Dedupe rules using first/last name

[Kardjc]

Hello all,

I was wondering if anyone had any experience using first or last name for dedupe rules.

Here is the use case we are trying to solve for:

Our Marketo database is updated whenever someone places an ecommerce order in case they have updated contact info. We discovered some of our customers use a generic/shared email address (ex. info@company.com) which means their contact info gets completely overwritten each time they place an order.

If we use first or last name as another dedupe field, it could result in each different person using the shared email address to have their own contact in Marketo, which would help us with connecting to the right contact in SFDC (which is tied to our ERP/order system).

Has anyone else had this problem and how did you solve (or mostly solve) it?

Thanks,

Justin

[fhjort]

I suggest you try to find a solution into the Community, look for "Working with Duplicate Leads"
But for this case, Marketo tends to work this way:

When a new lead enters Marketo from a form fillout or List Import, Marketo automatically searches for a lead with the same email address.  If that lead exists, the existing lead is updated instead of creating a duplicate.

However, Marketo does not automatically de-duplicate leads who are already in your database. This is especially a problem for new customers who often have many duplicate leads in their database.

Also, if you add a new lead directly into Salesforce (through the Salesforce import process or web-to-lead forms) Salesforce will create a duplicate lead that gets synced into Marketo. When this happens, you can use Marketo to find and fix those duplicates.

How Marketo handles duplicates

The primary consequence of duplicates is that one lead record could have the most relevant information about that lead while your sales rep is looking at the incomplete duplicate.

For example, say that you have a duplicate lead in your database and that lead fills out a form on your website. Marketo generally updates the lead record that was most recently updated.

In another case, say you run a campaign to email your lead database and two duplicates are included in your campaign run. Marketo automatically detects the duplicate email address and ensures that only one email is sent to that lead. That Email send and subsequent activity will be attributed to the Lowest Lead ID.
 

When you merge leads, their entire history is combined, and you can control which fields are kept in the final lead. You won't lose any information or tracking.

Most customers have many duplicates when they start with Marketo. After initially de-duplicating your database, the work to keep your database de-duplicated is usually very small. You should work to stop the sources of duplicate leads and make Marketo your single point of entry for all new leads.

[SanfordWhiteman]

(@fhjort pretty sure OP understands the default behavior, which is why they’re trying to extend it with a compound key.)

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

It’s possible to have a compound lookup key using First Name + Email Address or Last Name + Email Address (Marketo Support can set this custom config for you).

But you certainly should not expect this to solve all of your related problems.

The compound key is only going to take effect when a person is created via specific entry points (for example, forms and/or lists). Unlike, say, in SFDC or other platforms, you won’t get a popup in Marketo when you update somebody’s values to what would in the general sense be a compound duplicate. It’s only upon creation. (Of course this is consistent with how the default lookup key of just Email Address works!)

[uditmathur]

Hi @Kardjc ,

This seems more of an issue with your e-commerce platform rather than of Marketo.

As all major e-comm platform have the functionality that when someone fills an email which already exist it requires them to login to finish the order.

Your e-commerce agency can surely sort this out.

As @SanfordWhiteman already mentioned using dedupe in marketo will not solve your purpose as there might be many cases which will have same first/last name using same generic email.

[SanfordWhiteman]

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...there might be many cases which will have same first/last name using same generic email.

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... but again, this is the situation the OP is already facing and trying to work around.

Not sure what you mean about this being fixed in the e-commerce platform? Unless you mean that platform should look people up by a more fitting identifier like the Marketo Person ID or the platform’s Customer ID. This would definitely be better! But it’s certainly not simple if that data isn’t already synced between the platforms.

[uditmathur]

I mean this feature is already present in many e-comm platforms of deduping based on email id. 

[SanfordWhiteman]

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I mean this feature is already present in many e-comm platforms of deduping based on email id. 

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Yes, but the OP‘s e-commerce team has consciously chosen not to do that. So the current state is that multiple accounts can have the same (marketing) email address.

[uditmathur]

Totally agree with your point.

But my point here is, instead of allowing contacts to have same email id, why don't they try achieving unique mail id. As ultimately they are looking to have unique persons in their DB.

This way they can avoid having complication related to having duplicate data & also will be able to better target individuals as per their preference rather that sending multiple emails to the same mail id but intended to target different person.  

[Katja_Keesom]

The discussion on whether the chosen set up allowing for multiple ecommerce users being created with the same email address or not aside, @SanfordWhiteman 's response describes how you can achieve what you want. In addition to the concerns he still raises around this solution, you should also expect activity logs becoming unreliable for these duplicated email addresses:

1. You might target person A with an email, but person B actually opens it and clicks on a link. These activities are logged under person A as the personalization link in the email is theirs.
2. On top of that, with the email click, person B's cookie is associated with person A in the Marketo database and subsequent web visits by person B will also be logged under person A.

To date, I have not seen a perfect resolution to this scenario, so you need to choose the solution that works best for your use case and manage the implications accordingly.