Marketo Connector Setup Guide
This article describes how to set up Marketo under your Customer Data Hub account.
Marketo gives sophisticated marketers the ability to automate aspects of their marketing efforts, generate leads, measure and optimize ROI, and much more.
Connector actions
Action Name | AudienceStream | EventStream |
---|---|---|
Add Lead to List | ✓ | ✗ |
Remove Lead from a List | ✓ | ✗ |
Send Transactional Email | ✓ | ✗ |
Create or Update a Lead | ✓ | ✗ |
Merge a Lead | ✓ | ✗ |
Requirements
- REST API, Client ID
- REST API, Client Secret
- REST API, Complete REST endpoint URL
- REST API, Complete Identity endpoint URL
Configure settings
Navigate to the Connector Marketplace and add a new connector. For general instructions on how to add a connector, see the About Connectors article.
To configure your connector, follow these steps:
-
In the Configure tab, provide a title for the connector instance.
-
Enter the REST API details provided by Marketo.
-
Provide additional notes about your implementation, if desired.
Action settings — parameters and options
Action — Add Lead to List
Parameters
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
Target Static List | (Required): Select list. |
Target Lead ID | If the Lead ID for the user is known, leave the Lead ID Lookup field blank and use this field instead. |
Lead ID in Lookup | If the Lead ID for the user is unknown, leave the Target Lead ID field blank, and use this field to search for the Lead ID with a variety of filters. |
Action — Remove Lead from a List
Parameters
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
Remove Lead from a List | (Required): Select list. |
Target Lead ID | If the Lead ID for the user is known, leave the Lead ID Lookup field blank and use this field instead. |
Lead ID Lookup | If the Lead ID for the user is unknown, leave the Target Lead ID field blank, and use this field to search for the Lead ID with a variety of filters. |
Action — Send Transactional Email
Parameters
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
Target Email Campaign | Select the Target Smart Campaign that was created according to:Sending a transactional email from Marketo using the API. |
Target Lead ID | (Required): Provide target lead ID. |
Token Data to Set | Map token value to token name. Use the full token format as in the Marketo UI. For example: {{ my.message }} |
Action — Create or Update a Lead
Parameters
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
Update Strategy | (Required): Select an update strategy: Create Only, Update Only, Create or Update, or Create Duplicate |
Lead Lookup Filter | Select filter field by which to look up existing lead. Selected lookup filter field must have value set in Lead Data section. |
Lead Data to Set | (Required): Map values to lead property names. Date attributes are automatically formatted to ISO 8601 format. |
Action — Merge a Lead
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
General Data to Set | Required: Winning Lead ID and Losing Lead ID. |
Merge in CRM | Yes or no. |
Example use case
In this example, you’ll be using the Marketo connector to create and push a new lead into our lead database. More specifically, you’ll be making those who join our “Shoe Fans” audience into leads.
Step 1: Define attributes and audience conditions.
Create a new Visitor ID attribute to store the user’s email address. It will be the unique value associated with the lead.
Although it is possible to create a lead solely from an email address, it would best to capture more information to associate with the lead. In Step 6, we will be passing this “Visitor Email” visitor ID attribute along with three trait attributes for first name, last name, and company.

Then create a new audience titled “Shoe Fans” and set up logic so that all visitors with the “Shoe Fan Badge”, and a true “Known User” flag attribute will be added to the audience.
The “Known User” flag was created to determine whether or not we know who the user is. If there is an email address associated with user, it is set to true. If no email address, it is set to false. It is a necessary condition because we cannot convert a site user into a lead if we do not know who they are.

Step 2: Log in to the Marketo Dashboard.
Step 3: Create a “Custom Service”.
A custom service allows users to describe and define what data their client application can access. Before the application can be used, a Marketo Admin must associate it with a single API-only user with the ability to read, write, and merge leads, as well as being able to read, and execute campaigns.
You will need to obtain the:
- REST API, Client ID
- REST API, Client Secret
- REST API, Complete REST endpoint URL
- REST API, Complete Identity endpoint URL
To learn how to create a Custom Service, see Marketo’s Custom Services documentation.
Step 4: Add the Marketo Connector in AudienceStream.
Navigate to the Act tab, then click onto Connectors. Next, click the + Add Connector button to select from a list of available connectors. Click onto Marketo, then click the + Add Connector button once more.

Step 5: Input Values
You should now have obtained all the information needed to properly set up your connector. Navigate the the Configure tab of your connector window to copy and paste the values obtained from Step 3, along with your title and any relevant notes. Then click Next.

Step 6: Configure Actions
It’s this window where we’ll actually give the connector instructions on what to do. In the Actions dropdown, select the Create or Update a Lead option. Then select the Shoes Fans audience, Create Only for our Update Strategy and Email for our Lead Lookup Filter.
Since a lead is only as good as the information associated with it, we will need to map the appropriate data and values. Under Lead Data to Set we will select the attribute created in Step 1 along with any others, and map them to their corresponding values.

Step 7: Test/ Trace Configuration
We’ve just finished setting up our configuration. Now, we need to check to make sure we did it properly. The best way to go about testing is to run a trace to make sure your events are handled properly, and to check your Marketo dashboard to make sure your lead was created with the proper information.

The image above shows three main things:
- The audience was joined. (“Shoe Fans”)
- The action was triggered. (“Marketo- Create leads”)
- The action was processed successfully. ( “1 action processed/ 0 actions failed”)

Step 8: Verify in Marketo

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This page was last updated: January 23, 2020