Knowing your Marketo Fields

A healthy database is the key to your all Marketing initiative, planing and executions. Until you know what all fields are available to you and how you can utilize those, you will not be able to make most out of it. In this Blog, I’m going to explain the different categories, types and limitations of the fields available in a Marketo Database.

Types of Fields:

Let’s take a look on the different categories of the fields available in Marketo:

1. Marketo Standard fields: These are the fields that come out of the box with a new Marketo instance. You can find a list of all standard fields here: https://developers.marketo.com/rest-api/lead-database/fields/list-of-standard-fields/
2. System Managed fields: You might have noticed that on lead details page, there are some non-editable fields. These are also Marketo standard fields but these fields are being managed by Marketo back-end system. You can not update/edit these fields by any means. You can find a list of these fields here: https://docs.marketo.com/display/public/DOCS/Understanding+System+Managed+Fields
3. Custom fields: If you need to store additional information in Marketo and that doesn’t fit into the standard set of fields, you can create custom fields directly in Marketo. Don’t know how to create custom fields in Marketo? check it out here: https://docs.marketo.com/display/public/DOCS/Create+a+Custom+Field+in+Marketo
   
   
4. Fields Synced from CRM: These are the fields which were created as a result of the CRM sync. (I’ll be referring SFDC as CRM in this document.)

Field Data Types:

Data Type is a particular kind of data item, as defined by the values it can take or the operations that can be performed on it. For example, number, string, char etc. We can do arithmetic operations on number not on string.

Like any other database system, Marketo also have defined data types for the field creation as below:

Field Type	Description	Example
Datetime	Used for inputting a date & time. Follows W3C format (ISO 8601). The best practice is to always include the time zone offset. Complete date plus hours and minutes: YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssTZD where TZD is “+hh:mm” or “-hh:mm” Note: Some Asset APIs return “Z+0000” as TZD for updatedAt and createdAt.	2010-05-07T15:41:32-05:00
Email	A string type field which accepts email addresses	example@example.com
Float	A number field which contains of Real Numbers and can use a decimal place.	10.4
Integer	Whole numbers	10
Formula	Fields whose values are generated by manipulating data from other fields present on a lead record. They are not exported and can not be used in a Smart Campaigns.	Please see this article on docs.marketo.com
Percent	A percentage expressed as an integer	30
URL	A text type field which restricts input to URLs, including the protocol of the URL.	http://example.com/
Phone	Phone number	111-111-1111
Textarea	Longer text.	Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
String	Shorter text (up to 255 characters)	Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
Score	An integer type field which can be manipulated with the Change Score flow step	10
Boolean(previously Checkbox)	Allows users to select a True (checked) or False (unchecked) value. Default Value is FALSE.	True
Currency	A float type field which represents the default currency type selected for the Marketo Subscription	10.40
Date	Used for date. Follows W3C format.	2010-05-07
Reference	A string type field containing a key to another record (a foreign key).	Contact Company

Data type limitation:

Along with restricted data types, Marketo also have defined certain limit for each data type. This limit defines the amount of data, a particular type of field can hold.

Field Type	Limitation
Boolean	It can only be set to “true” or “false” (stored in the database as 1 or 0).
Currency	Maximum value of 9223370000000000000. The currency will be displayed based on the location set in your Admin->location.
Date	Must be formatted “MM/DD/YYYY”.
Datetime	Must be formatted “MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM:SS”.
Email	Must be a properly formatted email (user@example.com).
Float	Can include decimals up to the hundredths place.  The value will round to the nearest hundredth (eg. 99.999 rounds to 100, 99.985 rounds to 99.99).  Maximum value of 10000000000.
Formula	See this guide: Create and Use a Concatenated String (Formula) Field – Marketo Docs – Product Documentation
Integer	Values are limited to between -2147483647 to 2147483647.
Percent	Must be a full number without decimals.  Maximum value of 9223370000000000000.
Phone	Can have letters, numbers, or characters.  Maximum of 2,000 characters.
Score	Maximum score of 9223372036854775807.  If the score is increased higher than that, the score will reset to -9223372036854775808.
String	Can contain letters, numbers and special characters. Limit of 255 total characters
Text Area	Can contain letters, numbers and special characters. Limit of 65,535 total characters
URL	“http://” will automatically be appended to the value if the value doesn’t have that prefix or “https://” already.  Does not have to be formatted any further (Generic top-level domain not required).