Marketo Review
Updated September 07, 2019
Marketo Review
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
Standard
Modules Used
- Marketo Lead Management
- Marketo Sales Insight
Overall Satisfaction with Marketo
Marketo is used across our whole organization. We use Marketo to manage our website downloads, newsletter and email programs, lead lifecycle management, and database growth reporting. Paired with Salesforce, Marketo is the hub of our marketing activities and lead data. We also consult other companies on how to get the most out of their Marketo instance.
- There are many ways to accomplish a single task. You can customize workflows and campaigns based on your business needs and accessible data.
- The Marketo Community - this is often a better resource for me when I have a question than Marketo Support.
- Email program functionality is intuitive and easy to set up. The wizard walks you through the whole process, including A/B testing and sending an email based on your recipient's time zone.
- Marketo lets you block field updates. This doesn't seem major but IT IS. Other tools like HubSpot and Pardot don't have this ability. We use this feature to preserve our original lead source values.
- Marketo Support - I've submitted many tickets over the years and I have never found the support team particularly helpful. They seem more focused on closing tickets versus finding a solution for their customer. I don't find they spend much time explaining why something is the way it is or making sure their customers understand an issue. I've even been given completely false information by Support reps.
- Reporting - Some reports are not very powerful or intuitive to set up. If you're looking for end to end attribution, you'll probably need to add an additional tool to your martech stack. Caveat, I haven't taken a deeper look at some of the attribution now that Bizible is folded in.
- I often struggle with the email and landing page editor. Email 2.0 helped, but I think it'd be most useful if Marketo provided a Master template that included all the possible modules. Then the user could re-arrange based on their needs, delete modules they don't need, or clone the ones they do. Then they can create templates and further customize.
- I find that the site hangs. I'll go to close my Marketo browser tab and I get a warning asking me if I **really** want to leave the page. It makes me nervous every time that whatever I'd just worked on in Marketo wasn't actually saved. I have to close the tab against the browser's better judgement, and then go back in to double check my work had been saved.
- Cross-Sell
- Lead Management
- Prospecting / New Business
- Other
We run all of our marketing initiatives through Marketo - so in a sense, Marketo facilitates all of our outreach goals. We have nurture programs set up for prospecting, cross-selling, and staying in touch with our current database. We also have campaign flows for newsletter sign-ups, social interactions, and training series. If you do go with Marketo, the #1 thing to keep in mind is which fields to sync from SFDC -- you don't need them all! Be intentional about which fields you need for marketing purposes - syncing unnecessary fields will slow down the performance of your instance.
I feel Marketo is a superior tool. As I mentioned, you can go about things multiple ways, workflows are user friendly, and you can block field updates! I've found Marketo's lead scoring capabilities to also be superior. There are endless ways to go about your scoring, but scoring is very limited in Pardot and HubSpot.
25,000 to 100,000
Adobe Marketo Engage Feature Ratings
Learnings & Advice
I've implemented a few new instances and feel successful every time a client is happy with the result. I've learned many lessons along the way - #1 being don't sync ALL your CRM fields. Be intentional about this. Marketo becomes slow when it has to process hundreds of fields on thousands of records over and over. You'll find your list pulling and campaign execution speeds lag if you sync all fields.
I don't know if this is considered unusual or creative, but we have a fairly complex asset nurture program in place. When someone downloads an asset, we add them to a short nurture cadence based on their interest. Each time we check to see if the person has already viewed the other resources we're offering, and then have multi-step logic built in to add substitutions if they have. We try to segment our lists by these interests, also, so that we can be more intentional with our outbound communications.
Other than the field sync selection I've already mentioned, I'd say walk through the SFDC or CRM set up steps carefully. I've seen it multiple times before....a Salesforce admin goes in to do the setup steps in SFDC, and gets going quickly or skips steps they think isn't necessary. Trust me - they are necessary. Slow down, walk through each line item one by one. You'll be thankful you took the extra time at this step when you're not sorting through sync issues later.
So much! I find most of my answers in the Marketo community vs. help files or support. Since there is usually multiple ways to handle something, it's interesting learning from others.
I can’t emphasize this one enough: use global tokens. Take the time to understand the hierarchy of tokens and how they’re inherited down the folder tree. You’ll thank yourself later when you need to update your company address across multiple landing pages and email assets. Or the copyright year every January. Trust me, I’ve seen it done manually. If you plan your folder structure and tokens appropriately, updating the copyright year should be about a 30-second task.
Using Marketo's core features
- Programs
- Email Templates
- Forms
- Landing Pages
- Smart Campaigns
- Lead Scoring
- Lead Sourcing
- Segmentation
- Lead Nurture
- Reporting/Analytics