Marketing Status and Marketing Status Rules – Lightning Platform

We have introduced a standardized Account Marketing Status framework and configurable Marketing Status Rules that keep Account records in sync with key lifecycle events (inquiries, sales appointments, sales opportunities, and sales). This enables consistent segmentation, smarter marketing automation, and clearer visibility into where a customer sits in the marketing lifecycle at any given time.

What Is Marketing Status?

The Marketing Status field on an Account shows the account's current position in your marketing funnel. A companion Marketing Status Date field records when the status last changed, so you can track how long leads have been in each stage.

Where You Can See It

The Marketing Status and Marketing Status Date fields are available in:

Account Lightning Record Page
Account Page Layout
Account Compact Layout
Account List Views

The field is read-only on the Account record page, meaning users cannot manually edit it directly from the record view.

Field History Tracking is enabled, so any changes to the status are logged.

Permissions

Permission Sets have been updated to support this new functionality.

Read-Only Permission Set

Marketing Status: Read-only
Marketing Status Date: Read-only

Minimum Access Permission Set

Marketing Status: Read/Write
Marketing Status Date: Read/Write

Note: Even with write access at the permission level, system-driven updates may still control how values are set depending on automation rules.

How It Works

Marketing Status is a field on the Account record that tracks where the account sits in the marketing lifecycle. It can update automatically when Sales Opportunities, Sales Appointments, or Sales are created or updated to a specific value — based on Marketing Rules each customer configures.

The three moving parts are:

The field — Marketing Status on Account, plus a Marketing Status Date that records when it last changed.
The rules — records in the Marketing Status Rule object that say "when X status is reached, set Marketing Status to Y." You will likely never need to access the Marketing Status Rules outside of the Marketing Status Setup Tab.
The trigger — a Custom Setting that turns the whole automation on or off.

What Triggers an Update

There are three types of trigger events:

Sales Opportunity result changes — when the Result (and optionally the Result Detail) on a Sales Opportunity changes
Sales Appointment status changes — when the Status (and optionally the Status Detail) on a Sales Appointment changes
Sale status changes — when the Status (and optionally the Status Detail) on a Sale changes

You choose whether your rules fire off Sales Opportunities or Sales Appointments using the Active Rule Type setting. Sale rules always fire regardless of this setting.

Note the only values that are accepted are "Sales Opportunity" or "Sales Appointment"

Rule Matching

Each rule specifies:

A primary value (Result or Status)
An optional detail value (Result Detail or Status Detail)
The Marketing Status to apply to the Account
Optionally, an Inquiry Status to apply to the linked Inquiry

Here are examples of Sales Opportunity Marketing Status Rules

The Account's Marketing Status only updates if the new value would actually change it — redundant updates are skipped. The Marketing Status Date only updates when the value changes.

Lead Ingestion

Marketing Status is also set automatically when new leads enter the system:

eLead conversion — the Account is set to New eLead
Quick Lead entry — the Account is set to New Leads

Setup

Step 1 — Enable Marketing Status Automation

Before rules will fire, you need to turn on the automation:

Navigate to Setup > Custom Settings
Find Marketing Settings and click Manage
Check Use Marketing Status Automation
Save

Without this enabled, no Marketing Status updates will occur automatically.

Step 2 — Open the Marketing Status Setup Page

Navigate to the Marketing Status Setup tab in the App Launcher. This is where you create and manage all your rules.

The page has three sections:

Sales Opportunities — rules based on Sales Opportunity Result/Result Detail
Sales Appointments — rules based on Sales Appointment Status/Status Detail
Sales — rules based on Sale Status/Status Detail

NOTE: It is not required to update Inquiry Status. This is optional. If you are not using the Inquiry object, you can disregard that portion of the Rule.

Step 3 — Choose Your Active Rule Type

At the top of the setup page, select either Sales Opportunity or Sales Appointment as your Active Rule Type.

