Improve Marketo Data Quality With M-Clean’s Deduplication and Standardization
Data is indispensable in today’s marketing landscape. And much like compounding interest, it keeps accumulating year-over-year. 90%[i] of the world’s data was created in the last two years.
Managing this growing data is a herculean task for any business. Adding to the complexity, there is a copious amount of bad data that further complicates your marketing.
If you use a marketing automation tool like Marketo, you already know how bad data can ruin your marketing efforts and incur significant expenses.
Among the variety of data issues, duplicate and inconsistent records, in particular, are the silent saboteurs of your campaigns. They not only dilute the effectiveness of targeted communication but also risk the credibility of your marketing strategy.
This article sheds light on the key issues of bad data in Marketo along with the ways and solutions to deal with it effectively.
Problems With Bad Data in Your Marketo Instance
In the realm of Marketo, precision is paramount. Unfortunately, bad data skews your meticulously crafted campaigns, thus, impacting your marketing performance.
Here are some of the real-world problems of bad data in your Marketo instance:
1. Increased Lead Cost
Bad data in Marketo can lead to inaccurate buyer personas and lead segmentation. As a result, you may end up spending more on advertising without reaching potential customers. It can also increase your follow-up cost on unqualified leads, while some potential leads slip through the cracks simultaneously.
2. No Real-Time Data Insights
Marketo relies on accurate data to trigger automated actions and workflows. Bad data can lead to errors in automation, causing delays and flawed insights. This undermines your marketing automation efficiency and makes it challenging to gauge its success accurately.
3. Poor Analytics and Reporting
Duplicate records in your Marketo instance can inflate the number of leads and interactions, leading to an overestimation of campaign effectiveness. Inconsistent information further fuels this analytics gap, making it difficult to get a comprehensive view of customer engagement.
4. Inconsistent Data Formats
Inconsistent data formats, such as variations in naming conventions or categorizations, can make lead segmentation difficult. Furthermore, inconsistent email addresses can hamper email deliverability as there are higher chances of your emails bouncing or ending up in spam.
5. Hinders Data Organization
Duplicate and inconsistent records not only take up valuable space in your database but are also cumbersome to manage and maintain. Sorting out this data requires additional time and resources, thus, decreasing your team’s productivity.
6. Higher Probability of Errors
Bad Marketo data compromises the integrity of your database. Executing campaigns using this data can lead to more potential errors and decreased trust in your marketing content.
How to Optimize and Ensure Your Marketo Database Hygiene
Now that you know the culprits as well as the consequences of bad data, let’s look at the ways to keep your database clean and healthy.
1. Marketo Data Deduplication
As a Marketo user, keeping duplicates at bay can be tricky. Direct manual entries, list uploads, and unregulated data are some of the ways duplicates creep into your system.
To deal with them, Marketo comes with an in-built feature to dedupe leads. Here are some tactics to make the most of it:
- Spot the Duplicates: Examine both lead records (original and duplicate) and discern the one with the most significant data to consolidate them accordingly. You can create a Smartlist in Marketo to determine the multiple records that share the same email address, in the Master Data Retention Program.
- Erase Inactive Contacts: Marketo limits inactivity filters to 90 days. Make sure to regularly check your inactive contacts and look for the ones that are not part of any marketing lifecycle. You can also examine them on other criteria specific to your business before hitting the delete button.
- Set up System Notifications: Use system alerts to stay proactive in your deduplication. For instance, if a contact with the same first and last name but a different email address comes up, you can be notified immediately to check and take action accordingly.
However, keep in mind that leads are deduped based on email addresses only when they come from Marketo Forms, List Import, or direct generation through APIs. Marketo does not let you configure or define your own deduplication criteria.
Moreover, it has certain conditions that must be considered, such as:
- The sales team may end up creating dupes as Marketo does not delete duplicates in CRM.
- You need to cleanse your database before implementing Marketo as it does not perform deduplication on existing records on the first sync.
- You cannot append records based on the oldest created date as Marketo only selects the most recently updated record to append.
How to Effectively Remove and Manage Duplicates From Marketo?
Managing and ensuring a healthy database in Marketo requires a solution that’s optimized for your business. You need the capability to configure your deduplication rules as per your requirements.
