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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 Issue Description Users are unable to reference a static list that is in a shared folder. Solution Issue Resolution Depending on how you're attempting to reference a static list located in a shared folder, you may be unable to do so. If you are using a 'Member of List' filter you will be able to see the static list. However if you're using the 'Was Added to List' filter or the 'Is Added to List/Is Removed from List' triggers you will not be able to see the same list. The reason for this is because the 'Member of List' filter is only looking at membership of the asset whereas 'Was Added to List' and the 'Is Added to List/Is Removed from List' triggers actually need to look at the activities of records. This would cause problems if the workspace where we are referencing the static list does not have access to the same partitions as the workspace that the static list lives in. So looking at only membership and not these activities makes for a much more consistent experience.

Issue Issue Description After following the set up directions for a domain alias for a new landing page domain, the new domain redirects to a Marketo 404 page. The instance has SSL for Landing Pages. Solution Issue Resolution Contact Marketo Support and request that the new domain be added to your SSL certificate. If this has been done, they will be able to help you troubleshoot further. Who This Solution Applies To SSL for Landing Pages

Issue Issue Description Possible disadvantages of maintaining Engagement/Nurture Program emails in Design Studio. Solution Issue Resolution Housing all of your emails for email nurture content in Design Studio could cause the following issues: 1. Reporting: Reports can specify Emails in Design Studio, however they will show results for any send of the individual email and will not be constricted to the program they were sent from. 2. Asset re-use in Engagement Programs: When using an engagement program, an asset is scanned for its ID. If that asset has been previously sent to a record via any other send, the engagement program will skip that send for that record. This could become a problem when reusing email assets housed in design studio in different engagement programs. 3. My Tokens: my.tokens will not properly render as they are based on a program folder. The assets that reference them need to be in the folder as well. In my testing, assets in design studio do not have a frame of reference for mytokens. Emails will not populate mytokens if they are housed outside of the program that owns the tokens. With all of this noted, our recommendation is to utilize detailed templates in design studio and continue to clone your engagement programs and alter them as necessary. Although this presents some busy work in the short term, it pays off dividends in the long term when it comes to reporting, the use of my.tokens, and guaranteeing that records are sent the assets you are specifying in your programs.

Issue Issue Description You are attempting to send a list to Google via your Google Customer Match integration, but when you open the dropdown to select the destination list, none of the lists you have prepared are visible. Solution Issue Resolution For Marketo to see a list and present it as an option, the user that was used to set up the Customer Match Launchpoint service needs to have visibility of that list. Only lists that this user can see will be available. It is not possible to check which user was used for this setup from Marketo's Launchpoint menu, however you can alter which user is being used to connect to Google by opening the associated Launchpoint service and selecting 'Re-authorize', and then follow steps 6 and onwards from the following article: Add Google Customer Match as a LaunchPoint Service Who This Solution Applies To Users making use of Google Customer Match

Issue Issue Description You would like to have an RTP domain in your Account Settings in Web Personalization removed Solution Issue Resolution We cannot delete domains from accounts unless the tag for this domain has never been implemented on your website. To check that, log-in and verify that (by navigating to the visitors page and filtering the data by this domain and see that there is no data showing up). If there is no data under this domain - go ahead and submit a support ticket to delete the irrelevant domain from you Web Personalization Account. Who This Solution Applies To Web Personalization Customers

Issue Issue Description Revenue Explorer (RCE) reports show different stages when comparing Model Performance Analysis and Program Revenue Stage Analysis. Detour stages such as Disqualified, Inactive, Recycled, and Lost do not display as metrics in Revenue Stage Analysis reports. Solution Issue Resolution The Program Revenue Stage Analysis in RCE will not show non-success path Revenue Stages, so detours do not display on the Success Path as viewable metrics. Model Performance Analysis will show non-success path Revenue Stages. For more information on Success Paths, see this related document Who This Solution Applies To clients with Revenue Cycle Explorer and who have an approved Revenue Cycle Model

Issue Issue Description Within a Smart List, there are two filters: 'Person was Created' and 'Created At'; both similarly named but qualifying different records. Solution Issue Resolution The 'Person was Created' filter is looking for the activity of when the individual record became known, via form fill or list import, etc. Denoted with the New Lead activity type in the Activity Log. The 'Created At' filter is looking at the date of when the Marketo record was first created. This date is listed under the Info section on the person record. Some Marketo records have a difference between when the record was initially created and when the individual became a known record. An individual could visit a Marketo page for the first time and generate an initial web page visit on May 1st tracked on an anonymous record in the database. Then on May 8th the person fills out a form thereby converting their anonymous record to a known record in the database. May 1st is the date used for 'Created At' filter, and May 8th is the date used for 'Person was Created' filter.

