Marketo is a marketing automation platform for managing leads and campaigns. With this integration, you can create, update, and look up Marketo objects directly from Clay, and connect Marketo via webhook to enrich inbound leads in real time.
Enriching data with Marketo
- While in a Clay table, click
Add enrichment and search for Marketo. - Under
Integrations, select one of the Marketo options. - In the modal, you will be asked to
Select Marketo account.- If you haven't already connected your Marketo account, click
+ Add account and go through authentication.
Note: When setting up a role in Marketo to connect with Clay, the role requires two minimum permissions: Read-Write Schema Standard Field and Read-Write Schema Custom Field. You will also need to grant access to any objects you'd like to work with in Clay (e.g., Leads, Companies). You can edit the role later to include other objects.
Action Create object
Use this action to create a new object in Marketo.
Inputs
Required:
- Object type: The Marketo object type you want to create. Select
Person (leads) or Company. - Fields: Dynamic fields that appear after selecting an object type. For
Person, Email is required. For Company, Company Name is required.
Optional:
- Fields: All remaining fields for the selected object type, populated dynamically from your Marketo schema.
Action Lookup object
Use this action to look up an existing object in Marketo.
Inputs
Required:
- Object type: The Marketo object type you want to look up. Select
Person (leads) or Company. - Filter type: The field to filter on, populated dynamically from the searchable fields for the selected object type.
- Filter values: The value(s) to filter on. Accepts a comma-separated list. Matching is case-insensitive and uses OR logic.
Optional:
- Remove blank values from results: When enabled, blank values are removed from the returned object — helpful for reducing response size. Defaults to on.
Action Update object
Use this action to update an existing object in Marketo.
Inputs
Required:
- Object type: The Marketo object type you want to update. Select
Person (leads) or Company. - Marketo object ID: The ID of the Marketo object to update. You can retrieve this using the
Create object or Lookup object action.
Optional:
- Ignore blank values: When enabled, blank values from Clay will be ignored in Marketo. When disabled, blank values will overwrite existing Marketo field values. Defaults to on.
- Fields: The fields to update, populated dynamically from your Marketo schema.
Run settings
- Auto-update: Recommended when writing enriched data back to Marketo, so that new or updated rows are automatically pushed.
- Only run if: The enrichment will only run if conditions are met. (Learn more about conditional formulas here!)
Connecting Marketo via webhook
Use webhooks to send data from Marketo to Clay for real-time lead enrichment. This is ideal for capturing inbound leads as they arrive — such as form fills, demo requests, or other lead events. After enrichment, you can use the Marketo enrichment actions above to write the enriched data back to Marketo.
- Copy the webhook URL from Clay. In a new or existing Clay table, locate the
Webhook URL option and copy it. This is the endpoint Marketo will POST lead data to. - Go to the Admin area in Marketo. Navigate to the
Admin section in your Marketo instance. - Open Webhooks. In the Admin area, click
Webhooks in the left-hand menu. - Create a new webhook. Click
New webhook to begin configuration. - Configure the webhook. Fill in the following details:
URL: The webhook URL copied in step 1.Header: Add a custom header with the key Content-Type and the value application/json.Request type: POSTRequest token encoding: NoneResponse format: JSONPayload template: Use the JSON template below, customizing fields as needed.
{ "id": "{{lead.Id}}",
"first_name": "{{lead.FirstName}}",
"last_name": "{{lead.LastName}}",
"email": "{{lead.EmailAddress}}",
"title": "{{lead.JobTitle}}",
"company": "{{lead.CompanyName}}",
"industry": "{{lead.Industry}}",
"country_code": "{{lead.Country}}"
}
Troubleshooting
Field values containing special characters are split incorrectly in Clay
If a lead field value contains an ampersand (&) — such as a job title like "VP & Head of Sales" — and you're using a form-encoded payload template in Marketo, the & will be interpreted as a field separator, causing the value to be split across multiple fields in Clay. To avoid this, use a JSON-formatted payload template (as shown in step 5 above). JSON handles special characters correctly and will not split values on &.
