“But it’s still good!” – Grandpa

As we work with different clients, we encounter users with newer instances and users with older instances. In each case, both compile a legacy of active triggers, scheduled batches, and old assets. These collected items make it harder to see what is currently important and what is safe to remove. Now that a new year is upon us, a Marketo cleanup is in order.

You may have pages with old offers still visible online to people. Pages and emails may have old branding or addresses listed. Your new intern may have found that great offer from 2018 to resend to 10,000 people—except that Forrester report is from 2015 and no one cares.

Don’t let that happen to you. Establish a regular procedure for archiving and unapproving old or expired assets.

Archiving Assets and More in Marketo

In Marketo, you can “archive” an asset, program, campaign, folder, etc. Archiving tells Marketo to no longer display or prioritize an asset.

You can Archive old assets of any type using the Archive feature of folders. Once a folder, program, asset, or campaign is inside an Archive, it is no longer visible to Search and it looks all filed away. Do keep in mind, Archived campaigns are not deactivated. The logic will still work, so if you plan to archive an active campaign, you should consider deactivating it first.

Here’s how to do that:

What Changes	What Does Not Change
Asset is no longer visible in search. Results will return the collapsed Archive folder.	Global search still searches Archived folders.
Assets no longer appear in auto suggest.	Active trigger campaigns are still active.
Templates are no longer available across the system for new assets.	Data is available in reports.
Pages cannot be added to new Landing Page Tests.	Filters in Analytics will still see the archived asset.
Subfolders are also archived (and vice-versa).
Archived sub-folders cannot be un-archived unless parent folder is un-archived.

Archived Programs are still available to Revenue Cycle Analytics as long as it has at least one period cost.

In terms of organization, I recommend that you create Archive folders by date or as “zArchive 2018” so the folder isn’t in the way of your main folders. You should also create an Archive in Marketing Activities and Design Studio (for all asset types and templates).

Archiving Assets in Engagement Programs

Engagement Programs offer a more refined way to handle archiving of assets.

• Pause an asset so it isn’t sent out – ok to do, but can be reactivated easily.
• Remove/Delete an asset – watch out, this deletes related data.
• Archive a stream asset – do this to retain all the data.

Unapproving Assets in Marketo

Assets such as emails and landing pages must be approved to be visible to leads and to be sent out. Old emails, pages, and lists can clutter up things and eventually confuse people. Once a year (or twice), hold a clean-up day with pizza and just get it done. Here’s what we recommend as a regular clean-up procedure:

When	What	Procedure
Every 2 Months	Emails	Remove unused or test emails.
Every 2 Months	Pages	Remove unused or test landing pages
Every 6 months	Pages	Review pages and offers; turn off ones that are stale.
Every 12 months	Templates	Review templates for updates to your site and styles. Unapprove templates no longer used or Archive them.
Every 12 Months	Forms	Archive or delete stale forms. Unused Forms can be deleted.
Every 6 Months	Smart Lists	Clean up the Smart List folders. Look at the Used by tab to help remove unused lists or move them to a more logical location.
Every 6 Months	Static Lists	Carefully review lists and delete ones that are no longer useful for reporting or flows. Deleting a list does not do anything to the Leads in the list.

I wrote a few other tips on the blog, where I recommend to always default to Not Publish to Sales Insight. This will save your Sales Team from being confused by hundreds of emails.

Archiving and Reporting in Marketo

Archiving assets and campaigns retains all the data associated with those assets. In certain reports, such as Landing Page or Email, you can choose to include Archived items in the report, but this is not done automatically. If you set up your folder structure and naming scheme, you will easily find the folders and Programs to include in a report.

Chaos Too Big for Your Team?

Etumos can help. Start with a complimentary Health Audit and we can provide suggestions focused on old programs and assets, as well as other areas to make your Marketo instance run smoothly!