Custom Database Fields

[Anonymous]

I am new to Marketo and have a question concerning the custom database fields. I am curious as I see in the training that it specifically states that:

"Custom fields created in Marketo will not sync to your CRM. If you need to have the data in these custom fields available in your CRM, its better to create the fields there first. This will automatically create the fields in Marketo and map them to their CRM counterparts during the next sync cycle.”

As we do not have a CRM, but databases hosted by our IT department and we will be uploading the lists to Marketo, do I need to add all of our custom fields in Marketo first to make sure that we are able to gather all of the data that we will require? Understanding that some fields will be blank until a customer goes through the nurture system or books a reservation, etc.? OR is this something that we can have the APIs speak to Marketo and the fields will be created and updated?

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

You must create the fields present in an import file first.  They will not be created on-the-fly during an import. If there are fields absent from an import, they do not need to exist in Marketo yet.

[Anonymous]

So just to confirm, if we have all of the database fields within our file that we upload, Marketo will create those fields automatically?

[SanfordWhiteman]

Marketo will not create fields on-the-fly. That's what I said above.

Marketo will populate fields (populate = set or change data values) that already exist at the time of the upload.

[Anonymous]

Great, thank you for your help.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Please mark one of the responses as Correct to help future searches, thanks.