Tips for Integrating with SFDC if You've Already Been Using Marketo

A customer who has been using Marketo as a standalone system for the past year asked me recently for some tips for integrating with SFDC. Please note the following tips will also apply if the customer had a custom integration and was not using Marketo's connector for Microsoft Dynamics or SFDC.

  • Check in the Marketo Admin area for the CRM icon

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  • Create a strategy for handing the duplicates which will be created in Marketo
    • So if you've been using Marketo for a while you've probably imported a lot of lists
    • Records synced from SFDC are NOT deduped against existing records in Marketo based on email address
      • Any records including duplicates based on email address syncing from SFDC will sync to Marketo, records syncing from SFDC are considered intended behavior
    • The easiest way to handle the issue is to delete all the records in Marketo before syncing with SFDC
      • Unfortunately, you will lose all your activity history
    • Another option is to work with Marketo services or a Launchpoint partner to merge the duplicates together
      • If you have a lot of duplicates, it may take many weeks to merge all the records together
        • Merging records will preserve the activity history but may cause smart campaigns to fire, always test and be prepared to adjust your campaigns accordingly
      • Consider a hybrid approach by deleting the least valuable records
  • Create a strategy for the fields you want to sync from SFDC
    • Marketo will automatically map the most common SFDC fields with your existing fields
    • Consider switching from your Marketo custom fields to your SFDC fields or merging the fields together.
    • Here are some resources about fields
  • Read about implementing a custom sync filter following the best practice
  • Read about how the sync works.
  • If you are using SFDC Lighting, be aware of the unsupported features.
  • Understand how Marketo treats records deleted in SFDC
  • Understand the different ways you can insert/sync a Marketo record to SFDC unintentionally
  • Finally, here are some handy references in case you are wondering about using the SFDC Opportunity Object or a SFDC Custom Object.

Feel free to add your own tips. Thanks!