TSA Exit Acceleration
Off the seller’s Marketo instance. On schedule.
Fixed-fee proposal in 48 hours. Senior team on day one. The first conversation is always free.
Marketo TSA separation is the work of moving Newco off the seller’s shared Marketo Engage instance and onto its own, with clean lead ownership, rebuilt programs, and uninterrupted demand generation. The program runs inside the broader carve-out advisory plan. Marketo sits at the front of the revenue engine, so a botched separation does not just lose data. It quietly stops new leads from reaching sales.
Marketo separation starts with a full inventory of the seller instance. The database size and lead partitions. The workspaces and the program hierarchy. The smart campaigns, smart lists, and engagement programs. The forms, landing pages, and email assets. The custom fields and custom objects. The LaunchPoint services and API integrations. Marketo instances accumulate years of automation, and a clean inventory is the only way to see what actually fires.
The seller usually runs one instance covering several business units through workspaces and partitions. Newco leads sit inside a partition or are tagged by a business unit field. Adobe does not split a Marketo instance in place. Newco subscribes to its own instance, and the team migrates the leads, programs, and assets that belong to it. The output is a configured instance with a selective lead load.
Target strategy is shaped by carve out timing and the Newco demand model. A lift approach rebuilds the seller configuration and prunes the dead automation. A greenfield approach builds a clean instance to a target program model. Most carve outs choose a hybrid: keep the programs driving pipeline today, rebuild the rest with better hygiene.
A clean inventory unlocks the subscription sizing, the migration scope, the program rebuild plan, and the integration map. It also arms the buyer with facts to challenge seller charges during the TSA, the same discipline applied in the HubSpot separation playbook.
Marketo Engage is priced on database size, the feature edition, and add ons such as advanced reporting and additional API call volume. The seller agreement does not transfer in a carve out. Newco signs a direct subscription sized to its actual marketable database, not the seller total. Database size is the single largest cost driver, so right sizing the contracted tier to the real Newco list is the most valuable negotiation move.
Preparation covers the marketable lead count, the edition features Newco needs, API call volume, and the BATNA. Where Newco can credibly move to a competing marketing automation platform, the negotiation gains leverage. Adobe reads a carve out buyer as a captive account under timing pressure, so term length, price holds, and onboarding concessions are the levers that move.
Implementation services are the second commercial. Newco selects an Adobe partner with Marketo carve out experience and holds it to a fixed-fee scope with disciplined change control. Hourly time and materials is not the model.
Where the seller extends instance access through a TSA period, the price is held to cost-plus or fixed-fee with a defined exit ramp and audit rights. The seller cannot mark up a subscription cost it does not incur. That control runs through the TSA audit rights framework.
Lead migration covers people records, current field values, list membership, and custom object data. Marketo exposes the data through the Bulk Extract API and the REST API. The sequence loads people first, then custom objects, then list and program membership. Each domain gets a defined extract, transform, and load process with reconciliation against the seller source so the marketable count is exactly what was agreed.
Activity history is the limitation buyers must understand early. Marketo activity logs and engagement scoring history do not migrate cleanly between instances. Current scores can be loaded as field values, but the underlying activity trail resets. The team agrees the reporting baseline that resets at cutover so leadership is not surprised by an empty activity report in week one.
Programs, smart campaigns, and assets do not export between instances. They are rebuilt from the inventory. This is the labor center of the project and the place to retire dead automation. Email templates, landing pages, forms, tokens, and engagement program streams are reconstructed and tested with sample leads. Scoring models and lifecycle flows are rebuilt with the same logic and validated against known records.
A reconciliation gate closes the workstream. Marketable counts, partition membership, and a sample of high value records are checked before sign off, the same control used in the TSA exit data migration strategy.
The CRM sync is the highest risk integration. Marketo maintains a native sync to Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics, and that sync carries field mappings, sync filters, and a system of record per object. The Newco instance is connected to the Newco CRM with rebuilt mappings, and the cutover is sequenced so the seller sync is severed before the Newco sync goes live. Running two syncs against overlapping records is the fastest way to corrupt both systems.
Forms and tracking are the second integration cluster. Marketo forms embedded on Newco web properties are repointed to the new instance, and the Munchkin tracking code is swapped on every page. A missed form embed silently drops inbound leads, so the team maintains a complete list of every page carrying a form or tracking script and verifies each one after cutover.
LaunchPoint services such as webinar platforms, the data enrichment provider, the chat tool, and the ad bridges are rebuilt with Newco credentials and tested in a staging window. Email deliverability is protected by configuring SPF, DKIM, and the dedicated sending domain in the new instance and warming it before the first send.
Identity and access are the final piece. Newco users authenticate through the Newco identity provider, with role assignment mapped to Marketo permissions before training begins.
Cutover moves demand generation from the seller instance to the Newco instance. It is planned for a weekend with a lead load freeze, a final delta migration, the sync cutover, the form and tracking swap, and a Monday go live. The runbook covers freeze, delta load, sync activation, form verification, and a rollback trigger if lead flow does not confirm. It is rehearsed at least twice.
Marketo separation programs typically run between $80K and $450K depending on database size, program volume, integration count, and asset rebuild. The cost discipline is to size the subscription to the real marketable list, hold the partner to fixed fee, and refuse to migrate automation that no longer serves the demand model.
The failures are predictable. Contracting a database tier sized to the seller total. Leaving a form embed pointed at the dead instance. Skipping the domain warm up and watching deliverability collapse. Running both CRM syncs at once. Each is avoided by the inventory, the complete form and tracking list, the warm up plan, and a precisely sequenced sync cutover.
A clean Marketo separation gives Newco its own instance, sized to its real database, with lead flow intact from minute one. The work is delivered through the TSA exit acceleration program under a Fixed Fee or Portfolio Retainer engagement.
No. Adobe does not split a Marketo Engage instance in place. Newco subscribes to its own instance and migrates the leads, programs, assets, and smart campaigns that belong to it. The original instance stays with the seller.
Lead records and current field values migrate through the API or bulk export, but activity log history and engagement scoring history do not move cleanly between instances. Agree the reporting baseline that resets at cutover before the migration begins.
Breaking lead flow. If forms, smart campaigns, and the CRM sync are not rebuilt and tested before cutover, new leads stop routing and demand generation stalls. A staged sync cutover and a rehearsed runbook prevent it.
Size the contracted tier to the real Newco marketable database, not the seller total. Database size is the largest cost driver in Marketo, so right sizing it before signing is the single most valuable commercial decision.
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