Deleting Leads & Historical Data

[Anonymous]

We are provided lists of students with contact information from schools bi-annually. To stay within the limits of our contract, I'm removing leads from our database that are not active. The problem I'm having is historical data.

I might be over thinking this, but if Person A has unsubscribed from our emails, we obviously don't want them to be taking up space towards our limit, so I was going to just remove them. However, if the list we get in the next five months has Person A listed, would Marketo know they have previously unsubscribed from our communications even though I removed them?

I don't want dead leads to be taking up our limit, but I also don't want to be removing names and leads from our system that have opt-ed out if they may be re-added in the next six months. Do all leads, unsubscribed included, count towards the database limit, or is it only the "Marketable" leads?

[Grégoire_Miche2 · Accepted solution]

Hi Angus,

Marketo always remember about unsubscribes, even after lead deletion. This is called the "durable unsubscribe".

See Feeding the Durable Unsubscribe List without increasing the database

This is not the case with other flags you may have (email invalid, black listed) though. Vote here:

-Greg

[SanfordWhiteman]

What Greg said. And to your question about database limits, leads who have been deleted don't count (i.e. the durable unsubscribe list is not included). But leads in your db can still view customized pages, etc. even if you can't send emails to them. They are included.

[Josh_Hill13]

Meaning yes, any record that is in Marketo counts toward your limit. Deleted leads do not. Durable unsubscribes do not.

Existing unsubscribes, non marketable, etc do count toward your limit.