I need some help regarding lead creation with a Hubspot x Salesforce sync. Currently if someone already exists as a lead or contact in Salesforce, if they were to fill out our contact us form, it simply updates that contact in Hubspot and then the subsequent record in Salesforce (regardless if they are a lead or contact). The team I’m working with expect for Hubspot to create a new lead (or recreate it) if someone fills out this contact us form.
From my understanding and research, Hubspot cannot create a new lead if that email already exists. Is that correct or am I missing something? I Mostly just want to confirm Hubspot can’t force that and it’s something that needs to be taken care of on the Salesforce side, if even doable.
Hey @SmartListGhost you are correct. HubSpot “contacts” sync to both salesforce “contacts” and “leads”.
HubSpot always uses an email address to de-duplicate contacts, so you can only have a single contact record per email address, thus you can only have one SFDC “lead” or “contact” synced to this HubSpot record. So once a new submission comes through to HubSpot, it’s just going to update your existing synced record and it won’t create a new one. Depending on the use case, there may be a few options. For example I previously worked with a company who had a high volume call center, every form submission was followed up by a new person and needed it’s own “Record”, so once a contact submits a form we used workflows to create a new deal record for that form submission, then assign tasks to a rep to call them. These can be synced to SF “opportunities” too and will always create a new opportunity record.
Yes, you are right, HubSpot cannot create a new lead (or duplicate contact) if a contact with the same email address already exists in the system.
If creating a new lead is essential, even when the email already exists, you’ll need to handle it on the Salesforce side.
This can be done using a custom Apex trigger or Flow that listens for specific updates from HubSpot (like form submissions or lifecycle stage changes) and creates a new lead based on defined conditions.
To support this, you can add a hidden field in the HubSpot form (e.g., “Request New Lead”) and use a corresponding custom property in Salesforce to trigger the logic.
Alternatively, a middleware tool can be used to intercept form submissions and create new Salesforce leads with custom rules, bypassing HubSpot’s email-based deduplication.
I hope this will help you out. Please mark it as Solution Accepted and upvote to help another Community member.
Thanks!
Hi @GRajput, I hope that you are well!
Thanks for sharing these options with @jdv123!
Could you please give an example for @jdv123 of how a custom Apex trigger would work? Have you tested it yourself?
Is that from a HubSpot workflow?
Thanks in advance for the additional information!
Have a great day!
Bérangère
hi there! @GRajput did you end up figuring out how to utilize a custom Apex trigger for this? would love to hear how you did it (or what didn’t work) if possible. thank you so much!
Hi @TChitwood and thanks for following up!
I’d love to put you in touch with our Top Experts: Hi @GRajput and @Anton, do you have any tips to help @TChitwood, please?
Thanks so much and have a lovely weekend!
Bérangère
Hey @TChitwood, I hope that you are well!
To get back to you on this, if you’re interested in creating leads in HubSpot using the API, you’ll be happy to know that there is a dedicated Leads API designed to make this process easy and efficient.
With this API, you can create, retrieve, and manage lead records with confidence.
To create a new lead, simply make a POST request to /crm/v3/objects/leads, including properties like hs_lead_name and any associations to existing contacts.
I hope this helps!
Bérangère This post was created with the assistance of AI tools
You’ve got it right.
HubSpot de-duplicates contacts by email, and the Salesforce connector maps one HubSpot contact to a single SFDC Lead or Contact.
A form submission with an email that already exists will update the existing HubSpot contact and then sync to the matched SFDC record, not create a new Lead (Resolve duplicate Salesforce records syncing with HubSpot, Deduplicate records in HubSpot).
Two practical patterns. First, stay inside HubSpot: treat each submission as its own sales activity by autocreating a Deal or Ticket with workflows, then let those sync to SFDC Opportunities or Cases so your team gets a fresh record to work.
Second, if you truly need a net-new SFDC Lead each time, do it on the Salesforce side with a Flow or Apex that listens for a flagged update from HubSpot, for example a hidden form field or a “Last HubSpot Form Submitted” change, then clones to a new Lead while keeping the original Contact intact.