SFDC Campaigns Sync - Benefits and Pitfalls

[Rachel_Egan]

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!

[Rachel_Egan]

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]

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]

Thanks! This is exactly what I needed.

[Rachel_Egan]

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.