Create and associate companies with contacts - company with multiple domains?

[auto-mate]

Hi, in Objects > Companies there is the setting “Create and associate companies with contacts”.

We have multi-national, multi-site customers and so we might have several different company records – sometimes with the same domain e.g. gsk.com and sometimes with different domains e.g. gsk.com/uk or gsk.co.uk etc etc.

I want to merge this together, so I have one global GSK – with all the domains under one company record e.g. gsk.com, gsk.com/fr, gsk.co.uk etc etc.

But, what happens if I turn on “Create and associate companies with contacts”?

• If a new contact is created with a gsk.co.uk email domain, will a new company be created, even though gsk.co.uk is one of the domains under my GSK?
• Will this contact be auto associated with my GSK, because gsk.co.uk is listed as one of its domain names?

Bonus – how can I manually associate large numbers (hundreds) of contacts to specific companies, ideally from the Contacts > Contacts view?

• In the Contacts > Contacts “whole database” view the column “Contact -> Company (primary)” can be shown but is not editable via the edit menu
• In the Company record > Contacts list “+Add” dialogue, you can “Search” and “Add existing” but there is no select all option and you have to manually select one by one via checkbox (up to the first 100 max)
• I know in theory this could be done via export and multi object import – but surely there must be an easier way?

[HubDoPete · Accepted solution]

Hi James, sorry not sure why/who accepted the earlier answer as a solution.

But to answer your question about what to expect if you consolidate companies into a single company with a primary domain plus several other domains:

If you turn on “Create and associate companies with contacts” - new contacts will be associated with the company if their email domain matches the company primary domain OR the company's other domains.

Specifically:

• If a new contact is created with a gsk.co.uk email domain, will a new company be created, even though gsk.co.uk is one of the domains under my GSK? No.
• Will this contact be auto-associated with my GSK, because gsk.co.uk is listed as one of its domain names? Yes.

If you have the same domain on more than one company, you cannot control which of those companies the new contact will be associated with, so in that situation it would be better to exclude those domain(s) from auto-association, and use automation or the associ8 app to control associations at scale.

best, Pete.

[RubenBurdin]

Hi @auto-mate 
You can’t fully prevent HubSpot from creating new companies when “Create and associate companies with contacts” is enabled, but here’s how the settings actually work:

• If you consolidate multiple domains under one company (e.g. gsk.com, gsk.co.uk, gsk.fr), then any new contact with one of those domains will auto-associate to that company. A duplicate company record will not be created.
• If the same domain is listed on more than one company record, HubSpot can’t guarantee which company the contact will be associated with. In that case, it’s better to remove the domain from auto-association and use automation (workflows, Ops Hub custom code) or an app like Associ8 to control associations at scale
• If a contact comes in with a domain HubSpot doesn’t recognize (e.g. amanda.com), then by default HubSpot will create a new company. The only way to stop this is by:

Adding those domains to the “Never create/associate” list (manual, not scalable for thousands).

Turning off auto company creation entirely, and then managing associations via workflows, imports, or custom-coded Ops Hub actions.

For your “Toyota vs amanda.com” casee: there’s no native setting that says “associate if the domain matches, but never create new companies.” You’d need either:

• Automation (workflow triggered by new contact, check domain, associate only if matches known company).
• Ops Hub coded workflow.
• Associ8 app (rules-based associations, more control).

For bulk association (hundreds of contacts):

Export contacts + companies, map IDs, and re-import with the correct Company ID as the primary company.

Or, use Associ8/Ops Hub to script associations (saves the manual “add one by one” pain).

[AmandaWallace]

This makes sense. Thank you so much for the detailed information!!

[JJeffery]

Associated Primary Company Issue with Corporates Having Multiple Branches Globally

Hey all! Having an issue on similar lines with a client. They work in the tourism industry and will have many companies with the same domain, but often these companies operate differently and they do not want them to be associated automatically. (I appreciate this undermines a lot of the point of the CRM but it is what it is). An example of this are local councils in the UK. There are many departments of which all have the same domain (@eastsussexcountycouncil) for example. But within that, you could have a leisure centre, a library, a sports centre, all different buildings in different parts of the county, with the only thing connecting them being an email domain. Then whoever is last into the CRM overwrites the name and creates an issue. 

The mechanism for bringing the companies into the CRM is all form-based, with Contact and Company Object Properties on the form. So even though the auto association is turned off, the fact both Contact and Company level properties are in the form will always create the association. 

I have turned off the auto associate settings in the account and HS insights. It is not possible to add them all to the never associate list as they have too many, nor could they mitigate who would be coming in the future. 

