We are having issues with contacts being overwritten if submission comes from the same browser for different contacts. It’s crucial for us to have the ability to create new contacts from the same browser. We’re helping students from Rwanda and similar countries to get education in the US, but often, the students only have one computer and one browser in the entire Rwanda school that we’re working with.
About the issue in more detail:
Contact 1 fills out a form from Firefox browser on computer “A”. The new contact is being created with his information correctly displayed in HubSpot. The next day, Contact #2 fills out the same form from the same Firefox browser on the same computer “A”. New contact is not created, instead, the information for Contact 1 is being overwritten in HubSpot by Contact #2 submission. If submitting from a new browser/incognito window, the new contact is being created.
We are using Gravity Forms in WordPress, feeding into HubSpot through Gravity Forms HubSpot extension/plugin. I have tried all sorts of settings on the back end of the regular form in HubSpot (created after initial submission on website):
Always create contact for new email address
Add link to reset the form (to remove cookies)
Pre-populate contact fields with known values
Pre-populate contact fields with known values + Add link to reset the form
Hey @StrilingF, thanks for reaching out (and for sharing info on this awesome cause!).
This is a tricky situation where HubSpot is almost too smart! If HubSpot “recognizes” the same device/ID that they’ve seen before, they will update the existing contact record vs create a new one.
The steps you outlined above are definitely good measures to take, but telling the students to always use a new incognito window for every submission is your best bet. You should also be using the native HubSpot forms to ensure that nothing falls through the cracks.
The problem with having them open incognito window is that they often don’t know what this means, as their knowledge of computers is very limited. What that will mean for us is that we need to instruct a nun that helps there about incognito windows so that she instructs them, because we are not on site. While possible, I don’t know if it’s a solution for us.
Is there a different work around for it? I feel like there is a reason why the settings have “Always create contact for new email address” option.
If the solution is not in this setting, can we limit the cookies from HubSpot, so that it doesn’t recognize the same browser?
Well, I found a solution. I don’t know if anyone else would need that work around, but here it is:
I have connected Gravity Forms with Hubspot through Zapier with Google Sheets. That gets rid of all the cookies and feeds directly into HubSpot. There is a slight delay of 2-3 minutes per application, but we don’t need an instant contact after application.
While it works for our purpose, it might not work for you because by stripping all the cookies at Google Sheets, we can’t access any analytics on HubSpot for the person submitting the application. If that’s important to you, you should find another way of dealing with it.
This is also an issue for HubSpot created forms as well (Not just gravity forms). I was testing a contact us form submission in the same browser. This fake BRAND NEW contact info and it overwrote a previous contact created in the same browser window.
Contacts can be overwritten by a matching cookie when the recent form submission was completed. I would recommend going to the form>edit>options>create a new contact for the new email address. This will create a new contact even if the system recognizes a matching cookie.
This community thread has some handy tips on how to recreate a contact that was overwritten by a form submission.
Although using a cookie for convenience is understandable, it would be a much better solution to create a new record every time a new form is submitted. Asking users to start a new anonymous session is an amateurish workaround and reflects poorly on HubSpot’s commitment to providing effective solutions. As a leading CRM platform, HubSpot should prioritize developing a more robust and reliable approach to ensure accurate and distinct data entries for each form submission. This should be a standard feature, not an afterthought.