Discover 3 practical use cases for using Smart Lists and associated features to audit data quality, monitor campaign performance, and measure database growth. This article provides step-by-step video demos and expert tips shared by a Champion customer.

In this article, I share how Adobe Marketo Engage admins can leverage Smart Lists for various reporting needs using subscriptions, views, and custom columns. Follow along as I explain the common business scenarios for which I have used these features. Watch the videos where I demonstrate how to implement each use case step by step in Marketo Engage and share my tips and tricks along the way.

Use case 1: Audit data quality with Smart List and Report Subscriptions

In Marketing Operations, there are many times when you want to be proactive instead of reactive. For example, you want to monitor and audit the quality of your data proactively, such as MQLs that are missing a source value or records from a marketing campaign that are missing a country value. Another example is to review reports proactively regarding campaign performance with stakeholders who are not marketing users in Marketo Engage.

In Marketo Engage, you can use Report and Smart List Subscriptions to surface the right data and reports directly to your email inbox. You can even send it to a specific Slack channel to help with that proactive data management.

When choosing between a Report and Smart List, here are some key considerations:

• A Report is a structured, pre-defined format that provides specific metrics. Examples include Email Performance, Program Performance, and People Performance. A Report subscription works best when you want to see specific metrics as defined by Marketo Engage.
• A Smart List is simply a list of all records that meet the criteria you define. There are no metrics, but it is endlessly customizable. A Smart List subscription works best when all you need to see is a list of records that meet a given criterion.

Let’s dive into the video to demonstrate how I audit data quality by setting up the Report and Smart List Subscriptions.

Now, you are equipped with the knowledge of when and how to use Smart List and Report subscriptions. Choosing between Smart List and Reports subscriptions depends on your reporting goal. In the next section, I share more use cases where Smart Lists can come as handy.

Use case 2: Identify and troubleshoot data fields with Smart List View

Your marketing team wants to run a campaign, and they have asked you to identify a specific audience with Marketo Engage. Unfortunately, there are multiple fields that you could potentially use to build the audience, and you do not know which fields contain the right data points. For example, most instances have multiple “country” fields, but usually only a few are actively maintained.

This scenario is where Smart Lists and Smart List Views come into play. By building the audience in a Smart List and then using a View to compare all possible field options, you can easily investigate and identify what fields contain the data you need.

Smart List Views can also be leveraged to diagnose problems in your operational processes. For example, if you are looking to understand why a certain group of records is not receiving an email, a Smart List View can help you view multiple relevant field values at a single glance.

In the video below, let me walk you through building and deploying a Smart List View for identifying fields or troubleshooting data values.

You may want to save a View as its own separate option for referencing this Smart List View in the future to verify your data.

Use case 3: Measure database growth by segmenting People Performance Reports with Smart Lists

A common reporting need for Marketo Engage administrators is to measure their database growth over time. The People Performance Report is the basic out-of-the-box report that answers business questions such as how many people you have added to your database within a given time frame. But if you want to slice and dice your database further using a given criterion (for example, by country or MQL lifecycle status), there are a few options in Marketo Engage:

1. The easiest and quickest option is the drill-down feature, which allows you to group the records by a given field.
2. Under Settings, you can also use the Group People By feature to group records by a given field.
3. Or if you have more intricate criteria, you can build Smart Lists and then use Custom Columns to pull those slices into your People Performance Report. For example, you can build Smart Lists that look at Lifecycle status by Region or Lead Score and Time Spent in Free Trial.

In the video below, let’s explore how to slice and dice a People Performance Report, specifically how to build Smart Lists to be used as Custom Columns.

Overall, Smart List is a very handy way to do additional slicing and dicing of your database data. I like to pair it with the People Performance Report for trend analysis by cohort.

Key takeaways

That wraps up this article on reporting with Smart Lists. I find Smart Lists are an essential tool for Marketo Engage admins’ daily operation. Using Smart Lists, you can:

• Obtain more insights into the People in your database during your standard maintenance of Marketo Engage.
• Make your reporting more precise when pairing them with associated features such as Drill-down, Grouping by field, and Custom Columns.
• Surface the right information right when you or stakeholders need it with subscriptions and make informed decisions.

I hope you found these 3 use cases helpful, and happy reporting!