This can include but is not limited to:
- Ability to configure rules to identify winning record
- Select how data should be updated for different fields
- Dedupe using the Fuzzy Match Principle
- Configure field data like string, date & time to add existing or modified data
- Automatic merging of duplicates and removal of outdated records
2. Data Standardization
Besides duplicates, unstructured and inconsistent data is another issue that impacts your marketing efforts. Unstructured data can enter your database through subjective responses of prospects on a particular detail.
For instance,
Names – ABC, Abc, abc
Email Addresses – [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Country Names – U.S., US, or United States
Though all these variations could be correct, they introduce inconsistencies in your system. This causes confusion and adversely impacts your marketing workflows.
To ensure data uniformity, your preferred solution must have the capability to cleanse similar values automatically. For this, you need the data standardization functionality. This can help you with:
- Data Format Consistency: Data fields like name, address, and phone number follow a consistent pattern. For example, all phone numbers must be in the form of +1 (134) 466-8990 instead of 134-466-8990 or 1-134-466-8990.
- Similar Data Categorization: Similar data types are categorized in a set format. For example, various job titles (such as writer, editor, and designer) can be grouped under a specific job role field (creative team).
M-Clean: The Perfect Remedy to Your Data Problems
Having clean and reliable data is the foundation of effective marketing processes. And M-Clean might just be the solution you need to achieve this. It is a powerful dedupe tool by Grazitti Interactive that automatically merges your duplicate records in Marketo Engage and Salesforce/MS Dynamics.
Listed below are its key features that make it a good fit for your data deduplication and standardization:
1. Real-Time Duplicate Check
Detect duplicate leads and merge them with the new leads created in Marketo or CRM. Define dedupe criteria as per your requirements, such as the same email address with a different name and company name or the same email address with the same name but a different company name.
2. Custom Dedupe Rules
Configure rules to identify the winning record for merging and specify how data should be updated for different fields. Besides deduplication based on email, M-Clean also uses the fuzzy match principle where records are recognized on the basis of first name, last name, and firm name.
3. Configurable Field Settings
Set field data such as string, text, integer, date, and time, based on your unique business needs. Set configurations by selecting the desired fields and applying filters of append, prepend, oldest created, recently created, or recently modified.
4. Quick Set Up
Within minutes of installation, M-Clean can start identifying duplicates in your system. It can merge a substantial number of records instantly with a single click.
5. Live Dedupe Reports
Check the history of merged records at any moment, including how many duplicate records were discovered. Receive notifications and automate the merging of new duplicates.
6. Data Standardization
Automatically organize data sets in a consistent format, and group similar data types into a specified category. This helps remove unorganized data and establish a more logical and structured database.
How Does M-Clean Work?
Implementing M-Clean in Marketo helps you compare and combine records from Marketo and Salesforce/MS Dynamics for deduplication. Here’s a step-by-step process of how it works.
1. Configuration Steps
a. Register your account on M-Clean.
b. Configure your account by setting up dedupe rules.
c. Use Marketo REST API details to validate the configuration.
2. Webhook Setup in Marketo
a. Login to your Marketo account.
b. Go to Admin tab -> Webhooks link -> New Webhook
c. Login to your M-Clean account.
d. Go to My Account menu tab -> Click on “Install M-Clean Webhook.”
e. Copy details from there to create a new webhook.
3. Standardization Setup
a. Login into your M-Clean account and go to the Standardization tab.
b. Set aliases for the selected fields according to your requirements.
c. Set up webhook in Marketo and log in to your M-Clean account.
d. Go to the Standardization tab -> Click on “Install Standardization Webhook.”
e. Copy details from there to create a new webhook.
Achieving Data Excellence With M-Clean
M-Clean is a potent tool for any informed and smart marketer to introduce efficiency, organization, and hygiene in their data management.
Here are some key business benefits it brings to the table:
1. Cost-Effective
M-Clean helps you eliminate duplicates, and a database without duplicates can save money on CRM. It helps decrease your license cost as well as the money spent on distributing assets to each contact.
2. Brand Credibility
M-Clean helps ensure customer information is consistent and accurate all across. This fosters a seamless and reliable experience, thus, enhancing the brand’s credibility and trustworthiness.
3. Custom Solution
Above everything, M-Clean is customizable. It can be tailored to meet the unique requirements of any organization, company, or person. Depending on your usage and preference, you can opt for a one-time dedupe or real-time deduplication.
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