How often do you clean your contacts database?

[JorieMunroe]

We’re in a data-driven era, where datasets are shared between marketing, sales, and customer service teams to increase organizational effectiveness and facilitate alignment. When you have high levels of inconsistent data, it’s not just one team taking the hit. It’s everyone. The entire company. The fallout from that bad data extends to every corner of your business that the data touches. With that in mind, how often do you currently audit and clean your contacts database? Once a month? Every quarter? Once a year? What does the process look like? Share your thoughts and current schedule.

[JGover]

Ideally I would like to clean my database quarterly, but it ends up being twice a year! 

[CConverse]

It should be often but it all depends on the company and crucial it is

[SFreas]

It depends on the impact the dirty data will have, but in general I like to automate as much as possible to happen weekly or continuously. Then other tasks can happen monthly, quorterly or yearly. 

[PBeckman]

At its core, the question of when and why to remove a contact from your database is important.  However, an unengaged lead this year can easily turn into an engaged lead next year.  The question I have is... how do you determine a long-term target and a waste of time lead?

[Don_Crow]

Hi there - as an inbound agency founder, we did a far better job of helping our clients clean their databases - typically twice per year - than we did for ourselves! It is essential, even as simple as de-duplication and making sure you don't have bottlenecks in your automation processes can take significant time. That said, it's a group of tasks that needs to be documented, actively monitored and QA'd by leadership in any organization IMO.

[asqui]

Hello from VT! I'm not sure how often we do a formal audit besides the one we did last year. However, we're nuts for updating contacts in HS to reflect day to day changes.

[JCaragher]

Not often enough!

[MPoynton]

For a large business with a lot of data, monthly to bi-monthly. Bad data will cost money and have a negative effect on results and insights

[KHernandez]

I currently do not work in an area that I know this but I think it depens on the business some need to do it more often than others. Quarterly may be ideal for some but may not be better for others which is why there is more options than just quarterly.

[MGlenn]

We clean ours quarterly. 

[NBurkart]

Hi, I would clean the data base at least once every 3 months.

[YAdmin]

Our process looks at cleaning our database every half a year, however, we usually end up keeping a lot of data inside our CRM for later, and communicating only with the engaged prospects/clients.

[JfMoncada]

I think cleaning your database helps you to optimize your business performance with all of your customer, I think every quarter would be great.

[Dcflegler]

We will go through and remove and merge accounts that need that done to them, but more often than not we keep all of the contacts that we are asigned through Hubspot. 

[SHeisselberg]

Twice a year however quarterly would be iedal. 

[SHeisselberg]

Twice a year, however quarterly would be ideal.

[SKuttiyan]

If there is an automated way that notfies a contact moved from X company to Y company that's ideal, becasue that creates an opportunity to sell to Y company becuase the person is in favour of our product. I belive updating weekly also will be ideal but its not feasible thats why Quarterly updating or AI based updating could be the options left with. 

[CWilkinson]

About every six months for my industry. 

[KPavel]

It depends on the size of your list but we like to do it monthly to keep it fresh for the newsletter. 

[ishabehl]

A

[JWright10]

Around once a month is ideal as we are a small business.