Marketo can automatically dedupe leads based on email address. The dedupe works only when you enter new leads into Marketo from:

• List Import
• Marketo Form (iFrame or Marketo Page is ok)
• Direct creation in Marketo database.
• Direct creation through API.

Thus you should do your best to create new leads using the above methods.

How Duplicates Are Created

Of course, people will always create new leads directly in the CRM. These create duplicate records and there are specific rules and situations where this happens.

Lead Duplicates

These usually occur in your CRM or because you are not syncing all Leads to the CRM.

Contact Duplicates

An existing SFDC Contact can force Marketo to create a duplicate Lead if

• Someone created a new SFDC Lead for that email address.
• The Marketo User is not seeing Contacts correctly.
• There were existing SFDC dupes of both record types.

Preventing Duplicates

To prevent duplicates, take the following actions:

• Always use Marketo Forms or the API.
• Sync All Leads to SFDC.
• Import all lists into Marketo using Normal.
• Train Sales SFDC Users to search for leads first using email or Full Name and update an existing record.

Handling Deduplication

Marketo offers a few ways to help you dedupe.

Merge in Marketo

If you use the Merge function in Marketo, the Leads are merged. The activities are merged while the Lead Score is added together. An SFDC Lead will be Converted and attached to an SFDC Contact.

If you have too many duplicates to manually merge, contact services@marketo.com and ask about the Easy Merge service.

Merge in Salesforce

If you manually merge SFDC Leads and Contacts, then the usual SFDC rules apply. In Marketo, the two records are merged, the Scores are added together. If the winning lead has a field value of NULL, then that field will be NULL after the merge. Converting a duplicate Lead and attaching it to an existing Contact has a similar result.

The same rules apply if you use a tool like DemandTools for a mass merge.

One suggestion/precaution is when you do the merge in Salesforce ensure that you are logged into Salesforce with your Marketo sync user. Often times you may be logged in with a Sys Admin (who has full access) and the merge occurs but the issue may be that your Marketo sync user does not have the same permission as the Sys Admin user and your merge may not be reflected in Marketo.

Duplicates, Updates, and Email Permissions

A common question is “If I have duplicates of the same email, can that person continue to be sent emails if just one record is opted-out?” The answer is yes, and no, depending on the situation.

• How do I know which record will be updated? Marketo will update the most recently updated record of any group of duplicate Leads. So if you have 5 duplicates and the Lead fills out a new form with a matching email, only the most recently updated record is updated.

Duplicate Records Qualify for the Same Campaign

Sending email to duplicates: if duplicates qualify for the same campaign, Marketo checks for email duplicates and only sends 1 email out. The email activity is attributed to the most recently updated Lead record.

If you have 5 records with the same email address, it is possible for all 5 to qualify for a smart campaign. If this happens, Marketo dedupes based one email address to send only 1 email per email address.

If one of those email addresses is also opted out, then Marketo will not send any email to that address.

Your Qualified Count and Blocked Count will not match in this situation.

One Record Qualifies, But Others Do Not

If you have 5 records with the same email address (or even the same person with different email addresses), it is possible only one record will qualify for a campaign.

In this situation, the qualified record could be opted-in, while the others are opted-out, which means the email will go out.

Unsubscribed on One or More Records

Only the most recently updated Lead record will be unsubscribed and it may be possible to send out email if the other subscribed records qualify for a campaign. If both an Unsubscribed and Subscribed Lead qualify for the same campaign, no email will be sent.

Remember that if someone registered with a corporate email and previously with a personal email, those are not duplicate records to Marketo and it is possible to keep sending that person email on either account.

Solutions

Always setup a standard Smart List and static suppression list which includes all opted-out leads. Be sure to include this list as NOT IN on all email campaigns to exclude all opted-out leads.

A Deduping Process

Here is my recommended deduping process:

1. Import Lists into Marketo.
2. Merge Records in Marketo using the Duplicate Fields filters.
3. In the CRM, use DemandTools (or a similar service) to identify dupes using fuzzy logic. Break this down by each territory and ask Sales to check off the master record. Then merge automatically.
4. Individually: ask someone to do this for you. I always Merge Leads first, then Attach any duplicate Lead-Contact pairs to the Contact record.

If you are looking for specific rules over which fields to choose to override, I usually do the following:

• Prefer Older Record over newer.
• Prefer More complete record over less complete.
• Choose the most recently updated field over the older field.
• Average the scores (although Marketo adds them).
• Use the score of the more recent lead.

