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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 see a soft bounce on a lead and in the details you see it show System send failure: Reply-To address parse error (value of the address) Issue Resolution Confirm the tokens you are using are for the proper field and that the value for the field is an email address. The parse error occurs when we cannot generate or create a proper email address in the From Email or the Reply To Email fields. The error will show in the parenthesis the value we tried to put in.. For example Service Department is in the parenthesis, this would be an example of a incorrect field being used. Is this article helpful ? YesNo

Issue Description The 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 Issue Resolution 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. Who This Solution Applies To Customers integrated with Salesforce

Issue Description You are receiving this error from your GoToWebinar Launchpoint Service: API Error: Authentication succeeded, but access to the requested resource is denied. This error can occur either in Launchpoint Tab's Service details in Admin or when trying to Refresh an Event Program and selecting the service in the drop down menu. Issue Resolution This error "API Error: Authentication succeeded, but access to the requested resource is denied." is a response from GoToWebinar when Marketo sends an API Call to retrieve the Webinar Meeting details. What is the main cause of this? This is mainly a licensing issue with the Account Credentials specified in the Launchpoint service. The GoToWebinar account does not have a GoToWebinar License and therefore, the account has successfully "Authenticated" and the Requested resource (GoToWebinar Meeting Details) were denied as it does not have access to GoToWebinar features. How to check if you have a license? Login into the home page of GoToWebinar with the account credentials used in the Launchpoint Service and check if GoToWebinar Product is selectable. (if GTW is not selectable then the account does not have a product license) Speak to your GoToWebinar Account Admin if you are using a corporate account and ensure that it has a GoToWebinar License. Contact the GoToWebinar's Support Team Other Causes Other reasons this may have occurred is that a Trial account for GoToWebinar was used and the trial has expired. You may be using a login under a corporate account that does not have the license or was removed. - Check with your GoToWebinar Admin for more details Who This Solution Applies To GoToWebinar Launchpoint Users Is this article helpful ? YesNo

Issue Description How do Revenue Cycle Explorer filters operate? Issue Resolution RCE Filters operate in the following ways: Select from a List (Includes, Excludes) -- This filter type within RCE will let you include or exclude preset values Match a specific string (Contains, Does not Contain) -- This filter type will let you enter a free form value such as Contains "We" to find statuses which may have Web in them. The not-contains would filter anyone who did not have "We" in the status. On either filter you can select Multiple Values. Within the Match a Specific String function click on [+] and add another value option and this will then add additional string areas to use. A example would be Status contains: Reg Regis Registered Registered - Web etc.. As you can see you can match to one of many values! Who This Solution Applies To Customers with Revenue Explorer or Email Explorer

Issue Description A recent email send resulted in a number of leads specifically blocked by Communication Limits, as seen within the Results or Lead Activity Log. What are the re-sending options? Issue Resolution The Marketo Application does not offer any automatic re-sending/rescheduling functions within the campaign. If communication limits are low, and records are blocked from being sent emails, you may need to adjust the limits or set the necessary programs or campaigns to ignore communication limits. Enable/Disable Communication Limits in an Email Program - Marketo Docs - Product Documentation Apply Communication Limits to Smart Campaign - Marketo Docs - Product Documentation - you would need to undo this process in this case. Even if the records were not sent the email because of Communication Limits, they would still be made members of the campaign or program. If you were going to try to re-send these records that were blocked due to communication limits you could try this Filter combination: Member of Smart Campaign/Member of Program and Not Was Sent Email Those 2 filters will show you the members that were not sent the email, and then you could re-send them at a later time.

Issue Description When sending an email from Sales Insight it looks as though it has been sent as expected, but the person to whom the email was addressed never received the message, nor can it be found via the Was Sent Sales Email filter in a Smart Campaign. Issue Resolution Sales Insight for SFDC will not send to people who have a status of Email Invalid, Marketing Suspended or are Unsubscribed. Please validate that the person you are trying to send to does not have these statuses. As well, Sales Insight emails can be sent to groups up to 200 people. Any more and your send will not process. If the person's statuses are as expected and the group was less than 200 people, please contact Marketo Support to troubleshoot further. Note: The Sales Insight plugins for Outlook and Gmail will send emails to leads regardless of Unsubscribed, Email Invalid, or Marketing Suspended status. Who This Solution Applies To Customers using Sales Insight for Salesforce Is this article helpful ? YesNo

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

Issue 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 In the Landing Page Performance reports, what do conversion and new name column in landing page performance report refer to? Issue Resolution 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. Is this article helpful ? YesNo

