[Update: the guide is open sourced – Mar 21, 2014]

The Guide is now here! You can put my knowledge of Marketo to work for you. This Guide explains how to actually use Marketo as a marketer. Take what you learned during Basic Training and the great Marketo videos to the next level with what’s in this Guide.

This Guide is designed to help you use Marketo more effectively for actual marketing. Learn what works and why it works in easy, step-by-step instructions, complete with detailed screenshots of actual Filters and Flows.

Who is the Guide For?
It’s for fellow marketers. And for fellow Marketo users. I heard from hundreds of users that they were lost between training and doing their jobs. I read hundreds of Community posts with the same requests. So I know there is a need for clear, detailed help.

New Users: 0-6 Months: just starting Marketo? You probably need scoring, data management, flows, and reporting. But how do you do that? It’s in the Guide.

Experienced Users: 7-18 Months: forget something? Or need to quickly check a flow? Consult the Guide for new ideas when your team is ready. You can hand your copy over to  new team members too.

Masters and Admins: Sure, you know more than this Guide offers. Take advantage of a nice, searchable copy to find that one thing you just can’t remember. Thumb through the reference section to make sure you know exactly what that Filter Constraint does.

Buy Now: PDF $47.00 (if you don’t have PayPal, you can Press Use Credit Card).

If I valued the hours I put into this, I would have to charge you for $59,000 of consulting hours. Now all my knowledge is yours right now for $67. And if you love the feel of paper like I do, you can even get a print edition very soon.

Buy Now: PDF $67.00

A note on Marketo Certification: while this Guide is not endorsed by Marketo as a study Guide, I can tell you that roughly 80% of what’s on the test is in this Guide. I used my own Guide to prepare for the test and found the only major topic not covered by the Guide is using Marketo for PPC. You should use all the materials available and closely follow the study topics Marketo recommends.

“Josh has produced a practitioner’s guide to Marketo that should be required for anyone that touches the system. It goes well beyond the basics and provides key foundational knowledge that will accelerate revenue for your organization.”

–Ryan Vong, Marketo Expert & Champion

I also want to make a special thank you to David Carnes at OpFocus. David has been a business mentor and supporter of this Guide from early on. David Carnes is one of the earliest and most well known SFDC Admins and his team works with Salesforce and Marketo. I highly recommend his services.

About OpFocus, Inc.

OpFocus was founded in 2006 with the goal of helping companies run their businesses better. OpFocus is a dynamic and fast-growing consulting group that delivers business solutions to clients by customizing applications such as Salesforce.com, Marketo, and other integrated tools. OpFocus takes pride in their work, and look forward to growing alongside customers and devising solutions to the new challenges they face.

OpFocus partners with sales, marketing, and support teams in a broad range of verticals to implement new applications or build upon existing systems to better meet the needs and reach the goals of clients.

I also want to thank the fine folks at Marketo for their help and encouragement. Especially to Marketo master, Jep Castelein, for his advice over the past few months. And of course Heather Watkins and Liz Couter for their kindness and assistance. And to Rod Cherkas for his help and invitation to be a Certification Beta Tester. There are many more acknowledgements inside the Guide. Take a look because you might find a new employee or vendor to help you with your marketing operations.

More acknowledgements

• Ryan Vong, Marketo Consultant.
• Andrew Hull of Elixiter
• Robbie Mitchell, Marketo master.
• Sam Boush, President of Lead Lizard
• Nic Zangre and Jason Long at The Pedowitz Group
• Chris Hokannsson at OneRedBird
• Alexandre Pelletier

Purchase the Marketing Rockstar’s Guide to Marketo Now.

Buying the Guide FAQ:

1. Why should I buy the Guide? Didn’t I receive training from Marketo?

Sure, and the Marketo training was pretty good, right? Now that you have the basics down, what you need now is to know how to build workflows for your business. I show you how to develop static list generators, Segmentations, and even Nurturing flows.

2. Marketo Community works pretty well for me, why do I need your Guide?

I love the Marketo Community too. In fact, I’m one of the biggest users. While newer features tend to have detailed videos and instructions, other features do not. And you still need to sift through dozens of articles to find out how to do certain things. The Guide organizes the best of the documentation and discussions, topic by topic, to help you find what matters faster. The Guide also contains several key requests from users: Reference to SOAP API and the Complete Reference to Filters, Flows, and Triggers.

3. Whatever, my Marketo Admin will help.

Really? What if they aren’t around? Why not become a Marketo Admin yourself? There are several chapters dedicated to being an Admin, including Preparing for Integration, How to Administer Marketo, and Data Management. Help yourself and become a guru and get that raise now.

4. My business is so different from everyone else’s, so no Guide will help me.

Yep, no Guide will ever tell you how to perfectly manage Marketo for just your business. Only you can do that. What I do in the Marketing Rockstar’s Guide to Marketo is show you how you can leverage Marketo for your business. Yes, you will still have to do that hard thinking and the hard work of creating the right set of workflows and I make it easier by showing you how I did it and how others did it and even a few tricks that will certainly be relevant for you. Try it. There’s a 100% Money Back Guarantee.

5. I’m a Marketo Certified Expert, SFDC Admin, 65th Level Dark Mage. Been doing this since 2007. What can you possibly offer me?

First, that’s awesome! Why didn’t you contribute to the Guide?

Second, Reference Guide. This is the ultimate, on your desk or desktop Guide to Marketo. Thumb through it to find new ideas. Or use it for the helpful reference materials at the end of each chapter. One chapter alone will save you hours of searching and is easily worth $67: Filters, Flows and Triggers: the Complete Reference.

6. I bought the Guide and found it to be useless. Where’s my money?

I’m sorry to hear that. I provide a 100% Money Back Guarantee. If you’re not satisfied for any reason, just email me within 60 days of purchase at refunds [at ] marketingrockstarguides.com and I will refund your money in a day or two. Note: if you purchased the Print Guide, you must go through Amazon.com for your return. I cannot handle those returns.

7. Can I share the Guide with my entire team? It’s an easy to use PDF.

No. If you need multiple copies for your global (or not so global) marketing team, please purchase multiple copies. The purchase page provides an option for any number of licenses. You will still receive 1 download, but then you can send it out to the number of teammates you are licensed for. Let’s be honest here, your firm is paying for this and the cost is pretty minimal compared to the Marketo Summit, let alone what you pay Marketo each month. I’m sure you’d want your customers to do the same for you, so do the right thing by me too.

8. Can I use this Guide to study for Marketo Certification?

While this Guide is not endorsed by Marketo as a study Guide, I can tell you that about 80% of what’s on the test is in this Guide. (Look for yourself at the study topics). I used my own Guide to prepare for the test and found the only major topic not in the Guide is Using Marketo for PPC. Of course, that means you should study using all the materials available. Do not hold me responsible if you do not pass the Certification Exam because I cannot make any claims that it will definitely help you pass or not pass.

9. What about a Printed Guide?

This is not available. Design choices and the limitations of print on demand made it impossible to offer you a nice print version at a reasonable cost. You are welcome to print out a copy for yourself at your preferred copier.

Thanks for reading! I hope you are ready to purchase. If not, I understand. You aren’t ready to take action. If you have any questions, email me at marketo.guide {at} marketingrockstarguides.com. I’m here for you.

[4/11: updated to reflect regular pricing of $67]

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.