I am starting a data-cleaning excercise and I have:
1.) Created my list of Hard Bounces to be removed
2.) Removed Duplicates
3.) Created my List of " Unengaged Contacts "
I am using filters here, such as Create date, Recent sales email replied, and Recent sales email opened.
I am unsure when it comes to timeframes how recent to put it.
Is there a certain time frame to work to - anyone who has not replied or opened an email in the last 6months/ 12 months?
Also Create date and enengaged - is there a time frame to follow for this?
We have a lot of leads and Marketing Contacts.
Hi @COGorman,
Is the overall goal to remove contacts that you have not had any touchpoints with recently? Which contacts exactly would you like to remove during your clean-up – leaving HubSpot filter criteria aside, could you describe which ones you want to keep and which ones you want to remove?
As far as date ranges go, I’d typically say, broad strokes, that contacts without a touchpoint in the last 365 days can probably be considered inactive / dormant. In other words, you could create a list of contacts where:
- Recent conversion date is less than 365 days ago OR
- Last marketing email open date is less than 365 days ago OR
- Last seen is less than 365 days ago OR
… and so on. Contacts who are not on that list could be nominated for deletion.
During deletion, make sure to always exclude:
- Contacts associated with a deal (Number of associated deals is greater than 0)
- Contacts who are customers (Lifecycle stage is any of customer)
Creating lists of these segments and then using list membership is the least confusing way, in my opinion, to approach deletion. OR and AND parameters and negation can quickly turn things into a confusing mess.
If you’re cleaning up, here are additional things to check:
- Invalid email is equal to True
- Email is unknown
- Email domain is any of [disposable email providers]
- Email domain is any of [email domains of your competitors]
Best regards
Yes, thank you, that is a great idea re-creating the lists of what we need to be excluded.
The goal is to get rid of a lot of Contacts, whether leads or marketing contacts, who are not engaged. They have been contacted on many occasions with zero engagement.Also some of these are possibly not be a fit for us also.
We are bringing in fresh leads from events, i am hoping to build our CRM with companies who are a fit and also the right contacts and focus efforts on these.
We need to focus on quality vs quantity
@COGorman beyond what I’ve suggested so far, do you need more details on anything?
Back to cleaning data,
I have created a list
Group 1
List membership is not, and included exclusion lists Customers, Deals associated, Master lists of certain industries ( Toy brands, Consumer electronics)
Group 2
Last contacted is known
AND
Recent sales email replied date is unknown
OR
Last contacted is known
AND
Recent sales email replied date is more than 180 days ago
This search is still putting contacts that are on he exclusion list!
Can you see someing obhvious I am doing wrong?
@COGorman could you share screenshots of the exact list criteria? Generally, this looks good 
@COGorman looks good – but please keep in mind that this is a public community and you should always either crop out or blur personal information of contacts. You can click the three dots in the top right corner of your reply to remove the screenshots. Looks good!
Before deleting, check a few contacts randomly to see whether your filter logic holds up.
And lastly, if you appreciate my review, you can help by accepting this reply as a solution, too.
Have a great day!
Thanks,of course, going forward I Will do that.
There are some on the exclusion list, making it through!
@COGorman lists will take a while to populate correctly. Give it a few minutes and check if you’re still seeing contacts on the list that should be suppressed
Hi Karsen,
I have created Exclusion lists as advised and have a lit we will delete of umengaged marketing contacts.
On a lead level - I am finding it difficult to define an unengaged list.
So Filters I am using are Create date,Recent Sales open email date is unknown, Sends since last engagement date…
What woudl you advise here?
@COGorman is the idea that you would like to delete leads that you have contact but which have not responded and keep the ones you have not contacted yet?
If so, you could identify those via, for example:
Last contacted is known
AND
Recent sales email replied date is unknown
… of course making sure that you again exclude customers, opportunities, internal contacts etc from this selection before deleting. Additionally, you might want to exclude contacts where recent conversion date is less than 365 days ago, last seen is less than 365 days ago, last marketing email open date is less than 365 days ago etc.
Let me know if that’s what you’re looking for. If not, please specify a bit further what qualifies ‘unengagement’ in a lead for you.
If you find my replies helpful, please make sure to review them in this thread and mark the applicable ones as accepted solutions. I would really appreciate it. (And I’ll of course continue replying after you do so.)
Hi Karsten - thank you!
I want to delete leads. Most have been contacted many times with zero engagement, and/or engagement has stopped. I have also been bringing in sends since the last engagement.
@COGorman in that case I’d recommend:
Last contacted is known
AND
Recent sales email replied date is unknown
OR
Last contacted is known
AND
Recent sales email replied date is more than 180 days ago
This would return all contacts to whom you have reached out and who have either not replied at all or replied more than 180 days ago – assuming that a qualified reply would have moved them into a different lifecycle stage than lead.
‘Sends since last engagement’ refers to marketing emails only, not to sales emails, so it wouldn’t really apply here.