How you can deduplicate data and maintain clean data in your CRM?

How can you deduplicate data and maintain clean data in your CRM?

Video transcript

You want to have clean data in Hubspot and the while HubSpot automatically deduplicates contacts using email addresses, and companies using domain names, we cannot be sure if the contact with the same name is actually the same person. Let's look at the deduplication tool.

Welcome to HubSpot Tips and Tricks! I'm Jasna from Actuado and today I'll show you how you can deduplicate data with HubSpot's deduplication tool.

HubSpot does some automatic deduplication. If you try to add a contact with the same email address as existing contact in the CRM, you get a message that this email address already belongs to a contact in your database. The same goes for the URL when adding a company. 

But there is also a deduplication tool that helps you identify potential duplicate contacts and companies. It does that by comparing two records' names, email addresses, IP countries, phone numbers, zip codes, and company names.

You can access the tool for deduplicating contacts by clicking on Contacts menu, selecting Contacts and then in the Actions menu select Manage duplicates. You can see here the last time the check for duplicates was made and when the next one is going to be. You also see the number of possible duplicates and you can decide for each whether you want to merge them or not. Also, on the right side you can see the option to edit the contact properties you'll compare when reviewing these possible duplicates, so you may want to change that.

When you select the checkbox of the contacts you want to merge, you need to choose which one you'll keep. Make sure you pick the right one as the merge can't be undone. The timeline activity of both contact records will be seen in the new contact timeline. The email of the contact you didn't choose will be unenrolled from all the workflows. On the other hand, the new contact might be enrolled in some of the workflows as a result of being added to a list. When you click merge the most recent value for each property will be used in the final record.

If you want to deduplicate companies, you can click on the tab Companies or you can access the tool by clicking on the Contacts menu, Companies, and then in the Actions menu choose Manage duplicates.

For companies that are shown as possible duplicates, but are also associated as parent – child company, you will first have to disasocciate them before you can merge them.

You can also merge contacts or companies that are not necessarily on the list. Just go to the contact you want to keep, then click on Actions, find Merge and then find the contact you want to be merged into the contact you chose first. As with the duplication tool also this merge can't be undone.

Last but not least: you can't deduplicate in bulk unless you have the Operations Professional or Enterprise plan.

Do you have any questions?

Send an email to hubspot@actuado.com.