What is the best way to rest leads or suspend communication?

Hi Christine, you can "Marketing Suspend" people, which could be triggered to check/uncheck at specific intervals. When someone is Marketing Suspended, they won't be sent something through Marketo regardless of if they're on any send lists. 

Another option, and my personal preference, would be to segment. If you can be diligent enough to ensure that your send lists contain a filter for the correct segment, then this is one of the most powerful tools that you can use to know where someone is in the buying stage, as well as who to target at any specific time.

Hey Christine!

Absolutely! There is a field called "Marketing Suspended" that you can toggle when you want to pause leads from getting emails. A bonus to this is that leads can still receive Operational emails, such as webinar confirmation emails, while suspended.

You can set up some campaigns based on lead score to toggle this field.

Alteratively, you can use the Engagement Program. You can have one stream for leads with a certain score range and then move them to a different stream once they go above a certain score. You can have different content and a different send frequence for these streams.

Best,
Will

Thank you both, Dory and Will, for your responses. 

Couple of additional questions: 

Does "marketing suspended" work for leads that are constantly being filtered into a "suspend" program?  For example, we have different engagement programs to monitor and leads can enter a "suspend" status in different programs.  How do you set a "marketing suspended" option after say 12 months and rest for 3 months before sending content again?  The start and end date of suspension would vary for different leads.  A lead could acquire lead score points but not enough to transition to the next progression program before becoming a MQL.  I am looking to monitor the lead score and then suspend leads who need to be suspended because of lack of engagement. 

Thank you again for any input!

You can use wait steps for specific time frames where you'd want to suspend people at varying times, so I could be suspended today, have a 30 day wait step, then a data value change to unsuspend, while Will could be suspended next week, have a 30 day wait step, and then a data value change to unsuspend Will. There could be a separate program that could separately unsuspend someone if they hit a certain score or something else where they would be qualified.