Segmentations are special database tools which allow you to define groups of your database for various purposes, including Dynamic Content. Segmentations are pre-set database divisions that run automatically in the background and are much faster than Smart Lists.

You must use Segmentations to take advantage of the Dynamic Content features of Marketo. Essentially, a Segmentation is a high-level category of your database, broken down into Segments which are the sub-categories. Marketo says “A Segmentation in Marketo refers to your target audience…Segments that define unique groups with that target audience.”

Possible Segmentations could include:

• Segmentation: Industry
  • Segment: Aerospace
• Segmentation: Region
  • Segment: Americas
• Segmentation: Function
  • Segment: Default (or “other”)
• Segmentation: Buyer Persona
  • Segment: Mary Marketing Manager (Influencer)

Segmentations apply to all Leads. A Segment will apply to only some Leads based on the criteria chosen. If a Lead does not match any of the defined Segments, it is placed in the Default Segment for that Segmentation. Thus, you may see that Default is the largest Segment in your Segmentation – this is perfectly normal. (It also might mean you need to do some data appending).

Since Segmentations apply to all Leads, whenever a Lead qualifies for a Segmentation’s Segment, it will join it automatically…but only for the first Segment it qualifies for. (I believe Marketo runs this batch nightly, however).

Why use Segmentations instead of Smart Lists? Segmentations are much faster than Smart List counts. Even with a Cached Smart List, a Segmentation is much faster. It’s more like a “dynamic” Static List. You can also check Segment changes or use the Segmentation in Flows with faster results. And finally, Segmentations enable Dynamic Content generation, which speeds up your ability to send out the right message at the right time to the right person.

Things to Know Before You Begin a Segmentation

The best practice for Segmentations is for major database divisions like Region, Product Interest, or Function. Use Smart Lists or Static Lists for more granular divisions.

Limits: 20 Segmentations with 100 Segments each. That is 20 Segmentations for all Workspaces.

Rules: Segments use Smart Lists to create hard-coded groupings for dynamic content. Give careful attention to the hierarchy of your segments. If a person qualifies for more than 1 segment, he/she will only be a member of 1 segment: the one that is highest in priority.

Priority Order Determines Segment Membership:

• Leads in the database belong to ALL Segmentations, but will only qualify for 1 segment in each Segmentation.
• The FIRST segment the lead qualifies for (based on priority order) is the one that it belongs to. The Lead can no longer join other segments.
• If a Lead does not qualify, it joins the Default Segment.

Warning: a Lead can only belong to 1 Segment in each Segmentation. The first Segment it qualifies for or the Default Segment.

How to Create a Segmentation

To create a Segmentation, follow these steps. In this example, I will create a Region Segmentation to group Leads by Americas, EMEA, and Asia.

Step 1:   Go to the Lead Database

Step 2:   New > New Segmentation

Step 3:   Add Segments

Press Add Segment and name each segment as shown.

Step 4:   Adjust Segment Priority Order

Remember, this is key to ensuring the right leads end up in the right places. If it is possible for a lead to end up in several Segments, then you absolutely need to prioritize the order. This is more likely when creating Buyer Personas or Product Interest segmentations.

Make sure you have the priority correct. The Default Segment has the lowest priority at all times; it is the catchall. The Priority order is less important for geographic adjustments, however, for a Segmentation like Employee Ranges or Business Type, you might have to use a waterfall approach to ensure borderline Leads are in the preferred spot.

Step 5:   Press Create.

Now the Segmentation is available to edit. Your Segmentation is not yet operational!

Step 6:   Define Each Segment

Now you need to tell Marketo which leads to put in which Segments.

Select the Segment, then use the familiar smart list filters to define each Segment. For Americas, we will use the filter Country, then copy in the countries in the Americas. You can use my handy ISO Country List for a premade list of countries for Marketo.

Each Segment looks very similar to a Smart List, except that it will become a permanent fixture of your database.

Important – certain filters are not available for use here:

• Segmentation
• Member of Smart List (?? seriously)
• Timeframes

Step 7:   Approve the Segmentation

Once each Segment’s Rules are defined, you can go to Segmentation Actions > Approve to make this available across the system.

Approval activates a process to move each Lead into one of the three Segments, or the Default Segment. This can take some time before it is complete. Marketo will notify you or you can watch the little icons change to the green check marks.

More Resources

• Dynamic Content & Segmentations: Implement a Best Practice Model
• Six Ways to Implement Dynamic Content>

Today’s quick tip is SEO for Marketo Landing Pages. This is one of my pet peeves since Marketo doesn’t make it super easy to do.

While you may think many of your landing pages don’t require SEO, you should rethink this because all Marketo pages default to “index” so that Google and Bing will pick them up. That’s very good for you – you want traffic!

The bad news is, unless you are paying attention, you probably have bad SEO practices on your Marketo page. How can you fix this quickly?

 Best Practice SEO for a New Landing Page

The default system for Marketo is to copy the Page Name into the Page URL. As the image shows, when you do this with a “natural name,” Marketo makes the URL slug with caps and no spaces or dashes. It’s perfectly fine for the Marketo Page Name, since Google doesn’t see that, but this is BAD for the URL.

Instead, set a naming practice that uses dashes in the Page Name so that the URL automatically takes in the correct URL. Alternatively, just go in and replace the slug with something that puts your keywords at the front. Remember, Google and your audience can see the URL, so avoid complicated codes that don’t matter to the rest of the world.

[Update: 6/11/14: Marketo has made this the default behavior now]

Here’s what Google and your audience would see:

To learn more about URL best practices, visit Moz or KISSMetrics.

How to Build the Right Marketo Page Meta Tags

In Marketo, each page has a set of Meta tags that help search engines and the audience understand what they should click on. Getting this right is the key to SEO. In Marketo, you can help your team do this right using the following steps.

1. Landing Page Templates Should Have Default Metas

Your templates should include the following meta tags with defaults. These defaults can be My Tokens that you know will be used in a Program. They could also be standard SEO your main site uses. This is a minimum and doesn’t release you from doing the next two steps.

• Meta Title.
• Meta Description.
• Publisher Rel – learn more about this since it involves Google+.
• Author Rel – ensures blog post authors viewed. Create a default profile.
• Facebook OG tags if needed.

Remember you can tokenize the above tags. It’s up to you.

2. Program Templates Should Have My Tokens with These Values.

In Programs, you can create Program Templates with standard My Tokens. I recommend doing this even for Meta values assuming you run a lot of events or programs that you want exposed to the rest of the world. You should do this for PPC campaigns too because your SEO affects your Quality Score and thus your CTR. My tokens would look like this, using Text tokens.

• {{my.Meta Description}}
• {{my.Author Rel Link}}
• {{my.Page Title}}

Why use tokens here? They allow you to edit the metas without using the next step. Saving time and getting your SEO right are big win-wins. Of course, tokens may not solve your Metas every single time, but it’s a best practice for Events and PPC.

3. Adjust all pages manually using Edit Page Meta Tags 

When you edit a page, you can also do a few cool things, including fixing the HEAD area. First, edit page meta tags:

Then you can modify what Google sees and displays to the rest of the world. Note you can use Tokens here, including in the LP Template itself.

If you did this right, Google will display the Title, URL, and Description in the SERPs. If you also added Publisher and Author Rel tags to Custom HEAD HTML, your picture will appear.

Remember to do these steps to ensure you maximize your Organic traffic on any campaign.

And remember to sign up for more help from Marketing Rockstar Guides. And stay tuned for a big announcement about the Marketo Guide.