Custom Lead Source: SFDC LS Madness

[ChristinaZuniga]

Does anyone else use a custom Lead Source field in Marketo, rather than the out of the box Lead Source field that connects to Salesforce?

I'm frustrated by the lack of functionality on SFDC's side - once a lead converts to a contact things aren't as easy to use. For example, I had a bunch of leads from before I had Marketo and the Lead Source was inconsistent and in some cases, blatantly incorrect. Since these leads have since been converted to contacts I can't update their Lead Source, Salesforce blocks that action. It's almost like it "stamps" the lead source when it changes from a lead to a contact and that's the permanent lead source. I can change it in Marketo but it doesn't reflect properly in SFDC which can be unhelpful for reporting.

In addition, when you convert a lead to an opportunity, it passes over the lead source to that opportunity. That's not a terrible thing in itself, but when opportunities are created based on existing accounts / not converted from leads, the lead source is blank. I haven't had a mechanism to fill that in (until recently) so people get confused about why it works sometimes and not other times.

Does anyone have a plan around these limitations that you've implemented or have you put into place custom lead source fields?

[Veronica_Holme4]

After a lead has been converted in Salesforce all its fields are locked and can no longer be edited. The lead ceases to be relevant after conversion as all future changes should be on the Contact, and relevant fields mapped between them, so if you need to update Source in future, it should be on the Contact, not on the underlying lead. Even the dataloader can't touch the values on a converted lead. The whole system is designed for that info to be mapped to other fields and passed off into the remainder of the process. So unfortunately there is probably no fix for your historical underlying lead source issue.

Also, standard functionality in Salesforce automatically maps lead source to opportunity lead source on lead conversion. When you change the values in the lead source picklist the opportunity lead source picklist also updates. You can change that value afterwards, but it's default behaviour. You can, using a workflow, automatically populate the opportunity lead source from somewhere else - it would be largely dependent on where you created it. For instance, if you created it from a Contact it could pull the Contact's lead source through and populate the field. It'd be a fairly easy thing to build.

[ChristinaZuniga]

Hi Veronica Holmes​ - yes, that's what I was thinking. But have you built this yourself before and if so, what issues did you run into or things you wish you'd known before you started on the project?