Marketo Engage Glossary marketo-engage-glossary
Last update: Wed May 08 2024 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
- Topics:
- Getting Started
Below are definitions for many of the terms you may encounter when using Marketo Engage. To request a term be added, please send us an email.
A a
Allows you to modify components of your email (e.g., subject line, from address, etc.) and set testing criteria to determine which set of content fares better.
Account
This term can have different meanings:
-Your Marketo instance itself can be referred to as your Marketo account.
-In TAM, a Named Account is an account that the user has determined is a target account they want to pursue.
-In TAM, a CRM Account is an account mapped from your linked CRM (account in Salesforce, MS Dynamics or API).
-In your CRM, accounts are the business/company that leads and contacts are associated to.
-Your Marketo instance itself can be referred to as your Marketo account.
-In TAM, a Named Account is an account that the user has determined is a target account they want to pursue.
-In TAM, a CRM Account is an account mapped from your linked CRM (account in Salesforce, MS Dynamics or API).
-In your CRM, accounts are the business/company that leads and contacts are associated to.
Account List
A list of key account/organization names. Also known as a Target Account Management (TAM) list.
Account Profiling
(formerly AccountAI) In TAM, using your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), existing companies in your database will be ranked, and the rankings are added as scores on your accounts.
In TAM, it's a score assigned to an account to help you determine its level of engagement.
Acquisition Date
The date when a person becomes known in Marketo. This date corresponds to the Acquisition Program that acquired the person.
Acquisition Program
The program that was responsible for acquiring a person. The person may have been anonymous and this program was responsible for converting them to a known person. This helps establish First-Touch Attribution.
(formerly Ad Bridge) A way to connect Marketo's unique audience data to your paid media systems so you can run more targeted, personalized digital ad campaigns.
Adobe Marketo Engage
The official brand name for the aggregate of all Marketo's product offerings within the Adobe Experience Cloud.
A notification used to inform someone whom you've designated receive an email regarding a transaction.
Anonymous Visitor
A web visitor who never filled out a form or left their details on the website.
A set of predefined protocols used to perform single or mass functions in an operating system or application (in this case, Marketo).
Approved
Used to confirm when an asset is ready for consumption. Assets cannot be viewed publicly until they have been approved.
Asset
An item that serves as content in your Marketo instance (e.g., email, landing page, smart campaign, etc.).
B b
A campaign that targets qualified members using filters or list membership. Batch campaigns launch at a specific time and affects a specific set of people all at once. Batch campaigns can be set to recur, or run one time.
Behavior Score
A point value assigned to a person based on their actions/behavior (e.g., visiting a web page, clicking a link in an email, filling out a form, etc.). Typically used to measure a person's interest in your product or company.
Blocklist
A list of IP addresses or domains associated with sending spam.
A field for a Marketo person whom you don't want receiving your marketing material (e.g., a competitor). When you set the Blocklisted field to true, the person will not receive any emails from your Marketo instance, including operational emails.
When an email sent to a recipient is returned. There are hard and soft bounces. A hard bounce can render a person's email address invalid when a mail server tells Marketo that the person's email can't be delivered. A soft bounce means something went wrong in delivering the email to the person; this gets resolved automatically. Both hard and soft bounces consist of multiple categories.
C c
Campaign
Report type that shows email performance metrics grouped by smart campaign.
An organizing unit that can hold multiple programs and/or smart campaigns. Like a folder on your desktop, folders in Marketo are used for organization and reporting.
A cast is the event of sending emails from an engagement program.
Type of marketing activity associated with a program (e.g., email, webinar, tradeshow, roadshow, online advertising, etc.).
Click to Open %
Percentage of emails that were opened and had a link clicked in the email. This measures the relevancy and context of an email by taking the number of unique clicks divided by the number of unique opens, and then multiplying by 100 to show it as a percentage.
Clicks
By default, links in emails have tracking embedded in them allowing you to see who clicked which link, how many total links were clicked, etc.
Clickstream
The visitor's activity and URL path on the site and how long they visited each page.
Clone
In Marketo you can make duplicates of several different types of entities within your instance. You can clone programs, an asset within a program, a stream, and more.
The front part of your URL. The one word (plus YourCompany.com) is called a CNAME (e.g., info.YourCompany.com/).
Report type that shows which companies are visiting your website.
An extra condition you can add to smart list filters/triggers to help narrow your search.
Content
A piece of information added to assets, such as emails or landing pages. In engagement programs, there are two types of content you can add to streams—emails and programs.
ContentAI
(see Predictive Content)
An area of Web Personalization that displays discovered existing content from your website, as well as content performance.
Content Engagement Level
A 0 to 100 point score that Marketo will give your content in an engagement program. The score is determined by a sophisticated formula using opens, clicks, unsubscribes, program success, and more.
