How to Prevent Duplicate's from Salesforce in Marketo

[Touseef]

Hi...

I have a query related to Salesforce-Marketo Sync. The question is not about how duplicate leads get generated or source. What I am asking is that with Salesforce-Marketo Sync in place duplicate from CRM to Marketo will happen. What are the various ways of handling these duplicates. I mean workflow in CRM or Triggers in Marketo. Is there a way to prevent them. 

[Darshil_Shah1]

You could create a recurring batch campaign in Marketo to look for possible duplicates (reference the Possible Duplicates standard smart list available in the Database section) based on the email address with the person source as CRM and add those people to the static list for you to evaluate later. When it comes to managing dupes, you either need to merge them manually or use a third-party tool for merging (apt. if you have a lot of duplicates). When it comes to preventing dupes from CRM, the idea is to do the due diligence from the CRM end to make sure that salespersons/services are not creating duplicate records in the first place.

[Christiane_Rode · Accepted solution]

There are validations that can be done within Salesforce (not sure of other CRMs) to not allow the same email address to be assigned to different contact records. You'll want to work with your CRM admin to see what options are available.  

Of course, if you have other data sources (website form fills, static list uploads) that also populate your Marketo database, you may still see duplicates sneak in, and you'll need to use some of the options that @Darshil_Shah1 suggested.

[Katja_Keesom]

Duplicates will always be a problem that cannot be fixed 100%. As the previous replies indicate your first port of call will be with the CRM team to put measures in place that prevent duplicates from happening at source. Still, there can be scenarios for intended duplicates you cannot get rid of and as Christiane says, even if you manage the CRM end well there is always the risk of unintended dupes being created.

Some customers of mine have decided to move away from their native integration in order to manage duplicates better.

The best possible solution depends on you specific use case.

[Touseef]

Thankyou everyone for your responses. If anyone can suggest method to handle duplicates in salesforce CRM (Any Salesforce CRM Guy). I mean methods via which we stop duplicate creation.