Marketo

About Marketo

Marketo is our marketing automation platform used for email marketing, lead management, and program management.

Marketo Tech Stack Guide

Visit the Marketo Tech Stack Guide for more information around provisioning, integrations and system diagrams.

Marketo Salesforce.com Connection

When any lead/contact is created in SFDC, it will automatically sync and create in Marketo - nothing is held back. Likewise, when a lead/contact is deleted in SFDC, it will delete in Marketo as well.

Alternatively, Marketo does not automatically push all records to SFDC and a deleted record in Marketo will not delete in SFDC unless specifically told to.

A lead will sync from Marketo to SFDC in these scenarios:

1. Member of Program that is synced to SFDC
2. When a person reaches Inquiry status
3. When they reach MQL status
4. When their PTP score is a 4 or 5
5. Specifically told to sync via a flow step Sync to SFDC

Data is shared between the two via the Marketo User Permission Set with either Read or Read/Write permissons. Accounts fields by default are Read Only. Here are quick links to review them:

• Leads
• Contacts
• Accounts

Marketo also can create and edit SFDC campaigns. The Active checkbox must be checked in order for Marketo to be able to map to that campaign. Go here for campaign set up directions.

When large updates are made to an SFDC field value, they could cause a sync backlog back to Marketo. To check the backlog, go to this page and select the object you want to review and click Get Stats. Marketo>SFDC is a push count, while SFDC>Marketo is considered Pull. You must be logged in to Marketo to view this information. Backlogs clear automatically, they are slower during working hours due to system usage (Marketo’s user base, not just GitLab), but the sync speeds up off-hours and on weekends.

Custom Sync Rules with Salesforce

Because certain processes create records with a blank email address in SFDC we want to avoid having those records flowing into Marketo since they are not actionable and the database has increasing costs per the number of records.

Together with Sales Systems, we implemented a custom formula field called Block_Marketo_Sync__c. When the field is checked, records will be blocked from syncing by the custom sync rule. Likewise, when the field is unchecked, it will flow to Marketo.

For the sandbox, we have a different set of syncing rules.

Multi-thread Sync

To avoid or clear SFDC backlogs, multi-thread sync is availible to use in Marketo. It enables the use of multiple lanes of data flowing from SFDC to Marketo, greatly increasing the sync rate depending on the resources availible on the Marketo servers. Each record in Marketo is marked with a value between 1-9 on the field Marketo Thread ID based on the first letter of the email address. Records will be synced and distributed on threads based on the value of Marketo Thread ID.

NB: This feature is not always-on and only Marketo Support can enable it. A support ticket must be opened with 7 days before planning any massive updates from SFDC or at any time there is a significant backlog

Enabling Multi-Thread Sync

To enable, you must create an issue 7 days in advance with the Marketing Operations team and include the following, so that we can open the ticket with Marketo.

1. Anticipated date of mass update
2. Business impact
3. Which field(s) are updating that will result in a backlog

Sandbox

We do have a sandbox to work in for Marketo. The sandbox is used for training, creation of API links and overall testing before we move to production. There is not a way to promote a program from the sandbox to Prod, so building programs in the sandbox first is not always required. Guidelines for when to build in the sandbox is TBD, but for custom API and webhook integrations, it is highly recommended.

If you’d like access to the sandbox, please fill out an AR.

To limit the number of leads that pass from SFDC staging to Marketo Sandbox, we have instituted a custom rule that will only allow leads to sync from SFDC Staging to Marketo Sandbox IF Marketo Sync = TRUE. This is opposite logic than what we have for production.

Reconnecting Sandbox to SFDC Staging

Sales Systems refreshes the SFDC staging environment periodically. When this occurs, there are several steps to take to reconnect it to the Marketo sandbox outlined on that page.

Forms

Use the instructions below with the documentation here. Nearly all the forms on our website (about.gitlab.com) are Marketo embedded forms. Marketing Operations is responsible for maintaining existing forms and creating any new forms.

We primarily use Global forms, which means the form is used on multiple landing pages and the automation for the form is handled on the individual Marketo programs. If you need fields that are not avaiable on the global forms, you need to request a custom form.

