Best Practice for Re-Importing Leads for Campaigns

[Anonymous]

I usually export a list of customers from Marketo, in order to tailor a list for specific email campagins. Usually this is related to proximity to a specific region. I then re-import a list under a different name for the email campaign. If the lead already exisits in Marketo, will my re-importing effect anything? Is there a better practice for exporting leads, editing a list, and then using that list for an email campagin?

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Hi John!

Why are you doing an export and reimport?  It would be much easier to create a smart list and define your list using fields like city and state.  If region is particularly important you could create a segment that defines those regions or create a custom field to you when building a smart list. 

If the reimport is a neccessary part of you process then, oo long as you aren't changing any fields, your reimport will not affect anything.  It just creates a new list.  You can also set fields with then the Admni panel to not be changed by any import or specifically 'untrusted' imports.  Then when reimporting your list you can select 'untrusted' so that it mearly adds the emails to the new list without changingthose fields that don't update for 'untrusted' data.

I think your best bet is to get into the habit of building smart lists.  There are a nub\mber of benefits, the least of which is that as the data is updated in Marketo, your list will adapt to include or exlude people based on the criteria you selected when building the list.

[Anonymous]

Hi Mickey, 

Thanks for the reply. I usually work with smart lists, but sometimes I am required to do some additional work in regards to geography outside of simply state or region (for exampl: leads that are witihin 300 miles of a certain location). I think you answered my question, however!  I just wanted to verify that I was not changing anything. Thanks!