Larger number of leads in lead data base than there should be

[Anonymous]

I'm  noticing a much larger amount of leads in my lead database (4x more!!) than there should be (having checked my CRM) is there a way to automatically check that there aren't duplicate leads? Even taking into account static lists that were uploaded this number is still way off base. Any strategies to figure out which leads should not be in there and/or ways to mass remove them?

Thanks!

[Sara_Greaves]

Hi Rachel,

You can check the duplicates system smart list in the lead database to look for potential duplicates.

Something that I've seen happen that can inflate numbers in a database is when people upload a list without email addresses. They will then upload a list containing email addresses (realizing their error). Instead of deleting the leads they accidentally imported without an email address, they have left them in the database. The source of our duplicates is actually primarily due to reps in salesforce. They haven't traditionally deleted leads or merged leads, and they have been creating new leads every time lead information changes.

[Eitan_Rapps1]

Hey Rachel, it's not always just duplicates.

We had a similar situation at my previous company - I discovered one day that over 100,000 leads were in Marketo but not in Salesforce.

It turned out that these leads were not connected to programs syncing to Salesforce. Leads created in Marketo are not automatically synced to Salesforce unless you add them to a program that is synced to a Salesforce campaign, or if you run a Smart Campaign to sync them. In our case, most of these leads were created when a careless user uploaded tens of thousands of leads into the Lead Database via multiple List Imports and just left there with no further action, so they never made it to Salesforce.

Another possible case is if you are bringing in leads to Marketo via API (from another program that captures leads, such as Unbounce) and there is no further action to sync them to Salesforce.

To see these missing leads, you can create a Smart List with the filter SFDC Type and choose "is empty." If you want to see specifics like where they came from you can add the filter Original Source Type (which has a fixed set of values).