Why Email Delivered Can Appear Before Email Sent in Marketo—and What to Do About It

If you’ve been digging into lead activity logs in Marketo and noticed something strange—like emails showing as Delivered a few seconds before they were Sent—you’re not alone. This sequencing glitch can throw off your reporting, especially when you're syncing Marketo data with external analytics platforms like Tableau. After all, logic dictates that an email can’t be delivered before it’s sent, right?

Here’s what’s actually going on—and how to work around it.

What’s the Root Cause?

The root of the issue lies in how Marketo logs email activities and the subtle distinctions between the Sent and Delivered statuses.

When you see “Email Sent” in the activity log, it doesn’t mean the email has left the building. In Marketo’s terms, Sent means the email has been queued for sending—it’s ready to go, but it hasn’t necessarily been processed or accepted by the receiving server yet. The timestamp reflects when the email was queued, which is logged after the internal Marketo system has done its part.

On the other hand, “Email Delivered” comes from the SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) infrastructure. It’s logged when the recipient’s email server acknowledges receipt. This confirmation is downstream in the delivery process and comes from a different system than the one that logs “Sent.” Because these two systems operate independently and with slightly different logging mechanisms, it’s possible—though rare—for the Delivered status to get timestamped a few seconds before Sent.

Why This Matters for Analytics?

In most scenarios, this discrepancy won’t affect engagement metrics inside Marketo. But if you’re exporting activity logs to tools like Tableau or BigQuery, where accurate sequencing is essential, it can lead to confusing or misleading reports.

For instance, if you’re trying to visualize the funnel from email delivery to open to click, having “Delivered” appear before “Sent” can throw off your time-based calculations or trigger alerts in your data validation process.

What You Can Do About It?

Rather than trying to reconcile inconsistent timestamps at the individual event level, take a smarter approach: use the Campaign Run ID.

Here’s why:

• Campaign Run ID is a consistent anchor. Every email send has a unique Campaign Run ID that ties together all related activity: sent, delivered, opened, clicked, etc. Rather than depending on event timestamps alone, grouping activities by Campaign Run ID ensures the correct context and sequence are preserved.

• Avoid time-based logic traps. Instead of trying to “fix” timestamps or reorder events in your reporting tools, structure your queries around Campaign Run ID and event type. That way, you’re analyzing complete sequences, not just fragmented timepoints.

Pro Tips for Better Email Analytics in Marketo

To get the most reliable and actionable insights from your email activity data, consider these additional best practices:

1. Add processing buffers in your reporting logic. Give a small time window (e.g., ±5 seconds) when sequencing events to account for logging variations.

2. Use secondary indicators for validation. Combine activity types with metadata like campaign names, asset IDs, or email subject lines to increase reliability.

3. Monitor for patterns, not anomalies. One-off timestamp quirks shouldn’t derail your analytics. Focus on recurring trends and use statistical aggregations instead of over-indexing on individual events.

4. Document your data assumptions. Especially when syncing data across platforms, it’s crucial to keep a data dictionary or assumptions doc so downstream users understand how to interpret event sequences.

Don’t let timestamp quirks in Marketo mislead your analysis. Understand how Sent and Delivered are logged, and use Campaign Run ID as your anchor for reliable, sequence-aware email reporting.

Happy Marketo’ing! 💜