In today's fast-paced marketing world, seamless integration between tools is not just a luxury—it's a necessity. One of the most powerful duos is Marketo Engage and Salesforce (SFDC). When used correctly, they can transform how you manage leads. But what happens when you need more than a simple sync? Custom frameworks come to the rescue.
Why We Need a Custom Solution
For our case, we are not syncing every record from Marketo Engage to SFDC. In fact, we are only syncing 20% of the Marketo Engage database to SFDC. The main reason we are not syncing most of our records is that we are not only looking at their scoring as a qualifier but also at many other data points, including whether the person provided a business email, if they are a student, or if they are an employee. We only want to sync records that align with our strict policies related to customer and account validation, ensuring that the individual is indeed associated with a legitimate business account.
While we have many criteria to determine if a person is qualified or not, we were able to manage the sync process and exclude all the people who should not be in SFDC when we were only using the Global Centralized Sync Smart Campaign. Once a person reached the threshold score, we added several other filters to ensure we only synced the qualified records.
However, we started to create campaigns in SFDC that were pretty much 1-to-1 with Marketo Engage programs and SFDC campaigns. We extended our sync not only to the global centralized sync but also to when a person became a member of the program. We wanted them to be in SFDC.
PROBLEM: Then, we started to see many unwanted records in our Salesforce instance. Using all the filters somehow worked in smart campaign flow steps sync, but if we synced Marketo programs with SFDC campaigns on program level then, these filters were not meaningful. The increase in program sync definitely started to affect our process.
SOLUTION: DO NOT SYNC SFDC boolean set on individuals on creation, or updated based on criteria. Using Smart Campaign Flow steps to sync using this field as a condition!
Step-by-Step Process
- Create a Boolean Field in SFDC:
- Add a boolean field called "DO NOT SYNC SFDC" in both the lead and contact objects in SFDC and update the permission setting to Marketo read/write.
- Collaborate with your SFDC team to establish validation rules for this field. If the field is set to True, the lead or contact will not be synced to SFDC.
- Determine Sync Criteria:
- Define the criteria for leads that should not sync to SFDC. This could include unqualified, irrelevant, or non-business leads.
- Implement these rules in a phased approach, starting with records that are only present in Marketo Engage.
- Set Up Process In Marketo:
- Create smart campaigns to maintain data hygiene. These campaigns will automatically update the "DO NOT SYNC SFDC" field based on your predefined criteria.
- We include the DO NOT SYNC SFDC data campaigns as part of our Executable Data Hygiene Program to ensure this value is updated before the person creation.
- Create smart campaigns to maintain data hygiene. These campaigns will automatically update the "DO NOT SYNC SFDC" field based on your predefined criteria.
- Handle Existing SFDC Records:
- Create Report in SFDC identifying those fitting the determined criteria above
- Update the "DO NOT SYNC SFDC" field accordingly in SFDC.
- Once updated, have SFDC team delete from SFDC while retaining them in Marketo Engage. This keeps your SFDC database clean and ensures you maintain a comprehensive record in Marketo for future reference.
- Monitor and Adjust:
- Regularly monitor and adjust your sync rules as needed.
- Feedback from your marketing and sales teams can help refine the criteria and ensure the solution remains effective.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Improved Sales Qualification : Only relevant and qualified leads are synced, reducing clutter, and improving the efficiency of marketing and sales processes.
- Enhanced Data Quality: Maintains a cleaner and more accurate database, crucial for informed decision-making.
- Time and Resource Savings: Sales teams no longer need to sift through low-quality leads, saving significant time and resources.
- Simplified Process: In Marketo, you don't need to remember to use many fields to exclude records from syncing; only one field makes the magic happen.
Cons:
- Validation Error Messages: May encounter validation errors that can disrupt the sync process. Regular monitoring and a robust error-handling mechanism are crucial.
- Technical Expertise Required: Implementing and maintaining custom sync rules requires a certain level of technical expertise and ongoing maintenance.
At the End ....
Using a custom framework to manage lead syncing between Marketo Engage and Salesforce (SFDC) has many benefits. By customizing the sync process, you can make sure only high-quality leads are moved between the two systems. This selective method makes lead syncing more efficient, keeps your database clean and organized, and helps marketing and sales teams work better together.
While setting this up takes some initial effort and technical know-how, the long-term benefits of better lead quality and smoother operations are worth it. By controlling the sync process, companies can use their resources better, make better decisions, and grow their business.
In the end, optimizing the sync between Marketo Engage and Salesforce with custom rules is a smart move. It improves data quality and efficiency, and encourages a culture of innovation and continuous improvement. By adopting this approach, businesses can stay ahead and keep refining their processes to meet changing market demands.
🌟 Happy syncing! 🌟
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