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How to Use Marketo Analytics Effectively

February 19, 2014 By Josh Hill

program-membership-chartWhen people begin using Marketo, they very often ignore the Analytics section for awhile. This makes sense because there isn’t much data there the first month or two. But then the Director or the CMO comes by and asks, “How are our leads doing this month?” So what do you do when the reporting system hasn’t been setup yet?

Here are my best tips on how to get it done.

Naming Reports Well

I’ve worked with several companies that have never setup a naming scheme for Reports. Here are a few names I’ve seen that lack clear descriptions. What would you think these reports are really about?
Nurture Leads 1
Capterra
PDF Downloads May 2013
You will reuse reports, so make sure the names make sense. Here’s what I recommend for good names for reports:
Description – Region – Date Range
Web leads by Webinar Campaign – US – Past 6 Months
Email Performance by Webinars – Global – Past 90 days

Fast Ways to Get at Marketo Data

There are several ways to find data fast for the inevitable spot request.

  • Campaign Overview Tabs

These are great for understanding cumulative or weekly membership – who qualified for this campaign? The overview also provides an Email Performance tab displaying data for any and all emails sent from this campaign. Keep in mind this is restricted to email data from members who qualified for this campaign. If you are using the emails elsewhere, you’ll need an Email Performance Report.

  • Program Overview Tabs

Similar to the Campaign Overview, Program tabs summarize membership and success for the Program. At a glance, you’ll know total members, who is a net new lead because of this campaign, and more. You can also click on Members to take actions on the leads.

  • Engagement Overviews

There are several options here. You can use the View > Dashboard menu to switch between the regular Overview, Engagement, and Membership tabs. The Engagement panel displays the best performing content and current status of members through the Streams.

  • Email Send Program Overviews

You also can use the Dashboard menu to switch between data panels. Remember that the Email Send program allows you to do AB testing, so this is an important view if you are running tests.

  • Smart Lists (Best for cross tabs)

People think of Analytics and then ignore the Smart Lists. Smart Lists may be your best friend for data reporting when you need accurate lead counts. Because of the limitations of the Analytics package, Smart Lists are usually the fastest way to develop counts or even time series if you are patient.

  • Static Lists and Segmentations

Again, a quick summary of leads in this list.

  • Landing Page Summaries

If you are running any AB tests, use the Landing Page Group summary. Each page has a default conversion report for the past 30 days (adjustable). If you need overall data or multiple pages, see the Landing Page Report.

Table of Report Features

I noticed Marketo didn’t have a nice table describing the options on each report. Here is one I created to make selecting a report faster:

Marketo Report Feature Table

Constraining Reports to Achieve the Cross Tab

A lot of new users ask about creating cross-tabs or pivot tables. The Short Answer is you don’t without RCA or Excel.

A better answer is to use Drill Down, except that this only works in “Leads by” reports

  • Lead Performance
  • Leads by Month
  • Leads by Revenue Stage
  • Leads by Source

When you create a Lead Report and then select a row to Drill Down on, you are asking Marketo to create a new Report with a specific Time Range and then Smart List. A new report is created and you can then save it.

Marketo Drill Down Report

It follows that you can use Smart Lists on the reports that offer this option to achieve the same result as Drill Down. Smart Lists constrain and cross tab the report without using a pivot table.

You can also achieve a similar result with Custom Columns. The column is simply based on a Smart List that previously exists outside of the report. It says “Of the leads who qualified for this report, how many of them are also in this smart list?”

First, go to the Setup tab of your Lead Report.

Marketo Custom Column Dialog

Marketo Custom Column Examples

Wow. That’s powerful.

A Word About Program Costs, Tags, and Revenue Cycle Analytics

If you aren’t filling in your Program Costs or using Program Tags, then you might be setting yourself up for a big RCA failure. Even if you don’t have RCA now, you could in the future. If you aren’t using Program Costs now, then when you turn on RCA, a lot of the tools will tell you nothing useful until you start putting in those Program Costs.

Program Tags are setup in Admin > Channels. These aren’t required, but you can make use of them to segment your Programs by Region, Marketer, etc. Worth a look.

MRG is now on Facebook – follow me for more tips and special offers.

The Marketing Rockstar’s Guide to Analytics Chapter

Need more tips? This is now free for everyone:

How to Use Marketo Analytics from Josh Hill

Presentation to the Netherlands Marketo User Group (Jan 21, 2014):

Marketo Reporting with Marketo User Group Netherlands – Jan 21 2014 from Josh Hill

Filed Under: Marketo User Guide

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