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PhillipWi1
Level 9
July 5, 2018
Question

Bulk updates with duplicate leads

  • July 5, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 2458 views

Hi everyone

I want to update a large number of leads in our database - filling in a value in a field. That field could be one of 5 values.

What determines the field is another field that has one of 1,000 values. So think of something like this:

​

AgencyGroup
King StA
Queen StB
John StA
Eagle StE
Trust StD

"Agency" could be one of 1,000 values, give or take. So we need to look at the value in that field, and put the corresponding value in the field "Group". This would be simple with a list import - but we have many, many duplicates. In some cases there could be 200 profiles with the same email address. It's unfortunately not something I can fix - some agencies use the same email address for multiple salespeople. Since a list import will only match with one record (as far as I know) this means that only the first record would be updated, whereas I want EVERY matching record to be updated.

Normally I would do this via a smart campaign but since "Agency" could have one of 1,000 values, it's not viable using choice steps. Any ideas?

I think it has to be custom code via the Marketo API but I'd like to make sure there's not something I'm missing first. Thanks!

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2 replies

Josh_Hill13
Josh_Hill13
Level 10
July 5, 2018

API would be ideal.


If you can export Marketo ID or SFDC ID, you can leverage the API to match on a specific record, which the List Import won't do.

So you could run an Excel sheet match, then push back the exact update via Talend+API.

Takes time, but doable.

SanfordWhiteman
SanfordWhiteman
Level 10
July 5, 2018

A webhook could do this mighty easily: 'hooks run in the context of a single lead, so duplicates are never a problem. Store the Agency-to-Group mapping in a text file in Design Studio (1000 lines is child's play).  Pass the Agency field, read the file to get the Group, pass back the Group.  A very familiar pattern!

P
PhillipWi1Author
Level 9
July 5, 2018

Thanks Josh and Sanford!

Whoah, I think my mind was just blown a little bit. Sanford, does that mean you can host a .txt file in Design Studio, link to it in a webhook call, and return a value? Could you let me know exactly how this work? That sounds like something that's pretty repeatable, which would be fantastic....otherwise I have to host the Python script for the API calls somewhere, rather than simply triggering Marketo smart campaigns with the webhooks.

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