ABM setup and usage questions

[Anonymous]

Maybe a product manager or helpful Marketo customer can assist with these basic questions.  I wasn't able figure them out from the doc.

1. Why does one need to create the CRM boolean field for Named Account selection?

The doc gives the reason "so that it will appear in Discover CRM Accounts".  But ALL my accounts appear in Discover CRM accounts even if I haven't checked that boolean, so I don't see why that field is required.  It might be useful, but required?

2. On the Account Team setup.  If I understand it correctly (and I may not), the idea is to create a user lookup field on the Account object which will store the name of a CRM user at the Account level who is involved in that account.  Each field holds one person.  So, if I have 5 reps, an SDR and 2 executives who have a role in selling to a given account, I would need to create 8 different fields in CRM to implement this?

How would I create Named Accounts in these situations?

3. I have 2 Accounts in crm (example "Widget Mfg" and "Widget Manufacturing") and I want to keep them as separate Accounts in crm but I want to create them as a single Named Account in Marketo. 

4. I have Leads and Contacts in my crm that I want to connect to a single named account in Marketo.  a) Assume they have the same domain.  b) Assume they don't. 

All answers appreciated!

[SydneyMulligan]

Hi Mike! I have used the Marketo ABM product as a customer and can answer some of these questions.

1. Why does one need to create the CRM boolean field for Named Account selection?

The doc gives the reason "so that it will appear in Discover CRM Accounts".  But ALL my accounts appear in Discover CRM accounts even if I haven't checked that boolean, so I don't see why that field is required.  It might be useful, but required? This is really because of the limited functionality in searching for accounts in the CRM account discovery. You can't use all of your CRM fields, just a few data points that Marketo provides, so I found it helpful to pull a report of my Target List in CRM, use DemandTools to change my ABM field to TRUE for those accounts, in Discover CRM account filter by "Marketo ABM = TRUE" and create named accounts for all of those. Then go back to DemandTools and NULL out that field for those accounts. Rinse and repeat.

2. On the Account Team setup.  If I understand it correctly (and I may not), the idea is to create a user lookup field on the Account object which will store the name of a CRM user at the Account level who is involved in that account.  Each field holds one person.  So, if I have 5 reps, an SDR and 2 executives who have a role in selling to a given account, I would need to create 8 different fields in CRM to implement this?

I don't think a lookup field will work because of how Marketo reads lookup fields (as CRM IDs rather than English words), but I am not sure about that. I know you just have to have a field on the Account that you can reference for each member of the Account Team, so yes you would need 8 different fields as far as I know.

How would I create Named Accounts in these situations?

3. I have 2 Accounts in crm (example "Widget Mfg" and "Widget Manufacturing") and I want to keep them as separate Accounts in crm but I want to create them as a single Named Account in Marketo.

I think you would create them as 2 Named Accounts and use the Merge Named Accounts functionality? To be honest, I'm a little fuzzy on this. I know that Marketo used to automatically merge accounts like this but that was causing a lot of issues, so they made CRM the record of truth for Account deduplication.

Do you have a launchpack consultant helping you with your ABM implementation?