MOPs Rundown: What matters in Marketo and Bizible’s Q3 releases

The endless summer is coming to an end, kids are going back to school, offices are opening up, and both Marketo and Bizible’s latest releases are here. I had a chance to catch-up with Perkuto’s own senior director of solutions architecture, Justin Norris, and consultant, Paul Ferrer, to find out what they’re most excited about. 

Marketo Executable Campaign Nesting

In the May ‘21 release, Executable Campaigns were introduced as a new Flow Step & Campaign Type. One of the limitations we cited was a lack of nest-ability (executable campaigns cannot themselves execute campaigns). This limitation was a deal breaker for a significant number of use cases. With the new release, Marketo users will be able to nest Executable Campaigns. According to Adobe, the new feature will allow executable campaigns to nest up to three levels deep. 

Why we care. According to Norris, “Executable Campaign Nesting resolves a key limitation of this new feature and makes it usable for a broader range of applications; including further consolidation of operational flows and improving Smart Campaign management.” 

For a great review of Executable Campaigns (pros, cons, and gotchas), watch the March 31, 2021 Houston MUG presentation. 

Marketo Single Flow Action in Person Detail Page

According to Adobe, the new feature will “execute flow actions like sending email, change person owner,  or any other smart campaign action on individual people from the person detail page using the flow action menu without switching to the database grid view.” 

This feature will not affect previous capabilities on the person detail page which included editing some fields like a person’s information (job title, phone, etc.). Fields like activity log, company information, opportunities for SFDC contacts, and certain Marketo-specific fields such as Created Date and Original Source Type remain not editable. 

Why we care. “This is a nice convenience feature that Marketo power users will appreciate,” notes Norris. 

Adobe Identity Management System integration

Although this feature didn’t show-up on Norris and Ferrer’s list, it’s worth a heads-up. 

Beginning in September 2021, net new enterprise customers will sign-in to the Marketo application with Adobe User Credentials, streamlining user administration and SSO powered by Adobe Identity System.  New users will be invited to Marketo via the Adobe Admin Console. New commercial Marketo customers and all existing Marketo customers will not yet be impacted by this feature. 

Why we care. Marketo user roles are still managed in Marketo. In other words, a Marketo admin will still be able to manage roles in the Marketo application at least for now. In 2022, there is a plan to migrate existing enterprise customers to the Adobe platform. 

Download B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A marketer’s guide

Marketo Submit Form API

Duplicate management is a common issue among Marketo users and new features for managing and/or offering clarification on how to manage duplicate records (when an email address is duplicated in two or more Lead records) is welcomed. 

Previously, the endpoint had skipped duplicates and generated an error. The updated Submit Form API will update the “last updated” record instead of skipping altogether, says Adobe, and will provide parity with Forms 2.0 API. 

Why we care. According to Ferrer, “The Submit form API update is nice for two reasons: It provides clarity for which record is updated and it enables the submitForm endpoint to handle duplicates.” 

Norris adds, “It helps to avoid the need to handle the duplicate error with additional logic.”

Other additional API features released will include: 

• A bulk activity extract to extract activities for 6 activity types using the primary attribute filter (reducing the number of unrelated records);
• An email API enhancement allowing users to retrieve a batch a batch of emails based on time and date range of the last email;
• Champion/challenger emails will return in the query API as previously they did not; and
• Additional attributes have been added to a host of sales related activities.

Read about Workato’s most recent product updates

Bizible new Cohort Waterfall Journey dashboard

According to Adobe, “this will enable marketers to view the progression of a selected cohort through a classic demand waterfall set of stages, providing a quick understanding of conversion rates and implied stage conversion causality on a stage-by-stage basis.” 

Why we care. The Perkuto team is excited to see this come to fruition after hearing about it for years and we look forward to testing ourselves for a full review. 

According to Li Gao, Marketo product manager, “The new enhancements help marketers get better insights on stage by stage efficiency and conversion.” Additionally, Li listed a few of the benefits in the Q3 Release presentation on August 10, 2021. 

One benefit we find most useful includes the classic “demand waterfall” cohort funnel insights. For example, find out how many people become known from anonymous. Or, how many opportunities were created from newly created leads. 

Bizible ad integrations enhancement

The BETA for Bizible’s LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms Integration is available now, enhancing the existing integration with LinkedIn by adding automated tracking of LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms. There is a new tile on the paid media board showing lead generation form submissions; allowing users to drill down into the forms submitted including the email address for the form submitter. 

Why we care. We can now access the LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms API to generate touchpoints; which are then attributed to leads and contacts. According to Adobe, this will reduce marketing operations time to get campaigns live and provide more reporting detail. 

View the complete set of August 2021 release notes from Adobe. 

MOPs Rundown is presented through a partnership between MarTech and Perkuto, a marketing operations consultancy.