Marketo Connector

The Marketo Connector can extract and upload data from standard Marketo objects with both standard and custom columns. Custom objects cannot be extracted from Marketo.

The Marketo Connector provides two different ways to access objects: either using the SOAP API or the REST API. The differences are described in this topic and in the steps for extraction.

Tips:

  • The Marketo documentation suggests that you use the REST APIs instead of SOAP APIs. See Marketo REST vs SOAP APIs FAQ.
  • In general, the REST interface provides better performance. If you need to extract objects using both APIs, you can use two different connections. For example, one connection would use the REST API to extract an object, and the other connection would use SOAP to extract another object.
  • A performance issue may occur when extracting data for an object containing a large number of columns, such as Lead. Birst recommends that you select only the columns you require for reporting, and to use small intervals.

Implementation and Usage Notes for the REST API

  • The REST API supports the following objects:
    • Activity
    • Campaign
    • Email
    • Lead
    • Program
  • To access Marketo using the REST API, create a user in Marketo with the REST API user role enabled. Use this account to connect with Birst by providing the Endpoint, Client ID, and Client Secret. See the Marketo documentation for details.
  • Incremental extracts are not supported using the REST API.

Implementation and Usage Notes for the SOAP API

  • The Marketo Connector supports Marketo SOAP API 2.9.
  • The SOAP API supports the following objects, subject to the caveats listed here.
    • Activity
    • Lead
    • Program
  • The Add Object feature cannot be used for the Program object or its dependent objects.
  • Incremental extracts for the Lead and Activity objects can be performed using either the Treat Rows as Transactions feature, or by using the Add Object feature. See Adding a Source Based on a Marketo Object to provide selection criteria for an incremental extract using a specific date or a Birst variable.  
  • Incremental extracts cannot be performed for the Program object or its dependent objects.
  • For Activity objects, you cannot restrict the columns that are extracted; all columns will be extracted even if you remove columns from the Columns field.
  • Marketo does not provide the time portion for the Created Date column of Activity_NewLead.
  • Some Marketo Activity columns have attributes. These attributes are added as columns in Infor. For this reason, extra columns will be displayed in the Columns tab on the Manage Sources page for some Activity sources which are not displayed in the Columns field of the New Object dialog box when the columns are retrieved by clicking Get Columns.

Note: A Marketo column label containing a character such as a comma (,) or equal sign (=) may cause the extract object validation to fail. The recommended approach is to change the label by replacing these characters before saving.

For general usage notes see Connect to Cloud Applications Using Application Connectors.

Next Steps

Extracting Data from Marketo