What to focus on first when inheriting a Marketo Engage instance.

You’ve just landed a fantastic new marketing operations role and you get the keys to your Marketo Engage instance. Where do you start?

Having inherited numerous Marketo instances over the years, I’ve learned that the places to check first are the foundational elements that will have the biggest impact. Stability is key.

Privacy and consent

Start here, purely because the cost of getting this wrong can have a significant financial and reputational impact on your company. Are you compliant in specific regions? Getting this right will mean that you're protecting your company, and can continue to email prospects and customers with confidence.

Lead handoff

The lead handoff is crucial for multiple reasons. The first being that you want that lead to be worked as soon as possible, because this will impact the perception that the person has of your company. The second being, that the hand off process is one of the most important contributing factors in sales and marketing alignment.

CRM sync errors

When your Marketo and Salesforce instances aren’t syncing correctly, you’re losing both context and trust. Dive into the admin console and identify the errors that are occurring most frequently. Often, a handful of high-volume field mapping issues are responsible for thousands of failed syncs. Fixing these "global" errors first will have an immediate impact.

Deliverability

Certain aspects of deliverability are not an overnight fix. However, it’s so important to get the basics right. Check the technical foundations first, specifically SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. Beyond the technical setup, look at the hidden settings like communication limits. Are they too lenient? You should also audit the use of "Operational" emails; if these are being abused for marketing content, you are at risk of burning your sender reputation.

There are certainly other important areas to look at, but these are typically the ones that I prioritise first. For example, it's definitely best practice to ensure that you have great program templates to clone from, but it’s not as business critical as being compliant with privacy laws and regulations.

If you want to get the most from the Marketo Engage instance that you have just inherited, MarTechulate offers in-depth Marketo audits carried out by an Adobe Certified Master. To request yours, get in touch with us today.

Get the latest insights from Martechulate