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WTF Is Marketing Operations?
Why Nobody Fully Understands Your Job (and Neither Do You)
Every time someone asks me what I do, I silently groan. How do you explain marketing operations? I even have a hard time succinctly explaining my role to people in my own company, let alone friends and family who don’t work in tech. The truth is, it’s really hard to define marketing operations. Not only is it a relatively new function with basically no formal training available, it can be so many different things. If you look at 10 different job postings for “Marketing Operations Manager” you’ll see 10 very different jobs.
This lack of clarity around the definition of marketing ops doesn’t just make for awkward cocktail party introductions. It’s actually detrimental to marketing ops professionals and the organizations that they support. If you don’t have a clear job description and your team doesn’t have a clear charter, how do you know what your priorities are? How can leaders build their teams if they don’t know what functions they need to support? How can candidates decipher job descriptions and ask the right questions in interviews?
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Great News for Marketo Engage Users
Adobe just made several announcements that should excite Marketo Engage users: Champion applications are open, and Marketo renewal exams are now free!
Marketo Engage Champion Applications Are Open
You have until June 2, 2023 to apply for the 2023-2024 Marketo Engage Champion Program. I’ve been a Champion since 2019. It’s been a huge boost to my career and I’ve made lifelong friendships along the way. Champions benefits include:
- Build relationships with the other Champs, who are the best and brightest in Marketing Operations
- Apply to speak at Adobe Summit and other speaking opportunities
- Participate in Office Hours and Deep Dives
- Build relationships with Marketo Product Management and Customer Marketing teams
- Post on the Champion blog
- Attend the annual Adobe Champion Forum at Adobe’s San Jose HQ
- And of course…swag
Free Adobe Certification Renewals
Previously, Adobe charged for all exams, whether it was your first time or you were renewing your certification. Now you can renew your Adobe Certified Expert or Master certification for free. All certifications still last two years.
The renewal exams are shorter and will focus on new technical features. And you don’t have to schedule time with a proctor over screenshare (yay!).
The one catch is that in order to qualify for free renewal, you can’t let your current certification expire. Mark that expiration date in your calendar and make sure to renew before then!
Certification Renewal Page
Exam Details
Renewal FAQP.S. If you’re taking the exam for the first time, check out my tips here
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Adobe Summit 2023: DRY Clean Your Marketo Engage Instance
Hello and welcome to MarketingOpsAdvice.com, the site to help you grow your marketing operations career and work smarter. If you landed here via my Experience Maker’s Spotlight presentation at Adobe Summit and are looking for more about “DRY cleaning” your Marketo Engage instance, you’re in the right place.
Marketo Engage is built on the database language SQL (pronounced “sequel”). When you build Smart Lists and Smart Campaigns, Marketo is compiling SQL under the hood. You can apply a programming strategy called DRY methodology to simplify and streamline your work.
DRY = Don’t Repeat Yourself. You only want to write a line of code once, and trigger or reference it in many places. If you need to find, change, or update the code, you only need to do it once. The opposite of DRY of course is WET, or Write Every Time, and you don’t want to do that—it’s time-consuming error-prone.
In my presentation, I highlighted two ways to DRY clean Marketo Engage: confirmation emails and error notifications. There are tons of other applications: lead scoring, lead sourcing, Interesting Moments, snippets for emails and landing pages, global forms, and more.
Below are my slides so you can start DRY cleaning Marketo Engage on your own. You can also download a PDF.
You can now watch the session on demand for free. My presentation starts at 35 minutes in, but you should definitely check out Jessica Meyers’ troubleshooting tips and John Charlesworth’s deliverability advice.
While you’re here, why don’t you take a look around? Learn WTF is Marketing Operations or peruse posts about Marketo Engage.
I’d love to hear how you plan to use DRY cleaning to simplify and streamline your own Marketo instance. Leave a comment below!
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See You in Vegas, Baby!
Only one week until Marketo Engage users’ favorite time of year: Adobe Summit! I can’t wait to reunite with old friends and make new ones!
I’m excited to take the stage as part of the Marketo Engage Skill Exchange on Thursday. This brand new practitioner-focused track brings you actionable advice from Marketo Engage Champions—just like Marketo Summits of yore. I’ll be closing out the conference on Thursday at 1:30 pm as part of the Experience Makers Spotlight with Jessica Meyers and John Charlesworth. This is a cant-miss session (yes, I am biased, but I assure you it’s true). We’ll be sharing our favorite Marketo Engage power user tips. I’ll be showing you how to “DRY clean” your Marketo Engage instance to save you time and reduce errors.
Don’t forget to pre-register for your sessions, including Skill Exchange: Marketo Engage Experience Makers Spotlight [S290]. And if you’re not registered for Adobe Summit yet, there’s still time to get your pass and hop on a flight to Vegas!
What are you most excited for at Adobe Summit? Let me know in the comments!
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Listen: My fwd:thinking Episode on Decentralized Campaign Ops
My colleague Geraldine Gudiño Garcia and I were on the fwd:thinking podcast this week talking about how we support our decentralized campaign ops model. Hope you enjoy!
