Data sourced from Dakota Marketplace for Salesforce, the global LP and GP intelligence platform trusted by investment professionals. Learn More | Book a Demo
Getting the Marketplace for Salesforce App integration set up is just the beginning.
The firms that see the biggest impact are the ones that go beyond the basics and build the integration into the way their team works every day. V4.0 added a real batch of new tools to work with, so even teams that have been using the integration for a while have new ground to cover.
None of these tips matter much if the data underneath them is stale. A custom list view built on outdated AUM figures, a call prepped from a contact record that's two roles behind, a city trip planned around accounts that moved metros last quarter: all of it leads a sales team astray.
Most CRM problems trace back to the same root cause, data that was accurate on the day it was entered and hasn't been touched since. A rep can only follow-up as well as the record in front of them, and an out-of-date record is often worse than no record at all, because it creates false confidence.
This is why every tip below assumes a baseline: your CRM needs to be current, not just complete.
Dakota Marketplace updates accounts and contacts daily and syncs those changes directly into Salesforce, so the account you're calling on today reflects reality today, not whatever was true when someone last logged in and manually updated it. That's the foundation the rest of this list is built on. Get the underlying data right first, then these 10 habits are what turn accurate data into an efficient sales process.
If you are already connected and wondering how to get more out of it, this post is for you.
10 Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Salesforce Integration
1. Always Link Before You Create
The single most important habit to build when working with our Salesforce integration is to try linking before creating any new record. If an account already exists in your Salesforce, linking connects it to our data without creating a duplicate. Defaulting to creating when you are unsure is how duplicate records accumulate over time, and duplicate records erode your team's trust in the CRM faster than almost anything else.
If the fuzzy match does not surface the right record, use the fallback search options: phone number, CRD number, or website for accounts, and email address, full name, last name, or CRD number for contacts. Always exhaust linking options before creating something new.
V4.0 also introduced a guided wizard that applies this same matching logic at scale, linking up to 5,000 contacts and their related accounts in a single pass, and unlinking 2,000+ accounts in one action. If your team has a backlog of unlinked records, this is the fastest way to clear it.
2. Use the Metro Areas Tab for Every City Trip
If your team does city scheduling, the Metro Areas tab should be the first place they go before planning any trip. It surfaces every allocator in a given metro, a description of the market written by our investment sales team, a map showing where accounts are located, and the most recent Dakota Live call for that city, all without leaving Salesforce.
V4.0 added two more reasons to make this your first stop. Dakota Recommends now lives on the Metro Area detail page, surfacing hotels, restaurants, event spaces, and coffee shops by neighborhood, all viewable on the same map as your accounts. And the new Nearby Accounts component shows which other accounts sit geographically close to any account or contact you are viewing, so building a day of back-to-back meetings that actually makes geographic sense is faster than ever.
Building a habit around opening the Metro Areas tab before every city trip means your team arrives prepared, with a clear picture of who is there, where they are located, and which accounts are already connected.
3. Follow the Accounts and Contacts That Matter Most
Our Salesforce app version 3.0 introduced a follow feature that lets individual users subscribe to specific accounts or contacts and receive email notifications whenever we update those records. If you have a shortlist of high-priority prospects, following them means you will know the moment something changes, whether that is a new contact joining the firm, an AUM update, or a shift in investment strategy.
This is user-based, so each person on your team receives only their own notifications. A large team across multiple geographies does not create a noise problem for anyone. Set it up once and let the updates come to you.
4. Use the Marketplace Search Tabs to Build Targeted Prospect Lists
The Marketplace Search tabs inside your Salesforce are one of the most underused tools in the integration, and V4.0 made them significantly more useful. What used to be a single Marketplace Search tab is now split into Marketplace Accounts and Marketplace Contacts, and both load automatically when you open them, no need to click Search first.
Think of these tabs as your window into our full database, filterable by account type, AUM, metro area, country, and investment preferences, plus saved custom list views you can pin, rename, and reuse instead of rebuilding filters every time. You can get as granular as finding firms that invest in a specific asset class within a specific geography, then push those accounts directly into your Salesforce.
V4.0 also added a one-click Export button on both tabs, pulling your filtered results into Excel with Dakota Reference ID included automatically. Export previews show up to 500 records per page, with a Next Page button to move through additional pages, so large lists are no longer capped the way they once were. The link icon next to each record still tells you at a glance which accounts are already connected and which ones still need to be linked or created.