HS have suggested either using separate forms or create custom properties under contact to save Company information instead of using properties from the Company. Ideally I would like to find a different solution to these due to the vast number of forms and other potential issues that come off the back of this. 

I hope that makes sense!

[HubDoPete · Accepted solution]

Hi James, sorry not sure why/who accepted the earlier answer as a solution.

But to answer your question about what to expect if you consolidate companies into a single company with a primary domain plus several other domains:

If you turn on “Create and associate companies with contacts” - new contacts will be associated with the company if their email domain matches the company primary domain OR the company's other domains.

Specifically:

• If a new contact is created with a gsk.co.uk email domain, will a new company be created, even though gsk.co.uk is one of the domains under my GSK? No.
• Will this contact be auto-associated with my GSK, because gsk.co.uk is listed as one of its domain names? Yes.

If you have the same domain on more than one company, you cannot control which of those companies the new contact will be associated with, so in that situation it would be better to exclude those domain(s) from auto-association, and use automation or the associ8 app to control associations at scale.

best, Pete.

[AmandaWallace]

What if we want contacts to associate to their companies, but we DON'T want new companies to be automatically created based on domains? Like, if I work for Toyota and have a work email of amanda@toyota.com, I want it to recognize that I am an employee and add me to the company. But what if I also have a personal email of amanda@amanda.com . I don't want Hubspot to create a company called "amanda.com", I just want it to add my new contact without also creating a company. Is that possible without having to manually go in an block each domain individually? We have thousands of mortgages brokers and many of them have email addresses with their own name as a domain, but I don't want that to become their new company.

[HubDoPete · Accepted solution]

Hi Amanda,

Unfortunately, you cannot get HubSpot's standard automatic association feature to assign a contact to an existing company by domain without also creating a new company if one doesn't exist. This feature is an "all-or-nothing" setting. However, you can achieve what you need with a custom-coded workflow or third-party tool. 

Do you have Operations Hub? (known as Data Hub going forward). If so, a custom-coded workflow action could take care of assigning contacts to existing companies.

If not, you could use one of the association management apps on HubSpot Marketplace.

Please let me know if my response prompts any further questions, so we can help.

best

Pete

[auto-mate]

(I was trying to respond to our community manager... but... )

Thank you. Great response. Really appreciated!

[HubDoPete]

This is where associations get a little more complex than HubSpot's native rules and tools will handle.

I recommend reviewing the "associ8" app on the HubSpot Marketplace

By understanding the problem associ8 solves, you'll be clearer on whether to try solving it using HubSpot's standard tools or if this rules-based engine is a better choice.

best

Pete

[auto-mate]

Thanks for this. Looks really good.

I guess the same kind of automation is also possible using coded Ops Hub workflows. 

It's in the detail tho.... Is it easy to have a short catch all routine that tries to associate Contact email suffix with Company domain - or Contact company name with Company company name...?

I am hoping someone's done that in Ops Hub and I can copy paste it!

[HubDoPete]

It's a good question and yes this is most likely achievable in custom-coded Ops Hub actions. There's a trade-off between using an app that has already figured that all out, versus building a low-code/no-code "app" in Ops Hub.

Reach out to Connor Jeffers and his team at Hapily the creators of Associ8, as they are also gurus with Ops Hub and will have solved associations there before getting to the point of building the app.

best, Pete.

[BérangèreL]

Hi @auto-mate,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community!

First, I'd like to share these articles that might help you:

- Automatically create and associate companies with contacts
- Associate records

I also wanted to invite a couple of subject matter experts to this conversation @HubDoPete, @Josh and @AdamLPW, do you have any suggestions to help @auto-mate, please?

If anybody else has anything to add and/or share, please feel free to join in the conversation 🙂

Thank you and have a great day!

Best,
Bérangère

[auto-mate]

Hi, can you not accept the solution on my behalf please. I asked for basic Hubspot feature explanation and I don't have answer:

But, what happens if I turn on “Create and associate companies with contacts”?

• If a new contact is created with a gsk.co.uk email domain, will a new company be created, even though gsk.co.uk is one of the domains under my GSK?
• Will this contact be auto associated with my GSK, because gsk.co.uk is listed as one of its domain names?

[BérangèreL]

Hi @auto-mate,

I hope that you are well!

Thank you for your message, and thanks @HubDoPete for your great help!

The reason I accepted the reply from @HubDoPete it is because it gives a partial solution to the question, so I thought this might be useful for other Community Members who will read this thread.

Please note that accepting an answer as a solution doesn't mean that the thread is closed. I wanted to thank @HubDoPete for his contribution this way 🙂

At the same time, I understand and appreciate that you want to manage the status of your post yourself, so I went ahead and removed the accepted solution status.

Thank you and have a beautiful day!

Best,
Bérangère