MCE progress bar: 20%
This study guide is meant to help someone prepare for the Marketo Certified Expert (Adobe Certified Expert – Marketo Engage Business Practitioner) exam. There are many ways to study for this exam, but making sure you understand every high-level topic is critical for passing.
The exam is scenario-based, and the exact questions asked are randomized. You may note that some of the answers are pretty easy, and this study guide does not cover absolutely everything. Its purpose is to lower the amount of study time it takes to pass, while cutting directly to the source for some of the tougher, more granular answers.
Now, let’s jump into our first topic.
Lead Management
Understand approaches to resetting the score of a lead
This is done using a smart campaign.
Within the list of available flow steps, there is a filter called “Change Score.”
Use =0 to set a lead’s score to 0.
Know the basics of international spam laws
There’s a ton of information out there regarding spam laws.
The most you will need to understand about this topic for the MCE (Adobe Certified Expert – Marketo Engage Business Practitioner) exam is the different types of opt-ins:
- Opt-out
- Opt-in
- Double Opt-in
We recommend getting familiar with these terms and the spam laws of the United States, Canada, and the European Union. For more information, check out Marketo’s ebook on GDPR.
Know what the roles of the different stakeholders are during the scoring process (CEO, CRM, marketing, sales)
This is kind of a broad subject, but the key stakeholders are going to be Marketing and Sales.
Inside Sales (ADR, SDR) can review and qualify MQLs and also help define what is sales ready.
Sales and Marketing should work together to develop a scoring plan.
Understand what and how triggers are used to respond in real-time to someone
Triggers are a smart list filter that respond off real world actions.
For example, if someone clicks a link on a page. A trigger filter can be used to categorize that lead.
Triggers are only used in smart lists filtering (*Important).
Below is an example of smart list triggers that are available in Marketo. There are many different types.
Know the ways you would alert sales about a new lead
There are two ways to alert sales in Marketo.
In this example a smart list filter called ‘Lead is created’ means a new lead entered the database.
The Flow steps are to send an alert or task to sales notifying the correct sales owner this action occurred.
Identify the Marketo features that enable understanding of lead quality
There are a multitude of ways to determine if a lead is quality when it enters your Marketo instance. Let’s cover a few of the many potential questions that might appear on the exam.
You can determine lead quality directly by the actions a lead takes in email and on landing pages.
There are also several scoring elements you can set up:
Demographic scoring
- Demographic scoring is based on a lead’s unique attributes (see below for common examples from B2B marketing). Demographic scoring is often data-driven, backed by profiling previous buyers or hypothesized target “buyer personas.”
- Job Title
- Job Level
- Job Function
- Geographic location
Behavioral Scoring
- Behavioral scoring is a numerical value placed on a lead’s actions taken in emails, on landing pages, and through forms. Each action typically adds a weighted number of points to a total score.
- Behavior determines a lead’s level of interest
- Behaviors like clicking a link to download content signal engagement and curiosity.
- Behavioral scores may also have negative factors that subtract from the total score, such as clicking unsubscribe or not taking any recognizable action for a predetermined amount of time.
Total Score
The total lead score can consist of whatever Sales and Marketing consider important. It could be strictly demographic, strictly behavioral, some blend of the two, or something else altogether. It is the total of all scoring models used to determine a lead’s qualification.
Given a scenario where Marketing has an SLA with Sales, identify the appropriate flow step setup
If Sales needs to be alerted of an action or buying behavior immediately, it is possible to use the flow step action “Send an Alert.” When a lead qualifies through the smart campaign filter, an automated email you designate will send to the lead’s owner, along with anyone else you directly specify.
If you are using a CRM and Sales does not need immediate email notification, you can also use the flow step “Create Task” to pass off an action item along with any other relevant details about the lead.
See below for a breakdown of both options:
Identify the Marketo features that enable Sales to understand a lead’s behavior
Behavioral scoring is one of the best ways to gauge if a lead is ready for hand-off to sales.
- Behavioral scoring is based on a lead’s behavior and current level of interest
- Behavior score contains insight about prioritizing leads effectively for your sales team
If you have Marketo Sales Insight, you get the benefit of two additional ways to share lead behavior with sales.
- You can add “Interesting Moment” flow steps to your smart campaigns. Interesting moments are custom messages you can share with sales about activity the lead has taken.
- There is also a separate lead scoring system (stars and flames) as part of Sales Insight. These are meant to be a visual gauge for Sales to see how ready or qualified a lead is based on criteria you specify in Marketo.
