Reasons why leads fail to import?

[Anonymous]

I'm trying to import a list of 40 leads into a static list. I do this all the time so I'm confused as to why only 4 were imported and 36 failed. Any ideas on why this might happen and what to do? The import preview looked good - all the fields matched up correctly.

[Anonymous]

Really the issue is the fact that Marketo was not validating the fields prior to their most recent update to the the "fast import" process.  Many fields may have character limits that had never been validated. For instance I am unable to load any import with notes >255 Characters as that is the limit.  We have been using Marketo for 2 1/2 years and never once had a problem loading endless amounts of characters into that field.  Now we have to change the field type to "text area" which will allow thousands of characters.  Realistically 255 charatcters is nothing.  (Geez Twitter allows 140) Unless the sales and field marketing team will be putting notes in some kind of short form 255 will never cut it. 

The issue is that now to fix the fields to be "text area" we must disconnect that field and take it down while the repair happens-then relink each field to every form etc.  The crazier part is that while the csv import will not allow >255 characters, you can import your leads without the notes and then manually look each one up individually and copy and paste your note.  Why is there a 255 character limit for imports-but not on the front end if you copy paste?

Been trying to find the best solution  now as manually copying and pasting individual notes is tedious, time consuming and confusing. Our Marketo Admins are trying to figure out the best way to remedy this without disabling every form.

[Megan_Emerick1]

Ah... ok.   Good to know.   I've done what you suggested and it worked.   Though there was really not issue with my data, it appears that one of our fields has some odd limit on it or something.    That's an issue for my Salesforce guy.   Thanks, at least I can send my email out now.  🙂 

[Justin_Cooperm2 · Accepted solution]

Previously, the default list import mode would not validate data values in the uploaded file. To prevent data loss, the file is now validated. When there are errors, you can open the failed leads file and it will display the error reason associated with each failed lead. If you determine you don't care about a specific column that has invalid data, you can delete that column from the file of failed leads and re-upload, knowing that those leads will not have that column. The better practice, though, would be to fix the misformatted data and then re-upload.

[Megan_Emerick1]

I just started having the same problem.    Rather odd that it's occuring on the same day not that far apart.  ????

I've checked my list 4 times, and even created it over again from scratch.  All fields match up and it's CSV.    Guess I'll trying closing out of Marketo again and starting over.

[Justin_Cooperm2]

You may have invalid data in your list. This is likely what is causing this. 

[Anonymous]

I would try a CSV then. Marketo likes that the best.

[Anonymous]

Hmm.. This is odd. It's definitely a list of new leads that aren't in our database - I searched a handful of them.  I tried clicking on the 36 Failed Leads link to download the list and re-import them but it's not taking me anywhere. I also tried refreshing, logging out then back in, and trying a different browser but no luck. We usually use .txt files and I have tab delimited selected under file type.

[Josh_Hill13]

Also check if those 36 were dupes already. 

[Anonymous]

This happened to me earlier - I downloaded the list of failed leads and then just re-imported the leads that did not get uploaded and it worked! 

While I was importing a list I was also editing an email draft, so I’m not sure if it just stopped importing when I tried to do something else in Marketo or if it was unrelated, but when I tried again, it worked.  

Hope that helps! 

[Anonymous]

I would submit a support case, or refresh your instance and try again. Every once in a while I experience glitches.

Also make sure the list import mode is the default one, and not the fast one (which skips new leads). And make sure it's a csv, and select that as the file type.