During a recent Office Hour webinar, our team was asked:
“When we upload lists in Marketo, does it not check to see if an email already exists? Could it allow duplicate records to be created?”
The individual that asked the question suspected that sync errors are the source of his duplicate contacts and hopes to find a solution during this call.
Duplicate Leads
Justin clarified that Marketo should be eliminating duplicates when a SFDC database is being uploaded, but that the parameters for de-duping need to be clarified. Adam offered insight about the source of the duplication and offered suggestions for setting up the process of removing the duplicates.
It may be that a contact in SFDC with no email address listed in the primary field isn’t being recognized as a duplicate. Marketo ignores contacts with no email address, since the purpose of it is to send emails.
Additionally, SFDC allows contacts to have multiple email addresses, and in the database one will be a “primary” while the second will be an “alternate.” Marketo ignores the “alternate” email address and retains only the primary email address.
If a subscriber opts in with an alternate email address, Marketo will not realize that it’s a duplicate entry because the email address is different.
There are plenty of people in the world with the same first and last name.
De-Duplication
Justin also says that Marketo can be programmed to de-dupe based on additional input lines, so that if you’re syncing a database with multiple variables, you can set it up to respond to multiple sources of input.
This is beneficial when your SFDC and email campaigns are being used for multiple product lines, filtering contacts into more than once mailing list.
Troubleshooting sync issues can be a major issue and there are a wide range of factors to consider. Data handling can be amazing when it’s working flawlessly, but getting everything set up isn’t always fun.
Designing a functional sync flow is one of Perkuto’s specialties. Seamless communication between SFDC and Marketo makes data analysis more accurate and helps users fine-tune their marketing efforts.
Watch the video for more: