Does linking a Custom Data Object to an Account in Eloqua create a new Account if it doesn’t exist?

Hi everyone,

I’m working on linking a Custom Data Object to accounts within Eloqua, and I need clarification on account creation behavior. If I associate a CDO record with an account that isn’t already in Eloqua, will Eloqua create a new account automatically, or does the account need to pre-exist in the system?

From what I understand, Eloqua only updates with the account linkage if the account is already present. However I’m not sure if this is correct, and I need to confirm it for documentation purposes. Could anyone with experience or insight confirm how this works? And if there’s any official documentation covering this scenario, that would be extremely helpful