Convert lets you compare and convert leads to existing contacts and accounts in your CRM.
Starting a Convert Scenario
To begin a new scenario, select Convert from the module list on your Dashboard.
To start from an existing scenario, select a Convert scenario from My Scenarios on your Dashboard. Your object and record selection criteria will already be set for you. You can keep all settings or change them as you go.
Step 1: Select Records
Choose your source under Select Lead Source.
- CRM Lead Records: This will allow you to query on all or a subset of lead records (see details on using Record Selection criteria below).
- Marketing Campaign: This option allows you to easily convert leads from a specific CRM Marketing Campaign.
- Convert File: This option allows you to upload a file of leads to compare against existing contacts and accounts in your CRM.
If you choose Convert File for your lead source:
- A Select Convert File button will appear for you to upload your source file.
- A section called Map ID Field will appear so you can map your source ID field to your CRM Lead record ID field for record identification and comparison.
In the Record Selection Criteria section, choose Add Selection Condition to narrow down the accounts from your CRM included in your search. Learn more about Record Selection Criteria.
- In this example, set Billing City to start with P.
For each selection condition, choose whether to compare it to Contacts, Accounts, or both.
- If you check both, it will look at both, but it will match to a contact OR an account—you don’t have to match to both a contact AND an account on a single lead.
- If you check no boxes, the module will convert without comparing first.
Fields to Show on Preview is an optional menu that lets you select the fields shown on your results page in step 3. If you don't use this menu, your results will include a subset of fields related to the object you selected, record criteria, and match conditions.
To move to step 2, choose Match Conditions.
Step 2: Match Conditions
In this step, you define what you consider to be matched records. Depending on the options you checked in step 1, you may have tabs for Contacts, Accounts, and If No Match. Make sure to set your match conditions for each tab.
For the Contacts and Accounts tabs:
You can optionally name each match step by selecting the pencil icon beside the current name (Match Step 1 created on date and time).
Under the Matching Lead Field and Matching Contact/Account Field dropdown menus, select the fields you want to match on.
- Matching Lead Field or Import File Field: field in the lead source you want to match on
- Matching Contact/Account Field: field in your CRM you want to match on
Select your Comparison Type next, whether exact or more relaxed. Learn more about comparison types.
Four checkboxes let you adjust the logic for your search.
- Blank Values: Look for positive matches even when field values are blank for a given field. Please note that at least one field must have a non-blank match for a positive match to occur.
- Fuzzy Matching: Analyze words based on their phonetic value, removing vowels and analyzing the remaining consonants.
- Transposed Values: Analyze field values by reordering multiple words within each field value.
- Alpha Clean: Analyze field values by using only characters that are one of the 26 characters of the English alphabet, numbers 0-9, space, and ampersand.
You can continue to narrow down and refine your matches by adding more fields or adding match steps. To add more fields, select + Add another condition field. To add a match step, select Add Match Step.
- Matching on multiple fields acts as an AND operation.
- For example, if you define three field names, a record must match on all three fields to be considered a match.
- Adding a match step acts as an OR operation.
- For example, you can match on more exact criteria in earlier steps and move to looser criteria in later steps. This feature helps you catch more potential matches.
You can also copy match steps, making it easy to create a series of steps with small differences. Under the Match Steps column on the left, find the step you want to copy and select the three vertical dots on the right side of the label, then select Copy. A duplicate step will be created named "COPY created on [date-time stamp]." Rename your step appropriately.
To reorder your match steps, drag and drop the labels into the desired order.
Step Settings include multiple matches and lead status.
- Multiple Matches: If the Convert module finds multiple matches, you can tell it which record to use. (You can exclude individual records from this rule in the next step.) Options include:
- Oldest Record (by creation date)
- Newest Record (by creation date)
- Last Modified Record
- Active Owner: The owner currently assigned to the record.
- Lead Status: You can set your status according to your organization’s CRM rules.
- Overwrite Lead Source: Overwrites the previous lead status on the matching contact with the current status from the lead.
To define optional settings for ownership, opportunity, and notifications, select Additional Settings.
- Ownership: Set the new contact owner (for Account) and ownership override (for Contact and Account).
- You can choose to override the ownership rule if the contact is inactive or in queue.
- Account Owner: Use the account owner as the contact owner.