A few examples of when you need a custom form:

• Adding a field that is not visible on a current form
• Using a single landing page and collect registrations for multiple related events
• Addition of drop downs or checkboxes for specific event dates
• Collecting comments or uncommon information (like t-shirt sizes)
• When registrants need to indicate a preference (such as which session tracks to attend)

If you aren’t sure if your program requires a custom form but your program requires something outside of our standard set-up, ask the MOps team during your planning process so we can help guide you and keep your program timeline on track.

If you need a new custom form created, please open a form creation issue. The general timeline for form creation and complex automation is 2 weeks.

If you are using an existing form on a NEW page in Contentful, please enter a request so that we can build the automation behind the form. If there is no automation created for the form, the person filling out the form will enter Marketo, but will not be processed into a campaign or sent for follow up.

Form documentation can be found here. It contains all of our current forms, as well as standardized country and state picklists.

Translated Forms Available: Spanish, French, Italian, Korean, German, Portuguese, and Japanese. These are global forms, go to the Design Studio > Forms > Translated Forms. It is important to use these (and not clone) as they influence the localization segmentation of Language Preference.

Localized forms require special hidden fields to properly capture Preferred Language. Refer to this issue for detailed set-up instructions.

If you require a new language or need a new form, please gather the translations and then create an issue.

All forms should follow these guidelines:

• Do not use lightboxes
• Label width = 150 / Field width = 300
• Fields should be stacked in a vertical line
• Country field label should be Country/Region
• State/Province only visible when Country = United States or Canada or Australia; the visibility rule dynamically displays Province when Canada is selected or State when United States or Australia is selected
  • See more information on the standardization of Country &/or State Values to avoid sync errors
• Generally City is only visible when Country = Ukraine
• Forms should all contain a checkbox to obtain consent to opting in to communications via email
• When Country = Ukraine there is an additional checkbox for the submitter to confirm they do not live in the Crimean region of the Ukraine
• Country should not include embargoed countries
• All forms should have hidden fields for gclid and google analytics tracking

If you are collecting home addresses for direct mail campaigns, you must include the following language on the landing page or form. Additionally, you must set up a deletion campaign in Marketo to remove their address information once you have sent the item. Please also ensure the vendor we are using to ship the items also deletes this from their records. By giving us your home address, you are giving us permission to mail items to your home. We will not use this data for any other purposes.

Website Form Management

The forms on about.gitlab are embedded Marketo forms. Any changes to the fields, layout, labels and CSS occur within Marketo and can be pushed live without having to make any changes to the source file on GitLab. When needing to change or embed a whole new form, please open an issue using the form_request template.

Each Marketo form should push an event after successful submission to trigger events in Google Analytics. We use the following event labels to specify which events to fire.

1. demo for static demos on /demo/ and /demo-leader/
2. webcasts for forms on any page in /webcast/
3. trial for the form on /free-trial/
4. resources for forms on any page in /resources/
5. events for forms on any page in /events/
6. services for form on /services/
7. sales for form on /sales/
8. public-sector for forms on /solutions/public-sector/
9. mktoLead legacy custom event label used on Newsletter subscription form submission events. Currently used for primary, security, and all-remote newsletter form submissions.

We add the following line above return false in the form embed code. Please update the event label from demo to reflect the appropriate form completion.

dataLayer.push(
{
  'event' : 'demo',
  'mktoFormId' : form.getId(),
  'eventCallback' : function()
  {}, 'eventTimeout' : 3000
});

Database Recurring Purge

Marketing operations has created an automated process to purge inactive leads from the database on a recurring basis. This helps maintain data quality and reduce costs associated with storing unnecessary records. The leads are deleted from both Marketo and salesforce and follows these criteria:

The purge process runs weekly and permanently deletes leads meeting all of the above criteria.

It’s important to note that this process does not affect leads with any recent activity, those who have been through programs, or those associated with opportunities or current customers. This ensures that valuable leads are retained while removing truly inactive records.

Marketing Operations team members should regularly review the purge logs to ensure the process is running correctly and to identify any potential issues or exceptions that may need to be addressed.

The process runs through this smart campaign and deletes all records that meet the criteria from this list.

