HubSpot Marketing

JorieMunroe
Inbound Professor
Inbound Professor

How often do you clean your contacts database?

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.

1,570 Replies 1,570
CJeremiason
Member

How often do you clean your contacts database?

Our ideal timing is quarterly. 

0 Upvotes
MariaN3
Participant

How often do you clean your contacts database?

Quarterly is our goal, but so far we are doing it yearly

SKjolby
Participant

How often do you clean your contacts database?

quarterly 

0 Upvotes
ADubey
Member

How often do you clean your contacts database?

Quarterly

 

0 Upvotes
VBulava
Member

How often do you clean your contacts database?

I believe it is important to sort contacts at least every 3 months. 

0 Upvotes
ClaudiaC
Participant

How often do you clean your contacts database?

I try to clean out our contacts as often as I can - at least a couple of times a year. Due to the type of data we handle, I have set up custom lists to identify contacts that should not be deleted (they have an existing relationship with us, but have opted out of all communications) to be compared with contacts opted out or having low engagement. 

0 Upvotes
DGladwell
Member

How often do you clean your contacts database?

Currently about once a year for major changes, but on an adhoc basis when we have bot attacks or incorrect data loaded.

0 Upvotes
idelgado
Participant

How often do you clean your contacts database?

Ideally every six months

0 Upvotes
SJordan2
Participant

How often do you clean your contacts database?

My indusrtry is seasonal, and there are so many cross-customers for out of season sales, so since we just are building this database, I am not sure on how often to clean and update. I believe after the biggest season (christmas) we will need to clean and organize. So every 12 months, in Februarym will be our goal. 

 

0 Upvotes
vanessaELabs
Participant

How often do you clean your contacts database?

I take the opportunity to clean the database after mailings. Looking into what's not sent gives me a chance to look if they have moved to a new company that is still a target account and update or delete accordingly. Periodic (monthly or quarterly) check if possible. Summer is also a good time at least for me to do more database cleansing since there are more out of office returns that give you a chance to update records.

ImmaSalmerón
Participant

How often do you clean your contacts database?

When we do a mailing, we review the bounced contacts and monitor the contacts that have "unsubscribed".

We audit our database every 6 months.

0 Upvotes
SquadFusion
Member

How often do you clean your contacts database?

Currently, every six months. 

0 Upvotes
ZPaiss
Member

How often do you clean your contacts database?

Quarterly at least.

0 Upvotes
EMcCormick
Participant

How often do you clean your contacts database?

I would say as often as possible.

LindsSyl
Member

How often do you clean your contacts database?

We review our lists every six months and remove anyone who is not opening/engaging with our communications. We don't have a process in place for cleaning other data on a regular schedule. Probably something we should do 😉

0 Upvotes
SFamulari
Participant

How often do you clean your contacts database?

Every six months!

0 Upvotes
MHeumann
Member

How often do you clean your contacts database?

It is also good to make sure that your incoming contacts are clean to start with. Mass imports such as badge scans from tradeshows are often "dirty" - since the information "on the badge" is what the tradeshow attendee entered, it is not uncommon to have different versions of company names, for instance. Cleaning this BEFORE you enter it makes life a lot easier and helps minimize the work needed when you do periodic cleaning.

NRMeyer
Member

How often do you clean your contacts database?

I agree that quarterly would be ideal too....

I'm curious on others' practices of data cleanup if the contacts are gathered through intent data.

0 Upvotes
AMaas1
Participant | Partner
Participant | Partner

How often do you clean your contacts database?

Hi, we clean our data base every quarter since we receive a lot of inbound leads and sometimes they use different email addresses because they come from different channels. Therefore we need to have an eye on duplicated contacts and companies. However, merging them is often very useful. 

0 Upvotes
Kristen_321Data
Participant

How often do you clean your contacts database?

I am new to learning about data cleansing, and appreciate what everyone has answered. Thank you.

 

0 Upvotes
KJohnson10
Member

How often do you clean your contacts database?

Quarterly would be good. 

0 Upvotes