Use Smart Lists to Exclude Employees and Competitors
I used to waste a lot of time adding filters to smart campaigns and reports to exclude internal employees and competitors. Then I realized that I could save myself a lot of time by building a smart list I could reference instead. It should be noted that Marketo Sky will solve some of those issues with saved rules but I think making a list for internal leads and competitors is still a good idea because it can be used in reporting as well. It will take you less than 3 minutes to setup and will pay dividends over time.
Create a Smart List
Go into the database section and create a smart list. I named mine “master-exclusion”. Drag in the email address filter and change the rule from “is” to “contains”. Now paste in the domains of all of the email addresses you want to block. That’s it! You’re smart list is ready to use
Add Filter Smart Campaign
Create either a batch or trigger smart campaign and drag in whichever filters you want to define your audience. Then, bring in the “Member of Smart List” filter. Change the criteria from “is” to “is not” and choose the smart list we created in the previous step. Now, employees from your company or competitors who visit that webpage will be blocked from going through the flow steps.
Use Smart List in Reporting
You can also use this smart to list to filter on your reports. For example, if you wanted to see web activity for your leads but don’t want to see internal traffic or competitors, just drag in the “Member of Smart List” filter again and change the rule to “is not”.