Definition of Duplicates
Marketo defines duplicates as two or more records having the same email address.
How would different aspects of Marketo be affected by having Duplicates:
Sending Batch Emails
If there are duplicates, only 1 email will go out. It will be the lowest Marketo ID. This record is also used to populate tokens. Example:
In this case, the email will be sent to the first record with Lead ID 2749. It will say “Dear Elizabeth” if you use a token for first name. Also, the activity entries will be attached to that record (sent, delivered, opened, clicked). When the email click goes to a page with Munchkin code in it, any web visits will also be associated with this record. Then, this record will be the cookied record.
Sending Trigger Emails
The record (one of the duplicates) which triggered the triggered campaign, will be sent the email. Also, the activity entries will be attached to that record (sent, delivered, opened, clicked).
Form Fill-outs
If someone fills out a form and their email address is in Marketo multiple times, the form submissions are applied to the record that is already cookied, or – if not yet cookied – it will be applied to the most recently updated record. The most recently updated record is determined by the last modified date that is in the “Updated At” field.
Web Visit Tracking
The Marketo munchkin code generates a cookie with a unique ID for each web browser. This ID can be linked to exactly 1 Lead in Marketo. So, if there are duplicates, the web activity will be linked to only 1 of the duplicates. The cookie can be linked to this record in one of two ways:
- Clicks link in email, and the link goes to a page with Munchkin installed the duplicate that received the email will be cookied
- Fills out form the duplicate with matching Cookie ID, or otherwise the most recently updated duplicate
List Uploads
When an email address is included in a list import, it attaches to the most recently updated record in Marketo.
Unsubscribed, Marketing Suspended, etc.
The standard “Unsubscribed” field will be kept in sync across duplicates via the ‘durable unsubscribe’ functionality. However, “Marketing Suspended”, “Email Invalid” and “Blacklisted” are not kept in sync and could have different values across duplicates.
Marketo Engage Technical Consulting Team has a custom solution to keep person fields between duplicates in sync. Connect with your CSM to know more about this.
Reporting
There may be an impact on reporting if there are duplicates in your Marketo system. There are many types of reporting, so the impact may vary. For email reporting, you will see the results for the record that received the email, so there is no impact there. If you report on total number of Leads, the duplicates will be included in the total counts. If you do ROI reporting, the last modified record is most likely associated with the Opportunity, but it’s not 100% sure. For Revenue Cycle reporting, it’s again most likely the last modified record that will progress through the cycle.
Conclusion
Obviously, the fewer duplicates, the better. We encourage all our customers to strive to eliminate duplicates in Marketo. However, if there are some duplicates in your system, it is likely that most functionality will still work correctly, or at least it should have only a small impact.
If you want to merge duplicates in your Marketo instance, please connect with your CSM to know about the duplicate merge solution Marketo Technical Consulting Team has built.
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