Adobe Marketo Engage marketing automation

Set up, clean up and connect Marketo Engage so marketing automation hands sales the right leads at the right time.

Overview

Marketo Engage consulting for B2B and considered-purchase marketing teams

Adobe Marketo Engage is a marketing automation platform. Marketers use it to send email, run landing pages and forms, score and nurture leads, and pass qualified leads to sales through a sync with the CRM. Its building blocks are programs, which hold the assets and results of a campaign, and smart campaigns, which define who qualifies and what happens to them. Engagement programs run ongoing nurture streams, and the Revenue Cycle Modeler tracks how people move through lifecycle stages from first contact to customer.

Marketo suits organisations with a long or considered buying cycle: B2B technology and services, financial services, education and other teams where several contacts research before buying. It works best when someone owns it. Instances that grow for years without that ownership collect duplicate programs, out-of-date scoring rules and fields nobody trusts.

Great Minds is a Sydney-based systems integrator, and much of our Marketo work sits between Marketo and the CRM. We design the lead lifecycle with marketing and sales together, build scoring and nurture to match it, and set up the CRM sync so both teams see the same record. For Montgomery Investment Management, we delivered an email program on Marketo and Salesforce to launch two global equities funds to advisers, existing investors and prospects.

Capabilities

What we deliver on Marketo Engage

Whether you're implementing Marketo for the first time or inheriting an instance someone else built, the work usually covers these four areas. If you're choosing a platform, our marketing technology page compares the options we work with.

01Instance audit and clean-upA review of programs, smart campaigns, fields, scoring and sync errors, then a clean-up plan: archive what's unused, fix naming, and rebuild the rules that matter so the instance can be trusted again.

02Lead lifecycle and scoringLifecycle stages, scoring on fit and behaviour, and routing rules agreed with sales, so a marketing qualified lead means the same thing to both teams and reaches the right person quickly.

03Nurture and campaign programsEngagement programs, event and webinar programs and triggered campaigns, built from reusable templates with tokens so your team can launch the next campaign by cloning a template, not starting again.

04CRM sync and reportingMarketo connected to Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics 365 with an agreed field list, plus revenue and attribution reporting built on lifecycle data rather than email opens.

How we deliver

A Marketo engagement, from lifecycle design to hand-over

We keep the order fixed because each step depends on the one before. Scoring rules written before the lifecycle is agreed get rewritten later.

01Agree the lifecycle

Workshops with marketing and sales to define lifecycle stages, the hand-over point, service levels for follow-up and the fields both teams need. We write it down before anything is configured.

02Fix the foundations

CRM sync, field mapping, deduplication rules, email authentication on your sending domain, and consent and unsubscribe handling, tested with sample records before any campaign runs.

03Build programs and scoring

Program templates, scoring, nurture streams and routing, launched with one real campaign so the team sees them working and we can adjust before the rest follows.

04Report and hand over

Lifecycle and revenue reports, documentation of every rule and naming convention, and training for your Marketo administrators so they can run and extend the instance.

Australian considerations

What Australian marketers should check

The Spam Act. Commercial email to Australian recipients needs consent, must identify the sender accurately, and must include a working unsubscribe. The ACMA says unsubscribe requests must be actioned within five working days, and you must be able to show evidence of consent if asked. We set up Marketo's consent fields and form capture so that evidence exists for every record, including leads imported from events.

The Privacy Act. Using personal information for direct marketing is covered by APP 7, and contacts must be able to opt out. Marketing databases also attract security obligations under APP 11, so we limit who can export lists and how long inactive records are kept.

Deliverability. Gmail and Yahoo require senders of about 5,000 or more messages a day to authenticate email with SPF, DKIM and DMARC and to offer one-click unsubscribe. We set up authentication on your sending domain before the first send.

Data location. Ask Adobe which data centre hosts your Marketo instance, and check where connected tools such as webinar and enrichment services store data, before you write your privacy policy.

FAQ

Marketo Engage questions

Does Marketo Engage integrate with Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365?

Yes. Marketo has native sync for both. The details differ by CRM and object, so we agree the field list and which system wins each conflict before the first sync. Our Adobe integration page explains the sync in more detail.

We inherited a messy Marketo instance. Where do we start?

With an audit of what runs today: active smart campaigns, scoring rules, sync errors and fields. Most of the value comes from switching off what's unused and rebuilding a few core rules properly. We'd rather leave you with fewer, well-documented programs than add more.

How should lead scoring work?

Score fit and behaviour separately. Fit covers who the person and company are; behaviour covers what they do, such as visits to pricing pages or event attendance. A lead goes to sales only when both are high enough. Agree the threshold with sales and review it against closed deals every few months.

What does Australian law require for marketing email?

Consent, accurate sender identification and a working unsubscribe that's actioned within five working days, under the Spam Act. The Privacy Act's direct marketing rules (APP 7) also apply. We build both into forms, imports and email templates.

Should we use Marketo Engage, Klaviyo or Salesforce Marketing Cloud?

It depends on the buying cycle. Marketo suits B2B and considered purchases with lead scoring and sales hand-over. Klaviyo suits ecommerce and consumer brands, and we're a Klaviyo Gold Advisor. Salesforce Marketing Cloud suits large consumer programs on Salesforce. See our Klaviyo and Marketing Cloud pages.

How long does a Marketo implementation take?

A focused set-up with CRM sync, scoring and a first nurture program can be live in a few weeks. A clean-up of a large instance with years of history takes longer. We give you a scoped plan and price after the first workshop.

Case studies