one per form fill-out. New Names are leads that were converted by that landing page and who were previously either anonymous or did not exist in your lead database before filling out the form on a give landing page.

Issue You may notice this permission error "You do not have sufficient privileges to perform this action" when previewing an email even though the user role has permission to access the emails. Solution This can happen when the user role didn't have any access to the lead database as shown in the picture. This is a article attached image The user role needs the top-level access to the Lead Database(1 of 15). This is because the email previewer allows one to view the asset as if you were a specific lead, but if you can't see the leads, then the error will trigger. To fix this issue, you would need to provide the user role with top-level access to the lead database.

Issue A landing page is taking a significant time to load. Solution The load time of a landing page is generally due to resources that have a large file size or due to third-party scripts. This can be identified by using tools like https://tools.pingdom.com/ that breaks down the loading time of individual resources and scripts within a landing page. Another way to inspect the loading time of resources and scripts within a landing page is using the network feature of the developer tools in Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari or any other web browser: https://developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome-devtools/network-performance/reference https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Network_Monitor https://developer.apple.com/safari/tools/

Issue When using the Filter 'Member of SFDC Campaign' in the Smart List and checking the people tab to see which records are qualified, this message occurs: Could not evaluate rule 1 (SFDC Campaign 'Campaign Name' not found) Note: it may state could not evaluate rule # - # can be any number, if the filter is number 5. # will equal 5 Solution The Fix Ensure the that the SFDC Campaign being referenced in the Smart List is an ACTIVE campaign The Why This error occurs due to the SFDC Campaign not being an active campaign in SFDC. You may be wondering "Then why can I select the SFDC campaign in the drop down?" This is because the Smart List Filter specifically 'Member of SFDC Campaign' similar to 'Has Opportunity' filter reference a backend table in Marketo. This backend table is updated when a SFDC Campaign is removed or renamed. Therefore, Marketo does not directly perform an API call to check if the campaign is selectable, but rather uses the backend table as reference. One way to check in Marketo if the SFDC Campaign is active is to check the 'Added to SFDC Campaign' Trigger in a Smart Campaign's Smart List as that dropdown will only show active campaigns.

Issue You would like to use the 'SFDC Oppty Campaign ID' as a constraint for the Smart List filters ' Has Opportunity' and 'Opportunity was Updated', however, it does not appear as an option. Solution By system design, there are some opportunity fields such as 'SFDC Oppty Campaign ID' that are restricted and cannot be made visible in Marketo as a constraint or filter. One workaround is to create a custom field in Salesforce on the Opportunity object that holds the same value as the 'SFDC Optty Campaign ID' field. As a result, this field will appear in Field Management and become visible as a smart list constraint or filter in Marketo. If you would like to implement this, reach out to your SFDC admin.

Issue Google Adwords gives the error message " This Google AdWords account is already connected to Marketo and can only be used once. Revoke access in your Google account settings and try again." Solution 1. Click on the Gear Menu in Adwords and Click on "Account Access" tab under account settings. 2. Under Actions menu, Select "Edit Google accounts info" for the Adwords user credentials used in Marketo 3. That will bring up a separate page - myaccount.google.com. 4. In the "Sign-in & security" page there's a "Connected apps & sites" section that lists all of the apps connected to the account - one of them should be Marketo. 5. Clicking the "Manage Apps" link should bring up a list of apps, and clicking on the Marketo app should give you the option to Remove. 6. Once removed, you should be able to reauthorize the account in Marketo.

Issue After the campaign is run for deleting leads, the result tab shows as "No activities found". Solution Whenever a lead is deleted using a Smart Campaign, the results tab will not show the list of leads that got deleted as they are not available in the database anymore. However, with the help of "Run History" tab you will be able to see the number of the leads that got deleted. Once the campaign is run and the "Delete Person" flow step is executed, the lead will be deleted immediately from the Marketo database.

Knowledgebase

Maintaining a Directory of Leads Bouncing Emails

Top Blocklists - What You Need to Know

Embedded Forms Console Error: Subscriber '<Munchkin ID>' is not valid

Configuring Additional Domains or Subdomains in Web Personalization (RTP)

URL Not Appearing on Filter for Smart Campaign or Smart List

Does the Order of Smart List Filters Matter?

Smart List Filters Case-Sensitivity

Interesting Moments and Web Activity on the Account Object in SalesForce

REST API Call Is Returning 603 Error

Links/URL Showing in Visited Web Page Trigger Drop-Down

How to Re-subscribe a Lead

Email Performance Report Send Count Is Lower than the Campaign Results for Send Email

Unknown User Makes Large Amount of Edits in Audit Trail

Webhook Error: SSL: Certificate Subject Name Does Not Match Target Host Name

Change in SFDC Instance Domain

Conversion and New Name Columns in Landing Page Performance Report

Permission Error When Previewing Email

Landing Page Loading Time Too Long

Smart List Error – Could Not Evaluate Rule 1 (SFDC Campaign ‘Campaign Name’ Not Found)

“Opportunity Campaign ID” Field Not Available in Smart List Filter Constraint Options

Google Adwords Error - This Google AdWords account is already connected to Marketo

Delete Leads Smart Campaign Showing No Results