Cookie
A cookie is a small piece of data that is sent to a user's web browser from a website to help personalize the experience (remembers log-in info, preferences, etc.).
In Facebook, create a list made up of specific, existing people (from your Marketo database) for the purposes of direct targeting.
A non-standard field the user creates in order to meet specific needs. Custom Field Types have their own glossary.
Custom objects help you track metrics specific to your business.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
A system that allows organizations to manage information related to their customers/potential customers. Marketo only allows native integration with two CRMs: Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics.
D d
Database
One of the core sections of Adobe Marketo Engage. The database is home to all of your person records.
De-Dupe
Also known as de-duplicating. The process of identifying and consolidating information (e.g. people) as to eliminate duplication. For example, Marketo automatically de-dupes when new people enter your instance.
Default Program
A program type in Marketo. A generic program you'll use when an email, event, or engagement program isn't relevant.
Deliverability
The ability of an email message to reach the intended recipient's inbox, which can be impacted by spam and client-side filters. Different than "Delivered," which only indicates the email was handed off to the recipient server.
Demand Generation
The act of using targeted marketing with the intention of increasing demand for your organization's products or services.
Demographic Score
A point value that is assigned based on specific attributes the person has such as job title, revenue size, or target industry. Typically used to measure a person's fit with your product or company.
Design Studio
One of the core sections of Adobe Marketo Engage. Design Studio is home to your assets, such as: landing pages, forms, emails, snippets, and images/files.
Docs
Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC)
A DNS-based email security policy that standardizes the operation and interpretation of SPF and DKIM, allowing mailbox providers to validate that mail claiming to be from a domain originates from valid sources for that domain. It further allows senders to specify how mail that fails validation should be treated.
Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM)
An Authentication mechanism that secures the sending domain, enabling senders to associate the domain name in the From Address with a specific email message. This allows the receiver to know the email was legitimately sent by the domain's owner. A sender will sign the email with a digital signature in the message header. The receiver is able to decrypt that signature using a public key published in DNS by the domain's owner to ensure the mail was legitimately sent by the domain's owner.
Draft
An email or landing page that hasn't been approved yet. Drafts cannot be viewed publicly until they have been approved. You can send a draft as a test email (sample), however it will not record any analytics.
Drip Campaign
A direct marketing method that involves sending customers/potential customers a series of correspondence over a long period of time.
A master unsubscribe status that ensures if an unsubscribed person is removed and recreated, or if a new record is created with an existing unsubscribed same email address, that record will remain unsubscribed.
Content (e.g., images, snippets, text, etc.) that populates in an email or landing page based on criteria you specify, allowing you to personalize the experience for the reader.
E e
Email
In Marketo, one of the assets available for use to communicate with your customers. Emails can be HTML (graphics, custom font, etc.), or Text Only (plain text messages with no special formatting). Only HTML emails can record "opens."
Email Invalid
A default field in Marketo that denotes whether or not a person's email address in your database is deliverable.
A program type in Marketo. Email programs are used for one-time email sends. You can utilize A/B testing as well as track your email results.
A status that blocks a person from receiving emails for 24 hours after a hard bounce occurs. After 24 hours, the person becomes mailable again.
A program type in Marketo. Engagement programs allow you to market to new people by delivering content systematically (also known as nurture program).
Score based on a proprietary algorithm that takes into account: engaged behavior (opens, clicks, program success) and disengaged behavior (unsubscribes).
Something that occurs in order for you to communicate with your customers and potential customers. Offline events usually consist of gatherings or tradeshows, and online events are usually webinars.
A third-party integration that helps automate your online events.
A program type in Marketo. Event programs are used to automate your events, both on and offline (e.g., webinars, meetups, tradeshows, etc.).
When a person has received every piece of content in an engagement stream. People who are marked as exhausted will remain as such until additional content is added.
F f
Feedback Loop
When the ISP forwards complaints of recipients to the organization that sent the email.
A tool used in smart lists that allows you to narrow down your audience (e.g., everyone in your database who lives in California). Filters can be used in both Batch and Trigger campaigns.
Flow
The area of a smart campaign that determines what happens to the people you've chosen via the criteria set in the smart list. The flow consists of one or more flow steps.
Also referred to as flow action: an action that takes place for the person/people you've chosen (either as part of a smart campaign, a single flow action from a smart list, or a single flow action on one person).
Free-form Landing Page
(see Landing Page)
G g
European Union legislation that went into effect on May 25, 2018, aimed at giving EU citizens more control over their personal data.
Global Assets
Assets created in the Design Studio for use in programs across your Marketo instance.
