Lookup to Journey Data Extension

Question

As every Journey that uses Salesforce Data as an Entry Source creates a Data Extension, I wanted to do a simple lookup to this DE. I additionally added to it a new column with a timestamp so I know exactly when a person gets into this DE. Below the list of columns I have: Lead:Email Lead:HasOptedOutOfEmail LeaD:Id TimeStamp

I need a value from a TimeStamp column on my Landing Page so I did a simple lookup:

%%[
    VAR @subscriberKey, @sentDate
    SET @subscriberKey = 'ABC'
    SET @sentDate = Lookup ('DataExtensionName', 'TimeStamp', 'Lead:Id', @subscriberKey)
]%%

For some reason, this lookup doesn't work at all. But - when I use the column "Lead:Email" to do the match, a function is executed properly. What do I miss here?

Answer 1

Can you verify if there is a Character Limit on Lead:Id in your DE?

Lookups are not allowed on fields with unlimited length, and I think last time I checked, the connector by default set no limit on ID fields (for whatever reason). Email fields do have a length limit, so that would explain the behavior.

A custom field holding the ID with an imposed field length of 18 can help here. Typically, a formula field with CaseSafeId() function is used here.