Multiple Form Submission with the same Email Address

[Michael_Florin]

Hello all,

we have a client that tells us that this scenario is real for them: Their customers might have employees that don't have specific - personal - email address, but all use one and the same: info@example.com. And they want multiple people from that company to register for an event with that same one email address. I told them that Marketo dedupes on email address and the subsequent event tool won't be able to process that data influx, but they insist that there must be a solution out there.

Does anyone happen to have a creative idea?

Thanks!
Michael

[Floyd_Alvares2]

@Michael_Florin 

Email address is the default deduplication key for Marketo on normal setup. You can work out with your client and Marketo support to change your duplication key to something like First Name + Last Name + Email Address.

However, you will have challenges when you are wanting to send out batch emails / nurture campaigns to these individual people who share the same email address. So make sure that your client is absolutely certain they want to change the duplication key.

The duplication key can only be setup by the Marketo support team.

[Michael_Florin]

Can I have that change of that individual key form-specific? Or program-specific? I certainly don't to change the behavior instance-wide. (Yeah, I know that the answer is no).

What about a second system to hold that kind of information? Sending form submits to a different database that does not de-dupe on emails? I guess I'll just suggest to add a note to that field of the kind "If you want to submit multiple persons with the same email address send us an email..."

(I'm new to consulting and it seems I have to learn an answer to the request: "I want to jump to the moon. What are the next steps.")

[Floyd_Alvares2]

@Michael_Florin 

Unfortunately (as you guessed) - the duplication key setup is instance wide.

I guess the question to your client is why do they want the records in Marketo - I am assuming they are trying to do a bunch of Marketing/Operational based comms once the registrations have come in.

Trigger campaigns work - for example when you have multiple people fill out the form with the same email address, then it will action on that request.

However, if the client wants to send a batch campaign as a reminder - only the earliest record would receive the email - Also you don't want to spam the same inbox with 10 different versions.

Definitely lots of discussions on the pros and cons of doing each route.

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

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Can I have that change of that individual key form-specific?

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It’s very easy to create a form that always creates a new lead, even if the same email address exists on one or more leads in the database.

You simply use a custom Email type field on the form (the end user just sees it as the Email Address, no difference) and post a random value as the Email Address. In a triggered Smart Campaign, set the system Email Address to the value of your custom Proxy Email Address field.

And you don’t need to have a custom dedupe key set up for this.

However, note the detail that the form will never merge into an existing lead; the leads are guaranteed to be independent. You could add an additional step, called via webhook, to choose to merge under certain circumstances.

[Michael_Florin]

Thank you all for your thoughts. I'll try to convince the client to give up on that idea.

[Kurka]

Hi @SanfordWhiteman ,

Thanks for the recommendation. Do you have a sample of the form and the flow set up? It's not clear for me how to set them up.