Managing Duplicate Prospects in Account Engagement (Pardot) and Salesforce

Duplicate prospects in Account Engagement (Pardot) can create various challenges, including incorrect email targeting, messy or inaccurate reporting, and synchronization issues with Salesforce. The worst-case scenario is when a duplicate fails to sync with Salesforce, preventing account-level fields from updating, which can lead to missed opportunities and customer misclassification.

In Salesforce, duplicate records undermine system credibility, making it difficult for users to find and update records accurately. Often, each duplicate represents an incomplete record, further exacerbating data quality issues.

Identifying Duplicate Issues

To determine the extent of a duplicate problem, an organization should review both Account Engagement and Salesforce.

Account Engagement

• Navigate to the Prospect tab and filter for All Mailable Prospects.
• Export the list to a spreadsheet.
• Highlight the email address column and use the Remove Duplicates function in Excel.
• This provides a quick snapshot of duplicate records in Account Engagement.

Salesforce

• Create a custom report type to identify duplicates.
• Salesforce offers built-in duplicate management tools, and additional resources, such as blogs from experts like Lucy Mazalon, outline how to build effective duplicate reports.

Preventing Duplicates

Account Engagement Salesforce Connector Setting

• Navigate to Account Engagement Settings > Connectors > Salesforce Connector > Edit.
• Enable “If records do not have a CRM ID to match when syncing, use email address to match” to reduce duplicate creation during prospect imports.

Duplicate Rules

• Implement matching and duplicate rules in Salesforce to prevent duplicate record creation.
• These rules ensure that new and updated records are screened for potential duplicates before saving.
• Salesforce Setup provides options for managing these rules, with Trailhead offering detailed guidance.
• A simple email-based matching rule is often sufficient for marketers to prevent duplicates without causing excessive sync errors.

Managing Duplicate Rules and Sync Errors

Duplicate rules improve data quality but may increase Account Engagement sync errors. Sync errors can disrupt lead management, campaign tracking, and marketing reporting.

Common Sync Errors: Deduplication

• Deduplication errors occur when Account Engagement attempts to add a prospect, but Salesforce’s matching rule prevents it due to an existing duplicate.
• This results in the prospect being stuck in Account Engagement without syncing to Salesforce.

Handling Deduplication Errors

• Some organizations allow an exception in their Salesforce Duplicate Rules for the connector user (including the b2bma integration user) to bypass duplication restrictions.
• While this approach ensures that all prospects sync, it still leaves duplicate records in Salesforce.

Merging Duplicate Records

Why Merging is Crucial

Merging duplicate records ensures that all related activities, such as email interactions and engagement history, are consolidated into a single prospect.

Lara Black, an Account Engagement expert, advises:

• If merging duplicate contacts, retain the one associated with an opportunity.
• If merging a duplicate lead and contact, convert the lead and merge it into the contact to ensure the prospect benefits from account-level fields indicating customer status or open opportunities.
• Avoid deleting duplicate Salesforce records—merging maintains historical data integrity.

Final Thoughts

Duplicate management in Account Engagement and Salesforce is essential for maintaining clean data, accurate reporting, and efficient campaign execution. Organizations should:

• Clearly define what qualifies as a duplicate.
• Utilize Salesforce duplicate rules effectively.
• Actively manage sync errors to ensure seamless data flow.
• Regularly merge duplicates to maintain system credibility.

While preventing duplicates entirely may not be possible, a structured approach ensures that organizations minimize disruptions and maintain high-quality marketing and sales data.

UPDATE:

In the Winter ’25 release a deduplication aid was added to Marketing Cloud Account Engagement! A new part of the Optimizer tool-the Account Engagement admin’s dashboard.

What is the Optimizer?

The Optimizer provides marketers with a big-picture view of their Account Engagement system’s health, helping improve email send times, speed up automation, and maintain overall performance.

It highlights critical clean-up recommendations while distinguishing lower-priority items, ensuring marketers know when to take action and when to relax.

