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.

[SAmanollahi]

Cleaning your contacts database involves several steps, such as removing duplicate contacts, updating contact information, and identifying and removing inactive or disengaged contacts. By regularly cleaning your database, you can improve the accuracy of your data, reduce the risk of sending emails to invalid or outdated addresses, and ensure that your marketing efforts are reaching your intended audience.

[Jnix284]

We have a lot of legacy data that still needs to be scrubbed, so in combination with new data, I have recurring tasks to clean up various items on a rotating monthly or quarterly basis:

• contact and company duplicates
• contacts missing first name
• companies missing country
• contacts missing persona
• tickets missing category
• and some use-case specific custom properties for contact, company, tickets, and deals

[KBrown-Fox]

We're a large B2B and often deal with spam or duplicate contacts. We try to clean our conatcts every other month when we can. 

[DVassell]

It's like visiting your doctor or dentist for a checkup, about twice  a year.  But essencially it's dependent on your databsed and how large or small it is. For larger and older databases, it would require more cleaning. But for best practises it would be good to clean up after every major campaign. 

[AKumari9]

I have performed reviews 1-2 times per year, and find it is helpful to clean as you go as well.  We are B2B and probably don't get as many contacts as some companies do.  When I receive an alert about a certain contact and I know we don't want them in the database (spam or someone trying to sell us something), I immediately delete them.  When I get duplicate alerts I address those as well. 

[SaraMae]

Many of our processes are seasonal so database updates happen along with seasonal adjustments. For example: Our Service and Marina contacts are assessed ahead of spring and winter services each year, our Boat Club contacts are assessed each quater. 

[SGongopale]

Yes your write 

[AndersonC]

It's hard to say, but I think it depends on the quantity of data you have in your database. So it could be every month, every three monts, every six months, even once a year.

[CBagasbas]

Quarterly

[EmskiOnHubSpot]

Depends on the industry and sensistivity of the data and also what you've agreed to within your GDPR compliance, but every quarter seems right if you have the resource to do it and its not time sensistive to clean.

[SRovira6]

Every two months, depends

[whitneyobrien]

We do not currently.

[jborroto]

every three months

[ChloeBurk]

I think every year would be a good process to maintain when it comes to clearing databases. Looking at the statistics over a year can show the observer what the company noticed throughout an entire year. This information will aid in creating an updated/new contact or database. 

[alejomarketing]

Honestly, very rarely do we clean our database because we believe that all leads are valuable even if they have not bought from us.

[douglasmhill]

I suppose ongoing or sporadically, at this stage.  Perhaps I'll develop a cadence whether it's quarterly or otherwise.  

[HSilveira]

We dont have, yet, a solid contact database. But I'll take JeanineIrene's idea creating a quarterly to-do list to clean it.

[SHerner]

Each quarter the database is reviewed and cleaned as needed. The database is also a living breathing database. If customers requests a database deletion these deletions follow privacy laws and are audited by the Data Privacy Officer to ensure compliance. 

[Jeannairene68]

I don't have many contacts on my list so I don't have anything to clean right now. As I go, however, I will clean ongoing for some situations and quarterly in others. I think one of the first things I need to do is work on creating a quarterly to-do list. Then, as I learn more about new contacts and my true buyer persona, I will create a system to evaluate the quality of my leads and contacts.

[HSilveira]

 To create a quarterly to-do list is a very good idea. Thank you!

[JFoster18]

Previously we rarely cleaned up our database. This year we committed to doing it Quarterly. However getting more familiar using Hubspot tools, we are looking at taking it a step further and reviewing monthly. TBD