How does Duplicate Management apply to Leads and Contacts in Sales Cloud?

Duplicate Management for Leads and Contacts operates through two layers:

1. Matching Rules: Define how Salesforce compares records to identify duplicates. Standard rules for Leads match on Email, Name + Company, or Name + Phone. Standard rules for Contacts match on Email or Name + Account. Custom rules can apply fuzzy matching (handles name variations) or exact matching.
2. Duplicate Rules: Define the action when a match is found during record creation or edit. For Leads, common actions include blocking save or alerting the rep to review the existing record. For Contacts, rules can also check for duplicate Leads (cross-object matching). Potential Duplicates component on the page layout shows matched records so reps can review before proceeding. Duplicate record sets store references to identified duplicates for later bulk review and merging. Standard merge is available for Leads (merges up to 3), Contacts (up to 3), and Accounts (up to 3). Merged records consolidate related records onto the winning record.