Duplicates Feel Beyond Repair?

Schedule a complimentary Marketo Health Audit. The Etumos team will log in and perform a health audit and find areas for improvement.

Marketo can get cluttered and confusing–even break–if you do not regularly maintain your system. Clutter is true for other marketing automation systems as well and builds up over time, just like papers on your desk or junk in the garage.

In particular, Sales Insight is a major culprit of clutter in Marketo.

Remember to remove emails from Sales Insight on a regular basis. I know of firms that neglected a regular cleaning to end up with hundreds of emails in a giant drop-down menu inside Salesforce. The sales team was repulsed from figuring out which emails to use. So choose each email to expose to Sales very carefully and be sure to put a note in your Calendar to turn them off when they are no longer needed.

And remember that naming matters here! Be sure your emails have dates and great names so Sales knows which email to use—they are not keen to sort it out themselves.

Quick Tips to Remember When Cleaning Up Marketo

• Sales Insight: always default to Not Publish in Sales Insight.
• Monthly: turn off previous registration campaigns for dates webinars and events. Turn off or deactivate Campaigns, Sales Insight Emails, and Invitations.
• Quarterly: review Scoring, Interesting Moments, and Data Management Campaigns. Archive dated Programs, Campaigns, and Assets.
• Annual: Delete or Archive previous year’s Programs. Review Images & Files for useless files. Review Lead Management campaigns.

For more Marketo tips and tricks, sign up for FREE updates.

Marketo provides detailed statistics on Leads and their activities on Marketo Pages, Emails, and your website. Marketo Reports are good for understanding how your campaigns and assets are performing, including which activities are leading to Opportunities and Revenue. Reports include:

• Lead Reports for understanding origins and progression.
• Email Reports for understanding opens, CTRs, and deliverability.
• Campaign Reports to watch campaign performance (membership) of any type.
• Company Web Reports detailing web activity based from a company, based on IP lookup.
• Web Page Reports analyzing lead activity on the main website.
• Landing Page Reports analyzing Marketo Landing Page performance and Leads.
• Program Reports analyzing Program progression data.
• Social Influence Report which will show you who is sharing your content and bringing in new friends.

Analytics is a critical tool in your marketing life. Marketo helps you view your data better, if you carefully setup your Marketing Activities, Campaigns, Programs, Emails, and Landing Pages. If you followed earlier advice on Naming and Organization, you will find it much easier to build reports in Analytics.

Marketo has quite a few variations on each report which can take time to setup. If you are after some quick numbers, I recommend a few shortcuts:

Campaign Overview Tab

Select any campaign and look at the tabs in the center of the screen.

• Status

For nurturing campaigns, this screen also shows Leads in Wait Step.

• Used by

Lists any other campaigns dependent on this campaign.

• Membership Trend

Leads who qualified over time. This is a rolling chart.

• Members by Week

Chart of members by week. No data displayed for weeks without members. This is a rolling chart.

• Email Tab

An Email Performance report for any emails sent by this campaign. This is the same data which appears in the Analytics Email Performance Report.

Campaign Member Lists

Each Campaign also provides a list of every lead who ever qualified for the flow. You can click on this list to see the complete list of leads. Use the View changer to adjust the columns shown.

Programs: the Program Overview Tab

Programs contain a wealth of data for individual marketing campaigns. If you are concerned with a particular Program, just click on it!

• Program Summary

Summary and settings for the Program. This is similar to the Campaign Overview. Programs, however, show Membership Statuses and success metrics as well.

• Used By

Shows campaigns or other programs dependent on this Program.

• Membership

Displays a chart of current Membership statuses. Current means currently in the Program with that Status, while Historical shows how leads have moved through the Program. Sent or Registered Leads likely move on to a new Status, so this chart will show the original count and the current count.

Smart Lists and Static Lists

Using a smart list for a data count is a quick way to find out data for a specific purpose. For instance, if you had a cross-tab of those who Unsubscribed and Was Sent Email X but not Customers, this is a good place to start. If you push this data to Segmentations or Static Lists, check there as well.

Landing Page Overview Tab

Each landing page and AB Test Group provide statistics on Page Views and Conversions for each page. This is true for Design Studio and Program based pages.

[Updated December 18, 2013: Added NY MUG Presentation:]

If you haven’t guessed yet, this post means the How to Use Analytics chapter is now done. All 126 pages packed with clear steps on using the basic reports and customizing them for your needs. and I’m on to the next one. Stay tuned for more by signing up for my email list.