Eliminating Spam Leads in Marketo with a Custom Honeypot

While Marketo provides tools to block spam, these mechanisms are not entirely foolproof. By leveraging a custom Marketo Honeypot, marketers can reduce spam leads by up to 99%—ensuring a clean, productive database.

What Are Spam Leads?

Spam leads are invalid or fake contacts generated by:

1. Bots: Automated software filling forms en masse.
2. Humans: Individuals entering fake or irrelevant data to waste time or promote unrelated products.

While bot spam makes up the majority, human spam is subtler and harder to filter, though less frequent.

How Does Marketo’s Honeypot Work?

A honeypot is a hidden form field added to your Marketo forms with the following principles:

• Humans cannot see the field and leave it empty.
• Bots detect the field and fill it automatically.

Marketo’s built-in honeypot field blocks spam leads by ignoring submissions where this field contains any value.

Limitations of the Default Marketo Honeypot

Despite its usefulness, the default honeypot has limitations:

• Advanced Bots: Some bots detect and bypass hidden fields.
• Preprogrammed Avoidance: Many bots are designed to skip Marketo’s built-in honeypot field.

Building a Custom Honeypot in Marketo

To enhance spam prevention, a customized honeypot can outsmart even advanced bots.

Step 1: Add a New Honeypot Field

• Create a new custom field in Marketo (e.g., Honeypot).
• Add this field as a text field to your forms but do not sync it with your CRM.

Step 2: Hide the Field

Use CSS to hide the honeypot field from human users:

#honeypot, label[for=honeypot] {display: none !important;}

Step 3: Add Validation Logic with JavaScript

Prevent form submissions with a filled honeypot using this JavaScript snippet:

MktoForms2.whenReady(function (form) {

    form.onValidate(function() {

        var vals = form.vals();

        if (vals.honeypot == "") {

            form.submittable(true); // Not spam, allow submission

        } else {

            form.submittable(false); // Detected spam, block submission

        }

    });

});

Step 4: Test the Honeypot

• Forms with empty honeypots should submit successfully.
• Forms with filled honeypots should be blocked.

Additional Techniques for Spam Prevention

Custom Checkbox Fields

Inspired by Google reCAPTCHA, add two checkboxes:

• I am a robot
• I am NOT a robot

Bots often fail this logic, either checking both boxes or none. Use Marketo campaigns to flag and filter such leads.

Filter Human Spam

Human spam often includes:

• URLs in comment fields.
• Suspicious patterns or irrelevant entries.

Create campaigns to flag leads with these markers as Junk for manual review.

Why Avoid CAPTCHA or Anti-Bot Questions?

While effective, CAPTCHAs or anti-bot questions disrupt the user experience:

• CAPTCHAs: Deciphering distorted text can deter users.
• Text-Based Questions: Answering specific questions adds friction and lowers form submissions.

Honeypots provide a seamless alternative, filtering spam without compromising the user journey.

Best Practices for Honeypots in Marketo

• Focus on High-Risk Forms: Apply honeypots to forms prone to spam (e.g., Contact Us, Newsletter Signup).
• Monitor Trends: Periodically review spam patterns and adjust honeypot logic to counter evolving bots.
• Prioritize User Experience: Ensure the honeypot process is invisible to legitimate users to maintain usability.

Xgrid’s Approach to Custom Honeypots

For one client, our Certified Marketo Experts implemented a custom honeypot solution that significantly reduced spam lead volume. By tailoring honeypot fields and validation scripts, the team blocked nearly all bot-driven form submissions while maintaining a frictionless experience for legitimate users. Additionally, Xgrid employed campaign logic to identify and flag human-generated spam leads for manual review, ensuring a cleaner, more actionable database.

This proactive spam prevention approach not only improved lead quality but also freed up resources for meaningful engagement, underscoring the value of a custom honeypot in Marketo’s lead management process.