Re: SFDC Campaigns Sync - Benefits and Pitfalls

Rachel_Egan
Level 7

SFDC Campaigns Sync - Benefits and Pitfalls

Our Marketo instance is synced with SFDC and I am developing our events strategy. This includes syncing our Marketo programs with SFDC campaigns. I have everything connected, but I have not set up a SFDC Campaign Sync with a program because I'm nervous that I will see un-anticipated consequences. Up until now, I've been running my SFDC campaigns with smart campaigns; AKA, every time someone registers for the event, I then change their status in Marketo and have a flow step that also changes their status in the SFDC campaign.

I'd like to make this process as clean on myself as possible, and I've read through the documentation in the Marketo Products Doc pages, but I wanted to turn to the community to see if anybody here has insight they can share with me about what worked/didn't work for them and how they are using SFDC Campaign Sync.

Any insight or thoughts would be helpful. I'm very interested to hear from people!

24 REPLIES 24
Grégoire_Miche2
Level 10

Re: SFDC Campaigns Sync - Benefits and Pitfalls

Hi Rachel,

There are a lot of advantages to sync programs with SFDC campaigns, one of them being that Marketo will do the job of keeping member statuses in sync, as well as success info (responses in SFDC), with no effort on your side, and little risk of forgetting.

The main drawback is that Marketo will push all program members to SFDC. If some of them are not ready to be transferred to telemarketing or sales, you need to make sure that you have all the necessary mechanisms in place in SFDC to assign leads to queues and "hide" them from the sales.

-Greg

Rachel_Egan
Level 7

Re: SFDC Campaigns Sync - Benefits and Pitfalls

That makes sense. The solution for us might be to only use the full capabilities of Campaign Sync if most of the people are ready to be synced with SFDC. Otherwise, we can set up Smart Campaign flow steps in Marketo to only sync over the people who are already in SFDC.

I guess the other way to think about it would be that if they attend one of our events and engage with us there, they are probably more open to speaking with one of our sellers (or Inside Sales team) and that it's not a huge deal for them to be handed off at that time anyway.

Rachel_Egan
Level 7

Re: SFDC Campaigns Sync - Benefits and Pitfalls

Hi Greg, do you happen to know what happens in the following situation:

  • Marketo Program is set up and synced with SFDC Campaign
  • People are added to the SFDC campaign with the correct Program Status
  • People who are NOT in SFDC (we don't sync our entire database, only MQLs and lower funnel) enter the program via a form (in my case, it's an event invite request form)

My question is: do those people who are NOT in SFDC yet sync over? Or do they still require a "Sync to SFDC" flow step?

I know the purpose of SFDC Campaign sync is to have a 1:1 setup between Marketo and SFDC Campaigns, but I want to make sure I'm doing it right before going full-steam ahead.

Grégoire_Miche2
Level 10

Re: SFDC Campaigns Sync - Benefits and Pitfalls

Hi Rachel,

  1. The program <-> campaign sync is a 2-way permanent and automated sync. This means that:
    • if you add someone as a member to a program, this lead will be pushed to SFDC during following sync automatically (meaning you do not have to add a "Sync lead to SFDC" flow step)
    • if you add a lead or a contact in SFDC to the campaign, it will be added to the Marketo program during following sync
  2. Exceptions may happen :
    • If the Marketo lead in the program cannot be inserted in SFDC (for instance because some mandatory field is missing), the lead will remain in Marketo program but will not be a member of the campaing in SFDC
    • If the SFDC lead or contact cannot be synched to Marketo (because you are filtering the sync, see my answer here Re: How can I sync specific filter from Salesforce to Marketo?), then it will remain a campaign member in SFDC but not show up in Marketo

-Greg

Rachel_Egan
Level 7

Re: SFDC Campaigns Sync - Benefits and Pitfalls

Thanks! This is exactly what I needed.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: SFDC Campaigns Sync - Benefits and Pitfalls

I'll explain one of my pitfalls that relates to Primary Campaign Source. When it comes to events, I'm a bit weary of the Campaign/Program sync. If we need to add people as Invited for email sends, then I don't want the Program to sync to Campaigns. The biggest reason is that they really aren't engaged in that Campaign and it can mess up my Opportunity reporting. The example I can give is our user conference. It's a year-long Program with over 70K invitees, so if we add them to the Campaign via sync, suddenly Primary Campaign Source is filled in for every opportunity with a Campaign that doesn't technically happen until next Fall.

We also don't use the program/campaign sync if there's a possibility of more than one SFDC Campaign for that program (which is often the case for content syndication and online advertising).

For Programs such as webinars the sync works fantastic.

Rachel_Egan
Level 7

Re: SFDC Campaigns Sync - Benefits and Pitfalls

Yeah, that's one of the main things i'm concerned about.

For the Opportunity reporting, is it possible to block the "primary campaign source" from filling out for people who are at a certain member status? For example, if we send the invite, they are marked as "invited" in their member status. Then, when they RSVP Yes, their member status is updated to "RSVP'd Yes" and the Primary Campaign Source field can be filled in.

Next, can you give me an example of how you organize your Programs and SFDC Campaigns so that you have more than one campaign per program? Just trying to figure out the best way for us to organize ours as this is the first time we are implementing this strategy and I want to make sure we get it right

Finally, what do you do when an event is over? This is what I was thinking of doing: let's say we invite 250 people, receive 100 RSVPs, then 75 of them actually show up. I would then create a new campaign with only those 75 people so that it tracks their opportunities properly (although I'm not sure that it will...) Then I will delete the old campaign so that it's not tracking anything on the opportunities for the other 175 who didn't end up attending. I'm just not sure if that would work properly or what issues I'm not seeing if I do it that way.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: SFDC Campaigns Sync - Benefits and Pitfalls

I have yet to find a workaround for the Primary Campaign Source as it's a standard SFDC functionality and hasn't been updated in years. It's possible there will be some workarounds with Process Builder but I haven't had any luck so far

I have the team set up their SFDC Campaigns first as it's how we track against our plan. Usually I ask for these to be set up the beginning of each quarter. Then programs are built out second. We organize our programs into regional "Active" folders so we know if there's a program we can reuse for advertising, but most programs are cloned from the Master Program Templates into the regional "Active" folder.

When an event is over we update the Attended/Visited Booth/Hot Leads and then from there the automated follow up actions take place. I would almost never delete a campaign as it's storing those records with time stamped information. Plus, it can be useful to have an SDR follow up on the tradeshow attendees that didn't stop by, and the Campaign Member Status gives you a quick way to build a list view.

Rachel_Egan
Level 7

Re: SFDC Campaigns Sync - Benefits and Pitfalls

Got it. I will have to look into this deeper, however this is super helpful! Thanks so much.