Deleting Unsubscribes - Effect on SFDC

[Anonymous]

We are doing some database cleanup and would love to export the unsubscribes and then delete them, knowing that Marketo's durable unsubscribe will unsubscribe them again if they come back in. If you have done this, what safeguards, if any, have you found to prevent a sales rep from inadvertently adding an unsubscribed lead later and sending them an email before the next sync with Marketo marked the lead as unsubscribed?

[Devraj_Grewal]

Denise,

We actually do not delete unsubscribed leads at all. Our reason for this is that although we do not send email to these leads through Marketo, we want to keep the lead in SFDC and Marketo so Sales has a record that we already have this lead in the system and that they should not be emailed at all. Thus, Sales will know to not create this new lead and to instead contact another decision maker.

[Anonymous]

Hi Devraj - Thank you. That makes sense and that's where I have always landed too on this issue. But getting the unsubscribes out would be a great way to shrink the database. It's too bad SFDC doesn't also have a durable unsubscribe feature.

[Josh_Hill13]

The answer is...it depends.

• Remove from Marketo, but not SFDC
• Remove from Both could create situation Devraj pointed out.
• Remove only SFDC Leads
• Remove only Marketo leads

I never Delete SFDC Contacts. Too much risk on the legal side for recordkeeping.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Denise,

+1 on Josh.

Removing a lead from Marketo and leaving untouched in SFDC is easy: just set the "remove from SFDC" to "false" in the "Delete lead" flow step:

-Greg

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Devraj and Denise,

Deleting unsubs is not a problem as long as you delete them from Marketo only. Read this: Feeding the Durable Unsubscribe List without increasing the database

-Greg

[Anonymous]

Hello.

If we do delete in Marketo but not in SFDC, and the lead happens to come in at a point and "opt back in" -- are we able to identify them as someone on the durable unsubscribe list and make sure they get the requested information? Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Hi Ann,

If someone who has previously unsubscribed and been deleted comes back into Marketo, Marketo will set unsubscribed to True. If that person goes on to opt-in - by checking an opt-in box on a form, for example, AND  you have logic in a Marketo campaign to change unsubscribe from true to false if opt-in gets set to true, I believe you this would successfully change the durable unsubscribe for that record to false.

If the person was deleted from Marketo but not SFDC - I'm not sure what would happen when she came back into Marketo. Depending on the scenario you might end up with a duplicate record - and I'm not sure how that would play out with one record opting in but the other not. I suggest you test this.

Denise