Decoding the Marketo Database: 10 Commonly Asked Questions

Ensuring clean data in Marketo drives the success of your marketing campaigns.

It enables you to:

• Improve the Accuracy of Your Reporting
• Personalize Customer Communications
• Improve Email Deliverability
• Comply With Data Regulations
• Manage Leads Effectively

However, due to several reasons, your database can get cluttered.

The snags include data entry errors, duplicate entries, outdated or incomplete data, data decay, integration issues, lack of data governance, and lack of regular maintenance.

So how do you keep your Marketo database clean?

In this blog post, we will look at the 10 frequently asked questions and their answers that you must know to ensure a clean Marketo database.

1. What is Lead Duplication and How to Deduplicate Leads?

Lead duplication occurs when there are multiple entries for the same lead in a database or CRM system.

It happens when your sales or marketing teams add a duplicate lead into the system through multiple channels.

To address lead duplication, deduplication is the solution.

However, if you use Marketo, the inbuilt feature is not enough for effective deduping.

It requires a lot of manual work and does not let you configure and define criteria for deduping the leads.

A solution that enables you to clean your Marketo instance effortlessly can be your ally here.

Moreover, for lead merging, you need to consolidate the duplicate lead records into a single, accurate representation. The objective of this is to retain the most comprehensive and up-to-date information, eliminating the redundant and conflicting data.

2. How Can You Maintain Database Hygiene and Cleanse it?

Data hygiene is the process of maintaining a clean, accurate, and up-to-date database.

It includes the implementation of processes and strategies that ensures the quality of data within the database.

Good database hygiene improves business operations and enhances customer relationships.

And to ensure good database hygiene, data cleansing can be the key. Data cleansing includes identifying and correcting the errors, inconsistencies, and inaccuracies within the database.

You must remove duplicate records, standardize data formats, validate and verify data, and update outdated or incorrect information. This results in improved data integrity and ensures that your Marketo database provides reliable and meaningful insights.

Let’s take a look at the top 5 data hygiene metrics that you can consider.

Duplicate Records: Measure the number of duplicate records in the database which impacts campaign performance and resources.

Invalid Data: Measure the percentage of records with inaccurate or incomplete data that prevents you from targeting and engaging with your audience.

Email Deliverability: Measure the percentage of emails successfully delivered into recipients’ inboxes; low rates indicate invalid data or low engagement.

Bounce Rate: Measure the percentage of undeliverable emails. High bounce rates indicate invalid or outdated data.

Unsubscribes: Measure the percentage of recipients who unsubscribe as high unsubscribe rates indicate irrelevant or low-quality content.

3. How Can You Handle Duplicates in Marketo?

Duplicates in Marketo occur due to data imports, integrations with other systems, manual entry errors, or changes in lead information.

To maintain data integrity and ensure that your marketing efforts are effective, managing and handling duplicates in Marketo is crucial.

In order to handle duplicates in Marketo, you must:

• Identify Duplicate Records

Marketo empowers you to identify duplicate records in several ways, which include:

Native Duplicate Detection: The built-in duplicate detection capabilities can be configured according to specific criteria. You can define rules that consider fields such as email address, name, company, or custom fields to flag potential duplicates.

Marketo Webhooks: You can leverage Marketo’s Webhooks functionality to integrate with third-party duplication tools or services. These tools often employ more advanced algorithms or fuzzy matching techniques to identify potential duplicates.

• Review and Merge Duplicates

Once you have identified the duplicates, the next step is to review and merge them.

Marketo empowers you with the following options to handle duplicates:

Merge Records: You can merge duplicate records manually. During the process, you can choose a primary record that would retain the most authentic data. The secondary duplicate records are then merged into the primary record, which consolidates the information.

Automated Merge: With the “Merge Leads” feature, you can set rules to merge duplicate records automatically based on predefined criteria. This streamlines the merging process and reduces manual effort.

• Define Merge Criteria

While merging duplicates, it is important to define the criteria for selecting the primary record.

Here is how you can do it:

Data Completeness and Accuracy: Choose the record with the most complete and accurate data as the primary record. This can include fields such as email address, contact information, or key identifiers specific to your business.

4. How Can You Sync and Deduplicate Data Between Salesforce and Marketo?

Syncing and deduplicating data between Salesforce and Marketo can be challenging.

However, addressing some snags that come along the way enables you to effectively sync and deduplicate data between Salesforce and Marketo.

• Duplicate Records

Duplicate records occur when contacts or leads exist in both SFDC and Marketo. This leads to inconsistent data and affects marketing campaigns.

To address these issues-

• Use an automated deduplication process within Marketo to identify and merge duplicate records.
• Regularly compare and reconcile data between SFDC and Marketo to identify duplicates manually.
• Implement strict data entry rules and validation to minimize the creation of duplicate records.

• Sync Errors

Sometimes, data sync between SFDC and Marketo leads to errors or discrepancies. In order to troubleshoot this problem-

• Check the sync settings and configurations on both SFDC and Marketo to ensure they are properly connected.
• Review any error messages or logs to identify specific issues or error codes to diagnose the problem.
• If necessary, contact support from both SFDC and Marketo to get assistance in resolving the sync errors.

• Field Mapping and Data Discrepancies

Sometimes, data fields in SFDC may not align correctly, leading to discrepancies in synced data.

In order to address this-

• Review and ensure the field mappings between SFDC and Marketo are accurate and consistent.
• Check for any changes or updates in field names, data types, or values that could cause issues during syncing.
• Perform regular audits of the synced data to identify any discrepancies and rectify them promptly.

