How to break the link between a Marketo lead and a SFDC ID

[Eva_Yu]

We recently encountered a problem with SFDC sync. A batch of leads were deleted from SFDC and the deletion action was not synced to Marketo. So Marketo still thinks those leads exist in SFDC and tries to sync update, then we got a lot of sync errors like: Failed: cannot retrieve values from sfdc Id 0036F00002Ca9QjQAJ.

We are unable to identify the source of the SFDC deletion action, but would like to recover those leads. They have been deleted for too long and we cannot recover from recycle bin. And as long as they are associated with a SFDC ID in Marketo, they will not be successfully synced ever. It seems to me the only way it to break the link between those leads and their SFDC ID. The SFDC ID field is not editable in Marketo and invisible in SFDC lead profile.

Anyone had experience with this? Or any other ways to fix the issue are greatly appreciated!

[Josh_Hill13]

Deletion in SFDC I do not believe always deletes in Marketo, UNLESS you ran the deletion from Marketo.

What tends to happen is that Marketo retains things like the SFDC Record Type ID and SFDC ID values. Because SFDC does not have that info any more, Marketo views it as an error on sync.

So you should:

1. erase the SFDC ID and Record Type IDs in Marketo
2. push sync the records
3. verify they are recreated in SFDC

assuming you want the leads back in SFDC.

[Eva_Yu]

Hi Josh,

Thank you very much for the explanation. I checked the SFDC ID and record type lead profile, those fields cannot be edited. How do I erase them in Marketo? If I import the list of email with SFDC ID and record type empty, will it override existing information?

Thanks!

[Eva_Yu · Accepted solution]

I found the way to fix the issue manually. Just search the lead, use delete from SFDC flow, then re-sync to SFDC again.