Marketo Loader

The Marketo loader pulls marketing automation data from your Marketo instance into your data warehouse. It uses Marketo’s REST API with the OAuth 2.0 client credentials grant and supports incremental sync via the updatedAt timestamp for lead records and activity dates for event data.

Prerequisites

• A Marketo instance (any edition with API access)
• A Marketo API-only user with a custom role that has API access permissions
• A Marketo custom service (LaunchPoint integration) for OAuth credentials
• A connected Warehouse (target warehouse) with write permissions on the target schema

Authentication

The Marketo loader uses OAuth 2.0 Client Credentials for authentication.

Setting Up API Access in Marketo

Step 1: Create an API-only user role

1. In Marketo, go to Admin > Users & Roles > Roles
2. Click New Role
3. Name the role (e.g., “SignalSmith API”)
4. Under Access API, enable:
   • Read-Only Lead
   • Read-Only Activity
   • Read-Only Assets
   • Read-Only Campaign

Step 2: Create an API-only user

1. Go to Admin > Users & Roles > Users
2. Click Invite New User
3. Enter an email and name (e.g., “signalsmith-api@yourcompany.com”)
4. Check API Only
5. Assign the API role created in Step 1

Step 3: Create a LaunchPoint custom service

1. Go to Admin > LaunchPoint
2. Click New > New Service
3. Enter a display name (e.g., “SignalSmith Loader”)
4. Set Service to “Custom”
5. Select the API-only user created in Step 2
6. Click Create
7. Note the Client ID and Client Secret

Step 4: Find your REST API endpoint

1. Go to Admin > Web Services
2. Under REST API, note the Endpoint URL (e.g., https://123-ABC-456.mktorest.com/rest)
3. Note the Identity URL (e.g., https://123-ABC-456.mktorest.com/identity)

Step 5: Configure in SignalSmith

SignalSmith obtains and refreshes access tokens automatically using the client credentials grant.

Available Objects

Activities

Marketo activities represent discrete events — email opens, link clicks, form submissions, web page visits, score changes, and more. Activities are high-volume and extracted with a date-range cursor. Each activity type has a unique numeric ID; the activity_types reference table provides human-readable names.

Common activity types:

Custom Objects

Marketo custom objects are discovered automatically and extracted like standard objects. They are identified by their API name and appear in the object list during setup.

Configuration

Scheduling Notes

• Daily API quota: Marketo enforces a daily API call quota (typically 50,000 calls per day, varies by contract). Each loader run consumes calls proportional to the data volume. Monitor your usage in Marketo’s Admin panel.
• Bulk Extract API: For leads and activities with large volumes, SignalSmith uses Marketo’s Bulk Extract API. This creates export jobs that run asynchronously in Marketo and return data in CSV format, which is significantly more efficient than paging through the REST API.
• Activity date range: Activities are extracted using a date range filter. The incremental cursor tracks the most recent activity date extracted. SignalSmith applies a lookback window (default: 2 days) to capture late-arriving activities.
• Lead field limits: Marketo’s API returns a maximum of 300 fields per lead record. If your instance has more than 300 fields, select only the fields you need during object configuration.
• Concurrent API calls: Marketo limits concurrent API calls (typically 10). SignalSmith manages concurrency automatically, but if other integrations also use the API, contention may slow extraction.

Schema Mapping

Marketo field types are mapped to warehouse-compatible types:

Troubleshooting

Next Steps

• Create a model to transform your raw Marketo data
• Join Marketo leads with CRM data for a complete lead-to-customer view
• Build audiences based on marketing engagement