How do you handle the SFDC default of "Unknown" for company name and last name?

[Anonymous]

Occasionally we gather leads (either through Marketo forms or API uploads) without the company name and/or the leads last name. When synced to SFDC, these fields default to "Unknown." This causes a number of problems. For example, we end up with "Unknown" inserted as in emails an landing pages when we use tokens. Or, these fields will not display for known users in forms that are part of progressive profiling.

Does anyone have a solution to clean up this data? I'm curious what, if anything, anyone else is doing about this issue.

[Adam_Vavrek1 · Accepted solution]

Hi Jace,

I would recommend not synching these leads to SFDC until you have key information like company name and last name. I don't think it would be that helpful to the sales rep at that point anyway.

You can edit the default value from Admin -> Salesforce -> Sync Options. We use "Please add" in these fields since that terminology makes more sense in forms. You could also simply use an underscore _ if you want. You can create segmentations for leads that don't have a value here or have "Unknown" or "Please add" so a different landing page (one without tokens) is displayed instead.

You can also set up filters and/or triggers to update values in these fields (if blank or if "Unknown").

[Josh_Hill13]

SFDC defaults to not accepting leads without last name, company, and email. Marketo will helpfully fill in that info as [unknown], but like Adam says, don't do this.

The other thing you can do is to not pass all leads to Sales until they meet minimum score or field requirements.

[Anonymous]

Data companies like ZoomInfo and Leadspace also offer integration with Marketo through webhooks that can dynamically append missing fields to your records on a credit-per-record basis.  I'd encourage you to check that out as it could be very helpful with data completion.

[Anonymous]

Nathan - I'm working on exactly what you mentioned. Question - after setting up the webhook how do you create a campaign that takes the info ZoomInfo sends and updates the field (i.e. Company) - I would like to use the value in the custom ZoomInfo field to update our existing company field.