Contacts and Companies Audit
Clean up duplicates, old properties and lifecycle stages so you can find the right people.
A contacts and companies audit cleans up the records in your CRM: duplicates, outdated or unused properties, lifecycle stages that don't match reality and lists that nobody remembers building. The goal is to be able to pull a clean list of your ideal audience whenever you need it.
Dirty data shows up everywhere. Emails bounce, segments pull the wrong people, reports don't add up and your marketing contacts tier costs more than it should because you're paying for people you'll never email.
This step comes before any email, nurture or automation work, because you can't nurture people you can't find. Merges, archives and deletions all get planned first, so nothing important disappears by accident.
Signs you need this
- You can't pull a clean list of your ideal audience
- Duplicates show up everywhere
- Bounce or spam rates are climbing
- Your marketing contacts tier keeps getting more expensive
- You're about to do a big send, import or migration
End results
- Before and after counts so you can see exactly what changed
- Duplicates merged and unused properties archived
- Lifecycle stages that match your actual definitions
- A documented list and segment structure
- A plan for contacts who never engage, along with any savings on your marketing contacts tier
Common questions
How do duplicates end up in our CRM?
Most come from imports, integrations and people filling out forms with different email addresses. Companies get duplicated when domains don't match or someone creates a record by hand before checking for an existing one.
What's a marketing contact?
In HubSpot, marketing contacts are the ones you can send marketing emails and ads to, and they're what your pricing tier is based on. Setting people you never email as non-marketing contacts can lower your bill without deleting anything.
Will we lose data during a cleanup?
Merges and archives get planned first, and nothing gets deleted without your sign-off. Archived properties can be restored, and a backup export before any big change is always a good idea.
What should we do with contacts who never engage?
Send them a short re-engagement email, and if they still don't respond, either set them as non-marketing contacts or remove them. Keeping unengaged contacts on your list hurts your email deliverability over time.
How do we keep the data clean afterward?
Set required fields on forms, limit who can create properties, review new imports before they go in and run a quick duplicate check every quarter. Clean data is much easier to maintain than to recover.
