Avoiding duplicates leads when syncing to Salesforce

If you create a new lead in Salesforce that already exists in Marketo, it will create a duplicate lead in Marketo.  Why not delete the leads in Salesforce and synch the ones in Marketo to Salesforce?

Thanks for your help Elliott!

A few follow-up questions:

• So, if I re-enable my sync with Salesforce, will all the leads I have in Salesforce be added to Marketo again?

So my steps are:

• Delete all Salesforce leads
• Select which Marketo leads to sync w/ Salesforce
• Add all relevant Marketo leads to a list
• Enable sync w/ Salesforce
• Create a smart campaign that syncs the leads in that paricular leads with Salesforce

Does that sound right? 

That sounds like it would work.

Just remember that Marketo only dedupes when you insert leads direclty to Marketo (list import, form fill out, etc).

Thanks Joshua H!

Thanks for confirming those are the correct steps Joshua - I was in transit and couldn't respond.

A couple more things to consider before you take this approach.

Are all of the records you are deleing in SFDC, Leads?  If so, you will lose any related lists associated with each Lead (e.g. Tasks, Activity History) that exist on your Salesforce leads.  If there are SFDC Contacts, I would not take this approach as all the leads in Marketo will synch back as SFDC Leads.

How did your 10K leads that are in SFDC get into Marketo?  If they were initially synched from SFDC, they you should have the Activity History synched into the Marketo leads.  Otherwise, you will not have this history anywhere.

• Yes, all the records are leads, but we don't have lists yet, so that shouldn't be a problem.
• I had 40K in Marketo and I added 10K of those to SFDC a week ago (via lead import). Then I ran the sync and that 10K was added back to Marketo as duplicates. Rookie mistake, I know.

Anything else I should know?

P.S. Thanks a ton.

Nothing else.  You can move forward.