Investment firms run into the same Salesforce problem.
The data goes stale. The sales team stops logging activity because the records do not reflect reality. And someone is always exporting a spreadsheet, updating it manually, and importing it back in. The CRM becomes a chore instead of a tool, and CRM adoption across the firm quietly falls apart. If that sounds familiar, you are not alone.
Dakota Marketplace built its Salesforce integration specifically to fix that. Here is what it is, how it works, and what your team gets on day one.
Yes, Dakota Has a Salesforce Integration
Dakota Marketplace integrates directly with Salesforce through a managed app available on the Salesforce AppExchange. More than 200 investment firms are using it today.
The app is called Dakota Marketplace for Salesforce. You find it in the Salesforce App Store, download it, and your firm can be up and running in a matter of days. No custom development. No ongoing programming. No database administration on your end.
What Makes This Different from a Typical Integration
Most CRM integrations are iframe-based or rely on API connections that require technical configuration and ongoing maintenance. Dakota Marketplace for Salesforce is a managed package on the Salesforce AppExchange, which means it installs cleanly into your existing Salesforce instance without custom builds.
Once installed, the app looks identical to the web-based version of Dakota Marketplace. Your team sees the same interface they already know: job and role changes on the left, fundraising news on the right, metro area intelligence, new content from the Dakota team, and the full Marketplace database, all without leaving Salesforce.
How the Integration Works: Linking and Creating
There are two ways to connect your Salesforce records to Dakota data.
Linking connects an existing Salesforce account or contact to its matching record in Dakota Marketplace. The app performs a fuzzy match based on account name. If naming conventions differ, your team can also search by phone number, website, or CRD number for accounts, and by email address, full name, last name, or CRD number for contacts. Once linked, a small link icon appears next to the record as a visual cue that data is flowing in from Marketplace.
Creating builds a brand new Salesforce record directly from Dakota Marketplace in a single step. You preview the account's full profile, select which contacts you want to pull over based on who you would call on, click Save and Create, and those records appear in your Salesforce. No copying. No pasting. No manual data entry for the sales team.
You can pull up to 500 records at a time using the Marketplace Search tab inside Salesforce. Use it as a reporting tool: filter by account type, AUM, metro area, country, and investment preferences to build targeted lists, then push them directly into your CRM.
See how investment firms are getting Dakota's full dataset into Salesforce in a matter of days. Book a demo here!
What Data Lives in Your Salesforce Once You Connect
Every linked or created account gets a dedicated Dakota Marketplace subtab inside Salesforce. That is where all Dakota data lives, sitting alongside your existing fields without overriding anything your team has already entered.
For a full breakdown of what the integration delivers, see 5 Key Features to the Marketplace for Salesforce Integration.
Here is what maps into your Salesforce instance:
- Accounts and Contacts: Account type, metro area, AUM, investment preferences across 75+ fields, contact information, and asset classes covered. Contact records also include career history (every firm a contact has worked at previously) and education history.
- Metro Areas: The full metro area intelligence your investment sales team relies on for city scheduling is available inside Salesforce. You can map meetings by geography and preview accounts directly from the Metro Areas tab.
- Investments: Investment details including strategy, funding date, and fund balance for public pension investments.
- Searches: Live investment search alerts, including consultant coverage and mandate requirements.
- Public Plan Minutes: Dakota's team notes on public pension investment committee meetings, covering new allocations, consultant changes, and recent commitments.
- Manager Presentation Decks: Presentations given to public pension funds by other managers, giving your team a competitive read on what peers are pitching.
- Job and Role Changes: Real-time alerts when allocator contacts move firms, change roles, or take on new responsibilities.
- 13F Filings and Holdings: RIA asset class and sub-asset class preferences based on 13F data.
- Fundraising News: Search updates, manager selections, recent commitments, and trending news from public pensions.
All of that data is yours to use inside Salesforce. Build custom dashboards, run reports, download to Excel. Dakota gives you the data and gets out of the way.
The Marketplace Updates Log: Full Transparency on Every Change
One of the most useful features for firms that care about data quality is the Marketplace Updates log, visible on every linked record. Any time Dakota updates a field, the log shows exactly which field changed, what the old value was, what the new value is, and the date of the modification.
Your team always knows what Dakota changed and when. No surprises, no unexplained record updates.
The Follow Feature: Stay Current on the Accounts That Matter
Version 3.0 of the Dakota Salesforce app introduced a follow feature that lets individual users subscribe to specific accounts or contacts and receive email notifications when Dakota updates those records.
This is user-based. If your colleague follows a set of accounts different from yours, you each receive only your own notifications. A firm with 50 users across different geographies and strategies does not create a noise problem for anyone.
Linking and Syncing: Dakota's White-Glove Setup Service
If your firm has hundreds or thousands of existing Salesforce records, manually linking each one to its Dakota counterpart is not practical. Dakota offers a service called Linking and Syncing specifically for this situation.
You send Dakota an export of your existing accounts and contacts. The Dakota team runs a matching process across multiple fields, sends the matched file back for your review, and connects everything on the back end once you sign off. The process typically takes two weeks to 30 days to complete, and you can use the Salesforce app throughout.
Dakota strongly encourages new customers to take Linking and Syncing before doing any manual work. Getting the initial connection right means clean records, no duplicates, and a master record that stays accurate from day one. For firms with significant existing Salesforce data, it is the right place to start.
Support After You Sign Up
Implementation is handled by Dakota's CRM integration team. Your setup call runs about an hour and covers page layouts, implementation, and hands-on training for your users. A two-week check-in follows as your team starts working with the product. If you have questions before booking, the top questions other institutional salespeople have asked are a good place to start.
All Dakota customer success representatives are trained on the Salesforce app. There is also a dedicated integration CSM, Helen Bascom, who works across all CRM integration customers to make sure every question gets answered. You also have access to the implementation team at all times.
Your Salesforce Should Work for You, Not the Other Way Around
Stale data is one of the fastest ways to lose trust in your CRM, and once a sales team stops believing in the accuracy of their records, adoption collapses. Dakota Marketplace for Salesforce solves the problem by pushing real-time updates directly into your Salesforce instance, so your team is always working from current information without anyone managing it manually.
Over 200 investment firms are already running this workflow. Setup takes days, not months, and Dakota's team handles the heavy lifting on the initial connection.
Book a demo of Dakota Marketplace for Salesforce today!
