Why Account Trigger is generating alerts for all contacts under account

[Sherry_Hale]

We have a flow set up so that if a certain custom field is generated on the account level, then an alert is triggerd for the account owner.  The problem which makes NO sense is that Marketo is triggering an alert for each and every contact under that account.  Example:

Trigger - Custom Field on Account is populated with "x"
Flow - Send alert to account owner with information on that account
Results - An email alert is sent to the account owner for every contact under that account = 50+ alerts

Why is this happening?

[Anonymous]

Hi Sherry,

Its because your trigger is on an account.  That means its going to associate to anyone who sits under the account.

Think of this way:

Trigger: Send a Welcome Email whenever an Account Type changes to "Customer"

Now by saying this I'm stating send an email to everyone under that account because I'm not associating it to a Contact field which would say only when a specific contact's fields change. 

If it were a filter for what you're doing above it would say...Show me all accounts with "X" and it would bring up all of the contacts sitting under accounts with field "x".  Like show me all of my customer contacts?

Does that make sense?

If you wanted to limit it to only certain contacts, you'd have to specify in a filter which contacts should have an alert sent on them.  You won't be able to send an alert just on account details as Marketo is a contact centric system and needs to associate the alert to someone's record.

Hope that makes sense!

[Sherry_Hale]

Well that is a supber big bummer.  Part of the alert is to remind sales reps to turn on a few flags on the contact level.  So if they forgot to turn on a flag, the flow will never be triggered.  Any suggestions?

[Anonymous]

Hey Sherry,
 

Could you explain the process a bit more in context.  

What is this flag?  When would it be put onto a contact?  Why would they forget?

Thanks!