What's the best way to change leads to person accounts and keep Marketo data?

[Anonymous]

I accidentally synced some leads to SFDC from Marketo as leads. I want to change them to person accounts in SFDC, but preserve the Marketo email campaign and other data on them.

Any insight on the best way to do this?

If I convert them from leads to person accounts, that would throw off SFDC reporting, right? Wouldn't it be better to delete them in SFDC, and then import them again, but as person accounts? But, if I do that, how do I sync them with Marketo without creating duplicates?

I tried deleting one manually from SFDC, then syncing Marketo lead again (because it carried with it history & campaign data), and it created duplicates in Marketo. Tried to merge those duplicates, and it wouldn't let me. May be because one is a lead and another a contact?

Any help solving this problem would be much appreciated. Thanks.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Trent,

The only way you can push new records from Marketo to SFDC is as leads. Marketo cannot create contacts, not person accounts.

So you will have to push them as leads, then go to SFDC and convert them.

I recommend that you do not try to convert them from Marketo, as it may create more mess, such as converting them to standard account / contacts instead of persona accounts.

-Greg

[Anonymous]

I guess the downside to this, Greg, is that it would throw off my Salesforce reporting, right? It will show a bunch of leads "converted," when in reality they weren't "leads" to begin with.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

HI Trent,

That' is correct, they will show as converted. and indeed, if you want to get them directly as person accounts, the only way is to import them directly in SFDC.

Taking one step back, though, the normal lifecycle should be most of the time:

1. imported as leads in Marketo, and deduplicated on import
2. Pushed to SFDC as leads
3. Qualified
4. Converted if relevant.

I am always a little concerned when i see imports directly in SFDC as contacts or person accounts. It is sometimes the right way to do this (for instance to populate a list of key accounts and contacts to run ABM campaigns) but often it is not and the process above will be safer.

-Greg

[Anonymous]

Well, with our SFDC setup, it's different. All our referral contacts are listed as "Person Accounts" because they don't graduate from lead to account. We campaign to them separately.

So, I'm torn. I'm thinking as these were associated with only one campaign, may be best to just delete them, re-import into SFDC/Marketo as Person Accounts, then tie them back to the Marketo campaign through member list import. What do you think?

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Trent,

In this case, yes, that's probably the best way to go.

-Greg

[Anonymous]

Thanks much for the help.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

You welcome.

Please mark the question as answered, so that it gets out of our radar

-Greg

[Anonymous]

Do you think it would be better to delete them in Marketo & SFDC, then add as person accounts in SFDC and import them as members in Marketo on the previous Marketo campaign they were associated with?