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Listen: My Must Contain Episode on The Four Pillars
I had a great time on the Must Contain podcast talking about my favorite topic: The Four Pillars of Marketing Operations. We discussed how you can use the Four Pillars to strategically grow your Marketing Operations team. Listen now on the web, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Hope you enjoy!
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Watch Now: Why It’s Hard to Prove Impact in Marketing Ops
I had a great time on the panel for Perkuto’s “MOps Chat” webinar on “Why It’s Hard to Prove Impact.” We discussed the results of Perkuto and Adobe’s survey of Marketo Engage users’ priorities and challenges, and how marketing ops practitioners can best meet their goals. You can watch the recording now!
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Martech Health Check: Status Notifications
As a marketing operations professional, a key part of your job is administering your team’s martech platforms. You need to make sure your tools are running in tip-top shape, and it’s important to establish routines to keep your instance healthy. This post is the second in a series covering martech “health checks”: simple ways to check the pulse of your systems to proactively identify and address any issues.
Most companies have a status page where you can check for platform issues, view system metrics, and review past incidents. Many companies use Atlassian Statuspage, although some, like Adobe, have their own tool. If you’re not sure where to find the status page for a particular tool, try going to the subdomain status.companyname.com. If that doesn’t work, you can Google “company name status.” If all else fails, email your CSM.
You can—and should—subscribe to updates so you are notified any time an incident is created, updated, or closed. I’ll show you how to get updates via Email and Slack.
Subscribe to Status Updates via Email
Most tools make it easy to subscribe to status updates via email. I recommend using a team alias email, such as marketing-ops@yourcompany.com, so that everyone on your team receives the updates. This also ensures continuity if you leave your company.
If the status page is hosted on Atlassian Statuspage, simply click the “Subscribe to Updates” button and enter your email address.
Adobe requires an account login to sign up for status updates. Adobe allows you to select your Marketo Engage pod so you only get updates that affect your instance.
To find your Marketo Engage pod:
- Log in, click your name on the top right, and select “View My Account.”
- Scroll down to “Support Information” and note the datacenter
Get Status Updates in Slack via RSS
If your company uses Slack, centralizing status updates in a single channel is an easy way to keep everyone up to date. Most status pages have an RSS feed that you can pull into Slack. For example, on an Atlassian Statuspage, click the “Subscribe to Updates” button, and select the RSS icon to get the feed URL.
In Slack, go to the channel where you want to post the feed. Use the slash command “/feed” and paste the URL of the RSS feed. Voila!
No RSS? Send Emails to Slack
If the status page doesn’t support RSS, you can use your inbox to auto-forward email alerts to your status channel. First, make sure you’re subscribed to email updates. Next, you need to generate an email address for your Slack channel.
In Slack, you’ll use the Email app.
- Go to the app, click “Add to Slack”.
- Choose your channel and click “Add Email Integration”.
- On the next page, you can get creative. I call mine StatusBot and used the robot logo for its icon.
- The app will then generate an email address.
Next you’ll need to create a forwarding rule in your email.
In Gmail, you’ll need to set up email forwarding and create a filter rule
- Click the gear icon and select “See All Settings”
- Select “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” and click the “Add a forwarding address” button
- Paste in your Slack email address from the previous step
- Gmail will send a confirmation email to the forwarding address, which should show up in your channel. Click the confirmation link in the Slack message.
- In Gmail settings, click “Filters and Blocked Addresses” and choose “Create a New Filter” at the bottom
- Add the alert sender email address (e.g. message@adobe.com) to the “From” Field, then click “Create Filter”
- Check “Forward it To” and choose your Slack or email address
(If you use Outlook, you should ask your IT team for instructions on how to auto-forward emails for your version and configuration Outlook.)
More Martech Health Checks
Check out the first post in this series: MarTech Health Check: Marketo Morning Routine. And I’d love to know how you check the health of your martech stack. Let me know in the coments!
A version of this article originally appeared on Marketo’s Marketing Nation Champion Blog.
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Register Now: Why It’s Hard to Prove Impact in Marketing Ops
I’m thrilled to be on the panel for Perkuto’s upcoming “MOps Chat” webinar on “Why It’s Hard to Prove Impact.” I’m in incredible company—join me, Brooke Bartos, Jessica Meyers, Darrell Alfonso, and Paul Ferrer for a live discussion on Tuesday, August 30th at Noon PDT / 3:00 PM EDT. We’ll be discussing the results of Perkuto and Adobe’s survey of Marketo Engage users’ priorities and challenges, and how marketing ops practitioners can best meet their goals. Hope to see you there!
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You Need a Martech Changelog
As a marketing operations professional and a marketing technology admin, how do you keep track of critical changes to your tech stack? Some systems make it easy to track changes, and others…not so much. However, system audit logs only tell you who changed what—but not the why. That’s why it’s crucial to keep a martech changelog for your key systems, such as your marketing automation platform.
A martech changelog is a shared spreadsheet where you log any system changes that have a global impact. In Marketo Engage, that includes operational programs and smart campaigns, anything in Admin, global smart lists, and segmentations. The key to a changelog is listing not just what was changed, but why.
