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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 Description You have an active campaign with a wait step in the flow but you noticed leads aren't coming out of that wait step, or they seem to be repeating the wait step. Issue Resolution The most common reason for this is adding a flow step above the wait step. If you add a flow step above a wait step the position of the wait step is changed. Example your flow steps were a total of 4 with the wait step being the 3rd flow step but you add a flow step above the wait step making it the 4th step in a total of 5 flow steps. This means when the leads come out of the wait step they end up going right back into the wait step. The best solution is to not add/modify flows with wait steps on active campaigns, but for more information and options, see this article: Editing Campaign Flow with Members in Wait Steps . Is this article helpful ? YesNo

Issue Description How to edit the page title (shown on a web browser tab) of an email when viewed as a web page. Issue Resolution The web page title of an email can be modified by editing the HTML of the email. For instance, entering the title tag in the header will make this change: <title>Email title</title> w3schools.com/tags/tag_title.asp docs.marketo.com/display/public/DOCS/Edit+an+Email%27s+HTML As this requires editing the HTML or customizing the code of an email, if you are unfamiliar with coding, contact a web developer for further assistance.

Issue When attempting to import a program into another instance, an error occurs, displaying the message of "Unable to import due to field missing". Solution In order to address this issue, you should review the program that you are attempting to import, to ensure that you have not only created all fields that are referenced, but also any filter types that are used. If a Smart List filter is used in the program that identifies members of segment, then the segment will also need to be created in the other instance in order for the program to be imported.

Issue Recent Activities are shown in Lead Activity Log for being added to an SFDC Campaign, however this campaign may have occurred a significant time in the past. Solution A common reason for this occurring is a deleted record in SFDC was restored, so the past activities are coming down to Marketo as if they happened recently. The root cause is that the SysModStamp for one of the object records (Campaign, Campaign Member, Campaign Member Status) for the record was updated, so, in the perspective of the Sync User, the newly updated (recent SysModStamp time) record needs to be queued up to be synced. If this is causing some unintended Marketo Trigger Campaign activity, we advise that active Trigger Campaigns be reviewed to make sure that past campaigns are deactivated, and only relevant campaigns are currently active.

Issue You have a trigger campaign using the "Visits Web Page" or "Clicks Link on Web Page" triggers, and you are seeing anonymous records in the Campaign Results. Solution Anonymous records can trigger campaigns that use the "Visits Web Page" or "Clicks Link on Web Page" triggers. These anonymous leads will go through the flow of the campaign. To prevent anonymous leads from entering your Visits Web Page or Clicks Link on Web Page trigger campaigns, add the filter "Email Address is not empty" to your campaign Smart List.

Issue You have noticed that in some Asset URLs the 9-digit Munchkin ID displays, and you would rather have something else display. Solution It is possible to alter the URL and replace Munchkin ID with the Account String for your Marketo instance located in Marketo Admin > Landing Pages. The following can only be done when inserting the URL into your email or landing page HTML. There is no global setting to change this permanently. For example say you have an image asset at the URL: na-sjst.marketo.com/rs/164-CZO-458/images/android.jpg When you insert this link in an email or landing page, you can replace the Munchkin ID with the account string of for your instance: na-sjst.marketo.com/rs/mktosupportmybaben/images/android.jpg This link will still resolve correctly and the Munchkin ID will not be displayed.

Issue Description You sent an email using a Smart Campaign and the email performance report for the email shows more Sent than there are members in the Smart Campaign Issue Resolution The email may have been sent by more than one campaign. You can determine this by looking at the "Used By" info on the email's summary page, to see which campaigns sent the email. In this case, you can use the Campaign Email Performance Report to view the email's performance within the specific campaign.

Issue Issue Description Person appears to have changed Segment, but there is no activity for that 'Change Segment' recorded in the Activity Log. Segmentation was not recently re-approved, so this would not account for the behavior we are seeing in other circumstances. Segmentations Not Writing Change Activities However, the record was recently converted from a Lead to a Contact in the CRM. Solution Issue Resolution Upon Lead conversion to Contact in Salesforce, an "initial" segmentation process for that Contact is computed. During these "initial" segmentation computations, in a manner similar to when a person is initially created in Marketo, no activity is recorded in the record's Activity Log.

Issue You want to send out an email to a group of people and break it up so that it sends in smaller batches over time. Solution To break up an email send over time, you can use a Smart Campaign with Choices and Wait steps in the flow. Example provided below. Choose the criteria you want to use to break up the send. In the example, we use the first letter of the last name. Use a Send Email flow step with a Choice defining your first group (Last Name starts with A-F) and select the email you want to send. For the rest of the leads, use a Default choice of "Do nothing." Add a Wait step. Repeat 1-3 for the each group, separating them with Wait steps.

Issue You have Visibility Rules enabled for a field on your form, but the field is not shown or hidden as expected based on the values in the other fields. Solution If you have enabled visibility rules for Field B but the field is not showing/hiding as expected when the correct value is chosen in Field A, one possibility could be the with the setup with the selected operator in the rule. When using visibility rules for Field B, the "is" operator will use and reference the displayed values of Field A, but "contains" will use the stored values. For example, let's say you have a visibility rule that should display the a particular field when 'Marketo Lead Management' is selected for the "Product Interest" field. The displayed value for the field (the one shown to the customer) may be "Marketo Leads Management" but the stored value for the field (the value written to the lead record) is "MLM". If you set up the visibility rule as "Product Interest is Marketo Leads Management", the rule will look at the Display Value and see a match. However, "Product Interest contains Marketo Leads Management" will look at the Stored Value, which is "MLM." It will not see the match, and the field will not be displayed.

