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nishanth27
Level 3
June 17, 2025
Solved

Email de-duping

  • June 17, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 1600 views

Hi folks,

 

I need a quick check on my understanding about email deduping. This issue came up because for an email we sent to a Prospect that is also a customer in a different Brand.

 

We are identifying both of these with a custom field called "Brand Comms owner" in smart list. 

 

How do I make sure that lists remain clean while sending emails.

 

Thanks in advance

 

 

Best answer by SanfordWhiteman

Hi Sanford,

 

We don't want a single record to receive two different email comms (messaging from two different brands - one of the brand is an acquisition of ours which uses HS/SF crm, we use Marketo/D365) so we need to find a way to suppress leads from one another so there is no overlap. But learned that from systems perspective, it would involve having to import the contacts we’d want to suppress it would become out of date on a day-to-day basis as leads move thru the funnel so there would always be overlap.  I’m unsure of what we’d need to automate something like this, or where it would live & how the systems handshake would look.

 

Thanks


 I’m unsure of what we’d need to automate something like this, or where it would live & how the systems handshake would look.

Well, there won’t be any direct communication between systems. It has to be mediated by either (a) an API gateway or (b) an true integration tier.

 

If your rate of change is low every day — let’s say you get <= 30,000 records on either side changing their stage/active brand daily — then you could use the API gateway, which is easier overall. In this case you’d set up Hubspot webhooks to the gateway where they get transformed into Marketo updates. And Marketo webhooks to the gateway where they transform into Hubspot updates.

 

If you have a bigger daily delta then you can’t just use the gateway to transform ’hooks. You need a more traditional integration that scans the changes regularly (probably not just once per day, since that makes it hard to reconcile which one’s interesting field/s changed most recently). Then it updates both sides using their APIs.

 

While neither is a truly big project, you need a developer or integration partner involved for either one. There’s no magic “drop in” solution here.

1 reply

SanfordWhiteman
SanfordWhiteman
Level 10
June 17, 2025

Please define in detail what you mean by "clean" here.

It's very easy to end up with multiple Marketo records with the same email address. (For the easiest example, if you change someone's email address in the Marketo UI, Marketo will never stop you from using an address that exists on another lead!)

How did you import/create the 2 leads in this specific case?

    N
    nishanth27Author
    Level 3
    June 17, 2025

    Hi Sanford,

     

    Thanks for responding.

     

    By clean I mean a lead should either be prospect or a customer, cannot be both since we have email messaging based on whether they are a prospect or a customer.

    Also I am sorry I missed to mention - When I say different brands, they use Hubspot. Their database is different I believe.

     

    It is my assumption that any list we create cannot be de-duped against the other brand correct? Since the databases are different

     

    Thanks

    SanfordWhiteman
    SanfordWhiteman
    Level 10
    June 17, 2025

    You mean “Can we stop a lead from being imported into Marketo if it exists in Hubspot?”

     

    Technically, no, you can’t stop the import completely. But you can check Hubspot via a webhook immediately after any record is created in Marketo and delete it immediately if it’s in Hubspot.

     

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