Issue Issue Description A smart list in the Marketo database generates an amount of records for a specific Created Date and a report in Revenue Explorer reports a different number of records for the same Created Date. Solution Issue Resolution Revenue Explorer (RCE) will report counts of records by Create Date by which ever is earlier: the Marketo Create Date or the CRM create Date. If the record was created in Marketo on May 1st, and then synced and created in CRM on May 5th, RCE will report that record's Create Date as May 1st. If the record was created in CRM on February 13th, and then synced and created in Marketo on March 20th, RCE will report that record's Create Date as Feb 13th. Additional example: If a person was cookied for the first time via a web page visit on April 3rd creating an anonymous record in Marketo, and then filled out a form on April 5th converting the anonymous record to a known person and synced to CRM on April 7, RCE will report that record's Create Date as April 3rd because that's when the anonymous record was created in the database. If a smart list is generated to compare with Revenue Explorer to identify records by Create Date, there can be differences in count due to the following possibilities: 1) RCE Sync - the sync to RCE delays data by about 24 hours. If a net new record was just imported into Marketo, RCE would be able to report on it approximately 24 hours later. 2) Differences in defining measures/filters - as stated above, RCE will report based on the record's Create Date (visible on the Marketo Record's Info tab), and the Smart List could be based on different filters. See this related document about smart list filters (LINK TBD). The Smart List could be looking at a date when records became known, or could be looking at when the record was created in Marketo; RCE and the Smart List could be looking at different dates. 3) Time zone difference - RCE will always report on Central Time, and Smart Lists will report on the instance's local time. Who This Solution Applies To Customers with Revenue Explorer

Issue Issue Description Program imports may be taking a long time to process and then failing after ~ 30 minutes to an hour. Solution Issue Resolution Check the program being imported for custom object references. Custom objects are not supported in program import. In order to import, you will need to remove any custom object references from the program. Who This Solution Applies To Customers using both program import and custom objects

Issue Issue Description User has 'Delete Marketing Asset' permission in Marketing Activities but is unable to delete a Smart List. The Limited Access message below is being returned: "You do not have sufficient privileges to perform this action" Solution Issue Resolution In order for a user to have permission to delete a Smart List in Marketing Activities, the user would need to have access to Marketing Activities and have the 'Delete List' permission. see article for list of permissions: http://docs.marketo.com/display/public/DOCS/Descriptions+of+Role+Permissions

Issue Issue Description Some leads received emails 1, 2 and 3 from an Engagement Program stream but did not receive email 4. Solution Issue Resolution Check if leads were still a member of the Engagement Program at the time Email 4 was sent. Check if leads were removed from the Engagement Program before Email 4 was sent Check if leads were moved onto a different stream within the Engagement Program before Email 4 was sent Check if the Engagement Program has been turned off Check if leads were paused from receiving content

Issue Issue Description When attempting to utilize date filter in RCE, the pick-list for available dates is only showing dates in the past, not current dates. Solution Issue Resolution The date pick-list retrieves the first 1200 values, starting with the oldest, in order to load efficiently for pick-list values. To return more recent dates, an additional type of date filter is needed to limit the selections to display more current dates. Using a filter of Year and narrowing the filter down to a few years will allow you to retrieve dates within the more recent time frame.

