What's the recommendation for setting acquisition program on existing contacts

[jace_brendle]

We migrated to Marketo a little while ago and migrated existing contacts from our previous automation system and our CRM environment. None of these records has an acquisition program. We're planning to run a batch campaign that will set the acquisition program for all of these to an operational program, essentially calling the out as previously existing. I couldn't find much information as to whether this was a good or bad idea, so I thought I'd ask if there's another, better opinion about what to do.

[SanfordWhiteman]

I'm guessing you don't have original attribution for these folks at all? Because what I'd usually do is create shell programs as "Legacy Programs" and credit those as opposed to one catch-all bucket.

[jace_brendle]

 Thanks Sandford. We have the original source campaign in our CRM system, so reporting can still be done there. And when we sync that to Marketo it's a guid so not overly valuable. We thought about trying to find a way to use that, but even looking a those acquired over the last year would mean creating hundreds of shell programs. We may look to create a few legacy programs that reflect some of our main channels instead of one catch all.

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

A few sounds better than one!

But do note you can create Programs using the API. So with a mapping between GUID and Friendly Name, it wouldn't really take much to create a few hundred Programs for this purpose, inside a "Legacy" folder. Then you assign everyone's Acquisition Program and afterward delete the Programs. That seems the best way IMO.