The Answer Depends on the Scenario, Each of Which Is Detailed Below

1. A Single Contact Is Created in Either Apollo Or SFDC

Manually creating a single contact in Apollo will always create a unique contact record in your Apollo Contacts database. We'll never attempt to automatically deduplicate (merge) individually created contacts in Apollo. This is true even if the contact you create shares the same information as another contact in your Apollo contact database - once the contact is created, we may show a warning that it might be a duplicate and give you the option to merge, but we'll never do so without you taking that action (more on that at the bottom of this article).

Similarly, individual contacts and leads created in SFDC will not be automatically deduplicated in SFDC (by default).

Because of this, contacts created individually in Apollo will always be pushed to SFDC and create a new corresponding lead/contact (depending on if you're pushing Apollo contacts as leads or contacts to SFDC) in SFDC -- so long as Apollo and SFDC are connected.

This works in the other direction too: creating a single Lead/Contact record in SFDC will always create a corresponding contact record in Apollo. In this way, we do not attempt to find and merge duplicates for one-off records, but instead reflect whatever you create in both platforms - there will always be a 1:1 relation for individually created records in Apollo and SFDC.

2. You Connect Apollo to SFDC OR Click the Pull Button from Settings > Integrations > Salesforce > Contacts Once You're Connected

Connecting Apollo to SFDC initially or re-connecting if you ever disconnect:

Pulling all your current SFDC Leads/Contacts into Apollo:

Important Notes:

• If you have a Lead and Contact for the same person in SFDC, then the deduplicating logic detailed below will only reference the Contact, not the Lead.
• If you click Connect while your Sync Credentials are active (detailed here), then the deduplicating logic detailed below will not apply.

When pulling contacts or connecting SFDC we will run a check for duplicates based on the following logic:

1. We first compare the SFDC ID's of your Apollo records against the ID's of your SFDC records. If there is a match, we will connect the records and update Apollo with whatever new or different information the SFDC record has.
   
   
2. If no matches are found based on SFDC ID (as is usually the case when first connecting Apollo to SFDC), we will attempt to find matches based on secondary identifiers instead, in the following order:
   
   • Linkedin profile URL
   • Case insensitive email
   • Case insensitive name and company
     
     1. If two records have (any) matching secondary identifiers and the record in Apollo doesn't have an SFDC ID, then we will connect them and update the record in Apollo with whatever new or different information the SFDC record has. 
        
        
     2. If two records have matching secondary identifiers, but different SFDC ID's, we will create a new record in Apollo (for the contact whose SFDC ID is not yet in our system). 

More on Our Secondary Identifiers

Outside of connecting Apollo to SFDC or pulling contacts, these identifiers are also used whenever you upload a CSV. For this reason, they are further detailed below. 

Important Note: Keep in mind, however, that these will not apply when creating individual contacts in Apollo or SFDC.

Syncing on Linkedin profile

• If two people have different emails, names, and companies in SFDC, but share the same Linkedin profile URL, we will be able to sync those two records and update Apollo with the email, name, and company you have in SFDC/your CSV.

Syncing on email

• If two people have different Linkedin URLs, names, and companies in SFDC, but share the same email, we will be able to sync those two records and update Apollo with the Linkedin URL, name, and company you have in SFDC/your CSV.

Syncing on name and company

• If two people have different Linkedin URLs and emails, but share the same name + company combo (matching only first and last name is not enough), then we will sync those two records and update Apollo with the Linkedin URL and email you have in SFDC. 

3. What About When No Match Is Found?

Even when a contact is not directly matched through Linkedin profile, email, or name + company, we can still notice if it is similar to another record after the sync is complete. When this happens we will tell you the contact has a potential duplicate in Apollo, and will also give you the option to merge it with this duplicate. 

• Note: When merging contacts, the contact you're merging from will be your source of truth. Any information she has (who owns her, her name, etc.) will overwrite the information that the other contact has. 
• This option is only available when viewing the profile of a (potential) duplicate contact.