Issue Description Is there any limit to number of engagement programs that can added to a Marketo instance. If yes, is there a way to increase this limit. Issue Resolution An instance is limited to 100 active engagement programs. Inactive engagement programs are not limited. Deactivate the engagement programs that are not in use under Setup tab of the program. Note: There is a finite resource for active engagement programs, as they inherently take more processing power and storage requirements. We reserve increasing the limit of active Engagement Programs for those use cases that have done all possible preventative steps to ensure that the 100 programs that are in use are properly utilized and necessary. Is this article helpful ? YesNo

Issue Description You have a wait step that is behaving erratically, and holding people for erratic or undefined periods of time Issue Resolution Check to make sure that the unit of time is not misspelled. A wait step with Minute spelled "mintue" or Hour spelled "Huor" won't validate the spelling or logic of the wait step (that squiggly red line), so you'll need to make sure the spelling isn't off. Who This Solution Applies To Wait Steps Is this article helpful ? YesNo

Issue Description Is it possible to add Lead partition/Workspace information in a custom Revenue Explorer reporting? Issue Resolution RCE does not have the ability to segment reports by Lead Partition or Workspace. One possible workaround for leads is to create a custom field on a lead's record and populate it with the partition name. There is no such option, however, for assets in different workspaces. Who This Solution Applies To Customers use RCE/RCA Is this article helpful ? YesNo

Issue Description How to disable the Marketo tracking token without disabling link tracking. Issue Resolution Within the <a> tag, you can add a specific class: class="mktNoTok" and this will disable the tracking token, and yet still allow the clicks to be tracked within the email. If you are proficient with HTML, you may be able to enter this unique class within the header, or other areas of the HTML doc. You can also disable this through the UI on a per-link basis. Instructions: here Is this article helpful ? YesNo

Issue Description Added yourself to the Send Alert To portion of the List Import process and continue to receive unwanted Alert Emails every time a list is imported. Issue Resolution During the next List Import process to the problem Static List in Marketo, you'll want to select the Edit Send Notification from the window that pops up in the top right section of your screen after the import process is started. Selecting the Edit Send Notification will cause a new window to open up that shows all of the email addresses who will be sent an Alert Email once the import completes. If you no longer want to receive the Alert Emails for this static list going forward, deleted your email address and click save. Who This Solution Applies To Everyone

Issue Description When examining a lead's activity log, you notice a Sync Error which reads "CANNOT_EXECUTE_FLOW_TRIGGER: The record couldn’t be saved because it failed to trigger a flow. A flow trigger failed to execute the flow with version ID ______________. Flow error messages: An unhandled fault has occurred in this flow. An unhandled fault has occurred while processing the flow. Please contact your system administrator for more information. Contact your administrator for help." Issue Resolution That error message is generated by Salesforce when Marketo tries to sync a lead that does not meet a trigger flow rule that is setup in your Salesforce instance. Marketo has no visibility into this error message other than what is returned by Salesforce. Please take the full details of this error message to your SFDC Administrator or Support. They will be able to identify the flow or process which is preventing the sync update and make any necessary adjustments. Who This Solution Applies To Customers integrated with Salesforce

Issue Description When I add variables to my email template assets, the value assigned to that variable is not showing in the text-only version of the email even though it shows in the HTML version. Issue Resolution Email 2.0 variables do not pass the defined values for variables through to the text-only email. Since Marketo token values are passed through to the text-only email, customers may expect variable values to also be passed through to text-only emails. However, this is not currently the case.

Knowledgebase

Maintaining a Directory of Leads Bouncing Emails

Top Blocklists - What You Need to Know

Soft bounce "System Send Failure Reply-To address parse error"

Smart List Error - Could not evaluate rule 1 (SFDC Campaign 'Campaign Name' not found)

GoToWebinar Launchpoint Service Error: API Error: Authentication succeeded, but access to the requested resource is denied

Revenue Cycle Explorer Filter logic

Re-sending Emails 'Blocked By Communication Limits'

Marketo Sales Insight in SFDC is not sending email to people as expected

Links/URL showing in Visited web page trigger

Lead doesn't come out of Wait Step as expected

Conversion and New Name columns in Landing Page Performance Report

Webhook calls and API limit

Limited Number of Engagement Programs per Instance

Adding multiple social media accounts with Marketo

Wait Step Issues Due to Misspellings

_mktoReferrer

Lead Partitions and Workspace in RCE

Keep Link Tracking, Disable Mkt_Tok

Can Email Insights Quickcharts be shared across users?

Removing yourself from a list import Alert Email.

SFDC Sync Error: Cannot Execute Flow Trigger

Why are my Email 2.0 template variables not displaying in the text-only version of my emails?