How Hootsuite reduced 90% of legacy Marketo programs

Hootsuite’s Adobe Marketo Engage instance had grown over ten years into a complex environment of legacy programs, fields, and data. JTF delivered an automation-led clean up that removed 80% of total assets, reduced programs by 90%, and restored performance, visibility, and long-term scalability ahead of Hootsuite’s HubSpot migration.

The challenge

Over time, Hootsuite’s Adobe Marketo Engage instance had grown into a complex environment with 20,000 programs and 1,500 fields. The accumulated clutter made it difficult for teams to locate active assets and slowed performance.
Following the acquisition of a company using HubSpot, Hootsuite planned to consolidate systems and data into Marketo. However, the age and scale of the existing instance posed risks for migration, including duplicate data, and broken dependencies.

The marketing operations team needed a clean, stable foundation that could support integration, maintain compliance, and deliver long-term usability. Yet with limited bandwidth and no native tools in Marketo to perform a large-scale clean up, progress had stalled.
Hootsuite engaged JTF to bring automation, methodology, and structure to the process – removing years of technical debt while protecting active campaigns and ensuring the instance was ready for future growth.

Our approach

Discovery and Alignment:
We began with workshops involving marketing, operations, and CRM teams to understand how Hootsuite used Marketo day to day. We checked which assets were business critical, and where inefficiencies existed. This ensured stakeholder alignment and a clear view of how the clean up would support upcoming system migrations.

Audit and Analysis:
JTF’s technical audit assessed every part of the instance, from folder structure and naming conventions to smart campaigns, tokens, and integrations. Using our proprietary algorithm, each of the 20,000 programs was scored based on age, activity, and interlinking dependencies.

Framework and Execution:
With the Retain–Review–Remove framework approved, JTF deployed its API-driven automation tools to execute the clean up. Around 85% of the process was automated with throttling safeguards, allowing large-scale removal without performance risk.

Governance and Enablement:
We delivered recommendations on channels, tags, and program setup, migrated key assets from local to global, and provided a Marketo Clean Up Playbook so Hootsuite could repeat the process quarterly or annually with minimal effort.

The Results:

The Marketo Clean Up transformed Hootsuite’s legacy instance into a streamlined, high-performing environment that now serves as the foundation for all future marketing automation activity. Over a four-month period, JTF removed over a decade of accumulated technical debt while preserving critical assets, campaigns, and data structures.

The results were immediate and measurable. The total volume of assets within Marketo dropped by more than 80%, reducing clutter, improving searchability, and simplifying campaign management across global teams. The system now loads faster, smart campaigns execute more reliably, and users spend less time troubleshooting and more time building.

90%

Reduction in programs

80%

Fewer total assets

800+

Fields cleaned and catalogued

The reduction of nearly 20,000 programs significantly decreased operational risk and improved visibility into what was active, archived, or retired. This change gave Hootsuite’s marketing operations team full confidence that every campaign and program still running added measurable business value.

At the data layer, JTF cleaned and mapped more than 800 fields into a structured data catalog. This created a single source of truth for field usage, descriptions, and dependencies – for reducing duplication, and supporting future integrations with CRM and analytics systems.

The standardised folder hierarchy, tags, and naming conventions introduced during the project also set a long-term governance model. Teams now have clear frameworks for how to build, archive, and review assets. Thus ensures that performance gains are sustained beyond the initial project window.

With a cleaner, faster, and fully governed instance, Hootsuite is now positioned to complete its migration with minimal disruption.

‘We chose JTF because they clearly understood the technical depth of Marketo and had proven experience managing large-scale clean ups. Their approach was structured, fast, and transparent from day one. In just a few months, they helped us remove years of technical debt, improve performance, and bring complete visibility back to our instance.’

Snr. Marketing Operations Manager, Hootsuite