Everything You need to know about Marketo Fields

“Segmentation categorizes your audience into different subgroups based on a defined criterion that you establish in a Smart List. Once you create those subgroups, those are called segments. The best way to think about it is that Segmentation is a permanent smart list with the segments being the different targeted audience you define,” states Marketo.

If you have already integrated Marketo automation software in your marketing system, then there’s a high chance that you’re already overwhelmed by data overflow that is being generated and stored in your database. With an uncontrollable variation and amount of data revolving around marketing, it can get challenging to make the right use of such unsaturated data and thus, segmentation is crucial.

Since your entire digital marketing campaign runs around the customer data collected, it is vital to maintain a healthy database that can be put to good use to achieve your marketing goal—wondering how to create a healthy database? Well, Marketo uses a set of fields to capture certain kinds of marketing-related information.

These custom fields in Marketo will offer you a list of types to choose from, generally for CRM integration. Marketo fields get created automatically and are attached to core lead, company, and other opportunity objects for better marketing. The fields are visible via API or UI and can be either read-only or writable. But if your customers have user-ID with the profile of a System Administrator as the sync user, you will need to uncheck “Read Only” for the System Administrator profile. Moreover, depending on the field type, you can also add filter or trigger operators.

Even if your organization is integrating Marketo for the first time, you cannot ignore the already running instances, filled with incomplete docs and confusing terminology. Sorting and segregating your old data is equally important as the new ones to maintain a strong relationship with your old and loyal customers.

The Fields are Subdivided Into These Categories

There are four different categories of the fields available in Marketo:

Marketo Standard Fields

Marketo has a defined list of all standard fields and is accessible via the API. With a new Marketo instance, Marketo standard fields get auto-generated based on customers’ personal and professional information.

Custom Fields

With a growing business and rising customers, you will need to store additional information in Marketo. If such data does not fit into the Marketo standard fields, you can create custom fields directly in Marketo.

System Managed Fields

Certain Marketo standard fields get managed by the Marketo back-end system and cannot be updated or edited. Found on the lead details page, the data under system managed fields come from various sources and could display countless values.

Fields Synced from CRM

These are the fields which were created as a result of the CRM sync.

Types of fields

The data in all fields are categorized by Data Type, its a set of qualities that applies to all values which are contained in the field. The Data Type is defined by the values the data can take or the operations that can be performed on it. Marketo has defined Data Types for the field creation and to help you understand better, here is a list of different types of fields:

• Datetime: As the name gives away, this field is used for inputting date and time and follows W3C format. To make the bests use of the field, you should include the time zone offset and complete date plus hours and minutes in YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssTZD format, where TZD is “+hh:mm” or “-hh:mm”. Also, some Asset APIs return “Z+0000” as TZD for updatedAt and createdAt.
• Date: This field is used just for storing the date (must be formatted in “MM/DD/YYYY”) and follows W3C format.
• Email: it is a string type field that accepts every kind of email address.
• Float: Data that contains Real Numbers and uses a decimal place falls under this number field called Float. The data in this field can include decimals up to the hundredths place, with the value rounding to the nearest hundredth, with a maximum value of 10000000000.
• Integer: This is the field where all the whole numbers get stored. The data in this field should value between -2147483647 to 2147483647.
• Formula: Values generated by manipulating lead record data get stored under the Formula field, which can neither be exported nor used in Smart Campaigns.
• Percent: Any data in percentage which is expressed as an integer, falls under this field. But the data has to be a full number without decimals with a maximum value of 9223370000000000000.
• URL: This is a text type field and only accepts URLs along with its protocols. If the value doesn’t have the prefix of http://&#8221, it will automatically get appended to the data and need not be formatted any further.
• Phone: This field is reserved only to store phone numbers
• Textarea: Data stored in your database in the form of longer texts (more than 255 characters) get segregated under this field. It can contain letters, numbers and special characters with a limit of 65,535 total characters.
• String: Data stored in your database in the form of shorter text (up to 255 characters) get segregated under this field. It can store letters, numbers and special characters.
• Score: It is an integer type field which can be manipulated with the Change Score flow step. The field can store data with a maximum score of 9223372036854775807, and if the score is increased higher than that, it will reset to -9223372036854775808.
• Boolean: Fields that allow its users to select a True (checked) or False (unchecked) value amongst all the data stored is the Boolean field. It can only be set to “true” or “false”.
• Currency: It is a Float type field which represents the default currency type selected for the Marketo subscription. Data with a maximum value of 9223370000000000000 is stored in this field, and the currency displayed based on the location is set in your Admin->location.
• Reference: This string type field contains a key to another foreign key record.

Each of the fields has been modified to maintain a certain limit for each data type in terms of the amount of data a particular type of field can hold. Analyzing the fields that are available for your database and understanding how you can utilize those fields is the driving factor behind the success of your Marketo instance. To know more about Marketo fields, connect with our professional experts via experts@marrinadecisions.com, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter.

Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest insights, trends, and strategies in the dynamic world of marketing technology. Don’t forget to check out our whitepaper for more valuable resources!