Removing duplicate email addresses where there are multiple Marketo IDs

[SuzyV]

I'm looking for recommendations on the best ways to remove duplicates from Marketo where there are duplicate email addresses with different Marketo IDs.     Our instance ended with duplicates based on some migration work that was done quite some time ago and there's a desire now to merge those records so that no activity is lost.  I know there are technologies available to help with this effort and was looking for recommendations from this group on what you've used in the past successfully, that did what you wanted, relatively easily at a reasonable price.   Thanks in advance.

[Carrie_Chandle1]

Hey @SuzyV!

Are these Marketo person record duplicates? (as in, they don't exist in your CRM as a lead or a contact). Knowing the landscape (person-to-person, person-to-contact, contact-to-contact, etc.) of your duplicates will help narrow your options, since things get sticky when you're looking at trying to merge two records that exist in your CRM.

As for personal experience, we're in the process of implementing Marketo's Automerge solution to merge Marketo person records with SFDC contacts, and have been pleased with the tests we've done so far. It allows us to create custom rules to ensure the right data values are "winning" upon merge, and leaves us with a record that has the complete history of both records.

Something to be mindful of when you're merging is triggered smart campaigns, such as scoring and interesting moments. After merging a few test records, we realized we needed to make modifications to existing campaigns to ensure they weren't being re-triggered when the merge completed and certain data values changed.

Hope you find the right solution for your instance!

[Beth_Massura]

Hi Suzy, depending on how many duplicates there are and the criteria are for what field values "win", manual merges one by one may be an option. This is what I had to do in the past, as the Marketo Easy Merge didn't allow for complex criteria, such as "if the value of (field name) is true for one of the duplicate records, then keep all the field values from that record."