Import Contacts and Match on Field Other than Email Address

[benjohnson]

Is it possible to use HubSpot's import feature to update Contact records using a field other than email address as the primary key?

Some possible options:

• We send HubSpot a hashed version of the email address, which HubSpot uses to match to the correct Contact record.
• We configure a different field to be used as the primary key, such as the Contact ID.  HubSpot then uses this field to match to the correct Contact record.

The goal here is to remove the need to use email address, which is sensitive PII, from the import process.

If this isn't possible today, any idea if this is on the roadmap?  As a backup option, would the recommendation be to use the Contact API and build this functionality ourselves?

[JenNS1]

Thank you, will look into the Import2 Wizard.  We need to refresh out data from another system without creating 100,000 duplicates! 

[JanaB]

There is a possibility to update contacts and import link to a company without email/domain using a third-party solution, such as Import2 Wizard. There, you can use any field on contacts to match, such as “name” or “ID” - or, even by custom fields if you wish.

Here is a short video overview on how to connect a contact to a company using “name” as a lookup field in Import2 Wizard: https://youtu.be/NP27PDeCYJU

Also, Hubspot released an update recently so that you can update/import records using Contacts ID: https://www.hubspot.com/product-updates/now-live-import-deduplicate-and-search-objects-using-object-...

[Josh · Accepted solution]

Hi @benjohnson,

You can now associate data to a contact based on the contact ID that is exported from HubSpot. You should see this option as you go through the process.

[HoneyB]

nevermind. figured it out

[nggenova]

Hi Josh. I have been testing small imports and using the Contact ID. The problem is if I do a daily import from our core system (to check for updates), I am still going to have to match other fields such as name or email address from my import list to data coming from our core becuase we do not have a Contact ID field on our core. What do you suggest for this?