Picture this: you’ve spent hours designing and developing the perfect email template in Marketo, you paste in your new template in Marketo, hit the ‘Approve and Close’ or ‘Validate HTML’ button and—bam—you get the dreaded modal with a list of errors and warnings. This report on the status of your email template can be sometimes helpful, but oftentimes confusing. A brief description of the error or warning and no line number to pinpoint the error can make for a frustrating development process. But don’t worry! Debugging and troubleshooting in Marketo doesn’t have to be a hair-pulling experience. In this guide, we’ll show you how to tackle those pesky template issues head-on—like the Marketo superhero you are! 🦸♀️🦸♂️
Common Issues and How to Fix Them
Let’s face it: even the best of us run into glitches when working with Marketo’s Email Templating Language (METL). The good news? Most problems are totally fixable once you know where to look. Before we get into specific errors, let’s go over a basic checklist of must-haves in a Marketo email template:
class=”mktoContainer” along with a unique id and mktoName attribute must be present ONCE in the template
All modules are identified with class=”mktoModule”, unique id and mktoName attribute
Acceptable element types are: mktoText, mktoImg, mktoSnippet, and mktoVideo
All elements must have a unique id and a mktoName attribute
Any and all class values containing Marketo syntax (mktoModule, mktoContainer, mktoText) are case sensitive. Marketo attribute names are not (mktoname, mktoimgsrc)
Variable ids must be unique
Here are the most common template issues and how to debug them like a pro:
Error: Duplicate Element Id - this one is pretty straightforward, you can not have the same id shared across any Marketo element, module, or variable.
Error: Invalid Field Value - this error has to do with your variables and the format that Marketo is expecting those variables in for each variable type. An example of this is if you are using ‘mktoColor’ for one of your variables the default value format for mktoColor must be a HEX formatted color. It does not accept RGB formats.
Error: Invalid Module: #yourModule Id - this is probably the worst error you can get when attempting to save or validate a Marketo email template because it is so vague. If you receive this error I would check a few items that I have seen cause this:
Make sure you only have one mktoContainer declared in your template and it is defined as a class on one of these elements: <table>, <tbody>, <thead>, <tfoot> or <td>
Depending on which element you have specified class=”mktoContainer” on, class=”mktoModule” must be assigned to the first child element within your container element. For example, this will throw the an invalid module error:
In the code above, you have class=”mktoContainer” on a <td> element, which means all modules need to be declared on <table> elements, and in this case we do have class=”mktoModule” on a <table> element, but not the table as a direct child of “mktoContainer” so we need to move that module declaration up a level so it isn’t nested. It should look like this:
Error: Invalid Module: #wrapper > table:nth-child(2): very similar to the ‘Invalid Module’ error outlined in the previous point, but this one gives you slightly more detail. If you receive this error it means you have an element nested within your container element that is not a module. To fix this, make sure all elements nested within your mktoContainer have class=”mktoModule” on them. Here is an example of code that will give you this error:
In the above code you’ll see we have class=”mktoContainer” on a <td> element, then on our first <table> element a class=”mktoModule” and in the next <table> we don’t declare this as a module so Marketo let’s us know we can’t have a child of mktoContainer that isn’t a module.
Error: Element With No Name: this error means you have a class of “mktoModule” or “mktoContainer” declared on an element but forgot to also specify your “mktoName” attribute.
Error: No Variable with this ID Declared: this means you are attempting to use a variable in your html that you did not declare using the <meta></meta> tags in the <head> of your template. It also is good to check that you didn’t misspell the variable and the id you gave the variable in the <head> matches your implementation of it in your html. Remember that variables are case-sensitive as well.
Final Thoughts
Marketo email template issues can feel daunting at first, but once you know the common pitfalls and how to troubleshoot them, you’ll be breezing through debugging in no time. Just remember: slow down, check your syntax, and test like a champion! Before long, you’ll be a Marketo template troubleshooter extraordinaire, saving the day one email at a time. 💪✨