Eloqua - Uploading data to contact records
When you access a contact record (in Audience > Contacts), you have many details about that contact available.
Note: Don't forget email address is the unique identifier for contacts. Each contact will only have one email address.
If you click on Field Details in the contact record, you have many fields available.
All of these fields are attached to the shared, public contact record. This contact record is shared between any user group that has their contact label applied to this contact. Although you can upload data to any of these fields, you do not exclusively control the data in any of these fields. Anything you add to this part of the contact record can be overwritten by other users or data sources.
If you would need to upload your own data that is:
- private
- specific to your user group
- personalized content that only your group controls (e.g., "We know his preferred first name is Johnny, not Jonathan or John.")
for customization or segmentation, you may want to create a custom data object or CDO. To find out more about CDOs or get a CDO created for your user group, please contact the Eloqua team.. If you have need the CDO worksheet, you can download it here.
Don't forget:
- Any data (other than email address and contact label) that you upload to the contact record can be overwritten.
- Example: You may upload a spreadsheet that says sample@testemail.com's first name is Sam, but it may be overwritten as Samantha by a different source or user.
- You cannot create additional fields on a contact record by uploading a new column.
- Example: If you create a column called "favorite color" on your spreadsheet, that will not create a spot for that data to land in the contact record.
- You must work with the marketing automation team to create a CDO. Once the CDO is created, you can upload your data to it whenever you want. But the initial creation must be done by the marketing automation team.