- Current User: Set yourself as the owner of the contact.
- Custom Owner: Select an owner from the dropdown menu.
- For Account only, you can also set the new contact owner.
- Lead Owner: Use the lead owner as the contact owner.
- Account Owner: Use the account owner as the contact owner.
- Custom Owner: Select an owner from the dropdown menu.
- You can choose to override the ownership rule if the contact is inactive or in queue.
- Opportunity: You can check the box for Create a New Opportunity to create an opportunity for the contact in your CRM. From here, you can name the opportunity, append the company name, select the opportunity stage, and set the owner and close date.
- Notifications: You can choose to create an email for the contact owner and/or create a task in your CRM.
- If you choose Create Task, you must select whether to link to an account or an opportunity, notify either the contact owner or a custom owner for the task, and set the subject, due date, status, priority, and description of the task.
For the If No Match tab, specify what to do with leads that did not match any existing contacts or accounts. You can leave them as leads without converting, or you can create a new contact and/or account for them in your CRM.
- If you create a new contact or account, you can choose to limit new Account duplicates by field. This means that if a lead is new, but it will associate to an existing account, you can add that lead as a contact to that existing account rather than creating a new (duplicate) account.
- After selecting Create a new contact/account, set your match steps as described above.
To move to step 3, select Find Matches >.
- As Match prepares your results, you can see how many records are being processed. If the results set is too large, you can cancel, then go back and narrow your search further.
- Moving to step 3 does not commit changes.
Step 3: Results
In this step, you can review which records matched and what they matched on, view individual records in your CRM, and export your data.
Your results are presented in a tab view that shows you the different overlaps between your import file and your CRM.
- Total Results (default tab): Displays all records.
- Single Record Matches: Displays only import file field records that matched to one CRM record, regardless of match step.
- Multiple Record Matches: Displays import file field records that matched to more than one CRM record.
- No CRM Record Matches: Displays only import file field records that did not match to a CRM record.
Each tab contains your import file fields, match criteria, and CRM record information. You can expand and collapse the right carat > beside any label to see all fields in the record.
- Leads: The lead records matched on.
- View in CRM: A link for each record that takes you out of DemandTools to that specific record in your CRM.
- Match Criteria: The matched records from your lead source, grouped by step.
- Matches: Shows the number of matches.
- Step: Shows the step number, with an expandable menu (triangular lines icon) allowing you to filter by step.
- Object: Contact or Account.
- Condition Name: The condition matched on.
- Contacts: The contacts in your CRM that matched based on the criteria selected in your match steps, plus the fields they matched on.
- Accounts: The accounts in your CRM that matched based on the criteria selected in your match steps, plus the fields they matched on.
If you have a match step with many matches, that step likely employs looser criteria. As stated in step 2, looser criteria will tend to generate more matches but may not be narrow enough to get you the matches you want. More rigid criteria can often generate higher quality matches but may miss some.
You can sort by any column by selecting the label for that column. Right-clicking on any field will allow you to copy the field, with or without headers, to your clipboard. Under the Match Criteria section, the Step and Object column labels feature small menu icons to the right of each label. These menus allow you to filter your results preview by step or by object.
- Filtering does not affect which records are processed. However, you can use filtering to help you make decisions about which records to import. For example, you can filter by a match step based on looser criteria and decide whether the results should be included. If not, you can uncheck some or all, and those records will not be included in the final import.
- The step filter gives you more information about each match step.
- Say, for example, that you have four match steps: two Lead steps, a Contact step, and an Account step.
- Under the Step column, you will see 1, 2, 3, 4, or Final Match.
- When you open the filter menu, you will see Lead - Step 1; Lead - Step 2; Contact - Step 1; and Account - Step 1 for the numbered steps. The additional detail helps you choose the step you want to use for filtering.
Step number Step filter 1 Lead - Step 1 2 Lead - Step 2 3 Contact - Step 1 4 Account - Step 1
- The object filter lists the CRM objects selected for matching, in the order selected.
Select the checkbox beside each lead you want to convert, or select the checkbox at the top of the column to choose all leads.
To finish, select Convert [x] Leads. The Convert module will note how many contacts and accounts you are creating.
If you want to re-run or schedule this scenario again in the future, open the Scenarios bar slider and select Save As, then name your scenario and select Save.