The 2019 Marketo Clean-Up You Need to Do So You Can Rock 2020

Congratulations! You made it to the end of 2019 but, you can’t quite kick up your feet and relax just yet – it’s time to prepare for 2020 with an end of year Marketo clean-up. Cleaning up Marketo can be tricky since you use it every single day. You can liken it to a car, the more you use it, and the more people in it, the more wear and tear you’ll experience. You need to get into the cracks to make it shiny and new.
 
So how do you do a thorough clean-up so that wear and tear doesn’t slow you down? Here is a list of some annual Marketo housekeeping tasks that can help keep your instance running smoothly as you kick off the new year:
 

#1– Clean Your Database

Having bad data limits your ability to deliver effective marketing strategies, and in the end will cost you money. Take some time now, before the end of the year, to analyze your database for marketability, inactivity, accuracy and relative target audiences. We recommend that you review the following audiences:
  • Duplicate records
  • Leads that have been inactive for 12 + months
  • Unsubscribes
  • Missing and hard bounced emails
  • Email bounce error codes
  • Students, competitors, and other undesirable groups
  • Marketing Suspended and Blacklisted
After review, define a clean-up/purge plan. You can easily purge specific leads such as unsubscribes because of Marketo’s Durable Unsubscribe, while other audiences may need more strategy. 
 
Also, make it a regular habit to check your possible duplicate list. Staying on top of this list will help you keep your database clean and identify trends or issues. Take some time to review and merge obvious duplicates. Find out more about merging duplicate records.
 
Doing this annually will help reduce your risk of spam traps and keep your database clean and compliant with your Marketo database limits.
 

#2 – Archive Programs and Folders

Make it easy for your users to navigate 2020 initiatives by archiving expired programs and assets. Archiving will keep your instance clean and will improve your performance. You can archive programs, campaigns, folders, templates, and any type of asset. To get optimal results, remember to deactivate triggered campaigns and un-publish any Sales Insight emails that are used by the programs or campaigns that you intend to archive. 
 
Also, don’t forget about your image and file library in the Design Studio! This is frequently overlooked and can also become cluttered and hard to navigate. Spend some time reviewing the images and files to identify any that can be deleted or archived. 
 

#3 – Create Folders for the New year

Now is a good time to create all of your 2020 folders. Marketo sorts alphabetically in chronological order. Because of this, your naming and folder hierarchy should be organized by year, quarter and/or month. Now that you’ve archived all unused programs and assets, take the next step by preparing your new year folders.
 

#4 – Update Copyright Dates

Make sure that you are making a good first impression on January 1st by making sure your copyright date is correct. If you are using snippets, simply update your snippet and the change will dynamically correct to the new information. If you are not using snippets, that’s ok – Update your copyright dates at the template level. Remember, once you have updated your templates you will need to approve all affected landing pages and emails before the changes will go into effect.

#5 – Optimize Global System Processes

Steal the show by proactively reporting on 2019’s performance and use this data to optimize in 2020! There are many global processes that need to be revisited regularly to ensure that they still align with your evolving business needs. A few good examples would include Scoring, Lifecycle, Channels and Tags, etc. Now would be a good time to analyze the effectiveness of these global processes.
 
When doing this, include all stakeholders who can provide honest feedback. Ask questions about the quality of MQLs to gage the effectiveness of your Scoring strategy. Discuss any changes to the sales process and/or milestones that may need to be accommodated for in your Lifecycle. Take a look at your 2020 Marketing Plan to determine if the current Channels and Tags will effectively meet your needs for the upcoming year. 
 
The clean-up you do today will help you start 2020 right with a squeaky-clean, Marketo experience. Digital Pi can help you in 2020, and beyond. Email us at hello@digitalpi.com and make sure 2020 rocks! Now, go get that car detailed so you really start the year off right! 

Your marketing technology experts.

At Digital Pi, we use technology to connect revenue to marketing efforts. We fuse marketing strategies, processes, data and applications to make marketing technology solutions work for clients' businesses.

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