Re: Creating a Lead when a Contact Exists

Anonymous
Not applicable

Creating a Lead when a Contact Exists

Hello.

Because we do not currently have a "Contact" funnel, my team would like me to create everything as "Leads," even the person exists in our system as a "Contact." This will give them the ability to work interested leads then merge them to the contact. I think this is bad practice to create duplicates and introduces too much risk (i.e. the lead will never be merged). Has anyone dealt with this situation as a way to get around the lack of a Contact funnel (which is coming in the not-too-distant future)?

Thanks.

3 REPLIES 3
Grégoire_Miche2
Level 10

Re: Creating a Lead when a Contact Exists

Hi Ann,

This is feasible, but really not recommended. You will create duplicates and form Marketing Automation, duplicates are quite close to the Evil All the risks you are listing are real ones, and you can bet you will end up spending significant money to cleanse your duplicates in a few months.

All you need to start working is that a "Status" field is created on Contact, with the same values as the Lead Status one.

Now, if you really want to make a lead out of a contact is to run a "sync lead to SFDC" flow step a force the assignment to a lead queue. Argh

-Greg

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Creating a Lead when a Contact Exists

Thanks. All the work on the Contact side is coming -- we will be creating a funnel similar to the lead side, but there is more work to be done in our systems before we can do that.

My concern is the same with duplicates, and I agree it is bad practice. I am getting a lot of push back on this -- from a practical angle, I am not even sure how to tell Marketo to create the duplicate? I think it will just get messy but trying to explore options.

Grégoire_Miche2
Level 10

Re: Creating a Lead when a Contact Exists

To create lead from a contact, read the last sentence of my previous post

or read this Sync Lead to SFDC - Marketo Docs - Product Docs  until the "caution"

-Greg