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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

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(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 Tokens in form-triggered emails are not populating values when a new lead comes in through form fill out. Solution For the token to populate, the associated Marketo field shouldn't be empty and it must hold a value that will be passed to the token. It takes a small amount of time for the form to write the value to the lead record and it my not write all the info before the triggered email is sent. In case of new leads, using a wait step as the first flow step (before send email flow step) will be helpful. This will leave some time for the fields get their value filled from the form fillout. Once the fields have the value, the associated token will populate correctly during the email send.

Issue You receive the following notification: The user you have authorized for you Facebook Lead Ads Launchpoint Service may have Insufficient Permissions. Solution Visit the Facebook help center to validate that the authorized user has all administrative permissions to both your company page and advertising account. If authorized user has all administrative permissions, please contact Marketo Support for further investigation

Issue You want to set a field such as "Country" to be required on a list import. Solution You cannot require a field to be included on a list import. To see any leads imported recently with blank values you can setup a Smart List with a subscription Filters -- Lead was created Source Type - Import [Field you are wanting to watch] is Empty You could setup a daily subscription to get the leads who qualify and then correct those leads as needed.

Issue When we delete the static lists from a program after a period of time, will the leads they contain no longer be member of the program? Solution The individuals should still be a member unless you change their membership status to remove them. Remember lists are simply collections of individuals so you can easily process or associate them, they don't automatically get "membership" unless you had corresponding flow steps that you used when putting them on the list.

Issue When using a Change Data Value flow step for a datetime field type and manually entering in a date and time, the time is displayed, but removed from flow step upon refresh. Solution The reason that the time is removed is because the display field in the flow step is a calendar picker (the drop-down). Calendar pickers do not support displaying the time. It is meant to select a date on the calendar and display that date. It appears to store the value to the record when manually entered in the field, but it will not remain upon campaign refresh.

Issue You may notice that there may be a block in SFDC that stops syncing unsubscribes from Marketo to SFDC. After fixing the block in SFDC the new unsubscribes will sync as expected. Here is how to get all the unsubscribes that happened before this fix to sync into SFDC. Solution You would need to set up a campaign to reset the field value. Smart list: Unsubscribed = true Flow: Change data value "unsubscribed" -> False Change data value "unsubscribed" -> True That would take everyone who is currently unsubscribed, switch to false and then back to true. That should cause the true value to sync up to SFDC for all of those records. However, make sure you do this at a time when you are absolutely positive there are no email campaigns going out.

Issue Communication Failure is displayed when trying to swap an image in a section of the email. Solution This is known to occur when the email contains a significant amount of elements configured with dynamic content. These elements refer to subject, hero-banner, cta-button, etc. For example, for an email that contains 10 elements with 50 segments (used for dynamic content), there are at least 500 versions (i.e. 10 elements multiplied by 50 segments) of the email that need to be updated when an element is updated (e.g. swapping an image) In order to avoid the communication failure or be able to swap an image, try reducing the number of elements configured with dynamic content (i.e. make some elements static where possible.)

Issue "Currency" type fields are rounding off their value. For example, if you enter the value as 8092384905, Marketo is automatically rounding it to 809239000. Solution This is an expected behavior. TThe currency field type in MySQL is considered to be a Float field and MySQL will automatically round the values in our current database structure. As a work around for this, change the field type to "string" . Since standard fields type cannot be changed, we suggest that you create a new custom field of type "String" to use instead of the standard field..

Issue Why is the number of records shown in the Opportunity Analysis report in Revenue Explorer different from the number of records shown in a Smart List with the same filters? (e.g. 100 records in Opportunity Analysis vs. 200 records in smart list) Why are some records in the Smart List that do not appear in the Opportunity Analysis report? Solution The attribution settings are set up to report on "Explicit: Only contacts with roles (default)" This means, the records in a Smart List that do not appear in the Opportunity Analysis Report in RCA are contacts without roles.

Issue Sometimes there can be a circumstance where a text token should hold null value. Since the token must contain a value, you need to insert a value that will display as empty when the token is rendered. Solution Adding a HTML comment to the on the Text {{my.token}} side would work.  If you're just plopping the token into your HTML, this will be fine. If you're embedding it in Javascript then you can still check for that specific value, it just won't be "magic": if ( "{{my.token}}" != "" ) { // it's not empty }

Issue Email Insights does not display any data or metrics for a specific program when the emails in the program are operational. Solution Operational emails are hidden by default, so no data or metrics will be shown in Email Insights unless 'Operational Emails' are included "Does Email Insights support Operational emails? Yes. By default, Operational emails are hidden from view and querying. However, you may change this setting under the Personal Settings panel." https://docs.marketo.com/display/public/DOCS/Email+Insights+FAQ

Issue You would like to pull a report of all the non-marketable records that you have in Marketo. Solution You can do this via a Smart List: Use the Any filter in the Smart List. Filters: Block Listed = true Unsubscribed = true Marketing Suspended = true Email Invalid = true Email Address is empty This Smart List will pull all the people that fall into the blocked leads list. You can also add a view in which you can add above mentioned columns to the smart list which will give a view if a record is block listed /unsubscribed etc. Reference Doc :- Create and Change Views for Lists and Smart List

Issue Sometimes, you may notice that editing the text version also affects the HTML version of the email. Is there a way to edit the text version without the same edits occurring to the HTML version? Solution Changes to TEXT never apply to the HTML version. It's likely because when you "save" an element, it will add the "root block element" to the HTML side if one isn't present. So, your HTML is probably not handling it correctly. You can change the "root block element" to none in the Admin > Email > Editor Settings dialog. https://docs.marketo.com/display/public/DOCS/Using+the+Rich+Text+Editor

Issue There are several special characters that are rejected by the Marketo system on the backend and which can cause errors or strange behavior when attempting to use them in asset or field names. These characters are: [ ' " < > { } ; ] This is a article attached image Solution These characters should not be used because they are often used in code and scripting languages. Generally, Marketo will give an error if this is attempted. However, in the event that the name is accepted there is a good chance that you will see some strange behavior when attempting to use the asset or field. There is a large range of different behaviors that can result and they are all very unpredictable, so the best choice of action is to not use these characters with asset or field names at all.

Issue You have a tracked link in an email. When the email is received, the link breaks and doesn't redirect to the desired page. The link works perfectly when the tracking is disabled. Solution The server hosting the link might not accept parameters, or might limit the number of characters in the parameter, etc. When tracking is enabled, Marketo adds mkt_tok=manymanycharacters. The issue could be either the page does not accept parameters at all, or does not accept such long parameters. You might need to reach out to the developers of that page and investigate this. Our suggestion is to have “track link” checked but not the “Include mkt_tok”. Unchecking just Include mkt_tok will still allow the link to be tracked, but after redirect, the destination URL will not include the mkt_tok query string parameter.

Issue What is meant by the socially acquired member of a program such as a webinar program? Solution Leads acquired by the following Social Apps are part of the "Socially Acquired" count - Social Button Youtube video Poll Referrals Sweepstakes If you want to track the number of registrations through social shares, you should consider using the referrals or sweepstake app. These apps allow the users to share and also help you track how many registrations each of your referrers bring in.

Knowledgebase

Maintaining a Directory of Leads Bouncing Emails

Top Blocklists - What You Need to Know

Tokens in Form-Triggered Emails Are Not Populating for New Leads

Facebook Lead Ad Error: Insufficient Permissions

Setting a Field to Be Required on List Import

My Tokens in Not Working Choice Steps

Remove a List from a Program

Time Is Removed from Flow Step for a Datetime Field

Sync past Unsubscribes into SFDC

Communication Failure Is Displayed When Trying to Swap an Image in a Section of the Email

Currency Type Field Is Rounding Off Its Value

Starter Templates Still Visible after Disabling Them

My Tokens Not Inheriting Values from Top-Level Folder

Opportunity Analysis Report vs. Smart List with Same Filters

Creating a MyToken with a Null Value

Email Insights Does Not Display Any Metrics for Specific Program

How to Pull a Report of All Non-Marketable Records

Use API to Check for Deleted Leads

Edit Text Version of the Email without Affecting HTML

Asset or Field Names Not Accepting Special Characters

Email Link Breaks When Tracking Is Enabled

Socially Acquired Member of a Program