Decisions enable real-time evaluation of Marketo Leads and Contacts against Salesforce data. Each execution returns a result to a Marketo Custom Activity, allowing campaigns to immediately branch logic based on whether a matching Salesforce record exists.

Audience. This guide is for admins who manage Salesforce, Marketo, and their integration. All connections and Custom Activities are assumed to be preconfigured.

Page 1: Basic Configuration

Navigate to Decisions and click Add New Decision to start the Decision creation flow.

  • Decision Name — Use a descriptive name so admins can easily understand the purpose of the Decision when managing multiple configurations
  • Duplicate Rule — Determines how the system behaves when multiple records meet the matching criteria:
    • Import everything
    • Ignore all duplicates and do not import
    • Choose youngest record by last update date
    • Choose oldest record by creation date
  • Connections — Select the Source Connection and Table (commonly Marketo) and the Destination Connection and Table (commonly Salesforce). These selections define where the data originates and where the decision logic is applied

The selected duplicate rule directly impacts which record is evaluated and returned during execution. Click Next to continue.

Page 2: Decision Logic

Configure Mappings

Map source fields to decisioning fields. These mappings determine which fields are compared during execution (for example, Email to Email). Accurate mappings are essential to ensure correct match results.

Configure Decision Results

Select the Marketo Custom Activity that will receive the execution outcome. This enables Marketo campaigns to consume and act on the result.

Define Match Outcomes

After selecting a Custom Activity, configure both outcomes:

  • Match Found — Define a unique value to return or select an Action to trigger when a matching record is identified
  • Match Not Found — Define a different value or Action to trigger when no matching record is identified

These outcomes allow campaigns to clearly differentiate behavior based on the result.

Custom Activity Mapping

Map Decision outputs to Custom Activity fields so execution results are written back in a structured and usable format. Click Next to continue.

Page 3: Filters / Query

  • Click Add Filter
  • Select a Column, Operator, and Value

Filters define the conditions that must be met for a record to qualify as a match. If these conditions are not fulfilled, records may be skipped during execution. Click View Decision to proceed.

Review the Decision

On the View Decision page, review all configurations before activation. This page serves as a final validation step.

Expandable sections include:

  • Connections — Confirms source and destination setup
  • Mappings — Displays field and Custom Activity mappings
  • Query Details — Shows the filters used to make the decision
  • Decision Details — Displays execution history once the Decision runs, including execution time, campaign name, record counts, and status messages

Activate the Decision

After confirming that all configurations are correct, click Activate from the top-right corner. Activation makes the Decision available in the Marketo Campaign Canvas and enables real-time execution.

After Activation

Once active, execution results appear in the Decision Details section. Each run records whether processing succeeded or failed and includes system-generated messages.

Common execution messages. These are expected and provide visibility into how records were processed:
  • Duplicate records detected during execution
  • Missing values in unique identifier settings
  • Records skipped because decision conditions were not met