SFDC Campaigns Sync - Benefits and Pitfalls | Community
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R
rachazen
Level 6
January 4, 2016
Question

SFDC Campaigns Sync - Benefits and Pitfalls

  • January 4, 2016
  • 4 replies
  • 5944 views

Our Marketo instance is synced with SFDC and I am developing our events strategy. This includes syncing our Marketo programs with SFDC campaigns. I have everything connected, but I have not set up a SFDC Campaign Sync with a program because I'm nervous that I will see un-anticipated consequences. Up until now, I've been running my SFDC campaigns with smart campaigns; AKA, every time someone registers for the event, I then change their status in Marketo and have a flow step that also changes their status in the SFDC campaign.

I'd like to make this process as clean on myself as possible, and I've read through the documentation in the Marketo Products Doc pages, but I wanted to turn to the community to see if anybody here has insight they can share with me about what worked/didn't work for them and how they are using SFDC Campaign Sync.

Any insight or thoughts would be helpful. I'm very interested to hear from people!

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    4 replies

    Grégoire_Miche2
    Grégoire_Miche2
    Level 10
    January 5, 2016

    Hi Rachel,

    There are a lot of advantages to sync programs with SFDC campaigns, one of them being that Marketo will do the job of keeping member statuses in sync, as well as success info (responses in SFDC), with no effort on your side, and little risk of forgetting.

    The main drawback is that Marketo will push all program members to SFDC. If some of them are not ready to be transferred to telemarketing or sales, you need to make sure that you have all the necessary mechanisms in place in SFDC to assign leads to queues and "hide" them from the sales.

    -Greg

      R
      rachazenAuthor
      Level 6
      January 6, 2016

      That makes sense. The solution for us might be to only use the full capabilities of Campaign Sync if most of the people are ready to be synced with SFDC. Otherwise, we can set up Smart Campaign flow steps in Marketo to only sync over the people who are already in SFDC.

      I guess the other way to think about it would be that if they attend one of our events and engage with us there, they are probably more open to speaking with one of our sellers (or Inside Sales team) and that it's not a huge deal for them to be handed off at that time anyway.

      A
      Anonymous
      January 5, 2016

      I'll explain one of my pitfalls that relates to Primary Campaign Source. When it comes to events, I'm a bit weary of the Campaign/Program sync. If we need to add people as Invited for email sends, then I don't want the Program to sync to Campaigns. The biggest reason is that they really aren't engaged in that Campaign and it can mess up my Opportunity reporting. The example I can give is our user conference. It's a year-long Program with over 70K invitees, so if we add them to the Campaign via sync, suddenly Primary Campaign Source is filled in for every opportunity with a Campaign that doesn't technically happen until next Fall.

      We also don't use the program/campaign sync if there's a possibility of more than one SFDC Campaign for that program (which is often the case for content syndication and online advertising).

      For Programs such as webinars the sync works fantastic.

        R
        rachazenAuthor
        Level 6
        January 6, 2016

        Yeah, that's one of the main things i'm concerned about.

        For the Opportunity reporting, is it possible to block the "primary campaign source" from filling out for people who are at a certain member status? For example, if we send the invite, they are marked as "invited" in their member status. Then, when they RSVP Yes, their member status is updated to "RSVP'd Yes" and the Primary Campaign Source field can be filled in.

        Next, can you give me an example of how you organize your Programs and SFDC Campaigns so that you have more than one campaign per program? Just trying to figure out the best way for us to organize ours as this is the first time we are implementing this strategy and I want to make sure we get it right

        Finally, what do you do when an event is over? This is what I was thinking of doing: let's say we invite 250 people, receive 100 RSVPs, then 75 of them actually show up. I would then create a new campaign with only those 75 people so that it tracks their opportunities properly (although I'm not sure that it will...) Then I will delete the old campaign so that it's not tracking anything on the opportunities for the other 175 who didn't end up attending. I'm just not sure if that would work properly or what issues I'm not seeing if I do it that way.

        A
        Anonymous
        January 7, 2016

        I have yet to find a workaround for the Primary Campaign Source as it's a standard SFDC functionality and hasn't been updated in years. It's possible there will be some workarounds with Process Builder but I haven't had any luck so far

        I have the team set up their SFDC Campaigns first as it's how we track against our plan. Usually I ask for these to be set up the beginning of each quarter. Then programs are built out second. We organize our programs into regional "Active" folders so we know if there's a program we can reuse for advertising, but most programs are cloned from the Master Program Templates into the regional "Active" folder.

        When an event is over we update the Attended/Visited Booth/Hot Leads and then from there the automated follow up actions take place. I would almost never delete a campaign as it's storing those records with time stamped information. Plus, it can be useful to have an SDR follow up on the tradeshow attendees that didn't stop by, and the Campaign Member Status gives you a quick way to build a list view.

          R
          rachazenAuthor
          Level 6
          March 23, 2016

          I'm also wondering: if I change the SFDC Campaign name in SFDC, will it break anything in Marketo? Will it still maintain the same link regardless of SDFC Campaign name?

          I'm assuming the link is based on the SFDC Campaign ID and not the name, but I just want to make sure before I do it.

          Grégoire_Miche2
          Grégoire_Miche2
          Level 10
          March 23, 2016

          Hi Rachel,

          AFAIK, you can change the campaign name afterwards without any problem. I have done it already, no issue detected.

          -Greg

            R
            rachazenAuthor
            Level 6
            March 24, 2016

            Thanks Greg! Didn't want to try it and have it break on me I appreciate the insight!

            A
            Anonymous
            May 5, 2016

            I have a similar problem, but my campaign members are not being Synced to SFDC until days/weeks later. This is problematic, because I need to capture "responded" triggers within minutes. When a lead responds and completes an action, they become a contact, which is not visible in our Marketo instance. How can I speed up the sync for this particular action?

            Grégoire_Miche2
            Grégoire_Miche2
            Level 10
            May 5, 2016

            Hi Todd Baker,

            Are the leads already in SFDC and are you just trying to get the campaign membership? Are you using a sync'ed program or some "add to SFDC campaign" flow steps?

            -Greg

            A
            Anonymous
            May 5, 2016

            Yes, they are already in SF, I am adding them to a campaign through the sync, prior to scheduling the campaign, but will need to create batches for past campaigns once I get this ironed out.

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