Issue Issue Description After merging Person Records in Marketo, the Marketo Custom Object that was present on one of the duplicate records is now missing. Solution Issue Resolution Marketo Custom Objects (CO) Records are linked with Person Records by a set link field value. We will see CO records disconnect from merged duplicate person records when the record linked with the CO record is merged into the winning Marketo person record. For example, Person Record B is linked with a CO record. Person Record B is merged with Person Record A, and Record A is designated as the 'winner' of any conflicts and remains after the merge. The CO record is now disconnected. The solution is that the CO record needs to be reconnected to the intended remaining person record after the merge. The solution can be applied before or after the merge. Before the merge: The person records need to be reconciled so that the one remaining after the merge has the link field value, and the CO record needs to be reimported into the Marketo instance. The CO record should now be reassociated with the person record. After the merge: Confirm the remaining person record has the appropriate link field value, and then reimport the CO record into Marketo. The CO record should now be reassociated with the person record. Who This Solution Applies To Clients with Marketo Custom Objects

Issue Issue Description A Smart List with a filter for an integer field with a specified range value, such as 'less than 100', is qualifying records that have a NULL(empty) value for the integer field. Solution Issue Resolution Marketo will treat NULL/empty as equivalent to 0 in this case, and qualify the lead as having a value less than 100. However, Marketo does not treat 0 as NULL/empty Adding the filter "[field] is not empty" to block records with NULL values will resolve this

Issue Issue Description You have IP login restrictions set up per documentation, but you're logged in via Single Sign-On (SSO) from an IP that isn't whitelisted, or is blacklisted. Solution Issue Resolution Marketo cannot enforce IP login restrictions on users accessing the instance via SSO. The IP Address restrictions are only enforced on users who login via login.marketo.com. Who This Solution Applies To SSO Users

Issue Issue Description Links in Interesting Moments viewed in Salesforce Sales Insight section are not clickable. Trying alternative methods of inserting links, such as in <a> tags, still results in being unable to click these links within Salesforce. Solution Issue Resolution There are no current methods for inserting links into Interesting Moments so the link is clickable within Salesforce record's Sales Insight section. Who This Solution Applies To Customers using Sales Insight for Salesforce

Issue Issue Description A Smart List using a "Member of Program" or Member of Engagement Program" filter is qualifying people who are not members of the specified program, or not qualifying people who are members of the program. Solution Issue Resolution Check if you have the filter set to "Member of Program/Engagement Program = true, Program is not [program name]". If this is the case, the logic works a little differently than you may think - what this means is that the person can be a member of any program, as long as it's not the specified program. How you may want to set up the filter would be "Member of Program/Engagement Program = FALSE, Program IS [program name]". That indicates that you want people who are not a member of the specified program.

Issue Issue Description When you update fields for the sales owner in SFDC, the information is not updated in Marketo. You are also blocking updates from SFDC for the affected fields. Solution Issue Resolution Due to how the SFDC User object is mapped in Marketo, if a field is blocked from updating from SFDC, this will also prevent Sales Owner info from syncing over. You'll need to remove the "Block Updates From" logic for that field.

Knowledgebase

Maintaining a Directory of Leads Bouncing Emails

Top Blocklists - What You Need to Know

Champion/Challenger Test Email Notification Shows Unexpected Results

Unable to Reference Static Lists in Folders Shared Across Workspaces

New Landing Page Domain Shows Marketo 404 Page

Housing Email Nurture Content in Design Studio

Google Customer Match Audiences Aren't Available For Selection

Removing Web Personalization (RTP) Domain

Revenue Explorer Program Revenue Stage Analysis Does Not Show Non-Success Path Revenue Stages

The Difference Between 'Person was Created' and 'Created At' Filters

'Created Date' Differences Between Marketo Smart Lists And Revenue Explorer

Program Imports Timing Out or Failing

User Unable to Delete a Smart List in Marketing Activities

Leads Did Not Receive an Email from an Engagement Program

Date range filter in RCE only returning old dates

Merging Person Records Disconnects Marketo Custom Object Record

Sends Type Column Symbol Definitions in Email Insights Sends Report

NULL Value Qualifying for Smart List Filter With Less Than Operator

IP Restrictions Not Enforced When Logging In Via SSO

Links in Interesting Moments Are Not Clickable in Sales Insight

Member of Program or Member of Engagement Program Filter Not Qualifying People As Intended

SFDC Sales Owner Information Updates Not Showing in Marketo