Think of the Optimizer as the tuning tool that keeps your Account Engagement system running at peak efficiency—like a finely tuned race car engine.

---

Where is the Optimizer?

The Optimizer is available in all Account Engagement editions. To access it, navigate to Account Engagement Settings and click Optimizer.

Currently, the Optimizer is in BETA within Salesforce. BETA features may have limited support and are still evolving, so functionality may change over time.

---

Why Does the Optimizer Matter?

The Optimizer helps marketers:

• Speed up automation processing
• Improve email send times
• Maintain system responsiveness
• Reduce unnecessary clutter

A Real-World Example

I’ve seen accounts with thousands of dynamic lists and automation rules. Running a new dynamic list took 20 minutes to process, and even simple tasks like switching between screens became frustratingly slow. At one point, I even timed how long it took for the Prospect tab to reload!

You don’t want to end up in that situation.

The Optimizer provides actionable recommendations to help marketers proactively manage their business unit’s performance. Staying on top of these action items ensures faster email sends, smooth visitor tracking, and overall system efficiency.

---

How Does the Optimizer Work?

Once you open the Optimizer, you’ll see an overall status for your business unit. It will display one of three alerts:

• Looking Good – No immediate action needed.
• Pay Attention – Some items need review.
• Action Needed – Critical issues require immediate attention.

Each recommendation includes a direct link to the relevant section of Account Engagement, making it easy to take corrective action.

---

Table Action Manager

The Table Action Manager helps marketers pause and prioritize processing tasks to free up bandwidth for more urgent jobs.

For example, if you’re sending a high-priority email campaign, you can pause prospect imports to ensure your email send is processed first. When a task is paused, the system automatically reallocates resources to focus on active jobs.

---

Maintenance Resources

The Maintenance Resources section offers tools to help keep your system clean and efficient.

• Table Action Manager – Pause jobs and free up processing power.
• Inactive Automation Rules – Identify automation rules with no activity in the last 30 days.
• Inactive Dynamic Lists – Flag dynamic lists that haven’t added or removed prospects in 30+ days.
• Unused Dynamic Lists – Find dynamic lists that aren’t being used anywhere in your system.

---

Optimizer Status Breakdown

Looking Good

If your status is Looking Good, you have no urgent issues to address. You’ll still see links to maintenance resources to help with ongoing system improvements.

Pay Attention

A Pay Attention status means there are some areas that need review.

For example, you might see an alert about inactive Engagement Studio programs, meaning no new prospects have entered the program in 30+ days, or all prospects have reached the end nodes.

The Optimizer provides specific recommendations on what to do next—such as pausing or tweaking programs to prevent processing slowdowns.

Action Needed

An Action Needed alert means your system has several critical issues that could impact performance. Common triggers include:

• A high number of unarchived prospects
• Too many active automation rules and dynamic lists
• Data skew (too many prospects per account)

These issues can lead to major performance slowdowns, so immediate action is required. Marketers should follow the Optimizer’s recommendation column and use the provided links to start the cleanup process.

---

Managing Bot Activity

One common issue the Optimizer flags is “Prospects with bot-like behavior.”

Excessive activity from certain prospects can impact tracking accuracy. Account Engagement automatically pauses activity tracking for these prospects to protect system health. The Optimizer provides a list of flagged prospects so you can review and take action.

---

Convert Dynamic Lists to Static

A new Optimizer feature allows marketers to convert dynamic lists into static lists.

Since dynamic lists continuously update and consume system resources, converting unnecessary dynamic lists to static lists can significantly improve system performance without losing valuable data.

---

Final Thoughts

The Optimizer isn’t just a passive reporting tool—it’s an active performance booster for your Account Engagement system. By regularly checking and acting on its recommendations, marketers can prevent performance slowdowns, improve email send times, and keep their automation workflows running smoothly.

Take control of your system’s health today—because a well-optimized Account Engagement instance means faster, more effective marketing!

Content updated March 2025.