2025-08-19 14:21

How to eliminate duplicates in Zoho CRM when working with Facebook Leads? Learn how to control entries by any field

When a business receives leads from Facebook, it’s common for the same person to leave contacts multiple times: in different campaigns, from different forms, or from different devices. In Zoho CRM, this is the reason for duplicate leads.

What problems create duplicates:

managers waste time on re-processing,
marketing analytics are distorted,
the customer base is “clogged up”.

Limitations of the standard duplicate check in Zoho CRM

The check only works on a limited set of fields (usually email).
You can't set up cascading rules (for example, "phone first, then email").
When converting Facebook leads to existing contacts, advertising campaign data and UTM tags are often lost.

Solution: Custom duplicate control for Facebook requests in Zoho CRM

We have developed a script on Deluge that:

checks leads by any fields (phone, email, custom),
saves Facebook advertising data and UTM tags,
converts a lead into either a new or an existing contact without creating a duplicate,

always creates a deal so that no application is lost.

info LeadID;
// Get Lead
lead = zoho.crm.getRecordById("Leads",LeadID);
info lead;
Phone = lead.get("Phone");
info Phone;
Email = lead.get("Email");
info Email;
Name = lead.get("Full_Name");
info Name;
City = lead.get("City");
info City;
Ad_Account = lead.get("Ad_Account");
Ad_Account_ID = lead.get("Ad_Account_ID");
Ad_Campaign = lead.get("Ad_Campaign");
Ad_Campaign_ID = lead.get("Ad_Campaign_ID");
Ad_ID = lead.get("Ad_ID");
Ad_Set = lead.get("Ad_Set");
Ad_Set_ID = lead.get("Ad_Set_ID");
Ads = lead.get("Ads");
Facebook_Page = lead.get("Facebook_Page");
Facebook_Page_ID = lead.get("Facebook_Page_ID");
form_name = lead.get("form_name");
Lead_Source = lead.get("Lead_Source");
utm_campaign = lead.get("utm_campaign");
utm_content = lead.get("utm_content");
utm_medium = lead.get("utm_medium");
utm_source = lead.get("utm_source");
utm_term = lead.get("utm_term");
Language = lead.get("Language");
Description = lead.get("Description");
// check contact
Param = "(Phone:equals:" + Phone + ")";
Contact = zoho.crm.searchRecords("Contacts",Param);
info Contact;
ValueRep = Contact.isEmpty();
info ValueRep;
if(ValueRep == true)
{
	Param = "(Email:equals:" + Email + ")";
	Contact = zoho.crm.searchRecords("Contacts",Param);
	info Contact;
	Value = Contact.isEmpty();
	info ValueRep;
}
if(Contact.isEmpty() = true)
{
	deal_values = Map();
	deal_values.put("Deal_Name",Name);
	deal_values.put("Stage","Qualification");
	ConvertLead = zoho.crm.convertLead(LeadID,{"Deals":deal_values});
	info ConvertLead;
}
else
{
	Contact = Contact.toString();
	ContactID = Contact.get("id");
	info ContactID;
	values_map = Map();
	values_map.put("overwrite",true);
	values_map.put("Contacts",ContactID);
	response = zoho.crm.convertLead(LeadID,values_map);
	info response;
	//  Create Deal
	values_map.put("Deal_Name",Name);
	values_map.put("Stage","Qualification");
	values_map.put("Amount","0");
	values_map.put("Contact_Name",ContactID);
	values_map.put("Ad_Account",Ad_Account);
	values_map.put("Ad_Account_ID",Ad_Account_ID);
	values_map.put("Ad_Campaign",Ad_Campaign);
	values_map.put("Ad_Campaign_ID",Ad_Campaign_ID);
	values_map.put("Ad_ID",Ad_ID);
	values_map.put("Ad_Set",Ad_Set);
	values_map.put("Ad_Set_ID",Ad_Set_ID);
	values_map.put("Ads",Ads);
	values_map.put("Facebook_Page",Facebook_Page);
	values_map.put("Facebook_Page_ID",Facebook_Page_ID);
	values_map.put("form_name",form_name);
	values_map.put("Lead_Source",Lead_Source);
	values_map.put("utm_campaign",utm_campaign);
	values_map.put("utm_content",utm_content);
	values_map.put("utm_medium",utm_medium);
	values_map.put("utm_source",utm_source);
	values_map.put("utm_term",utm_term);
	values_map.put("Type","Existing Business");
	values_map.put("Language",Language);
	values_map.put("Phone",Phone);
	values_map.put("Description",Description);
	values_map.put("City",City);
	response = zoho.crm.createRecord("Deals",values_map,{"trigger":{"workflow"}});
	info response;
}

How custom script works in Zoho CRM

Step 1. Getting a lead

Contact information (Phone, Email, Full_Name, City) and advertising tags (Ad_Account, Ad_Campaign, Ad_Set, Ad_ID, Facebook_Page, form_name, utm_*, Language) are downloaded from the Facebook application to Zoho CRM.

Step 2. Checking for duplicates

First, search by phone.
If the contact is not found, search by email.
You can extend the check to custom fields (for example, TIN, passport, client ID).

Step 3. Two scenarios

Contact not found → lead is converted into a new contact, and a deal with the Qualification stage is immediately created.
Contact found → lead is converted in favor of an existing contact, and a deal is created for it, where all advertising and UTM data are transferred.

Step 4. Saving analytics

Even a repeated application is recorded as a new deal, where the following are reflected:

advertising campaign,
advertisement,
traffic source (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign).

Benefits of working with Facebook Leads

No duplicates — the database is clean, contacts are not duplicated.
Marketing analytics is saved — you can see which campaign led to the deal.
Deals are always created — managers work with each application, marketing receives data for reporting.

Case: example of the solution in action

1) The client leaves a request in the Facebook form.
2) The script checks: is there already a contact with such a phone number or email?

If not, a new contact and a deal are created.
If there are, the lead is converted into an existing contact, and a deal with advertising data is created.

3) The CRM always has a clean database, and the analytics reflect the real effectiveness of advertising.

Pitfalls in implementation

Empty values: make sure the phone or email are not empty, otherwise the search filter may be incorrect.
Search results: searchRecords returns a list, so the ID should be retrieved as Contact.get(0).get("id").
Condition syntax: use ==, not =.
Description transfer: if you need a description from the lead, it should be taken explicitly.
Flexible check: it is better to put the list of fields for searching for duplicates in an array and iterate.

Implementation results

We remove duplicates when processing Facebook applications.
We save full advertising data in transactions.
We increase the transparency of analytics and the efficiency of managers.

Conclusion

If you use Facebook Leads and want to:

exclude duplicates in Zoho CRM,
save all advertising data and UTM tags,
see end-to-end analytics,

then the standard functionality of Zoho CRM will not be enough. The optimal solution is a custom script on Deluge.

At Business Lab we implement Zoho CRM for real business tasks: from duplicate control to integration with advertising platforms and building end-to-end analytics.

Ivan Osotov