Avoid SFDC Nulling Out Marketo Values on Lead Convert

[John_Charleswor]

I'm running into the following situation and hoping someone might have a solution:

1. A new lead is created
2. The lead is synced into SFDC as a lead
3. Smart campaigns in Marketo run, updating various data values
4. Our Business Development Rep quickly converts the lead to a contact
5. Because the conversion happened soon after the data value updates, the next time a sync occurs, Marketo thinks the null values that exist in SFDC are newer, and overwrites the values in Marketo.

The best solution I've seen presented on a prior post is:

• Create Marketo-only "mirror" fields that match the fields being overwritten. If they're nulled out, a smart campaign sets the field = mirror field

Leads aren't always converted right away, so I wouldn't think trying to retrofit the smart campaigns to wait until lead conversion is complete would be a viable option.

Has anyone encountered this and discovered a better way?

[Carrie_Chandle1 · Accepted solution]

Hey @John_Charleswor  - Do your data value changes in step 3 have to happen after the lead is synced? Could they (the data changes) and the sync to SFDC step all be part of a singular smart campaign where the sync happens last after a ~15min wait?

Just throwing ideas out there 🙂 We haven't encountered this.

[John_Charleswor]

Hi Carrie, thanks for the reply. You are right, we will ultimately need to tweak when this data value change happens. 

Nice to see someone from Raleigh reply to my first post :).

[Carrie_Chandle1]

Love running into other Raleigh folks on here 👋