Marketo’s September 2023 releases: A manager’s guide

The updates that stand out most in Marketo’s September release are enhanced integrations with other platforms and applications. Dynamic Chat capabilities now facilitate engagement on multiple fronts and closer integration with Marketo Engage. 

The company also enhanced Marketo and Workfront integration with a quick way to implement Review and Approval workflows between the two platforms. In addition, Adobe made user interface updates and refreshed the Resource Library of program templates.  

Marketo’s offering of library and template resources, along with easy-to-implement new Dynamic Chat features, add up to quick wins. Teams can get new features in place more easily to enjoy greater insights, productivity and efficiency. Keep reading for the details. 

Marketo Engage UX improvements include ‘Used by’ enhancements for Design Studio assets

In Engage, Marketo eliminated the switch that toggled between the classic interface and the Modern UX experience for Design Studio assets. The UX enhancements offer more information and direct links to all relevant assets in the same space. 

The “Used by” tab has been expanded for Design Studio assets into a searchable and filterable window, with details of what type of asset, and who last modified it. In this view, the used-by counter shows a bird’s eye “1-50 of many.”

When we jump to the top level of each type of asset in Design Studio (for example, Email Templates), we can select the “Show used by count.” This displays a nice summary view of how many assets are using each email template, with clickable links. 

Why we care. These Design Studio interface improvements aid efficiency. It’s easier for Designers to filter and search for what they need and jump to it via convenient links.

A revamped Marketo Reference Library

The Reference Library was updated with a new set of starter programs that can be imported directly into a Marketo instance. 

Additionally, Adobe has provided thorough documentation to accompany the refreshed Reference Library. This is helpful to give teams insight into what will be imported and how to import it correctly.

Why we care. These starter programs help new teams get up and running quickly. They introduce users to solid program architecture and powerful features such as tokenization.

Reference Library programs are aimed to cover the widest set of use cases. Enterprise organizations will require customizations to fit their unique business requirements. This is where expertise and creativity come into play for the Marketing Operations team! 

See the updated programs: Marketo Engage Reference Library

A convenient blueprint for reviews and approvals in Marketo + Workfront

Enterprise teams that use Adobe Workfront to prioritize, assign, and complete projects can easily launch streamlined processes for Reviews and Approvals of Marketo Engage assets. 

Get started quickly through a new Review and Approval Blueprint Workfront Fusion Template. Download the template to pull marketing assets from Marketo Engage into Workfront workflows and push approvals back to Engage from Workfront.

Why we care. Creating and building a marketing campaign requires input from many stakeholders. Importing the Review and Approval Blueprint offers a quick implementation path to keep workflows moving smoothly between platforms and teams.

Read more: Marketo Engage and Workfront Integration Blueprint – Review and Approve

Dynamic Chat of every flavor, along with new capabilities in Marketo Engage 

Adobe shipped fourteen updates to Dynamic Chat in September that offer ways to engage and qualify leads. With the addition of Live Chat, the package now includes:

• Automated Chat: Two-way conversations between visitors and a chatbot.
• Live Chat: Freeform two-way conversations between visitors and live sales agents.
• Conversational Flows: Lead generation forms that prompt visitors with content and actions. 
• Generative Chat: Generative AI-powered freeform two-way conversations between visitors and a chatbot. 

New Dynamic Chat capabilities with Marketo Engage include smart list targeting, passing hidden values to a person’s record based on Dialogues and Conversational Forms and Flows. 

Marketo users can program a Live Chat card to direct visitors to a live agent. Also, agents can receive Real-time Live Chat Notifications with a banner across the top of the Dynamic Chat screen. 

Enhanced analytics with performance dashboards

The new Global Performance, Live Chat Performance, and Meeting Performance Dashboards provide insights into Dynamic Chat engagement.

The Global Performance Dashboard offers visibility into engagement and performance metrics for Dialogues. See how well Dialogues are performing along with top-performing pages. View Dialogues, Conversational Flows, or both.

The Live Chat Performance Dashboard is a snapshot of how many conversations are taking place with live sales agents and which teams are performing the best.

See how many meetings are being booked, and who they are booked with, in the Meeting Performance Dashboard.

Leverage smart list targeting in Dynamic Chat and pass values to Marketo Engage

When creating a target audience for a Dialogue, marketers can add the criteria “Member of Smart List.” This provides a shortcut to targeted smart list audiences built directly in Marketo. 

Marketers can now use Stream Designer Card Action Cards to pass hidden values to the Marketo Engage person record when visitors engage with a Dialogue. 

Why we care. Marketers can achieve more accurate targeting by passing actionable data between Dynamic Chat and Marketo Engage. 

Conversational Forms and Conversational Flows In Marketo Engage 

With new Conversational Forms, marketers can follow up a form submission with a Dynamic Chat Conversational Flow directly in Marketo Engage. Respond to form field values and reference smart lists or static lists to qualify leads quickly. Offer content or next steps instead of a simple “Thank You” page.

Why we care. Inquiries can be handled more quickly, whether they are requests for meetings or content or they add information to the inquirer’s record. 

New Dynamic Chat features in Sales Insight and Sales Insight Actions

Coming soon: Sales teams using Sales Insight Actions will be able to receive notifications directly when a lead is waiting for live chat. Also, additional Dynamic Chat activity has been added to the Sales Insight and Sales Insight Actions Live Feed. 

Sales reps will be connected directly to leads via Dynamic Chat notifications in Sales Insight Actions and monitor engagement with chat. 

Other powerful enhancements to Dynamic Chat

• Agents set their own custom availability via Custom Meeting Booking Settings. This is in addition to the capability to set Live Chat Availability. It’s flexible in selecting the time ranges per day.
• Admins can set Global Fallback Rules to control what visitors see when agents are not available.
• Admins have greater capability to manage teams through creating teams of agents. This enables chat routing to specific groups for more targeted responses by product, region and language. 

Looking forward to what October has in store!

View the complete set of September 2023 Marketo Release Notes.

Marketo Release Notes is presented through a partnership between MarTech and MERGE’s marketing operations consultancy.