Upload list to Marketo with existing members - Duplicate or Update?

[Hadar_Ron]

Hi,

When I'm uploading a CSV list into Marketo and in the list I have a few members that already exist in the system (Marketo/SF), Marketo create a new member or update the existing member (can be lead or contact)?

In addition to that, how Marketo define new members? By email address/First Name or something else?

And how can I edit it? 

Thanks in advance!

Hadar

[Blane_McMichen2 · Accepted solution]

Hi Hadar,

Marketo will not create a duplicate lead.  The only required field for a lead is "email address", because this is the key field.  As long as the email is the same, a new record will not be created.  It will update other field values, like name, etc., unless during the import you tell it to ignore a column from your import in the field mapping step.  This will ignore the column for all records.

Import a List of People - Marketo Docs - Product Documentation 

[Hadar_Ron]

Thank you Blane!!

One more question:

If I import a list with new text in the Person Note field, the new text will be added to the existing one wihch appear in the field or will replace it?

Thanks!

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

Fields are overwritten completely, not appended, when you import.

If you want to append to a history field, then have that field be separate from the import. Include another custom field, MostRecentPersonNote in the import. Then use the Flow step Change Data Value to append the most recent value. 

You can search here for "history field" and get more pointers.

[Emma_Peek]

this doesn't work for me. Tried to update existing records with the country and company name - email is existing and marketo created all new records!

[Abhinav_saini]

That shouldn't be the case. Just verify once and search lead with email address in lead database and check how many leads you have with same email address and verify the created date. Marketo must have updated existing record only. 

[Amy_Goldfine]

Are you sure you didn't already have duplicates? You can look at a record's create date and also look at the Original Source Type value, which will show you how the record entered the database.