Uploading People/Leads to Marketo

[Marisa_Mallon1]

Are there any effects or implications to adding/uploading people/leads into Marketo?

[Tom_Kerlin2]

When importing make sure you understand each field and what it maps to. If there are fields whose values should remain unchanged then it's possible to set fields up this way in Admin > Field Management section (screenshot is below).

Also, if you have a list that contains a lot of special characters such as those commonly found on international distribution lists, make sure that you import in Unicode Text format; here is a link to another thread that covers this topic: Special Characters - é è ç à ï ä

Lastly, this point might be a little obvious but if it's a new email address then a new record will be created, which will grow the size of your database. If you are importing thousands of new people then your database will grow, and Marketo charges you based on the size of your database.

-Tom

[Anonymous]

If you're importing to an engagement program, its important to note they automatically become members and added to streams, I didn't know about this functionality and ran into some issues with it. I posted a question about it awhile ago here.

[Amy_Goldfine]

I hate uploading leads. We do it all the time with tradeshow and content syndication leads, but you have to be soooo careful. The person doing it has to follow a checklist and be very detail-oriented. You absolutely have to to double-check that you're matching the proper CSV fields to Marketo fields.

Other considerations: You need to make sure that all the required fields are there (both for SFDC sync and whatever your other field needs are), especially Lead Source. You need to make sure all the field values are normalized (whereas if they were filling out a form, you could restrict field values to a picklist). You have to make sure the field values match the field requirements (i.e. email addresses are properly formatted—if they were coming in via form, the form would catch that).

[Parfitt_David]

Hi Amy,

Do you have any best-practice document to share that shows  how to set up a CSV so the data gets mapped to the  appropriate fields? I am looking to set up a template for uploading and could use some guidance.

Thanks!
Dave

[Amy_Goldfine]

Hi Dave,

I don't have a template CSV for upload because I start with a different type of source doc every time. However, I follow a checklist every single time I do a list upload--example below. You might find it helpful to rename your spreadsheet fields to match your Marketo field names, so Marketo picks up the correct fields to match automatically. I also double/triple check the matches before upload.

1. Delete any extraneous columns.
   
2. Make sure all required/recommended fields are present [List fields and any formatting or picklist requirements for each field, and bold required fields - examples for us below]
   1. First Name
   2. Last Name
   3. Title
   4. Email Address (make sure properly formatted, no extra spaces, etc.)
   5. Company Name
   6. Phone
   7. Street Address
   8. City
   9. State (2 digit ISO, required if Country = US or CA)
   10. Zip
   11. Country (2 digit ISO)
3. Add Lead Source
   
   1. Event
   2. Sales Sourced
      
   3. Content Syndication
4. Dedupe by email (remove entire dupe row)
5. Use conditional formatting to check for empty fields - especially first, last, email, company, company size, country (and state for US and CA)
6. Make sure first and last are separate fields
7. Capitalize first names 
8. Check US state (or Canadian province) and country codes - needs to be 2-digit ISO
   1. Make sure that British leads have GB as country code, sometimes the data provider will put UK which is incorrect
9. Make sure ZIP code fields formatted as ZIP code, and phone numbers formatted correctly
10. If notes, sync notes to “Marketing Program Notes” field
    1. If there are multiple notes fields, concatenate (or manually cut/paste) into one field

[Parfitt_David]

Thank you for taking the time to respond with this detail, I appreciate it!

[Jessica_Kao3]

I would add to the checklist that if you have EU or APAC countries to save the file as UTF-8 format or you will have funky characters.  That kills me everytime. 

[Dan_Stevens_]

It gets even more complicated when you're doing this for countries around the globe.  If any of the cells contain special characters, you need to ensure the list is exported as a unicode-text file (and imported as a tab-delimited file).  To address normalized fields, we have a common template that we use for all campaign responses made offline (like event attendees) where those fields all include proper data validation/lookup to normalized values. We also include, in a tab, a data dictionary that shows which fields map to which Marketo fields during the import process.

I think what's been most frustrating for us recently are the Marketo database issues that we've been experiencing.  For example, when you import a list of members into a program and then execute a smart campaign against those leads, oftentimes the Marketo issues are preventing all qualified leads from running through those smart campaigns.  This is what I'm referring to:

Ongoing list/database issues: smart campaigns not affecting all qualified leads

For those of you on Corona (part of Project Orion), are you experiencing issues explained here?

[Balkar_Singh]

Marisa Mallon​

They won't be replaced, but will be updated with the new data. If you import a same lead which already exists in Marketo, it will be merged. Could you elaborate Marketo recognizing leads organically?

For tracking unique activities, you may want to use interesting moments, or use a Multi Touch Attribution Setup​

Hope this helps!

Balkar

[Balkar_Singh]

Marisa Mallon​ - In terms of the process, it can have various implications - e.g. if you have a triggered campaign reacting to new leads created, it will process your leads, or if you have some of the leads already present in Marketo, it will overwrite the data on the records(leads/persons) if the data is different.

[Marisa_Mallon1]

Devraj Grewal​

Balkar Singh​

I am referring to importing a CVS file of leads into Marketo. Is there any implications to importing versus letting Marketo recognize leads organically?

After uploading individuals into Marketo, how can we track the unique activities for all channels?

In your example, if we have leads in Marketo and upload the same lead via CSV, will the leads in Marketo be replaced by the new version?

[Devraj_Grewal]

Marisa,

Please move this discussion to Products​ as it is Marketo-specific.

The implications in terms of the process of importing people into Marketo? Or are you referring to the implication of importing purchased lists of data into Marketo?