Should I Take the Marketo Certified Expert Exam?

Hi Jo,

I’m in the early stages of my career in MOPs, and I’m wondering if I should take the Marketo Certified Expert (MCE) exam.

Many people in the industry have this qualification, though I’m not entirely sure what doors it can open.

My current role is mostly about supporting campaigns, but I could see myself heading down a more hands-on path with tech.

Is taking the MCE a smart decision for me? If so, what can I do to make sure I pass the exam?

Thanks,
Excited Ellen.

Ellen, it’s great that you’re considering how the MCE can support your career.

The MCE is like a badge of honor.

It tells employers, clients, and the MOPs community that you’re someone they can trust when it comes to Marketo.

Obtaining the qualification can be beneficial in various ways, but its relevance ultimately depends on your goals.

Benefits of MCE

Passing the MCE helped me progress from a campaign operations role into Marketo consultancy and negotiate a higher salary.

Do you like the idea of moving towards strategy or systems operations? If you’re interested in designing the sales, data, and reporting processes in Marketo that allow others to run campaigns and get performance insights, the MCE can give you that momentum.

Other options

That said, not taking the MCE isn’t a hard stop for career development. If you become interested in a more generalist marketing role or a discipline that’s less about managing tech, like field marketing, then you’ll use Marketo in a less administrative capacity.

In that case, you might want to look at the Marketo Certified Associate (MCA) qualification, which validates the functions and skills you need for running campaigns.

Taking either the MCE or MCA lets you practice and prove your skills with Marketo.

While you’ll never use all of Marketo’s features, I find getting either certification helps people in various roles to speak the same language about this vast and important piece of tech.

Tips for acing the MCE:

From my experience taking the MCE, here are some tips I can recommend to ace it on the first try:

• One year’s experience as a system admin is a good estimate for the time it takes to pass the MCE. If you don’t have admin access, practice processes like implementations, migrations, and integrations in a sandbox until you’re confident in your skills.
• Try out features that you’re less familiar with. You likely have a good grasp of campaigns, so branch out into functions like reporting and databases.
• When Marketo’s your day job, you’re effectively preparing for the test by going to work. Think about the test-relevant functions you can implement into your day-to-day workflow.
• Practice exams and sample questions, like these, are close to what you’ll see in the real exam. Do a few of these and you won’t have any major surprises.
• Marketo product documents are a great resource for checking the finer points of how things work.
• Marketo user groups and MOPs community channels are also active spaces for support.

Whichever exam you decide to go for, you want to gradually expand your use of Marketo until you’re comfortable with the fundamental skills tested in the MCE or MCA.

Try not to rush or stress through your prep; slow and steady wins the race.

You’ve got this,
Jo Pulse.