When investment firms connect Dakota Marketplace to their CRM, they almost always run into the same challenge. They already have hundreds, sometimes thousands, of accounts and contacts in their system.
Manually matching each one to its Dakota counterpart, one record at a time, is not practical. And doing it wrong means duplicate records, inconsistent data, and a CRM that creates more problems than it solves.
That is exactly what Linking & Syncing was built for. It is Dakota's white-glove setup service that handles the initial connection between your existing CRM records and Dakota Marketplace data, so your team starts with a clean, accurate foundation from day one.
If you are thinking about a Dakota CRM integration, understanding Linking & Syncing is the most important place to start.
What Is Linking & Syncing?
Linking & Syncing is a done-for-you service Dakota offers to all new CRM integration customers. Instead of having your team manually connect existing CRM records to their matching Dakota accounts one by one, Dakota's development team does it for you on the back end.
The result is a fully connected CRM where every existing account and contact that has a match in Dakota Marketplace is already linked before your team logs in on day one. Data starts flowing in real time immediately, and your sales team can get to work without spending weeks on data cleanup.
Why It Matters: The Duplicate Problem
The most common issue firms run into when setting up a CRM integration is duplicate records. Your HubSpot might have "UMass" while Dakota Marketplace has "University of Massachusetts Endowment." Your DealCloud might have a contact listed under an old email address. Or your CRM might have account names that follow internal naming conventions that differ from how Dakota classifies them.
If you simply push Dakota data into your CRM without accounting for these discrepancies, you end up with two records for the same entity. That creates confusion for your sales team, corrupts your reporting, and defeats the purpose of having a single source of truth. Poor CRM data hygiene compounds over time, and the longer it goes unaddressed, the harder it is to fix. Linking & Syncing solves this before it becomes a problem.
How the Process Works
Linking & Syncing follows a clear, straightforward process:
Step 1: You send Dakota an export. Share a file of the accounts and contacts in your CRM that you believe already exist in Dakota Marketplace. This does not need to be perfect. Dakota's team is used to working with messy exports.
Step 2: Dakota runs the matching process. The development team goes through a matching process based on multiple fields, including account name, phone number, website, CRD number, email address, and more. This is not a simple name match. The process is designed to catch the naming convention differences that would otherwise create duplicates.
Step 3: Dakota sends the file back for your review. Before anything is connected, you see exactly what the team matched and approve it. If something looks off, you can flag it before the connection is built.
Step 4: Dakota connects everything on the back end. Once you sign off, the team builds all of the connections for you. No further action needed on your end.
Step 5: Data starts flowing in real time. From that point forward, every linked record receives automatic updates from Dakota Marketplace whenever something changes. A small link icon appears next to each record in your CRM as a visual confirmation that the connection is active.
Curious whether your CRM is a good fit? Talk to an expert here!
Which Integrations Include Linking & Syncing?
Linking & Syncing is available across Dakota's full suite of CRM integrations. Whether your firm runs on one of those platforms or another CRM in Dakota's integration network, the service is designed to work the same way: Dakota handles the heavy lifting so your team does not have to.
How Long Does It Take?
The Linking & Syncing process typically takes between two weeks and 30 days to complete, depending on the size of your existing data and the complexity of the matching process. That timeline is for the initial setup work on Dakota's end. It does not affect your access to the integration.
You can use your CRM integration while Linking & Syncing is in progress. You do not need to wait for the process to finish before your team starts working with the product.
What If You Want to Link Records Yourself?
For firms that prefer to handle individual records on their own, or for one-off additions after Linking & Syncing is complete, Dakota's CRM integration includes an in-app linking tool.
The app performs a fuzzy match based on account name, surfacing the closest records in your CRM alongside the Dakota account. If the naming convention is too different for a fuzzy match to work, you can search by phone number, CRD number, or website for accounts, and by email address, full name, or last name for contacts. Once you find the right record, linking takes a single click.
You can also create new CRM records directly from Dakota Marketplace in the same workflow, pulling in accounts and their contacts in one step without any manual data entry. The Linking & Syncing service covers your existing data. The in-app tool handles everything new from there.
After Linking & Syncing: What Your Team Gets
Once the initial connection is built, Dakota takes over the ongoing data work. Every linked account and contact stays current in real time. When Dakota updates a field in Marketplace, that update flows directly into your CRM. Your sales team is always working from current information without anyone managing it manually.
For firms where CRM resistance has been an ongoing issue, this is usually the turning point. When the data is accurate and current, the team stops avoiding the CRM and starts relying on it.
Get Your CRM Connected the Right Way From Day One
The biggest mistake firms make when setting up a CRM integration is skipping Linking & Syncing and jumping straight to manual linking. The initial connection is the foundation everything else runs on. Getting it right means clean records, no duplicates, and a CRM that reflects reality from the start. The impact of a well-configured CRM integration goes well beyond data quality: it changes how your entire sales team operates.
Dakota strongly encourages every new integration customer to take advantage of Linking & Syncing before doing any manual work. The service is included as part of your integration setup, and Dakota's team handles the entire process. All you need to do is send the export and review the match file.
Book a demo of Dakota's CRM integrations today!