Program Asset Expiration

Starting in November 2022, teams within Marketo will transition to utilizing the asset expiration feature added to the product in early 2022 as a way to declutter our expired landing pages and no longer relevant smart campaigns. Detailed instructions on this process can be found in our handbook on the Campaigns and Programs page.

Beginning in July of 2024, Marketo will now link to our Events Page (https://about.gitlab.com/events) for asset expirations. This will be the new Redirect instead of homepage. By utilizing asset expiration this allows us to avoid having to manually go in and update each LP no longer in use and have the page redirect to /events rather than the home page. Note: The fallback page is only used for unrecognized landing pages and whenever a landing page is unavailable. If you choose to not setup asset expiration and want a page available for longer you can do so and manually close with a redirect at a later time.

Product data in Marketo

Data and engineering teams have developed integrations to bring data related to in-product customer and trial usage to Marketo.

1. Marketing Contact Datamart & Pump: Fields start with [CDB]
2. SaaS Trial & Handshakes: Fields start with [PQL]
3. Propensity to Buy Models: Fields start with [PTP] - Trial users only at the moment

Campaign Limits

There is a set limit of 250,000 records that can be processed through a given smart or email campaign. If the smart campaign smart list is set to update or email over 250,000 records, it will not run and will be aborted. This is in place to prevent accidental mass updates and emails. If you need to run a campaign over that limit, reach out to MarOps.

Standardization of Country &/or State values

There are several workflows that clean the Country &/or State fields to ensure the value meets required Salesforce format. States should be spelled out, not using abbreviations (ex. CA should be California). If a Country &/or State/Province standardization does not match SFDC exactly, the lead will not sync. If a new standardization is needed, please open an issue in the Marketing Operations project. If a country/state is updated in SFDC, the customersDOT YML file will also need to be updated to prevent sync issues.

All of the standardization smart campaigns are contained in:

Marketing Activities -> Operational - Do not edit -> Data Management -> 01 Data Management -> 04-Normalize Data

• These countries are the only ones that accept a state value: United States, Canada, Ireland, India, Brazil, Australia, China, Italy, Mexico
• All 50 US states and all Canadian Provinces have standardization campaigns to set them from their two letter abbreviation to their full spelling.
• The following countries have common variations updated to their accepted values: United States, Bolivia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Ireland, Macao, Myanmar, Netherlands, Russia, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Venezuela, Vietnam.

MQL and Lead Scoring

A Marketing Qualified Lead is a lead that has reached a threshold of 100 points, based on demographic/firmographic and/or behavioral information. The MQL Scoring is detailed below and is comprised of various actions and/or profile data that are weighted with positive or negative point values.

For a visual overview, please use this slide.

Re-MQL

For additional information, visit the lead lifecycle page.

A Lead/Contact will be allowed to re-MQL if they are in a Recycle status and reach the MQL threshold again.

The number of times they MQL will be counted with the MQL Counter field. The Initial MQL DateTime contains the very first time a prospect reached the MQL threshold. MQL Date will be overwritten to be the most recent date that a lead has reached the MQL threshold.

When a lead is set to Recycle, their Behavior Score is reset to 0. Their Person Score is reset to the value of the Demographic Score. Additionally, a person who has reached MQL in the past, is given an additional score of +20 when they are reset to Recycle and take an action to increase their behaviour score. If a lead was Accepted before it reached the MQL threshold, and is then set to Recycle within 30 days, the lead’s Behavior Score will reset to the value it was while in Inquiry when they take an action, the Demographic Score will be re-run and their overall Person Score will be the sum of those two values.

When a lead Re-MQLs from Recycle to MQL, their Recycle Reason field is set to Null, but that Recycle Reason value is preserved in the field Previous Recycle Value on the lead or contact. That field is set by Marketo only. The Recycle DateTime only updates the first time. When a lead re-reaches an MQL status, they are not re-routed by LeanData for round-robin, they stay in their original owners name.

Follow the figjam flow chart to see the lead lifecycle. Notice you cannot go backwards in status to Raw or Inquiry from a later step.

