I will explain the complete process hoping that it would clear your doubts -
When a lead enters the marketo system, it goes through several stages before it is won or lost(these stages are of-course configured as per the requirements e.g. Known, Engaged, MQL, SQL, SAL, Oppurtunity, Won/lost). With the SFDC configured with marketo a lead is synced with the SFDC, and as the lead progresses and reaches the threshold setup for the SQL, Sales will examine things like the lead’s job junction, company size, and industry classification. When they, determine that based on these factors, the person with a raised hand is ready to be called on, the lead is sales-accepted. Post that if all goes well the lead is converted by Sales team in SFDC. When you convert leads, Salesforce creates accounts, contacts, and, opportunities using information from the leads you’re converting. Now in the back-end all the updates made to the lead on the SFDC side (SQL, SAL, Convert to Oppurtunity, Close) are synced back to marketo and the same is taken in to account for generating the reports.
Also marketo has one flow step "Convert Lead" which could also be used for generating opportunities (and this will also be included in reports along with ones synced back from sfdc) When you use the Convert Lead Flow step it will convert your lead to a Contact and create a new Account and Opportunity as Marketo unfortunately cannot convert the Lead into an existing Account, because it can't determine automatically which Account to convert the Lead into. Thus, this flow action is not recommended, as it will create duplicate Accounts, hence conversion from CRM is always recommended.
Hope this helps 🙂
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