In keeping with our mission to share with you the best ways to use Marketo, I will go through some of the latest feature updates. There were some big ones this summer including Engagement Programs, Text Only Emails, and even new View as Webpage tokens. Engagement Programs were groundbreaking, but many of the other updates were longstanding gripes we all had with Marketo. With these new ways to handle testing and old triggers, Marketo users everywhere save their time for awesome nurturing planning.

Let’s take a look at some of the new features.

Text Only Emails in Marketo

Sending a nice, non spammy email in a simple text format was just not possible before. You had to send both HTML and text, or just HTML. Naturally this can cause issues with Spam filters as well as make it harder to create an email that looks like it came from a sales person. (btw, I decided I do not like those fake emails).

With the new text only email feature, you can now enter any email, change Email Settings to “Text Only” and type up a friendly email without all the trimmings.

This is an easy step to take:

1. Create a new email.
2. Press “Edit Settings”
3. Check “Text Only”
4. Save.

Remember, anything you put in the HTML side is ignored.

Trigger Campaign Cleanup

I wish I had thought of this one! In the Marketing Rockstar’s Guide to Marketo, I mention that the best practice is to clean up Marketo every 6 months. Cleanup involves archiving old events, webinars, etc. Cleanup should also include deleting old assets and turning off listen campaigns. Now Marketo prompts you to do this every quarter, giving you a 1 week warning. So if that whitepaper expired a year ago and no one has filled out the form in 6 months, that trigger is being deactivated. That’s service! The part Marketo didn’t mention is that shutting down unused triggers speeds up the system for everyone.

Trigger Campaign Cleanup is now best practice – and automated! Here’s what mine currently looks like. Good thing I checked since all  of my trigger systems are going offline today.

New System Tokens!

For a very long time, a common newbie question has been “How do I move the Unsubscribe Link?” and its follow up, “How do I move the View as Web Page Link?”

View as Web Page: In the past, you had to go to Admin > Email and adjust the defaults, being careful to avoid changing the actual token link code.

%mkt_webview_url%?mkt_tok=##MKT_TOK##

Dan Reed posted a View as Web Page solution several months ago that allowed you to use the token however you wanted.

a href="http://[LandingPageCNAME.YourDomain].com/index.php/email/emailWebview?%mkt_webview_url%?mkt_tok=##MKT_TOK##"

Marketo just made this super easy by letting you use a single token anywhere in the email to generate the correct URL for View as Web Page. Instead of Dan’s solution, just drop this code into your Text version or in the URL on the HTML side. You can easily drop this into any Email Template, just remember that any existing emails based on that template will be put into Approved with Draft.

{{system.view​AsWebpageLink}}

This token works the same way Forward to Friend does.

Similarly, Unsubscribe links were a bit hard to deal with. We could have used a couple of solutions.

1. Dan’s solution should work for Unsubscribe links as well.
2. If you created a Subscription Management page, you can edit the system-wide default to that page. Go to Admin > Email and replace the link and text with your page’s URL. Just remember to copy the existing text and save it somewhere!
3. You can remove the system default and code the link you want into your Template. Of course, you better place a link to your Subscription Management page or else!

The new, better way is to use the unsubscribe system token!

{{system.unsubscribeLink}}

Just drop that into any URL or text email and you’re done!

Take a look at how to do this since this isn’t done in the docs:

And look at your handiwork:

That’s it for today! Remember to sign up for future updates because we’re going to talk about Engagement Program testing as well as more discussions with marketing automation agencies. Be ready for the Fall push with Marketo!

[Updated: I re-read this and my original point did not come through, so I will make it clearer. Cheryl was kind enough to point some of that out too.]

In the Marketing Rockstar’s Guide to Marketo, I discuss how to test a nurturing program by laboriously cloning the Program, changing the Wait Step times to 2 minutes, and then running a whole series of tests. This work is absolutely necessary to ensure your nurturing program is running as intended. You wouldn’t want to suddenly send 6 emails in 6 seconds, would you? Or set the lead to MQL after one email click? Right, so you need to take the time to test everything.

The good news is you can skip some of the tedious work with Engagement Programs. Since the system obviates the need for complicated Traffic Cops, the need to test various transitions is largely gone. The new Test Stream function for Engagement Programs takes a small step out of the testing process. Instead of building a “loading workflow” to add some test leads, you can do this straight from the Engagement. The caveat is this is a “live test” that runs the entire length. I agree this saves a step or two on testing an Engagement, however, it doesn’t let you test this in an hour. As Cheryl Chavez at Marketo pointed out, this is primarily a tool to help you test a live Engagement.

So if you are testing a new Engagement system, this tool may not help because it will take more than an hour to do. Here are some interesting things I found out:

1. Cadences are Still the Same: Your Cadence will still be the same as in the live version…because it is still a live Engagement. If you plan to test the Stream, I recommend changing the Cadence to Every 1 week each day to speed it up. Unfortunately, this won’t allow you to test the system in 10 minutes.
2. Test Leads: if a lead was previously Exhausted or a Member, they will not get the Test Cast.
3. Test Actions: if you have two or more Streams, you need to take the specific actions to force the Transition Rule to trigger. This is fine, but you need to remember this. And you won’t get the chance to do this until the Cast sends you enough emails to take action on. This step is the same as what I previously wrote about in the Guide. This is also true if you are testing a sister campaign that would pull the Lead out and set it to MQL.