Guided Landing Page
(see Landing Page)
H h
(see Bounce)
I i
In Marketo Sales Insight, an occurrence that you deem to be of particular relevance (e.g., when someone visits a specific page on your site, clicks a particular link in an email, etc.) that you want your Sales Team to be aware of.
K k
Any person data in the Marketo database is considered known person data. There are a variety of ways for someone to enter your database, including: CRM sync, filling out a form, list import/manual entry, programmatic (rest API/partner integrations), and more. Web visitors are initially cookied (and are anonymous) via Marketo's Munchkin web-tracking and are then subsequently mapped to the corresponding known person record when identifiable action occurs (e.g., clicked a tracked link in a Marketo email, filled out a form with their email address, or are mapped manually through the Marketo associate lead APIs in both Munchkin and Rest API
L l
Landing Page
A Marketo-hosted page that allows you to display content and track visitors. There are two different types: Free-form and Guided. Free-form landing pages allow you to drag and drop whatever content you want, wherever you want. Guided landing pages are more strict, with a predefined layout/structure determined by the template.
Home to best-in-class Marketo-integrated solutions, featuring hundreds of technology and digital services partners.
Lead
In Adobe Marketo Engage, lead is the previous term (replaced by person) used to describe an individual in your Marketo database that you're engaging with through your marketing campaigns. In your CRM, a lead may represent a different concept (i.e., an individual associated with an opportunity) independent of Marketo's functionality.
Lead Database
Previous name for Database (see Database).
List
A collection of people. In Marketo there are smart lists and static lists. A smart list is dynamic list of people that can constantly change, as it's based on filters you define (e.g., everyone in your database who lives in California). When new people qualify for the criteria (or existing people no longer qualify) the list changes. A static list is, well, static. It doesn't change unless you manually add/delete someone.
Assets utilized within a specific program.
M m
Marketing Activities
One of the core sections of Adobe Marketo Engage. This is where your campaign orchestration occurs. All of your programs, campaigns, and campaign folders (as well as their local assets) live here.
A category of technology that allows companies to streamline, automate, and measure marketing tasks and workflows, so they can increase operational efficiency and grow revenue faster.
Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)
After nurturing a segment of your audience, some individuals may become marketing qualified leads, meaning they have exhibited the behavior and characteristics to meet your success criteria in order to be passed off to your sales organization for follow-up.
This field is manually set by the user to make someone in their Marketo database temporarily unmailable.
Marketo Lead Management (MLM)
Colloquial term used to describe Marketo's classic core application interface.
Marketo Performance Insights (MPI)
(see Performance Insights)
Marketo Sales Connect (MSC)
An add-on, multi-faceted sales tool that helps marketers engage with prospects and track performance.
Marketo Sales Insight (MSI)
An add-on feature that allows marketers to empower their sellers with marketing insights from their CRM.
Microsoft Dynamics
Also known as MSD. One of the two CRMs Marketo has a native integration with (see CRM).
Marketo's custom JavaScript tracking code. It tracks all individuals who visit your website. This includes anonymous visitors (along with their IP addresses and other information).
My Marketo
One of the standard sections of Adobe Marketo Engage. Acts as your Marketo "homepage," displaying tiles for all of the sections of Marketo you have access to.
N n
Named Account
In TAM, an account that the user has determined is a target account they want to pursue.
Nurture Program
See (Engagement Program)
O o
Opens
An open registers when images are downloaded into an email. Even if you don't include an image, by default Marketo inserts a single tracking pixel into all HTML emails. Text only emails cannot register an open.
An email that ignores Unsubscribed and Marketing Suspended status. Meant to be used for critical or auto-response emails. Not meant for marketing. Operational emails will not to be sent to people with Blocklisted or Email Invalid status.
Opportunities
An opportunity can be associated with a person or account as a potential future sale. They usually enter Marketo through a CRM, or via API.
Opt-in
When a person gives their permission to begin receiving marketing emails.
Opt-out
(see unsubscribe)
P p
A report type in Marketo. It allows you to measure the growth of your database over time.
The money you spend in a specific month on a program.
Formerly known as Marketo Performance Insights (MPI). An add-on analytics feature that uses various tools to help you discover trends and identify consistent winning strategies.
Person
An individual in your Marketo database that you're engaging with through marketing campaigns.
Person partitions act like separate databases. Each partition has its own people that do not de-dupe or mix with other partitions.
In Marketo's Target Account Management, personas are a subset of an audience, allowing for more specific targeting.
A poll in Marketo is just like a regular poll. Create a topic for people to vote on and share it on your Marketo landing pages, your website, and/or social media.
Predictive Content
(formerly known as ContentAI) An add-on feature that helps Marketo users better engage web visitors and email recipients with the most relevant content, using recommendations powered by machine learning and predictive analytics.
