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When installing a MC connector , is it possible to chose any other ID (other than Lead/ContactID) as subscriber Key . The logic is below

For contacts , use external ID as subscriber Key and not Salesforce generated Contact ID. For Leads, us Saleforce generated Lead ID. I have heard about alternate key store, but am not sure if it can handle both scenarios as above.  Anyone has take this route and if any pros/Cons with this Options?

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  • Hi Priya. Has my answer been helpful? I can see that in your five years here on SFSE, you haven't accepted a single answer. Accepting questions helps the community identify the answers which are relevant. If my question hasn't been helpful, feel free to ask clarifying questions, and I will be happy to update it.
    – Lukas Lunow
    Commented Oct 4, 2021 at 7:09
  • You’re welcome…
    – Lukas Lunow
    Commented Oct 6, 2021 at 11:08
  • Hi Lukas, My bad. of course this community has been really helpful .Below are sample tables for this topic Lead Synchronized ID from Salesforce SFID EXTERNAL_ID EMAIL_ADDRESS 01x0001 ABC123 [email protected] Journey Entry DE from DataLake EXTERNAL_ID EMAIL_ADDRESS ABC123 [email protected] Both these DEs are connected in Contact Builder via the EXTERNAL_ID . For some reason, it doesnt looks like these DEs are connected and i cant see the reporting in SF as you said . What would be implications if we just use MC connector for only decisioning split .
    – priya
    Commented Oct 7, 2021 at 11:11

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Using any other IDs than Lead/Contact/User in context of Marketing Cloud connect will only get you in trouble. There is a a number of issues you will be facing, such as:

  1. You will not be able to use synchronised data extensions. This is due to all the Leads/Contacts/Users synced will automatically be created as contacts in Marketing Cloud, using the native ID of that record. Meaning that you will be billed twice for each of them, if you insist on utilising another identifier as the Contact/Subscriber Key in MC.
  2. Salesforce Data Entry event will also not work, as this assumes the usage of the native Lead/Contact/User as Contact Key in Marketing Cloud
  3. Reporting engagement back into Salesforce (populating Individual Email Results) will also only work when using the standard IDs.

There are probably more examples of useful features becoming useless when opting for a different key, but the three I have listed above are the most crucial ones, and should be an adequate indicator of the problems of refraining from going the standard route.

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