5 Steps to Take Your Junior Marketing Ops Team from Zero to MCE

Continuous improvement is the name of the game in marketing operations. 

In an industry that’s constantly evolving and highly technical, it’s crucial that marketing operations teams continually seek ongoing learning opportunities. For those who work in Marketo, Marketo certifications are a great starting point. 

Here’s a rundown of the three Marketo certifications: 

• Adobe Certified Professional – Adobe Marketo Engage (formerly MCA)
• Adobe Certified Expert – Adobe Marketo Engage Business Practitioner (formerly MCE)
• Adobe Certified Master – Adobe Marketo Engage Architect (formerly MCSA)

Elevating your junior team to MCE is a solid place to start – this certification is a technical marketing credential that validates competency, expertise, and operational knowledge in the broad use of Marketo (Marketo Nation).

💡 Are you looking to grow your marketing operations team? Take a look at these six tips for growing your team.

Here are five steps to help your team go from zero to MCE:

#1 – Find a mentor

There’s nothing better than having someone who knows the tool inside and out and to bounce questions off of. Finding a mentor is a great way to acquaint your team with Marketo.

If a mentor isn’t available, Marketo Nation is a great resource. Marketo Nation has countless threads with questions and answers to anything Marketo-related. 

There are also marketing operations communities, such as marketingops.com. The best part of marketingops.com is that they also have their own Slack community, where users can join various channels like #campaign-ops, #resources, and #moops-mistake-sharing to learn from others in marketing operations.

💡 Want to level up your marketing operations knowledge? Check out these go-to marketing operations resources. Read more here!

#2 – Gain access to a Marketo sandbox instance 

Hands-on training can help put all the puzzle pieces together. Getting your hands dirty in the tool can help users begin to learn the functionalities and features of Marketo.

It’s okay to make mistakes – unless someone emails the whole database a newsletter meant for a small niche of people (yikes!). This is why practicing in a sandbox, learning about filters and triggers, and learning how to set up campaigns is so important before users gain access to an actual instance.

#3 – Exam Guides

Adobe has great resources to guide your team in obtaining their MCE. Adobe’s Exam Guide is a great starting point. 

Once your team has covered all the topics found on this page, they can navigate to the bottom of the page and take the practice exam. This exam is similar to the real exam and provides a good foundation to determine whether they’re ready.

For those who want extra preparation before taking the practice exam, there are many quizlets and threads to help, such as:

• Exam #1 – This practice exam is somewhat outdated, but knowing the questions on here will help your team understand the tool to the best of their ability 
• Exam #2 – These questions are similar to Exam #1 – it’s good to go through both just to be safe!

#4 – Start Small

Marketo is a powerful tool that is not just an ESP but much more. Your team shouldn’t try to learn everything all at once – this can be overwhelming and not sustainable in the long run. Starting small and building off of the knowledge they already have will benefit them in the long run. 

Your team should start by getting comfortable with all the features and functionalities in Marketo, understand what they do, and go from there. Tackle Marketo piece by piece, and eventually, they will understand how all the features and functionalities integrate with each other.

# 5 – Don’t stress

When it comes to taking the MCE, it’s crucial to carefully read every question, sometimes once or twice, then play a game of elimination. 

Typically, it’s easy to remove one or two answers from the multiple-choice selection off the bat. If you still are unsure about what it could be, Adobe allows you to flag a question and come back to it. This allows users to take a mental reset and come back to the question with a fresh perspective.

By following these steps, your team will feel more confident when it comes time to take the exam. It’s important to encourage your team to keep learning and experimenting with the tool. Every day in Marketo is an opportunity to learn something new – that’s half the fun of being in the program!