Setting up a webhook to post data to Eloqua from Marketo

[JLittle5150]

Hi,

I'm looking into this for the first time. 

1) Is there a best practice for setting up a webhook to write data into Eloqua from Marketo?

2) When doing so, can the conditions be customized so that i can avoid create net new contacts in Eloqua when a person exists in Marketo, but not Eloqua (in some scenarios i don't want a net new contact created)

3) Is there documentation you can point me to.

Thanks all

[Vinay_Kumar]

1. Best Practices for Webhook Setup:

There isn't a single "best practice" for setting up a webhook, but here are some key considerations:

• Identify Data to Transfer: Decide which specific data points from Marketo you want to send to Eloqua (e.g., name, email, company).
• Define Trigger: Determine the event in Marketo that should initiate the webhook call to Eloqua (e.g., form submission, lead creation).
• Webhook URL: Obtain the Eloqua webhook URL specific to the data object you want to create or update (e.g., Contact).
• Data Mapping: Map Marketo data fields to corresponding fields in Eloqua for accurate data transfer.
• Error Handling: Implement a mechanism to handle potential errors during the data transfer process (e.g., network issues, invalid data).
• Security: Ensure proper security measures are in place to protect sensitive data transmission (e.g., HTTPS encryption).

2. Conditional Logic for Existing Contacts:

Yes, you can set up conditional logic within the webhook to avoid creating duplicate contacts in Eloqua. Here are two options:

• Pre-Filtering in Marketo: Use Marketo Smart Lists to filter leads before triggering the webhook. Only leads not present in Eloqua (based on a field like "Eloqua ID") would be included in the webhook call.
• Lookup and Update in Eloqua: Within the webhook logic on the Eloqua side, you can perform a lookup based on a unique identifier (like email address) before creating a new contact. If a match is found, update the existing contact record instead of creating a duplicate.

3. Documentation:

Here are some resources to help you get started:

• Marketo Webhooks Documentation: https://developers.marketo.com/rest-api/ (Focus on "POST /rest/v1/leads.json" for creating leads)
• Eloqua Webhooks Documentation: https://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/saas/marketing/eloqua-user/ (Focus on "POST /data/v1/objects" for creating or updating data objects)
• Marketo to Eloqua Integration with Webhook (External Resource): While not official documentation, this article provides a practical example: https://nation.marketo.com/t5/product-discussions/how-to-use-a-webhook-to-send-form-data-to-another-...

[JLittle5150]

Thank you. This is very helpful

[JLittle5150]

to clarify. on the question of creating new contacts in Eloqua.  I'm not worried about creating duplicates - we can avoid this as you stated.

What I'm looking to find out is if the contact does NOT exist in Eloqua, but DOES exist in Marketo - but we DON'T want to pull them into Eloqua for whatever reason, can we avoid this? ( I would assume we can set something up to basically say "only Update existing", but not have a "Create" call.) Is that accurate? thanks!

[SanfordWhiteman]

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Here are some resources to help you get started:

• Marketo Webhooks Documentation: https://developers.marketo.com/rest-api/ (Focus on "POST /rest/v1/leads.json" for creating leads)

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This is confusing to include because (a) it doesn’t have anything to do with outbound Marketo webhooks from Marketo → Eloqua and (b) you cannot call the Marketo REST API using simple (inbound) webhooks.

The Marketo webhook documentation is actually here: https://developers.marketo.com/webhooks/