Snack-Sized Marketo Tips from Freelance Life

Since going freelance, I’ve learned more about Marketo and marketing ops than I did in over ten years of in-house roles. It’s not that I wasn’t learning before — it’s just that consulting has thrown me into a variety of setups, legacy issues, and creative workarounds that forced me to look at the platform in new ways.

Sometimes, that means stepping back and thinking more strategically. Other times, it means noticing the tiniest tricks that make a real difference — like the ones I’m going to share below.

These are bite-sized Marketo lessons I’ve picked up lately. Some are a little nerdy. Some are wildly practical. All are real-life things I’ve discovered (or re-discovered) since becoming a solo consultant.

1. Versioning Program Templates

Tip: In your program templates, add a version number or last updated date directly in the program description field.
This means when you or a team member clones that template, the versioning info carries over — no need to hunt down where it came from or whether it’s up to date.

Why it matters:
When you’re ready to update a program structure (say, updated tokens or different smart campaign logic), you can easily trace which programs were built from which version — making updates to live campaigns less of a guessing game.

2. Z-Fields for Operational Notes

Tip: Create a custom text field called something like z_Operational Notes or z_Admin Notes and use it to stamp useful processing info during your lead flows.
I add a row of dashes (—) followed by a short explanation like → Email Verified, → Assigned via LeanData, or → Country normalized.

Why it matters:
That little arrow + explanation makes it easy to visually scan the activity log later, especially when troubleshooting complex flows. And by starting the field with “z_”, it sinks to the bottom of the field list in your CRM.

3. Reorder Choices in Flow Steps

Tip: In Smart Campaigns, when you use Choices in a Flow Step (like Change Data Value or Send Alert), you can drag and drop to reorder them.

Why it matters:
I’ve been using Marketo for 13 years and somehow forgot this existed. This is incredibly handy when you’re building a logic flow and realize mid-way that your choices need to happen in a different order. No need to delete and start over. Just reorder them.

4. Thank You Page Rules in Forms

Tip: When editing a Marketo Form, go to Form Settings > Settings, and use the “Add Choice” option under Thank You Page.

Why it matters:
This lets you conditionally show different confirmation pages based on how someone filled out the form (e.g., region, offer type, lead source).
And yes, I’ve been using Marketo for over a decade and still missed this until recently.

5. Centralized Timestamp Fields

Tip: Use a consistent timestamp strategy across your lifecycle/processing logic to track when key actions happen.

Here’s an example structure I use:

• TS00 – Verification Complete
• TS01 – Enrichment Complete
• TS02 – Normalization Complete
• TS03 – Persona Identified
• TS04 – Demographic Score Assigned
• TS05 – Lifecycle Stage Set
• (and so on…)

Why it matters:
It gives you a clear audit trail of data transformations over time. You can use these timestamps for reporting, troubleshooting, or even progressive profiling decisions.

6. Marketo-Only & Burner Fields

Tip: Not all fields need to be visible to sales. Use Marketo-only fields for internal operations logic — like those Z_Operational Notes, timestamp stamps, or temporary flags (e.g., Burner 01, Burner 02, Burner 03, Temp Lifecycle Stage).

Why it matters:
Burner fields are amazing during audits, migrations, and field mapping dry runs. They help you validate new logic without interfering with production fields or confusing sales.

Also: you can always delete them later.

7. Campaign Activity View for Quick Audits

Tip: When you’re in a folder in Marketo (not just a single program), you can click on the Campaign Activity tab to see which Smart Campaigns have fired recently.

Why it matters:
This is a quick way to audit what’s active, what’s dormant, and what might still be processing records in the background. I use this to find the oldest active Smart Campaigns and assess whether they should be turned off or archived.

8. Better Smart Lists with True Space Filters

Thanks to Sandy Whiteman’s blog post and a follow-up conversation while he was waiting for a flight at the airport, I now use a workaround to add real, preserved space characters in text filters.

Why it matters:
Marketo’s default filtering doesn’t always treat spaces the way you think it does.

For example:

• A filter like Job Title contains “AI” might also match “Bailiff,” “Maintenance,” or “Sustainable” — because Marketo sees any instance of “ai” within a word.
• Or Job Title contains “CIO” could match “telecomunicaciones” or “soluciones,” especially in Spanish or Portuguese datasets.

But if what you really want is to isolate roles like:

• VP of AI
• Generative AI Lead
• AI Safety Officer
• CIO (as in Chief Information Officer)

…then you need to ensure you’re only pulling exact word matches — with true leading and trailing spaces.

This workaround makes that possible using preserved whitespace characters.
I even recorded a short how-to video showing how I set this up in Marketo — reach out to me and I’ll walk you through it. All you need is a Firefox browser.

Want more snack-sized ops tips?

I share what I learn along the way — because better ops should be more accessible, more human, and more snackable.

Photo by David Flandre on Unsplash