Issue Description Person/Lead Source is empty. Why isn't it populating? Issue Resolution Marketo does not automatically assign Person Source. We do populate Original Source Type. Assigning credit for a Lead can only be determined by someone with intimate knowledge of a company's marketing strategies. If someone fills out a form, Marketo doesn't know if they were brought to that form by an email blast, TV commercial, talked to a salesperson, or any number of other reasons. If they came in through a List Import, they could have attended a Tradeshow and signed up there, they could have been exported by a CRM and are being imported, or any number of other ways. There are many discussions on best practices for handling Lead Source attribution in the Community. If you need assistance setting up Smart Campaign to update the Lead Source based on your specific business criteria, please contact Marketo Support. Is this article helpful ? YesNo

Issue An update made in the CRM is taking longer than expected to sync to Marketo via the usual sync cycle. You need to avoid this for some of the data being passed between the two systems. Solution Some delay in the sync is expected. It all depends on the current sync status, as well as how much data is being synced. One possible workaround would be to use API calls to push data into Marketo immediately. To make API calls into Marketo, you'll need to do the following Create an API Only User Role Create an API Only User Create a Custom Service for Use with ReST API From there, you will be able to create API calls from your CRM and access API endpoints with this user to make updates in Marketo. This method can also be used to sync data between Marketo and unsupported or custom CRMs. Note: You will need to work with a developer to create the API calls. Marketo Support are not trained as developers, so if you need assistance creating your API calls, you will need to work with Marketo Professional Services instead.

Issue You are unable to add members to a secondary instance using a secondary login. You receive an error that the email is already in use. Solution This solution applies in the following scenario: You have two or more Marketo instances. The instances are set up so you are allowed to specify the login email address separate from the email address used to notify/invite the users. For example, something like this: Login: login.user@domain.com Email: user@domain.com You have a user in the second instance whose email address exists in the first instance, using a different login but the same email address, like this: Login: login2.user@domain.com Email: user@domain.com When you try to do invite the user to the second instance using Universal ID, you will get an error stating that the email is already in use. To resolve this, you will need to delete the existing login for the user in the second instance (login2.user@domain.com) and instead invite their primary login (login.user@domain.com) to the instance. This will allow the user to access both instances from a single login For more information on Universal ID: Using a Universal ID for Subscription Login - Marketo Docs - Product Docs Who This Solution Applies To Subscriptions with Universal ID active

Issue An embedded Marketo form on your company website showed up in the past, but is now not showing on the page. Solution Embedded forms may not show if you have mixed content on your website (meaning that your website is using HTTPS, but the embedded form from Marketo is using HTTP). To resolve this, you need to ensure the content from Marketo is also using a secure connection. You can purchase an SSL certificate to use for your Marketo forms by contacting your Customer Success Manager/Sales Account Manager.

Issue Description You have a record in Marketo that is a Contact in SFDC, and the record fails to sync with the error "INSUFFICIENT_ACCESS_OR_READONLY: insufficient access rights on object id." Issue Resolution This error can occur if the Record Type ID field is not updated in Marketo when the SFDC Lead is converted to a Contact. If the Record Type ID value displayed in Marketo is not valid for Contacts, the sync will fail with the error, "INSUFFICIENT_ACCESS_OR_READONLY: insufficient access rights on object id." To resolve this, you can update the Record Type ID in Marketo with the correct value from Salesforce, or you can delete the value from Marketo and allow the sync to write the correct value from Salesforce.

Issue You have multiple domains for your landing page CNAMES and want to choose which one is used for a landing page. Solution First, you will need to make sure your secondary domains are set up with a CNAME and a domain alias. You don't choose a domain when creating the page. All pages are created under the default/original landing page domain, but they're all available from all domain aliases as well. Swapping out the default domain with the domain alias in the URL will take you to the same page. You find more detail on this here - Multiple Domains (CNAMEs) in a Single Marketo Instance

Issue A Smart Campaign with a "Person is Created" trigger, in combination with additional filters, doesn't qualify people as expected. Solution Using filters with "Person is Created" triggers can cause issues when a person is created, but the values that the filters look for aren't filled in yet. When the Smart Campaign checks the filters, the data it looks for hasn't been filled in yet, so people don't qualify. Here are a couple alternatives: A scheduled batch campaign that looks for people who were created and meet those filters. Use the Person is Created trigger, but use a wait step to allow time for the date to fill in, followed by choices in the flow to qualify people.

Knowledgebase

Maintaining a Directory of Leads Bouncing Emails

Top Blocklists - What You Need to Know

Lead doesn't come out of Wait Step as expected

Editing the title of an email viewed as a web page

Unable to Import Due to Field Missing

Edit schedule email in ToutApp

New 'Add to SFDC Campaign' Activities From Prior Years Syncing Down

Anonymous Leads Triggering Campaigns

Removing Munchkin IDs from Image and File Asset URLs

Using Campaign Email Performance Report to Troubleshoot an Email Performance Report

How to Filter for Empty or Null Fields in RCE

Change Segment Activity Missing For Recently Converted Contact

How to Break up Email Sends Over Time

Form Visibility Rules not Displaying the Field

Person/Lead Source is empty

Syncing Between CRM and Marketo Outside of the Sync Cycle

Landing Pages or Emails Missing from Imported Program

Unable to Add Users With Universal ID Enabled

Embedded Form No Longer Showing on Your Webpage

SFDC Contact sync fails with error "INSUFFICIENT_ACCESS_OR_READONLY: insufficient access rights on object id"

Using Multiple Landing Page Domains for Your Landing Pages

New People Didn't Qualify For My Campaign