Scoring Model

The lead scoring model is a 100 point system in order to MQL. Positive and negative points are assigned to a record based on their demographic and/or firmographic information, and their behavior and/or engagement with GitLab marketing. Their Person Score is the sum of their Behavior Score and their Demographic Score. The Person Score must reach 100 in order to MQL, and their Behavior Score cannot be 0.

There is a flow that runs everynight to reset leads that have gone negative back to 0.

The Demographic, Behavior and Person scores at the moment of MQL are recorded within Marketo via 3 separate fields, titled X Score at MQL.

Some leads are exluded from scoring if they:

• Have a @gitlab.com email address
• Are a competitor
• Status = Disqualified or Ineligible
• Company name of student, personal, test and similar
• Actively worked by a partner (Prospect Share Status = Sending to Partner, Accepted, or Pending)
  • Scores are time-stamped at the time of being shared with partners and saved for when the leads return to the in-house SDR teams. The scores are re-applied to leads, with score decay, when returning to our team members for further prospecting

Why Do We Use A Scoring Model?

A slide deck of the “why” we use a scoring model, along with a few pointers, can be found here. Note, this is the slide deck used in the LevelUp course.

Scoring Revamp FY25Q1

For details on the data driven changes made to lead scoring at the beginning of FY25, refer to this slide deck and this slide deck to review the data set findings.

Auto-MQL

Based on certain criteria, a lead may auto-MQL. Note that any auto-MQL is considered to be part of the Behavior score category. The scenarios are listed below:

Behavior Scoring

Behavior scoring is based on the actions that person has taken. The cadence of how often they can be scored is listed below. For campaign scoring, there must be a success in order to capture the score, those below are marked with a *. Refer to the programs page and progression statuses to see what constitues a success.

Interaction Boosters

Boosts to scores occur when a special action takes place above the traditional action above.

Demographic Scoring

For Job role/function and seniority descriptions can be found here. There is a 70 pt hard limit on demographic scoring that limits further person score accumulation as it relates to demographic score after the max is reached.

Score Decay

Please note that score decay also applies to scores frozen by the lead being in partner status

Lead Score Classification

The Lead Classification Matrix and the Lead Classification Definitions Table exist in Figma, if the handbook page ever becomes broken.

To streamline prospecting with lead scoring, as of January 2024 Salesforce now displays a lead score classification on all new leads moving forward and all leads Marketing has tracked as active since Jan 2023. Leads that do not meet this criteria may not feature a classification, but eventually more leads may have the field populated. The field can be found in the Person Status section of leads and Contact Detail section of contacts.

A lead score classification is a 2-character score/designation meant to classify the likelihood of a prospect leading into a closed-won opportunity - with the score being modeled after the lead’s current demographic and behavior scores. A Marketo automation sets or changes the lead score classification a few minutes after two types of events: 1) when a lead is created 2) when a lead experiences a change in either their demographic or behavior scores. A visual representation of the scores and their definitions are pictured below in the Lead Classification Matrix. Lead that have their lead status set into Ineligible or Disqualified will have their lead score classification set to Disqualified or Ineligible.

How to use the Lead Classification Matrix and read the Lead Classification

The lead classification score –and its visual companion matrix– is designed to appropriately rank how to approach a lead based on two primary criteria: the demographic and behavior scores. The demographic fit of a lead is associated with letters/columns A, B, C and D. The behavior level of a lead is associated with rows 1, 2, 3 and 4. Both A and 1 are the highest designations while D and 4 are the lowest. When looking at the matrix, the lowest classification is the bottom left, D4, and the highest classification is the top right, A1. Total, there are 16 lead classification scores and each of the 16 scores has a specific definition.

In order to best utilize the lead score classification, read the definition provided on the matrix or via the definitions table below and act appropriately. For instance, a lead classified as B2 or A2 is more likely to produce a closed-won opportunity than a lead classified as D2. A D2 lead can still lead to a closed-won opporunity due to interest being shown, but due to a low demographic fit it’s less likely to be worth the time.

Lists and Segmentation

Segmentations

Marketo segmentations are used similar to a smartlist, but they are permanent and can only be changed by marketing ops. They are used to create dynamic content (emails and landing pages) and are used for faster processing of lists. Segmentations are constantly running in the background in Marketo, so they never need to be refreshed for current numbers. We can only have 20 total segmentations in Marketo. Segmentation criteria waterfalls down based on the order of the segment lists that make up the segmentation. You can only be in one segment of a segmentation.

