Customize Field Behavior for Merges

[Rachel_Egan]

We are going through a database cleanup right now where we are merging duplicate leads. Our whole database isn't synced to SFDC, so first we are merging duplicates in SFDC, then we are merging duplicates in Marketo. Unfortunately, not all of our Marketo fields are synced to SFDC either which poses a bit of a problem when choosing with field to keep vs. which field to overwrite. I know that Marketo handles this for some fields (see article here​ and ideas and ) but there's no way of determining behavior for other fields.

My idea is that we should be able to set master merge preference for specific (or just custom?) fields within field management. Merging leads is already a very manual process unless you're willing to pay extra money for Marketo's Easy Merge service, and the merge leads window to help you choose which data you should maintain on which record. These preferences would be maintained as standard merge preferences, similar to the way Marketo adds values for lead score fields.

For each field you could choose from things like:

• Oldest Lead
• Newest Lead
• Oldest Value
• Newest Value
• Add Values (score fields)
• Concatenate values (separated by || or something)

[Geoff_Krajeski1]

What are your critical fields in MKTO?

Could you create a Smart Campaign to help merge/consolidate leads and then remove the "old" ones?

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Rachel,

That's a good one.

Add also:

• Keep value of winning lead.

I had something similar here, but for scoring fields, with some more options, here:

-Greg

[Rachel_Egan]

We have some custom fields we created to track UTM content and advertising, as well as a few other custom lead lifecycle fields. I will take a look at how many fields I have, then see if I can set up a smart campaign.

Our other work-around right now is that we exported the important data for the leads we are merging, then we are going to do some excel magic to pick the right values for the fields and re-import to overwrite the data fields.

Your suggestion could be a good alternate, though, so that we could go field-by-field, although I'm not sure how we could use a smart campaign to transfer data from one lead to another... if you have suggestions, I'm all ears.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Rachel,

It's impossible from within Marketo, to transfer info from one lead to another. The ways to do it are the API (with or without wbehooks to trigger the action) and the imports combined with some Excel magic

The new ABM product will make a step, though, as one can trigger actions for all leads in the same account.

-Greg

[Rachel_Egan]

Thanks Greg!

Then I stand by my idea