Custom Dedupe Rule and Multiple Domains

Juliet_Forte2
Level 2

Custom Dedupe Rule and Multiple Domains

Through an acquisition, we are adding a new business unit (BU) that has its own website/domain which will be maintained going forward. We are not using workspaces or partitions; the same munchkin code will be on both domains. We need to be able to create duplicate records when someone fills in a form from the new BU.

We are looking at implementing a custom de-dupe rule that would use email address + BU (business unit). All forms will have BU as a hidden field and any list imports would contain BU as well.

After reading all of the community information on multiple domain tracking and custom dedupe rules, we want to double check how tracking and associating leads to records will work. Here’s the scenario we are evaluating:

  1. Person visits BU1 domain but doesn’t fill in form. They get a Marketo cookie on BU1 domain
  2. Person visits BU2 domain but doesn’t fill in form. They get a Marketo cookie on BU2 domain
  3. Person goes back to BU1 domain and fills in form (with hidden BU field)

With the form fill, Marketo looks up the person based on email+BU1 and doesn’t find a match so a new record is created. At this point, the prior BU1 anonymous activities get associated with the record. But what happens with the anonymous prior visits from BU2? Will they also be associated with this same record?

  1. Person now visits BU2 domain and fills in form (with hidden BU field).

With this form fill, will Marketo create a new record or is the prior BU2 cookie now associated with the record created in step 3 so a new record isn’t created?

3 REPLIES 3
SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Re: Custom Dedupe Rule and Multiple Domains

But what happens with the anonymous prior visits from BU2? Will they also be associated with this same record?

How could they be? They're still anonymous, and the cookie is different by definition (since you're not sharing the same parent domain). There's no way for Marketo to know any merging could/should take place.

Those visits will continue to be anonymous until the person is associated on BU2's domain as well.

Gunjan_Batra1
Level 4

Re: Custom Dedupe Rule and Multiple Domains

  1. Person visits BU1 domain but doesn’t fill in form. They get a Marketo cookie on BU1 domain - CORRECT
  2. Person visits BU2 domain but doesn’t fill in form. They get a Marketo cookie on BU2 domain - CORRECT
  3. Person goes back to BU1 domain and fills in form (with hidden BU field)

With the form fill, Marketo looks up the person based on email+BU1 and doesn’t find a match so a new record is created. (CORRECT) At this point, the prior BU1 anonymous activities get associated with the record. But what happens with the anonymous prior visits from BU2? Will they also be associated with this same record? (BU2 activity will not get associated till the same lead submits form on BU2 website. Since you have a dupe rule, it will always create a new lead)

  1. Person now visits BU2 domain and fills in form (with hidden BU field).

With this form fill, will Marketo create a new record or is the prior BU2 cookie now associated with the record created in step 3 so a new record isn’t created? (Marketo will create a new record and associate BU2 Anonymous activity since you have Email+BU dedupe rule)

Question: Are you also adding BU unit to other channels? like list imports, Social media etc.

Juliet_Forte2
Level 2

Re: Custom Dedupe Rule and Multiple Domains

Yes, that's the plan. Everything incoming to Marketo should have a BU field value.