Mastering Marketo's Merge Functionality: Caveats, Must-Knows, and Exceptions

Marketo offers an out-of-the-box merge feature that allows users to merge records and maintain a clean database without duplicates. To merge records from the Marketo GUI, simply select the desired person records and click on the Person Actions dropdown » Merge People.

A merge dialog box will appear, allowing you to select the winning record and choose which field values to retain in case of conflicts. By default, Marketo selects the last updated record as the winner, and its values take precedence after the merge.

This applies to system fields as well. For instance, the resulting record will have the 'Created At' datetime value from the winning record rather than the earliest datetime from all the records.

Now, let’s come to the meat of the post and discuss some deviations and exceptions:

1. When merging a CRM lead with a CRM contact record, the CRM contact record always becomes the winning record.

2. When merging a CRM contact or lead record (i.e., a CRM-synced record) with a Marketo-only record(s), the CRM-synced record always takes precedence.

These deviations hold true regardless of the winning record selected during the merge. The record with a higher order always persists. Marketo respects the end user's selection of the winning record only when all the records are at the same level or order (e.g., contact-contact, lead-lead, etc.).

It's important to note that the same logic applies when merging records using Marketo's merge leads API and plug-and-play platforms for automated duplicate record merging as well. FWIW, these third-party platforms leverage Marketo's merge API internally for merging records.

If you have any questions, feel free to comment below, and I'll make sure to respond ASAP.

Happy Marketo'ing!