Why do audience counts differ between Salesforce and Unify?

If you're experiencing discrepancies between audience counts in Salesforce and Unify, this is often related to how newly visible Salesforce fields are synchronized between the platforms.

Common Cause of Count Discrepancies

When a Salesforce field that already exists in your SFDC instance is newly made visible to Unify, the platform recognizes the field immediately but doesn't automatically backfill historical data for existing records. This creates a temporary mismatch where:

• Salesforce shows the complete historical data for that field

• Unify only shows data for records that have been updated after the field became visible

• Audience counts between the two platforms don't match

Email Address Requirements for Unify Sync

Another common cause of count discrepancies is missing email addresses. Leads or contacts in Salesforce that don't have an email address will not sync to Unify, even if they meet all other audience criteria. This means your Salesforce count will include these records while Unify's count will not.

Additionally, when new picklist values are added to existing Salesforce fields (such as adding a new Account Type category), these values may take time to appear in Unify. While regular syncs occur every 15-30 minutes, new picklist values can take up to 24 hours to become available in Unify dropdowns and filters.

How to Resolve the Discrepancy

To fix this issue and align your audience counts:

1. Contact Support: If you notice audience count mismatches after making a previously hidden Salesforce field visible to Unify, reach out to our support team

2. Request a Full Sync Refresh: Our team can run a full sync refresh to pull in the existing field values from Salesforce for all historical records

3. Wait for Sync Completion: Once the full sync is complete, your audience counts should align between both platforms

Troubleshooting Tips

When investigating audience count discrepancies:

• Check Exclusion Rules: Toggle exclusions off temporarily to verify if exclusion rules are causing the discrepancy

• Verify Sync Timing: If you recently added new picklist values to Salesforce fields, allow up to 24 hours for these values to appear in Unify before troubleshooting further

• Provide Specific Examples: When contacting support, include specific company examples that appear in one system but not the other to help with troubleshooting

• Plan for Campaign Timing: Be aware that this sync issue can impact campaign launch timing when audience counts don't match expectations

• Verify Email Addresses: Check if records that appear in Salesforce but not in Unify are missing email addresses. Records without emails cannot sync to Unify and will need to be enriched via CSV upload if you want them included in your audiences.