A container that holds everything you need to perform a marketing initiative. There are four different types: Event Programs, Engagement Programs, Email Programs, and Default Programs)
Program Month
The month associated with the period cost of a program.
A report type in Marketo. It allows you to see how your programs are doing. Filter by tags, period cost, etc.
Q q
When a person meets the predetermined criteria in a smart campaign, they qualify for it. You can set qualification rules to determine how many times they can run through the flow in said smart campaign.
R r
Reputation
A score of performance over time, made up of various signals and/or data points. Reputation could be tied to a sender's domain, content, or IP address, and affects deliverability.
Return Path Address
The actual email address a message originates from, different than the email in the "from" field.
Revenue Cycle Analytics (RCA)
An add-on feature the contains various tools designed to help you enhance reporting across your instance.
A tool used in Revenue Cycle Analytics (RCA) that uses a series of stages, allowing you to track where your lead is at any given point during your effort to convert them.
Role
A title assigned to a user that groups a bunch of permissions together (e.g., Admin, Marketing User).
Role Account
An email address that belongs to a department or position (e.g., security@, sysadmin@, etc.), not to an individual person. Marketo blocks mail from being sent to specific role accounts that cannot be associated with an individual subscriber.
S s
Salesforce
Also known as SFDC. One of the two CRMs Marketo has a native integration with (see CRM).
A test email you send to yourself (and/or others) to see how it looks before sending it to your customers. You can also use samples to test dynamic content.
The categories within a segmentation (see Segmentation).
The grouping together of people in your database based on a smart list rule you designate. For example, you can have a segmentation called Industry, and the categories within it can be: Healthcare, Technology, Financial, etc. Segmentation allows you to market to entire groups of people based on a chosen demographic.
Sender Policy Framework (SPF)
An authentication mechanism that identifies the email servers allowed to send mail for a specific domain.
One of the most important tools in Marketo. They perform actions you designate based on criteria you determine. (see also Batch Campaign and Trigger Campaign)
Smart List
(see List)
A block of content (text, image) that can be pre-created and quickly inserted into landing pages/emails going forward.
Soft Bounce
(see Bounce)
Software as a Service (SaaS)
A method of software delivery that doesn't require a download, just a device with a web browser and an internet connection (e.g., Marketo).
Spam
The most common term for unsolicited email.
Spam Traps
Email addresses that ISPs and email security providers specifically monitor to trap spammers. These can include addresses never used, typo domains and expired domains. The different types of spam traps can indicate different problems with acquisition from issues with forms (typo spam traps), not properly maintaining a database or removing invalid addresses (expired domain spam traps) or acquiring addresses without permission often by purchasing lists (pristine spam traps). Any mail sent to these addresses is marked as spam.
Split Testing
A testing experiment with two or more variants to measure the difference in results. The goal is to identify changes to web pages that increase or maximize an outcome of interest.
Static List
(see List)
T t
Identifiers used to describe programs.
(formerly Account-based Marketing/ABM) An add-on feature that allows you to target and engage key accounts in a highly coordinated fashion.
Template
An email or landing page that's used as a starting point for creating additional emails or landing pages.
A variable that can be used in a variety of assets/functions within Marketo that allow for the automatic insertion of personalized data.
Tree
The column on the left in Marketo that displays items in a hierarchical structure. It shows everything that's in your Marketo instance (e.g., workspaces, programs, local assets, etc.).
Trigger
An activity or event that activates the flow steps of a trigger campaign when said event occurs (e.g., someone visits a web page, clicks a link in an email, etc.).
A smart campaign that contains at least one trigger.
U u
Unsubscribe
When a person chooses to no longer receive marketing emails, another term for opt-out.
A status that indicates the recipient chose to no longer receive marketing emails. People who are marked as unsubscribed may still receive operational emails.
User
An individual who uses Marketo.
W w
Web Campaign
A report type in Marketo. It allows you to see the known or anonymous people who are visiting your website.
An add-on feature that provides a targeting and personalization platform, helping Marketo users engage known and anonymous visitors in real-time, based on who they are and what they do.
Webinar
A web-based seminar. In Marketo, webinars can be conducted via a number of different event partners.
An add-on feature that helps Marketo users help target known and anonymous visitors (via Facebook and Google) with relevant ads based on industry, named accounts, and known data.
What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG)
A common term referring to an application or editor that allows you to see the end result of your content as you create it. Marketo has a WYSIWYG editor.
Widget
A small, graphical element in an application that allows for a specific interaction. Widgets are only available in Marketo Sky (different than a Widget web campaign)
Wildcard
A character (* is used in Web Personalization) that's used before or after a string to substitute for any other character(s) in a string.
A separate area in Marketo that holds marketing assets. For example, you can have a workspace called "North America" that you strictly use for marketing to that region. Europe, Asia, etc.
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