How to Keep Your HubSpot Data Clean (and Why It Matters)

If your HubSpot feels messy or unreliable, it’s not HubSpot’s fault — it’s the data.

Bad data breaks reports, workflows, and trust. It leads to wrong decisions, failed automations, and frustrated teams.

The fix isn’t complicated — it just takes focus.

Here’s how we cleaned 39,000 contacts down to 13,000 solid records for one SaaS client, and how you can do the same.

1. The Real Cost of Messy Data

A cluttered HubSpot doesn’t just look bad — it quietly kills productivity.

Here’s what we typically find in messy portals:

• Duplicate companies like “Acme Inc.” and “Acme, Inc.”
• Free-text states: “California,” “CA,” “Calif.”
• Contacts missing emails or using placeholder data
• Deals without company associations
• Imports full of typos, blanks, and mismatched fields

Every one of these issues breaks reports, automations, and forecasting accuracy.

2. Know Your Goal Before You Start

You can’t fix everything at once.

Start by defining what “clean” means for your team.
Do you want clearer reports, smoother automation, or faster handoffs between sales and marketing?

Your goal shapes your cleanup plan.

For this project, our mission was simple:

Make HubSpot accurate, deduped, and automation-ready — without losing valuable data.

3. Centralize Before You Clean

Before making any changes, gather everything into one place.

We exported 38,889 rows of contact data — a mix of duplicates, blanks, and inconsistencies.
Only by centralizing it could we see the full scope of the problem.

That visibility made it easy to prioritize what mattered most.

4. Standardize Before You Simplify

Don’t delete anything yet.
First, make the data consistent.

Here’s how we standardized the basics:

• Emails: Lowercased, flagged missing “@” symbols, and removed extra text.
• Phones: Kept digits only, replaced letters (O→0, l/I→1), and formatted cleanly (+16132220320).
• Domains: Removed prefixes (http://, https://, www.) and slashes.
• Addresses: Verified using Google Maps API.
• Websites: Auto-filled missing links from company domains.

Once standardized, you can simplify — merging duplicates becomes far safer and more accurate.

5. Fix the Cause, Not the Symptom

A missing email isn’t the real problem — it’s a sign of weak property setup.

Take HubSpot’s State/Region field.
It’s free-text by default, which means endless variations like:

• “CA”
• “California”
• “Calif.”

They all mean the same thing, but they destroy your filters and reports.

The fix: convert it to a dropdown with standardized values.
Now every record aligns, and reporting becomes trustworthy again.

Other key fixes include:

• Making phone or email required for new contacts.
• Using import templates with validation rules.
• Standardizing property formats across connected systems.

These changes stop bad data before it enters your CRM.

6. Deduplicate Smartly

This was the step that reduced 38,889 contacts to 13,064 clean records.

We grouped by email, phone, name, and company, then:

• Kept the first valid company, address, and website.
• Merged all tags, notes, and activity logs.
• Deleted empty or invalid records.
• Manually reviewed outliers (like multiple names sharing one email).

Clean data isn’t perfection — it’s trust.

When your team trusts the CRM, they use it.

7. Use Tools, Not Manual Labor

You don’t need to clean manually for days. Smart tools do the heavy lifting.

Here are the ones that save hours:

• Google Sheets + Apps Script: Automate regex-based cleanup.
• Google Maps API: Validate and standardize addresses.
• OpenRefine: Deduplicate large datasets in minutes.
• HubSpot Import Rules: Block bad data from re-entering.
• ChatGPT for HubSpot: Identify anomalies and broken records automatically.

These tools turn what used to be a manual grind into a repeatable, scalable process.

8. Automate Ongoing Hygiene

Stop cleaning the same problems over and over.

Use HubSpot workflows or Operations Hub to catch bad data as it happens.

For example:

• Flag missing key fields automatically.
• Auto-format phone numbers.
• Correct capitalization in names.
• Trigger alerts if “State” doesn’t match approved dropdown values.

Once automation handles data hygiene, your CRM stays accurate with minimal effort.

9. Make It Routine

Data cleanup isn’t a one-time project — it’s maintenance.

Think of it like brushing your teeth: skip it, and things decay.

Set a simple cadence:

• Monthly: Fix duplicates and invalid emails.
• Quarterly: Review dropdowns, workflows, and associations.
• Before imports: Always clean the source file first.
• Annually: Archive inactive or junk records.

This rhythm keeps your CRM healthy year-round.

10. The ProfitPad Data Hygiene Framework

Here’s the framework we use across all HubSpot cleanups:

1. Standardize – unify field formats across all systems.
2. Enforce – apply validation rules and make key fields mandatory.
3. Deduplicate – merge intelligently to preserve value.
4. Maintain – schedule audits to sustain hygiene.

This loop keeps your data clean, reliable, and scalable — even as your company grows.

11. Clean Data = Real Growth

Clean data accelerates everything:

• Better data → faster sales cycles.
• Linked associations → accurate forecasts.
• Standardized fields → investor-ready reporting.

When your CRM is clean, your team moves faster, your reports stay accurate, and your investors finally trust your numbers.

12. Start with a Free Data Audit

Not sure where to begin? Start small.

We run a free HubSpot Data Audit every month for five SaaS companies.
We’ll review your CRM setup, flag hidden issues, and give you a clear roadmap to clean, scalable data.