In Marketo Engage, you can get the “what” by looking at Audit Trail. But Audit Trail won’t tell you why the change was made, which can be the key to understanding your instance in the future. Think of it as a gift from current you to future you (and your team)!
I highly recommend filling out the changelog before you make the change. This forces you to slow down and explain to yourself what you are doing. You’ll make much smarter changes to your instance.
To get you started, here is my changelog template!
P.S. If you find yourself constantly reminding your teammates to fill out the changelog, please feel free to belt out “We Need a Changelog,” to the tune of “We Are The Champions.”
🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶
We have a changelog, my friend
And we need to use it, to the end
We have a changelog
Fill out the changelog!
No, you can’t skip it
Because we need a record … of the change
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How to Be an Ally This Pride Month (and Year-Round): Share Your Pronouns
🌈 Happy Pride Month! 🌈 Time to change your profile picture and Zoom background and wear all your rainbow accessories! That’s all you have to do to be an ally to LGBTQIA+ people, right?
Wrong. Allyship isn’t just about what you wear or what you post on social media. It’s about showing respect and empathy for your friends, family, and coworkers. And you know what’s a super simple—yet extremely impactful—way to respect and support trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people? Use their correct pronouns. Full stop. Even if it’s hard. Even if they are ones you haven’t seen before. Even if you trip up and have to correct yourself—you will, and it’s okay!
As a cisgender person (meaning that you identify with the gender you were assigned at birth), you can go a step further and normalize pronoun sharing. This is a great way to support trans, gender non-conforming, and non-binary folks by making your environment more inclusive.
In meetings, include your pronouns when you introduce yourself. For example, I’d say “Hi, I’m Amy Goldfine, I’m the founder of MarketingOpsAdvice.com, and my pronouns are she/her.” You should also take a few minutes to add your pronouns on your social and business profiles. Here is a guide to adding your pronouns to common business apps and social media platforms.
Slack
- Click on your profile photo/icon in the top right
- Select Edit Profile
- Add your pronouns to the Pronouns field
- Click Save Changes
Learn more in this Help Article
Zoom
- Sign in to the Zoom web portal at https://zoom.us/signin (or via your company’s single signon dashboard)
- In the navigation panel, click Profile.
- On the right side of your name, click Edit.
- In the Pronouns field, enter your pronouns.
- In the How would you like to share your pronouns? drop-down field, choose from the following options:
- Always share in meetings and webinars: Your pronouns will appear next to your display name automatically in any meetings that you host or join, and any webinars that you’re the host or panelist for.
- Ask me every time after joining meetings and webinars: You will be asked if you want your pronouns to appear next to your display name in every meeting that you host or join, and any webinars that you’re the host or panelist for.
- Do not share in meetings and webinars: Your pronouns will not appear next to your display name in any meetings or webinars. You will have to manually choose to share your pronouns.
Note: Even if you choose not to share your pronouns in meetings or webinars, your pronouns will still appear in your profile card and be visible to your Zoom contacts if you have entered them in the Pronouns field.
- Click Save.
Learn more at this help article. Note: If you don’t see the option to change your Zoom pronouns, your company’s admins may not have turned on the feature. Find the person or team that owns Zoom at your company and encourage them to enable it.
Other Web Conferencing Tools
Unfortunately, other tools such as Teams, BlueJeans, GoToMeeting don’t appear to have pronoun features. Your best bet is to edit your profile name so that your pronouns are at the end, e.g. “Amy Goldfine (she/her)”. (If there are official ways to add your pronouns in other tools, let me know in the comments!)
LinkedIn
- On the right side of the top nav, click your profile photo and choose View Profile
- Click the pen icon to edit
- Add your pronouns to the Pronouns field, and choose who you want to be able to see your pronouns
- Click Save
Twitter
Although there were rumors that Twitter was going to add a pronoun field, they don’t seem to have materialized. The best workaround is to add your pronouns to the end of your bio.
Email Signature
This is going to vary depending on how locked down your corporate email signature is. If it’s not managed by your company, then you can edit it directly. In Gmail, go into Settings > See all settings > scroll to the signature section. In Outlook…honestly there are so many different versions of Outlook, I suggest you Google “Email signature Outlook [version]” and follow the instructions you find there!
If your company uses an email signature management platform such as Terminus Email Experiences or WiseStamp, there may already be a pronoun field in your signature template. In that case, you can log in and edit your profile. If there’s no pronoun field, Pride Month is a great time to encourage the your company’s admin to add one. (Want to know a secret? I manage my company’s signature tool, and I just went ahead and added the pronoun field. Nobody batted an eyelash, and I have heard from trans coworkers that they really appreciated it.)
Asana
- Click your avatar in the top right corner of Asana
- Click My Profile Settings in the drop-down menu
- Type your pronouns into the field beneath Department in the pop-up dialog.
Now any time someone hovers over your avatar, your pronouns will show up on your profile card.
How are you showing up as an ally to your coworkers? And did I miss any common platforms that allow pronoun sharing? Let me know in the comments. Also I’d love to hear from LGBTQIA+ people if you have any feedback on this post, good or bad. Please leave a comment, or DM me on LinkedIn or Slack if you’d rather share privately.