Beyond Accounts and Contacts, V4.0 introduced eleven new search tabs, including Consultant Reviews, Pension Documents, Fund Presentations, Earnings Intelligence, Private Fund, Fund Launches, Hedge Fund Performance, Private Companies, Private Fund Performance, Alumni Network, and All Documents, so prospecting isn't limited to just account and contact data anymore.
5. Take Advantage of Linking & Syncing for Your Initial Setup
If you connected the integration without going through our Linking & Syncing service first, it is worth having a conversation with your CSM about whether it makes sense to run the process now. Linking & Syncing is our done-for-you service that matches your existing Salesforce records to their Dakota counterparts on the back end, eliminating duplicates and getting your entire dataset connected correctly.
The longer you wait, the more manual linking accumulates, and the harder it becomes to clean up. Starting fresh with a fully matched dataset is almost always worth the two-to-30-day timeline it takes to complete.
See the V4.0 search tabs and mass linking wizard in your own Salesforce instance. Book a demo of the Marketplace for Salesforce App.
6. Use the Dakota Marketplace Subtab to Prepare for Every Call
Every linked account in your Salesforce has a dedicated Dakota Marketplace subtab where all of our data lives. Before any call or meeting, your team should be opening that subtab to review the account's investment preferences, recent activity, and the description written by our investment sales team.
V4.0 added a long list of new related lists directly to the account detail page, including Consultant Reviews, Client Base, Allocations, 13F Filings, Investment Strategies, Fund Memos, Form D Filings, Private Fund Performance, and Earning Intelligence, among others. That means call prep now covers regulatory filings, past search activity, and fund-level performance data in the same view, not just contact and account basics.
That account description is particularly valuable. Our investment sales team writes it specifically to give you context on how to approach the account, what they are focused on, and what is happening in their market. It is the kind of intelligence that used to require hours of research and now takes 30 seconds to access.
7. Use the Marketplace Updates Log to Stay Ahead of Changes
The Marketplace Updates log on every linked record shows you exactly what we have changed, what the old value was, what the new value is, and when we made the modification. Most firms set this up and then forget it exists, which means they miss one of the most valuable transparency tools in the integration.
Building a habit of checking the Marketplace Updates log for your most important accounts gives your team an early warning system for anything that might affect a relationship. A contact changes roles. An AUM figure shifts significantly. An investment preference updates. These are the signals your team needs to act on, and the log surfaces them automatically.
8. Use Contact Career History for Smarter Outreach
Every contact record in our Salesforce integration includes career history showing every firm that contact has previously worked at, as well as their education history. V4.0 also added a Hobbies field to contacts, which is a small addition but a genuinely useful one for building rapport before a first meeting.
A contact who previously worked at a firm your team has a strong relationship with is a warm introduction waiting to happen. Before your team reaches out to any new contact, checking the career history tab takes 10 seconds and can completely change the approach to that outreach.
9. Build Custom Dashboards and Reports With Dakota Data
Once our data is in your Salesforce, it is yours to use however you want. You can build custom dashboards, run reports, and, with the new native Export button on the Marketplace Search tabs, pull filtered data straight to Excel without a manual export process.
Some of the most useful reports firms build include coverage maps by metro area, allocator lists filtered by investment preference and AUM, and contact lists segmented by asset class focus. If you are not sure where to start, your CSM and our dedicated integration CSM Helen Bascom are both available to help you think through what would be most useful for your team.
10. Lean on Your CSM
Our entire customer success team is trained on the Salesforce integration. If your team is not using the integration to its full potential, the fastest way to change that is to schedule time with them.
Whether it is setting up Linking & Syncing, building custom reports, troubleshooting a linking issue, or figuring out how to use the integration for a specific use case your team has, we have seen it before and know how to help. You have access to them at all times as an integration customer. Take advantage of it.
Get More From the Integration You Already Have
Most firms activate the Dakota Salesforce integration and use maybe half of what it offers. The features are there. The data is there. What is missing is the habit of going deeper.
Start with one or two of these and build from there. The cumulative impact on your team's efficiency and data quality adds up faster than you might expect.
Book a demo of Dakota Marketplace for Salesforce today.