The following segmentations that are approved and live.

Compliant and Emailable

Snippets

Localized email footer - This snippet can be applied to localized emails to automatically include the translated unsusbcribe language. The unsubscribe language will be localized if the recipient has a known Preferred Language. If they do not have a preferred language on file, the footer will be in English.

Trust Logo snippet - This snippet is used to display approved customer logos. It is typically used on thank you pages, but can be used on landing pages as well. The snippet will display when the Trust Logos section of the landing page is toggled on. Only Marketing Operations should edit this snippet based on direction from the customer advocacy team.

Other Field Documentation and Definitions

Account Based Marketing List

ABM lists are built by request for the Field Marketing and Marketing Program team to target & send emails/invitations to accounts deemed to be high priority by Sales. You can find these lists in the DMA folder in the Marketo Database. The MktgOps team is responsible for creating & maintaining these lists.

If a new ABM list is needed, please open an issue using the Target list issue template and tag marketing ops.

Geographic DMA List

The Geographic DMA (direct marketing area) were built for the Field Marketing and Marketing Campaigns team to target & send emails/invitations related to Field &/or Corporate marketing events. The MktgOps team is responsible for creating & maintaining these lists. You can find these lists in the Database of Marketo in the Geographic DMA List Folder.

If a new DMA list is needed, please open an issue in the Marketing Operations project & utilize the DMA_request issue template.

Focused Email Lists

The Field Marketing and Marketing Campaigns teams use targeted email lists as a tool when pursuing specific regions, sectors or companies. Email list requests must be submitted using this template. From there, the campaign managers or marketing ops will build or review the list

SLA for Targeted Lists

• List request is required 7 days prior to email deployment - FMM / MPM
• Final Smart List is available 2 days prior to email deployment - MOps

List Exports

If you need a list export, please fill out an export request issue.

A few users have permissions to export, they should follow proper data management procedures and avoid downloading PII for data analysis.

Marketo Sales Insight

Marketo Sales Insight (MSI) is used to help give SFDC users visibility into the different actions Marketo is taking, and user actions through Marketo. Users can use this intelligence to have more meaningful conversations with prospects and also priority their leads based on score. You can read more on Marketo’s docs page.

The MSI tab can be placed on Leads, Contacts and Accounts page layouts. If you do not see it, or want access to it, create a sales systems issue.

You can also find MSI in a tab in your SFDC instance - click the + icon on your main SFDC banner and find Marketo. On that tab you will see an aggregate view of MSI.

There are a few main components to MSI:

Insights

This tab shows a timeline of the most recent activity of a person. It shows ALL upcoming email campaigns and events (NOTE: This contains ALL upcoming emails/events, not just the ones sent to that prospect). In the timeline you can see web activity, email opens/clicks, and intersting moments. You can click into the lead timeline to see the specifics of each action. You will also see their overall score and a graph of the changes in the last 30 days. See screenshot below:

Interesting Moments

Interesting moments are captured when a milestone is reached, usually when a person attends an event, program status changes or they fill out a form. SDRs use the Last Interesting Moments field in their lead views to quickly see what the last action the prospect took before becoming an Inquiry or MQL. If you would like an intersting moment added for a certain activity, reach out to Mops to have them build it for you.

For additional information, visit this page

Web Activity

This tab shows all of the web activity of a cookied user in this view and includes the referring page. For lead/contacts it shows the activity for that particular person, for Accounts it shows activity for all contacts related to that account.

Score

Use this tab to see what the most recent score changes are. This is helpful to see all the different activities the person took to achieve the score they have. The campaign that caused the scoring can be cross referenced to the scoring rubric above.

Email

This tab shows all the emails sent to that specific person, the date and check boxes for if they opened or clicked.

Quick Actions and Watch List

You can add people to your watch list to keep a closer eye on them. You can access that watchlist by clicking the glasses next to email. Quick actions currently are not configured, but in the future may be used to add prospects to campaigns or to send an email via marketo.

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