How to ensure data from form syncs with SFDC contact vs lead

[Anonymous]

Situation:  I have a survey form on a Marketo landing page where I am sending out emails with URL parameters that include a SFDC contacts email address.  The email address is captured on the form in a hidden field so I can sync the data to SFDC.  The form also include 6 custom SFDC fields that belong solely within the Contact object within Salesforce.

Problem: Everything on the form is working as advertised but if I have a SFDC Lead and a SFDC Contact with the same email address, Marketo is syncing the form data to the SFDC Lead and not the SFDC Contact.  Since I have 6 custom fields solely on the SFDC contact object, I need the data to sync with the SFDC contact rather than the SFDC lead.

Question:

1.  How can I guarentuee that the Marketo form data will sync with SFDC contacts rather than SFDC leads?

Any help you can provide is greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

[Anonymous]

So you work with duplicates in SFDC?

If a you resell to an existing customer do you create a new lead? Is there a business reason for not avoiding dupes and to resell via new opportunities?

[Anonymous]

In principle when there are two records matching the same email address the one with the most recent timestamp is updated.

[Anonymous]

Hi Cathal Moran and Breno Gomes,

To answer your questions:

So you work with duplicates in SFDC?  We do our best to keep duplicates cleaned up but we came across issue by accident.  We have some test Leads, Contacs, Account, etc... and we were using one of the test email addresses when this happened.

If a you resell to an existing customer do you create a new lead? Is there a business reason for not avoiding dupes and to resell via new opportunities?  No, we create a new opportunity.

So is there not a way to ensure the form data will sync with the contact rather than the lead? 

[Josh_Hill13]

As far as I know, this cannot be done. It might be possible if you are using the API and somehow force the Contact's Marketo Lead ID in there.

One suggestion is to add those Contact fields to your Leads just in case. If you aren't use Prof Edition, then you can keep those fields off the Page Layout on the Lead.

Or just make sure you don't have Lead-Contact dupes. 😕

I'm wondering why you are placing the lead's email in the URL param and capturing it as a hidden field? The Marketo form would prepopulate this if they were Known and Cookied; or if the lead filled out the form anyway. I read something once about not placing personal info in a URL as a security issue.