Lead Management and Data Hygiene
Core concepts
Data hygiene questions test deduplication logic, normalization, and field governance. Understand that Marketo dedupes on a configurable duplicate rule (default: email address), and that person partitions can allow the same email to exist in different partitions. Know system-managed fields (created date, acquisition info, inferred fields, score fields) versus custom fields, and how field types affect behavior (string vs. picklist vs. score vs. date).
Traps
- Believing you can delete a person - you can only delete from the database in limited cases; usually you anonymize or mark as unsubscribed/blocklisted.
- Assuming merging keeps all field values - merge keeps the surviving record's values except where the loser has data and the winner is blank (behavior depends on merge rules).
- Forgetting blocklisting vs. unsubscribing vs. marketing suspended: blocklist prevents all communications and form fills; unsubscribe is channel-specific; marketing suspended stops marketing emails but allows operational.
- Confusing standardization (format normalization) with deduplication (record merging).
Rule of thumb
If a question asks how to prevent bad data, the answer is usually a form field validation, smart campaign filter/trigger, or import mapping with standardization - not manual cleanup.
Worked example
Two records share an email; one has a phone number, the other a title. Merging keeps the surviving record and pulls in non-blank values from the loser per merge rules. Verify field priority before merging - merging is not fully reversible.