Manage leads, contacts, and accounts
Entity relationships and marketing use
Candidates must understand how leads, contacts, and accounts relate and how marketing uses each. Leads are unqualified prospects; contacts are individuals tied to accounts; accounts are organizations. Know the lead-to-contact/account qualification process and that marketing interactions (form submissions, email clicks, event registrations) attach to these records.
Understand lead scoring models: demographic and behavioral scoring, score thresholds, and how scores drive qualification or journey entry. Know customer profiles and how interaction data enriches them. Also understand data hygiene concepts - duplicate detection, merge, and how duplicates affect segmentation and journeys.
Traps to watch for
- Assuming marketing interactions only attach to contacts; leads can also carry interactions before qualification.
- Confusing lead scoring (model-based) with segment rules (query-based).
- Forgetting that duplicate records can cause duplicate sends or inflated segment counts.
- Mixing up account-level and contact-level targeting in journeys.
Rule of thumb
Map every marketing action to the record it enriches: forms and events often create or update leads, while email engagement attaches to contacts. When a question involves qualification, check the lead scoring threshold and the qualification path.
Worked example
A journey is designed to email contacts after a form submission, but submissions from new visitors create leads, not contacts. The journey never triggers for them because they are not yet contacts. The fix is to either target leads in the journey or qualify leads to contacts first.