Let’s take a look at how to do this.

Step 1: go to your Engagement Program

Step 2: select Test Stream from the Program Menu.

Step 3: select (or create) a Test Lead to use from the pop up. Note the cool Cobalt Interface.

Step 4: receive first Cast.

 

 

 

 

Step 5: take relevant actions to activate any Transition Rules (or other goals).

Step 6: Review logs by going to Engagement Program > Members.

Step 7: Click on Test Lead (the Lead will look like a normal Member).

Step 8: review log. Click on the “Deploy Test” campaign name to unlock the secret Program.

Step 9: Look at the Deploy Test Program secret Results tab.

That’s pretty much all there is to Testing Streams in Engagement Programs. If you discover anything else, let us know below!

And remember to sign up for future updates – there’s a free gift involved that’s sure to help you.

[Updated: April 21, 2016 for links]

Back at the April 2013 Marketo Summit, we were all blown away by the prospect of using the Engagement Program. The Engagement Program abstracts away all of the logic required to run a Traffic Cop style nurturing system, which Marketo developed. Edward Unthank later differentiated between Traffic Cop and Traffic Director, and how to take your lead nurturing to the next level.

The Engagement Program solves much of the issue around tracking leads through the system, moving them between content tracks, content exhaustion, and the delicate logic to keep the right people in and out at the right times. So does it work?

Let’s find out.

Key Concepts Explained

• Streams are analogous to the old “nurture track” method. Except that now Streams can have a Cadence (or timing) and you can easily drag and drop emails in any order, removing, archiving, and adding without having to do anything special to keep the Stream moving. You can have multiple Streams and clone them too.
• Cadence defines how often to send the emails in the order you created. It can be every day, week, etc., based on the timing you setup. Unfortunately, you cannot currently vary the timing between content, say if you wanted 7 days, then 15 days, then 7 days. To do that, you could use two streams and set the Transition Rules to pull the lead back and forth based on Delivered or Sent Email trigger.
• Transition Rules – multiple Streams will require a Transition Rule, just like the old Traffic Cop system needed to listen for the right change for a lead to move in/out of a track. Now the Transition Rule does it for you. Transition Rules will bring up a Smart List and Flow tool. You must have a Trigger to activate the Rule. The critical part is to click on Stream 2 or Stream 3 – the Stream you want to pull a lead into. All you have to do is decide which Trigger(s) will make a lead move over to the next Stream. Perhaps a couple of clicks? Perhaps no engagement? Or Perhaps they became part of an Opp and now you want to send them Late Stage Content. Marketo handles the rest.
• Engagement Level helps you automatically determine how effective your content is by taking into account Opens, Clicks, and Program Success vs. Unsubscribing.
• Exhausted, like other examples, Marketo will set a lead to Exhausted once the Stream runs out of content. You can keep adding content or set rules for leads to follow once content runs out. Exhausted Leads can be reactivated if you add content to the Stream.
• Casts – this refers to the email send. Each Send becomes a Cast (since we are fishing for engagement).
• Local Reports – Wow! In addition to creating the standard reports, you can now create an Engagement Stream Performance report, local to the Program. This report functions a bit like the Email report in that you can select emails or Streams. It will show stats for all email deliverability metrics by Stream and Email as well as overall.
• Summary Dashboard – go to the Summary and then change View to Dashboard. You will now see a quality dashboard for the entire system, including the next Cast (email send), Members, and Engagement scores by email and members. You can further filter by Stream.
• Archive an email to remove it from being Sent while retaining the data.
• Content Availability – you can now schedule emails to send only during a certain timeframe, such as a webinar or event invitation.
• You can Pause or Remove Leads from Streams or Engagement Programs using the flow action. Turning Off the Engagement system will stop all Casts/Sends until reactivated.

Key Things to Know

• You can bring in Assets from Design Studio, Programs, and Emails internal to the Engagement. Dragging and dropping from the left-hand tree is allowed!
• You can create Local Emails, Pages, Reports, and Even Programs.
• You can test the system by using Add to Engagement Program flow action on one or more test leads you determine. This saves a ton of effort from the old way: Clone and Restrict!
• You can add an entire Program to an Engagement Stream. If you have existing drip nurturing Programs, you can keep using them.
• Engagements also have a Setup like any Program. Add your Period Costs and SFDC Sync here.
• My Tokens work just like they do elsewhere, including bringing in tokens from folders above the Engagement.
• Members also work the same.
• Views:  you can adjust the view to show Stream data by Lead or Engagement or by Content. These provide helpful data points.
• AB Testing Emails – this is done by creating a Program Smart Campaign to run the test between different emails. Add that Program to the Stream.
• Communication Limits will throttle email frequency regardless of the Cadence you set.

Helpful Marketo Links:

• Engagement Program
• Engagement Dashboard
• Engagement Stream Reports

Conclusion

The Engagement System acts like a giant Program with special tools. Compared to other marketing automation tools, Marketo provides an easy-to-use nurturing system. For firms who make complicated nurturing a centerpiece of their demand gen, Marketo is now the first choice.

Of course, if you still use basic drip and have a small budget, there are always other options.

If you’ve used Engagement successfully, tell us about it below.