How to Merge Duplicate Leads in Salesforce

We recently conducted a campaign that generated multiple leads from various sources, including web forms, events, and email.

After the campaign, we noticed that some individuals were added multiple times, with varying details. For example, one record contained only the phone number, while another included the email address.

This created duplicate lead records in Salesforce, making it difficult for our sales team to track communication and follow-ups.

To solve this, we used the Merge Leads feature in Salesforce to combine all duplicate records into one single lead with complete and accurate information..

In this tutorial, we will learn to merge duplicate leads in Salesforce Lightning and Salesforce Classic.

Merging Leads in Salesforce

In Salesforce CRM, we manage a large volume of data, and for that, we create records of accounts and contacts to track user activities. We create Leads for contacts, and often face the issue of duplicate leads, which creates difficulty in maintaining user data.

With the help of merging, we merge these two or more leads into a single master record for better efficiency. Now I will show you how to merge leads in Salesforce Lightning and Salesforce Classic.

Merge Duplicate Leads in Salesforce Lightning

To merge the leads in Salesforce Lightning, log in to the Salesforce developer account and follow the steps below.

1. On the Setup page of Salesforce Lightning, click on the App Launcher and search for Sales in the search bar.
   • Then, from the options in the dropdown, select the Sales app as shown in the picture below.

2. In the Sales App, click on the “Leads” tab, and then you will see a list of leads. Click on the lead with a duplicate lead. In this case, I have selected Evan Morgan as the lead.

3. As we click on the lead, it will open in a new window, and there we will see a message at the top of the screen displaying the message “It looks as if duplicates exist for this Lead View Duplicates.” Here, click on View Duplicates.

4. In this step, we will review the duplicate leads associated with the selected lead. Now, activate the checkbox of the leads you want to merge with the selected lead, and then click the Next button.

5. Now we will compare the leads, which means that when we merge the leads, the master record or lead will be updated with the value we choose from the leads, and relationships to other items will shift to the master record.
   • We need to activate the radio buttons to select the records, and then click the Next button after selecting the records.

6. In this window, we need to confirm the merge of the leads; to do so, click the Merge button.

7. As we click the Merge button, the leads will be merged, and a confirmation message will appear on the screen, as shown in the picture below.

We have now successfully merged the leads in Salesforce Lightning.

Merge Duplicate Leads in Salesforce Classic

To merge the leads in Salesforce Classic, log in to the Salesforce developer account and follow the steps below.

1. On the Home Page of Salesforce Classic, if the Leads tab is not visible amongst other tabs, then click on the “+” icon to access the leads.

2. As we click on the “+” icon, it will open a list of all tabs; from there, click on “Leads.”

3. In the Leads, click on the lead that has a duplicate you need to merge. In my case, I have Lara Williamson, whom I want to merge. So, click on the lead’s name.

4. In this step, navigate to the Lead Detail section and click the “Find Duplicates” button.

5. In this window, we can see the matching leads or duplicate leads. Now activate the checkbox of the lead you have to merge with the lead you have selected, and then click on the button Merge Leads.

6. In this step, we have to select values from the selected leads to merge into a single lead. After choosing the values by activating the radio buttons, click on the Merge button.

7. As we click Merge, a pop-up window will appear to confirm the merge of the leads. Click the OK button to confirm.

As we click on the OK button, the leads will get merged. So this is how we merge leads in Salesforce Classic.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we learned about merging duplicate leads in both Salesforce Lightning and Salesforce Classic. We also discovered that merging duplicate leads facilitates data maintenance for improved efficiency.

You may like to read:

• Add Leads in Salesforce
• Bulk Add Leads in Salesforce
• Merge Cases in Salesforce
• Merge Accounts in Salesforce
• Merge Records in Salesforce with Apex

Bijay Kumar

I am Bijay Kumar, the founder of SalesforceFAQs.com. Having over 10 years of experience working in salesforce technologies for clients across the world (Canada, Australia, United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, etc.). I am a certified salesforce administrator and expert with experience in developing salesforce applications and projects. My goal is to make it easy for people to learn and use salesforce technologies by providing simple and easy-to-understand solutions. Check out the complete profile on About us.