Adobe Marketo

Marketo Feature Releases 2023

by Chris Fowler • 20th December 2023

Adobe’s Marketo Engage has taken some significant steps in expanding its already diverse skillset in 2023 - some of which have the ability to change how we use Marketo on a daily basis.

As Marketo users ourselves, and having trained over 25 unique clients this year alone, we have taken some time to understand how this year’s updates can create new opportunities for Marketo platform owners and users. Speaking to new and existing clients, it can often be difficult to keep on top of the latest feature releases - and then make sense of them to determine how they could elevate campaign performance and platform capability. So here’s a quick run-down of some of the key Marketo updates in 2023 and how you can utilise them.

First up, something I think all users can benefit from:

Marketo Reference Library

If you aren’t already using program templates for your campaigns, Marketo has widened their own program template library that gives users access to ‘best practice’ programs that can be downloaded, tweaked, and passed off as your own!

They now cover everything from simple email sends, webinars, basic lead scoring models, email deliverability reports and even nurtures. You’ll see placeholder emails and landing pages in each template - all easily editable, either through Marketo’s own editor, or through a Marketing Automation simplification tool such as Momentum. Many of these programs contain status progression Smart Campaigns, and others can even create additional Channels and Program Statuses (which are all editable).

Tip: If you’ve already got your program templates nailed down, it’s still worth taking a look at some of these templates as a source of ideas or improvements to your existing programs.

How do I find them? Right-click on any campaign folder in Marketing Activities, and see ‘Import Program’ at the bottom of the drop down. Select ‘Marketo Program Library’ from the subscription field, and then select your program!

Marketo Engagement Map

If you have used other marketing automation tools, you’ll recognise that Marketo has lacked a visual way to follow journeys in the platform.

With the introduction of Engagement Map on all existing and new Smart Campaigns, the task of following the flow of automations is made a whole lot easier. This is especially the case when dealing with more complex scenarios, where you’re executing and requesting Smart Campaigns, as you can now see all your relevant steps in a single view without having to jump around between them. You can export the whole canvas to share, see your Smart List audience size, set qualification rules, and activate/deactivate your trigger campaign directly within the Engagement Map.

Tip: That being said, you can’t (yet) edit your Smart Lists and Flow steps within Engagement Map, you will need to do this in the traditional way. Adobe have said this functionality is coming in a future update - which we suspect could eventually phase out the standard way of building Smart Campaigns, so try it out today. If you want to see Engagement Map in action, check out the the webinar we released on it back in October here.

How do I find it? Head to any Smart Campaign, and you’ll see a blue ‘Engagement Map’ button near the top of the screen. Click on it to be taken to the new canvas!

Hit play to watch our webinar on Marketo's Engagement Map feature.

Marketo Interactive Webinars

We all know why the number of online events have risen sharply over the last few years, but what has often eluded event marketers is a way to really measure engagement during our meticulously planned webinars. Marketo has some great native integrations (with the likes of Zoom, Cvent and GoToWebinar just to name a few) which do a great job of joining the platforms up - but Marketo has gone one step further with the introduction (or integration) of their own webinar platform inside the platform itself.

As you might expect, this is an additional paid-for service that Adobe offer, but we think Marketo admins should take a look at it before they renew their annual webinar platform licences. By integrating their own webinar provider (utilising Adobe Connect), you can not only build your webinar look and feel without having to leave Marketo, but you can also begin to measure granular engagement metrics from your attendees. Using new Smart List filters, you can now create segments of attendees who asked a question, answered a poll (with a specific answer), or attended for more than 75% of your webinar, and many more.

Tip: This feature is a great way to identify those who are really engaging with your content and, say, add them to a specific nurture stream, or go ahead and share their poll responses with your sales team for more relevant follow ups. Imagine creating a new level of lead scoring based on these type of engagement, or create interesting moments you can share with your CRM. We think this could be a real upgrade for event marketers looking to get even more out of their campaigns.

How do I find them? Once enabled, when you create a new Event program in Marketing Activities, you’ll have the option to select ‘Interactive Webinar’ - and you’re away. For more information on pricing and configuration, check out Adobe’s documentation.

Marketo Dynamic Chat & Conversational Flows

Although it was introduced over a year ago, Marketo’s built-in Dynamic Chat has come a long way and is beginning to pick up some traction. If you’ve been in Adobe Design Studio recently, you’ll have noticed a new asset added to the folder structure on the left-hand side - ‘Conversational Flows’. Both these Flows and Dynamic Chat are designed to create bespoke routing for visitors and prospects from your web or landing pages - in the form of lightbox popups based on a triggering action, like filling out a form (Conversational Flows), or a chatbot (Dynamic Chat). These are configured within Adobe Experience Platform, pulling through Marketo field attributes to use to either populate content within the tools, or create branching logic to guide them in a direction that will further enrich their profile in Marketo.

Tip: You could use these tools to display some FAQs, ask the visitor questions to support their search (and save their responses to fields in Marketo), or even put them in touch with a live agent there and then - or how about integrating your outreach team’s calendars into a chatbox for immediate appointment scheduling. You can use Marketo criteria to create real-time segments of visitors to show them warming, guiding content, and show those who are already in your database more relevant content in a bid to inform and convert, or further enrich their profile with targeted questions.

Adobe have been competitive with the pricing for Dynamic Chat, so we’d encourage exploring this one. If you aren’t sure where to start, or whether this would benefit you, reach out to us for a chat.

How do I find them? On your ‘My Marketo’ tab, you will see a tile for ‘Dynamic Chat’. This will send you through to the Experience Platform interface, where you can configure these. Note that you may need developer support, dependant on where you want to display the tools.

Workfront x Marketo Integration

We’ve been able to integrate Adobe’s powerful task and workflow management tool, Workfront, with Marketo through a Fusion integration for a while, but the integration has just got a lot deeper. With the latest Fusion templates, you are now able to control your content, approval processes and even reporting metrics in Workfront. This will enable your campaign managers to use Workfront’s management and organisation capabilities directly with your marketing efforts in Marketo.

Tip: Think about how you could automate the creation of campaigns in Marketo through intake requests in Workfront, or share drafts of emails and landing pages created in Marketo to Workfront to get final review and approval from cross-functional stakeholders - this in itself could drastically reduce the lag that you see in a traditional approval process.

There are a lot of considerations when plugging Workfront and Marketo together, but if you are already using both platforms in your organisation, integrating them properly could be a quick-win solution in executing campaign plans and deliverables in half the time it usually would.

How do I find them? You can begin the integration from any Marketo module in Workfront, but we’d recommend taking advice from certified Marketo and Workfront specilaists before taking the leap! If you don't have that kind of expertise in-house, contact our Consulting team for tailored guidance and support.

What's Next?

Adobe are gearing-up for their next Marketo feature release in January 2024, with further improvements to Dynamic Chat and Interactive Webinars - watch this space for more information on these platform updates.

Are you looking to level-up your team’s Marketo skills and knowledge? Speak to one of our Marketo certified experts about our training courses that will help you to become a Marketing Automation master. Learn more about our Marketo training, or get in touch to speak to one of our trainers.

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