• Sync Lag and Delays

Sometimes, there can be delays in data sync between SFDC and Marketo. This will impact real-time marketing activities.

To overcome this, implement the following steps-

• Verify the sync schedules and frequency settings in both SFDC and Marketo to ensure that they are appropriately configured.
• Monitor the sync logs and performance metrics to identify any bottlenecks or delays during the syncing process.
• Consider implementing an integration middleware or third-party tool that offers real-time synchronization capabilities if the availability of immediate data is critical.

• Customization and Integration Complexity

Implementing customizations or complex integrations between SFDC and Marketo can increase the risk of issues in sync and deduplication.

You can overcome this by-

• Documenting the customizations and integration workflows thoroughly to have a clear understanding of the system architectures.
• Testing any customizations or changes in a non-production environment before implementing them in a live environment.
• Engaging experienced developers or consultants who specialize in SFDC and Marketo integrations to assist with complex scenarios.
• Keeping backups of your data before making any changes or performing large-scale deduplication processes.

Also, it’s a good practice to regularly review and maintain data hygiene to minimize the occurrence of sync and deduplication issues in the long run.

5. How Can You Deduplicate Mass Records?

Duplicate leads can be a major problem for Marketo users. They can lead to inaccurate data, wasted marketing efforts, and lost opportunities.

At Grazitti, we understand this. That’s why we developed a custom dedupe solution that automatically merges and cleans your database in real-time.

The benefits include:

• Merge leads with duplicate emails and similar details. (You can customize the rule sets according to your unique requirements).
• Deploy a real-time lead deduplication solution in a single day. (No manual effort required).
• The solution can be implemented for a one-time clean-up, as well as a real-time merge solution.

6. What is the Impact of Marketo-Based Data Cleaning on Salesforce?

Data cleaning in Marketo can lead to several consequences on the corresponding data in Salesforce (SFDC).

Here are some of the potential impacts:

Data Consistency: Cleaning data in Marketo ensures that the data is accurate, standardized, and free from errors and inconsistencies. This directly improves the quality of data synced with SFDC, leading to better data consistency between the two systems.

Synced Field Values: When you clean data in Marketo, such as standardizing naming conventions or updating contact information, those changes will be reflected in the synced fields of SFDC. This enables you to maintain data integrity and ensures that both systems have consistent and up-to-date information.

Deduplication: If you identify and merge duplicate records in Marketo, the corresponding duplicate records in SFDC will also need to be addressed. Typically, Marketo’s deduplication process can trigger updates or merges of duplicate records in SFDC, ensuring that both systems remain synced.

Field Mapping: If you make changes to the field names or field types in Marketo during the data cleansing process, it’s important to review and update the field mappings between Marketo and SFDC. This will ensure that the data sync between the two systems work properly and the updated field changes are correctly mapped.

Workflow and Automation: Data cleaning in Marketo can impact any workflows, triggers, or automation rules set up in SFDC that rely on specific data conditions. It is important to review and update these workflows to ensure that they continue to function as expected after the data cleansing process.

Reporting and Analytics: Cleaning data in Marketo can have an impact on reporting and analytics in SFDC. By improving data quality and consistency, you can expect more accurate and reliable reporting results in SFDC, enabling better decision-making and analysis.

Data Loss Risk: During the data cleaning process, there is a possibility of inadvertent data loss or unintended changes to records. It’s essential to carefully plan and execute the data-cleaning activities, maintain backups, and have proper validation processes in place to mitigate the risk of data loss or corruption.

7. How Can You Find Marketo’s Easy Merge Service?

Marketo’s Easy Merge service is a paid service that allows you to merge duplicate records in your Marketo database. This can be a time-consuming and tedious task to do manually, so the Easy Merge service can save you a lot of time and effort.

To use the Easy Merge service, you first need to create a list of the duplicate records that you want to merge. You can do this by using the Marketo Smart List builder or by exporting the list of duplicate records from your CRM. Once you have created the list of duplicate records, you can submit it to the Easy Merge service.

The Easy Merge service will then merge the duplicate records and create a new record with the merged data. The new record will be assigned the highest lead score of the original records.

It is a great way to save time and effort when merging duplicate records in your Marketo database. The cost of the service depends on the number of records that you are merging.

If you want to make the process more cost-effective, leveraging a custom deduplication solution is the way forward.

Enter- M-Clean.

M-Clean cleanses and dedupes your data automatically and improves your marketing campaign’s performance.

8. What Deduplication Tools Should You Use?

M-Clean, a real-time Marketo deduplication app, is an effective deduping solution that enables you to merge and prevent duplicates in Marketo. With this application, you can empower your sales and marketing with accurate reporting and data.

9. How Can You Ensure New Leads are Tracked Efficiently?

In case new leads are not tracked, you can do that by creating a program in Marketo and syncing it with the SFDC campaign.

If you use SFDC campaign reports, your teams can use campaign member reports as a method for reporting. As the lead fills out the inquiry form, you can change their Marketo program member status to bi-directional sync. This information is then passed onto SFDC’s respective campaign members, which can be used as a lead tracking report.

10. How Can You Merge Duplicates Without Affecting Lead Score?

M-Clean keeps the lead score based on criteria such as-

• Highest
• Lowest
• Sum
• Oldest created
• Most recently created
• Most recently updated

Wrapping Up

Keeping your Marketo database clean is essential for the success of your marketing campaigns. By following the tips and best practices outlined in this blog post, you can ensure that your data is accurate, consistent, and up-to-date. This will enable you to improve the effectiveness of your marketing efforts, build stronger relationships with your customers, and achieve your business goals.

Wish to Optimize Your Marketo Instance for Business Growth? Download this eGuide.