Hi Marketo Engage Community,
If you are a Marketo Engage admin, look no further! We understand that you’re under constant pressure to keep your database clean, efficient, and ready to deliver on the expectations of both marketing and sales teams. That's why we developed this practical, peer-led session, focusing on proven strategies and actionable checklists to help you push clean, reliable data to CRM—accelerating pipeline velocity and boosting revenue.
Hear from Adobe Marketo Engage Champion, Miray Vu (@Miray), to understand the critical role of database hygiene in syncing Marketo Engage with CRM and empowering your organization to close more deals, faster.
In this On-Demand webinar, you’ll learn about:
- Why data hygiene matters for CRM integration and how clean data impacts business outcomes.
- Options for building a sustainable data hygiene process using Trigger/Batch campaign or Executable campaign, and how to implement standards that reduce errors and improve lead quality.
- Tips to monitor and troubleshoot sync issues using Salesforce CRM backlog dashboards, ensuring Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) flow smoothly into Sales.
Don’t let messy data slow you down. Watch at your own pace and leave with actionable tools to streamline your database, impress your stakeholders, and help your teams win more deals.
Webinar Details
- Length: 30 minutes presentation + 15 minutes Q&A
- Experience Level: Beginner-Intermediate (Recommended to have at least 1 month of experience using Marketo Engage)
- Roles: Marketo Engage Administrators, CRM Administrators, Marketing Operations
We've also drafted our responses to questions asked by live attendees below. Read on and let us know if you have more questions.
| Question |
Answer |
| How much data hygiene should be done in CRM (Salesforce) vs Marketo Engage? |
Miray Vu: Most data hygiene should be done in Marketo Engage before syncing to Salesforce CRM. Marketo Engage is ideal for automating deduplication, normalization, and validation through Smart Campaigns and executable flows. This ensures only clean, qualified records reach Salesforce CRM, reducing clutter and sync errors. Salesforce CRM should prioritize maintaining data integrity post-sync by monitoring dashboards, resolving duplicates, and validating account-level data. Think of Marketo Engage as the “washing machine” and Salesforce CRM as the “closet” where only clean clothes belong. |
| Are there any considerations if you are using program-level sync with the CRM versus campaign-level sync with the CRM? |
Miray Vu: Program-level sync is simpler and ensures full bidirectional syncing of members and statuses, but it requires all program members to be synced to Salesforce CRM—without any filtering. Campaign-level sync via Smart Campaign flow steps provides you with more control, allowing you to choose who to sync, when, and what status to assign. Use program-level reporting for standardized reporting and efficiency; use campaign-level reporting when precision and timing are crucial. |
| When working with Adobe Professional Services on a custom solution for your data hygiene, how long did the process take from start to finish? We are facing challenges with duplicate contacts in our CRM (Salesforce), and I would like to present a timeline to our leadership team. |
Miray Vu: In my experience, preparation is the most time-consuming part. You’ll need to audit all fields and define merge logic—like which system’s value wins or loses. For us, the full process took about 8 weeks, from scoping to implementation and testing. |
| Can you explain what a Request Campaign and an Executable Campaign mean? Our current data management process is set up with simple trigger/batch campaigns. What are some case examples for when to use request and/or executable campaigns for our data management? |
Miray Vu: Request Campaigns run in parallel and are ideal for modular, reusable flows, such as scoring, subscriptions, or attribution updates. They’re triggered using the “Request Campaign” flow step and are ideal when tasks don’t depend on each other.
Executable Campaigns run in sequence and wait for all steps to complete before proceeding. They’re better suited for workflows with dependencies—such as standardizing data before scoring or syncing to Salesforce. They also support token inheritance from parent campaigns, which helps with personalization and consistency.
Case examples for data management:
1. Use Request Campaigns to run multiple independent updates (e.g., normalize country, set subscription, score lead) simultaneously.
2. Use Executable Campaigns when order matters—like ensuring data is cleaned and enriched before syncing to CRM or assigning lead status.
Since your current setup uses simple trigger/batch campaigns, introducing these can help centralize logic, reduce errors, and improve performance. |
| I would prefer to clean up the data in Salesforce first and then use the Salesforce deleted field and clean up in Marketo Engage. The reason is that if you delete something in Marketo Engage (and not Salesforce), Salesforce pushes those records in the next sync cycle. Is this an okay approach? |
Miray Vu: To delete records in Marketo Engage and prevent Salesforce CRM from pushing them back, consider implementing a Custom Sync filter. Here is an article on how to create the custom sync: https://nation.marketo.com/t5/knowledgebase/restrict-records-syncing-to-marketo-from-salesforce-usin...
Consider Your Lead Journey
A key question to ask is: Where does your lead journey begin—Salesforce CRM or Marketo Engage?
If your lead journey starts in Salesforce CRM:
It makes sense to keep data hygiene centralized in Salesforce CRM.
If your lead journey starts in Marketo Engage:
You may want to move the data hygiene process to Marketo Engage. |
| How do you handle consent when merging duplicates? |
Miray Vu: Best practices for consent management during duplicate merges are
1. Audit the consent fields before merging.
2. Review fields like Do Not Email, Opt-In Status, Consent Date, and Communication Preferences. If one record has opted out and another has opted in, default to the opt-out to avoid violating user preferences.
3. Preserve consent history: Maintain a log of consent timestamps and sources (e.g., web form, email, event).
4. Consent fields should be treated like any other field—choose the most recent or restrictive value unless business logic dictates otherwise.
5. It is good practice to check with your organization’s Legal department first to understand if they have specific guidelines on which consent values should be preserved during the merge. This ensures alignment with internal policies and external regulations. |
| I'm disappointed that whenever it is about integration with CRM, which is crucial, Adobe only uses Salesforce materials. Dynamics documentation is super poor. Will there be any improvements? |
Adobe Product team: I want to ensure you've seen all the Dynamics CRM sync documentation on Adobe Experience League. There are several pages of documentation on Dynamics integration. I know it can be difficult to find, but here are a couple of pages that link to other resources. |
Feel free to post additional questions in the thread for us to answer!
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