If your team tracks results at the Sales Opportunity level (e.g., Sold, Not Sold), choose Sales Opportunity.
If your team tracks results at the Sales Appointment level (e.g., Ran, Cancelled, No Show), choose Sales Appointment.

Sale rules always run regardless of this setting.

Step 4 — Create Your Rules

In each section, click Add to create a new rule row.

Sales Opportunities — rules based on Sales Opportunity Result/Result Detail, here are some examples. NOTE this system has added custom Picklist values to the Marketing Status and the Inquiry Status picklist fields.

Sales Appointments — rules based on Sales Appointment Status/Status Detail, below are examples.

Sales — rules based on Sale Status/Status Detail, here are some examples of such...

Things to Know

One active type at a time: Only Sales Opportunity rules or Sales Appointment rules execute at any time (controlled by Active Rule Type). Sale rules always execute.
Duplicate rules: The system prevents saving two rules with the same Status + Status Detail combination within the same section.
History tracking: Both the Marketing Status field and the Marketing Status Date field have field history tracking enabled, so you can audit when changes occurred.
Bulk operations: The automation handles bulk record updates (e.g., mass status changes) in addition to individual record saves.

What This Means for You

Marketing classification is now standardized.
Lead-driven account creation automatically assigns the correct initial status.
Every status change is tracked.
You can see exactly when a status was last updated.
Data consistency across teams improves reporting and visibility.

If you have questions about how Marketing Status applies to your workflow, please contact your system administrator or support team.

Additional Resources

Hierarchy Custom Setting Behavior

Marketing Settings is a Hierarchy Custom Setting, meaning it can have different values for:

The whole org (org defaults)
A specific profile
A specific user

When the system reads the setting, it uses the most specific record for the running user (user > profile > org). This means:

If a user-level or profile-level record exists, it takes precedence over the org default
The Active Rule Type saved from the UI is written to whichever record already exists for that user — which could be a user-level record, not the org default

If a user reports that the automation seems to behave differently for different users, check whether profile-level or user-level overrides exist in Marketing Settings.

To inspect all records: Setup > Custom Settings > Marketing Settings > Manage

Marketing Status Values

It uses a global picklist, which means the same consistent values are used everywhere in the system.

The field includes the following options:

Confirmed (Appointment ran or sale was made)
Dead (No further marketing value)
New eLead (new Sales Opportunity came in via eLead integration)
New Leads (new Sales Opportunity created via Quick Lead)
Past Customers (after a Sale is completed)
Pending Confirmation (Appointment is scheduled/pending)
Rehash (previous Appointment was not sold, an open Quote is ready to rehash)
Reset (previous Appointment did not happen or didn't demo, Appointment needs reset)
(Blank / None)

You can add new values depending on your business needs. Screenshots in this Article contain custom Marketing Status picklist values.

The picklist values are defined in a global value set called Marketing_Status. To add, remove, or rename values:

Path: Setup > Picklist Value Sets > Marketing Status

Changes here automatically propagate to all places that use this picklist (the Account field and the rule manager's Target Marketing Status dropdown).

Default values and their intended meaning:

Value	Intended Use
New eLead	Set automatically when an eLead is converted to an Account
New Leads	Set automatically when a Quick Lead is entered
Pending Confirmation	Appointment is scheduled but not yet run
Confirmed	Appointment ran or sale is in progress
Rehash	Previously not sold, targeted for follow-up marketing
Past Customers	Completed sale
Dead	Account should no longer receive marketing
Reset	Cleared for re-entry into a marketing campaign

These are defaults — customers can rename or add values to match their own marketing list categories. Within screenshots in this Article, custom values have been added to the Marketing Status picklist.

To Add values, click the New button

Enter each new Value on a separate line and be sure to select "Add the new picklist value to all Record Types that use this Global Value Set."

Inquiry Status Values

The picklist values are defined in the Object Manager by going to Fields and Relationships. To add, remove, or rename values:

Path: Setup > Object Manager > Inquiry > Fields & Relationships > Status