Overview

Although Marketo offers a powerful Marketing Automation platform, encountering system issues is inevitable. When faced with the sudden panic of a Slack message asking “is Marketo broken?” or receiving the dreaded Marketo sync error email, it’s important to react promptly and effectively. Swift troubleshooting is crucial to minimize disruptions and ensure your marketing campaigns continue to operate smoothly. This guide will delve into common Marketo issues and offer practical steps to troubleshoot and resolve them. Armed with this knowledge, you’ll be equipped to handle any future challenges calmly and confidently.

What is troubleshooting Marketo issues?

The spectrum of Marketo issues spans from straightforward to highly intricate, contingent upon the circumstances. Introduce third-party integrations into the mix, and the troubleshooting process becomes a challenging puzzle of determining how and where to address the issues. From basic tasks like updating a person field value to more complex endeavors such as resetting a third-party integration, the troubleshooting spectrum varies widely.

Why should companies troubleshoot Marketo issues?

You want a well run Marketo instance don’t you!? Ok, I will provide a more calm response on why this should be done. Having persisting issues running in your system can cause major issues to your business. You can risk not having leads get sent to your CRM, miss out on activities such as webinar or event registrations or have those shiny (but expensive) third party tools provide no value to your business if things are not troubleshot and fixed.

When should a company troubleshoot Marketo issues?

A company should troubleshoot Marketo issues as soon as they are identified or suspected. Prompt troubleshooting is essential to minimize disruptions to marketing operations and ensure that campaigns continue to run smoothly.

Some examples of necessary troubleshooting as soon as possible is necessary:

• Error messages: can be due to a sync failure or other type of technical error.
• Data discrepancies: if your sales team is getting incomplete data, you should make sure all of your systems in Marketo are working properly and providing that data. And if not, fix and retroprocess.
• Customer complaints: if a customer complains about being sent an email or asks your CSM team to be removed from your email lists, you should go in and update their records as soon as possible to keep them happy.
• Compliance issues: if a GDPR request to be removed from the database arises, you should work diligently to ensure that it is taken care of fast to ensure compliance is met for your company.
• Campaign failures: If automated campaigns, email sends, or other marketing activities fail to execute as expected, it’s important to identify the root cause and implement corrective actions to prevent recurrence.

How should a company troubleshoot Marketo issues?

Troubleshooting Marketo issues requires a systematic approach to identify and resolve problems efficiently. Below are a few examples of these approaches depending on the issue at hand.

Gather information: Look and see what you can find in your Marketo instance around the problem. Are you seeing this issue happen to other records or campaigns? If so, what is the common issue or error message being received?

Check the Marketo System Status: Sometimes, it’s just not your instance that is having a bad day. Before diving into troubleshooting, verify Marketo’s system status to determine if the issue is widespread or localized to your account. Marketo provides a status page where you can view real-time updates on platform performance and any ongoing incidents or maintenance activities.

Verify Configuration Settings: Review your Marketo instance’s configuration settings, including email templates, workflows, smart campaigns, and integration settings. Ensure that everything is set up correctly and aligned with your marketing objectives. Pay special attention to any recent changes that may have triggered the issue.

Check Integration Points: If Marketo is integrated with other systems or platforms, such as CRM software or third-party applications, verify the integration points for any errors or discrepancies in data syncing, authentication credentials, or API usage. Ensure that integrations are properly configured and compatible with the latest versions of connected systems.

Contact Marketo Support: Sometimes, you won’t be able to figure out the issue on your own, and that’s okay! If you’re unable to resolve the issue on your own, don’t hesitate to reach out to Marketo’s support team for assistance. Provide detailed information about the problem, including steps to reproduce, error messages, and any troubleshooting steps you’ve already taken. Marketo’s support team can offer expert guidance and escalate the issue to their engineering team if necessary.

Who should troubleshoot Marketo issues?

In most cases, the owner of the Marketo instance should be the one troubleshooting the issue. That person should have the most historical knowledge and where to look to diagnose the issue. However, there may be times other teams get involved if the issue affects other systems such as the CRM (such as Salesforce) or another third party application that is owned by other team members. In those situations, you will need to have a cross functional process to identify the issue and help with testing any solutions.

Conclusion

Troubleshooting Marketo issues can be a challenging but manageable task with the right approach. By systematically identifying the problem and following the appropriate steps mentioned in this blog, you can effectively diagnose and resolve common Marketo issues, ensuring the continued success of your marketing campaigns. So next time you get that dreaded sync error email or slack message in all caps, you can breathe easier now you know the steps to take in order to successfully troubleshoot Marketo issues.