Updating Contacts not Leads when importing a list

[Anonymous]

Hello!

Need some help trying to find a good work around for how we can update contacts correctly when we import onsite client event attendee lists.

1. We have a custom de-dup (set up by Marketo) based on First name , Last Name , Email

2. We have a lot of leads (duplicates) for the contacts we have in SFDC. While I know we should be focusing on cleaning this up, our organization setup makes it a little complex so that is not an option at the moment. 

3. When we import a list from a client event (skip leads mode) , we want the contacts in Marketo to be updated. However, Marketo seems to update leads over contacts so the old leads are being updated instead of the contacts (Both the lead and the contact have the same First name, Last name and email as the record on the list so it's not like that the lead is the best match)

4. Marketo support suggested we add a column to specify SFDC Type = Contact on our list but leads are still being updated instead of the contacts

Has anyone ever faced a similar situation or have any ideas on how we can manage this? 

Thanks!
Karishma 

[Edward_Masson]

Is this because the Lead record has the most recent activity than the contact record of it's self?

[Anonymous]

I checked the Activity log on both the lead and the contact and the most recent activity was on the contact but Marketo still chose to update the lead 😞