Managing dedupes and multiple web forms

[Michael_Monagha]

Hi there -

We have multiple Marketo forms on our website (on different pages) for various newsletter subscriptions and event sign-ups. I'm wondering if there is a way to configure Marketo so that a single email address can complete various webforms (that don't include any munchkins) at different times and have the appropriate custom fields updated in their Person Record tied to their email address? I believe that, as it's configured now, any form submission with the "Email Address" as a field, containing an address entered into that field that is associated with a Person Record already in the database, will simply disappear into the ether due to dedupe rules.

I know that if these contact were already in our database, and we were emailing them directly via Marketo, they could click a CTA to go to a landing page with a Marketo form and submit updates to the appropriate fields thanks to munchkins. But when someone lands on a public-facing webpage, is there any way to have Marketo recognize the email address being submitted as already in the database, and update the appropriate fields?

Thanks in advance!

[Christiane_Rode · Accepted solution]

To clarify -- are you looking to have someone be able to fill out different forms on different pages (with different form fields on those pages) and have those appended to the Marketo person record if they're already in your database? That will already happen. Marketo doesn't "delete" duplicate records that come in from a form fill.  The form fill just won't create a duplicate record with your standard settings.

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

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I know that if these contact were already in our database, and we were emailing them directly via Marketo, they could click a CTA to go to a landing page with a Marketo form and submit updates to the appropriate fields thanks to munchkins.

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Adding to Christiane’s correct answer, the dedupe process does not depend on the Munchkin cookie!

You can block cookies entirely and fill out forms from 2 different browsers, and the insert/update will still merge into the same Marketo record.

Munchkin is essential for many Marketo features and greatly enhances our knowledge of lead activities. But a form fill, on its own, does not depend on Munchkin — as long as the Email field is present on the form, of course. 

[Michael_Monagha]

Thank you both for your replies. Your feedback, plus some additional testing on my own, helped me realize two important things:

1. As you both mentioned, the record does update with new info when the email field is present and multiple forms are submitted 

2. The situation I was describing - person records disappearing into the ether - only occurs when the forms are connected to a different person partition than where the person record was originally created (hence, dedupe).

My description of this situation was a perhaps a bit wordy and not perfectly articulate, but you both helped me greatly. Much appreciated!