Time Zone Lead Routing in Marketo

I thought I would expand on this concept with a more detailed post.

Let’s say you have three reps who work in shifts: US East Coast, Tokyo, and London so that there is always someone available 24 hours a day. Each rep should receive leads immediately during their shift.

• East Coast: 9am-5pm EST
• Tokyo: 5pm – 1am EST
• London: 1am – 9am EST

Since Marketo doesn’t have a time zone concept built in, we need to tell Marketo what to do when a lead is created at a certain time. In this example, I assume your System Time is EST, so remember to do the time zone math before you begin.

Step 1: Create a New Field

Create a String field in Marketo called “Time of Day”

Step 2: New Trigger: Time Stamp New Leads

You can add this step to your regular lead processing system too.

Anytime someone comes in as a new lead, we stamp the lead with a time in a text field.

Use {{system.time}} to stamp the lead. The {{system.time}} token looks like

9:00 AM (-500 GMT)

Step 3: Build Smart Lists for each time range

Each smart list needs to cover each hour and AM/PM in order to work properly.

Step 4: Create a Routing Trigger

Now you have to run the Routing system. In this example, I am calling another campaign, however, it is easy to use any flow action here, including Sync to SFDC.

Step 5: Test the System

You should test this by verifying the following:

• Smart lists contain the right people
• Triggers are working
• Routing is correct

Step 6: Turn it on!

A basic system will look like this:

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