Best Practice for HubSpot Forms: Capturing Job Title and Email Without Overwriting Existing Contact

Marketing & Content Hub Lead Capture Tools
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Hi everyone,

We’re looking for some guidance on the recommended approach for handling contact properties submitted through HubSpot forms.

We currently use the standard Job Title and Email contact properties on some of our website contact us form, other web forms and marketing forms. During a recent review, we identified a potential data management concern where information submitted through a form could update an existing contact’s information in the CRM.

For example, someone who already exists as a contact in our CRM may complete a website form and provide a different job title or email address. We want to make sure that the information submitted through the form is captured appropriately, while also avoiding unintended changes to information that is already maintained in the CRM. At the same time, our website forms and other marketing forms are also completed by people who may not yet exist in our CRM. In those situations, the information they provide through the form is important and needs to be captured when the contact is created.

We have already addressed a similar concern with the Company field by creating a separate custom property call “Alternative Company Name” for form submissions. However, before applying the same approach to Job Title and Email, we would like to understand whether this is actually the recommended way to handle this scenario in HubSpot.

We would appreciate advice on:

  • What is the recommended HubSpot best practice for handling form-submitted values when the contact may already exist in the CRM?
  • Is there a way to capture the submitted value without overwriting the existing value in the standard contact property?
  • How does HubSpot recommend handling this when the same form needs to work for both existing contacts and new contacts?
  • Would creating separate custom properties (in Contact Object) for form-submitted Job Title and Email be the recommended approach, or are there other HubSpot-native solutions we should consider?
  • Are there any workflows, form settings, property configurations, or other approaches that would help us achieve this while maintaining clean and reliable CRM data?

We’d particularly appreciate any recommendations based on HubSpot best practices or similar implementations.

Thanks in advance for your guidance!

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Hi @HarshaKumara,

Happy to help here:

What is the recommended HubSpot best practice for handling form-submitted values when the contact may already exist in the CRM?

This depends on the requirements and scenario. Often, it is desired to have the latest value from the contact. If not, see below.

Is there a way to capture the submitted value without overwriting the existing value in the standard contact property?

HubSpot has no way of locking a property value. You’ll have to use a separate custom property, e. g. “Job title (forms)”. You could set up a workflow that copies the value from that new property into the actual “Job title” but only when the latter is empty. In all other cases, a human or agent could review and decide if the “Job title” should be updated.

How does HubSpot recommend handling this when the same form needs to work for both existing contacts and new contacts?

HubSpot generally assumes that a new value in a form submission should update the contact record. Forms are meant to be used for both existing and new contacts under this logic.

Would creating separate custom properties (in Contact Object) for form-submitted Job Title and Email be the recommended approach, or are there other HubSpot-native solutions we should consider?

Yes, see above.

Are there any workflows, form settings, property configurations, or other approaches that would help us achieve this while maintaining clean and reliable CRM data?

As described above :slight_smile:

Best regards