Skip New Leads and Updates

[Anonymous]

I don't understand the use case for "Skip New Leads and Updates" during a list import.  Why would you want to import a list that skipped new leads and skipped any updates on current leads... what would you be importing at the end of the day?

What is the purpose of importing with this option?

Instead, I wish there was a simple way to import a static list that did not sync to my CRM (Salesforce) that I could use for one time mailings without affecting my SFDC data.

[Adam_Vavrek1]

Hi Todd,

I don't use this option often but I do when I want to send an email to people in a different segment of our business that aren't necessarily leads. After the email send, I delete these names. It doesn't make sense to have them in Marketo since we don't email these people often (once a year) especially since Marketo charges by the number of known leads in the database.

[Anonymous]

Interesting, so this option might work as I'm trying to do something similar.  

I'm just a little confused on what is actually imported, if Marketo skips (does not create) new leads and updates? Maybe this is an incorrect understanding of how this option works though.  What exactly gets imported?

Todd

[Adam_Vavrek1]

As far as I know, everything in your spreadsheet gets imported but only to that list - it doesn't mix with your Lead Database in Marketo. You must have an email address column and I believe the other columns can be used as tokens within the email.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Adam.
I tried this and unfortunatley kept receiving this error, "Cannot de-duplicate. Missing all key Field(s): (Email Address) in import file."

Not sure why this list import option could not see my email address column, but suffice to say, this approach ended up not working for me.  I was able to call Marketo Support and find a work around. Thanks for the help.

[Dan_Stevens_ · Accepted solution]

Actually, when using this option, the assumption is that the leads are already in your Lead Database.  This option is used when you are filtering the list outside of Marketo (instead of using Smart Lists) and want to quickly define the list by uploading to a static list (and then execute against that list).  It does no updating to the leads, nor does it add new leads to the database.  So you can basically just upload a list of email addresses since the name and other details are already in Marketo. 

@Adam, it doesn't sound like you're clear as to how this works either (if the leads don't already exists, nothing is getting imported here).  Are you sure you're deleting the leads or just deleting the list?  If the former, you're also deleting the existing leads from your lead database.  And if you're doing that, I'm assuming you're not concerned with tracking the activity against these leads?

[alsorobd]

Strange. This absolutely doesn't work for me.

By selecting "Skip New Leads and Updates", everything is skipped and nothing is added to my list, even though the email addresses in the list I'm uploading are already in my database.

Here's my process:

1. Select 5 customers in my database and download them in a .csv file

2. Create a new static list in my database called "test import"

3. Open the empty static list "test import"

4. Click on "list actions>import list"

5. Select my previously downloaded .csv file

6. Select "file format>autodetect"

7. Select "list import mode>Skip new people and updates"

8. On "Step 2: Import Preview" I IGNORE all column headers EXCEPT email address.

9. On "Step 3: Import Options" I check the list name I'm importing to, it's "test import" which is what I expect.

10. Finally I click "IMPORT"

I'm now expecting Marketo will recognise the email addresses in the list I'm importing, not create anything new, not update any of the records I'm importing, and simply add the existing people who's email addresses match the email addresses in my .csv files, to my static list "test import".

This follows the logic posted several times described as follows: 

• Skip New Leads and Updates – this will only add people to your static list that already exist in your Marketo database (thus, will not add any people to your database). https://nation.marketo.com/t5/marketo-whisperer-blogs/static-list-import-best-practices/ba-p/300554

However this is not what happens.

No one is added to my static list.

Everyone is skipped, even if they exist already in my database.

This leads me to believe that this feature is currently broken.