Lead Capture Tools

Anonymous
Not applicable

Can I recreate contacts that were overwritten by multiple form submissions?

SOLVE

Can I recreate contacts that were overwritten by multiple form submissions?

1 Accepted solution
CasperOng
Solution
HubSpot Employee
HubSpot Employee

Can I recreate contacts that were overwritten by multiple form submissions?

SOLVE

When a visitor submits a form in a browser with tracking cookies tied to an existing contact record, the submission will update the existing contact record and not create a new one. Learn how HubSpot deduplicates contacts and how to turn off cookie tracking in your form.

 

If form submissions have inadvertently overwritten a contact record multiple times, you can restore the original contact record and recreate the form submissions as new contacts.

 

 

1. Restore the original email address in the overwritten contact record
  • In your HubSpot account, navigate to Contacts > Contacts.
  • Click the name of the overwritten contact record.
  • In the About card, hover over the Email property and click See history.
  • In the right pane, view the history of changes to the Email property. Note the correct email address before the value was overwritten by the form submissions.
  • After you've identified the correct email address, in the right pane, click Close.
  • In the About card, hover over the Email property and click the pencil icon edit.
  • Next to the correct email address, click the Actions dropdown menu and select Make primary.
  • Next to each of the other email addresses that have come from your form submissions, click the Actions dropdown menu and select Delete. These email addresses are recorded in your form submissions and will be reimported as new contact records.

This restores the original email address in the overwritten contact record, and ensures existing information in the contact record remains associated with the correct email address.

 

2. Restore the other properties in the overwritten contact record
  • In your HubSpot account, navigate to Contacts > Contacts.
  • Click the name of the overwritten contact record.
  • At the bottom of the About card, click View all properties.
  • Hover over a property overwritten by the form submissions and click See history.
  • In the right pane, view the history of changes to the email property. Note the correct value in the property before it was overwritten by form submission data, then click Close.
  • Hover over the same property and click the pencil icon edit.
  • In the property, update the current value to the correct value.
  • In the bottom left, click Save.
  • Repeat this for every property affected by the form submissions.

Once you've corrected all the properties affected by the form, the overwritten contact record should look like the original contact record.

 

3. Re-import the form submissions to create new contacts
  • In your HubSpot account, navigate to Marketing > Lead Capture > Forms.
  • Export the submissions for the affected form. You'll receive a CSV file with the submissions data. 
  • Import the CSV file containing the affected form submissions. Ensure that the columns are mapped correctly to the properties.

If a contact with the email address does not exist, HubSpot will create a new contact. Since these email addresses were deleted in the overwritten contact record, a new contact record will be created for each of the affected submissions.

 

 

Please note: if you have existing contacts with email addresses matching any of the form submissions, importing the full CSV file may overwrite their property values. It's recommended to ensure that the CSV file only includes net new contacts that don't already exist in your database.

 
 

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5 Replies 5
ADodge603
Participant

Can I recreate contacts that were overwritten by multiple form submissions?

SOLVE

You can export the contact property history for: "Email" and it will show you if a contact's address has changed over time. If so, see if the contact filled out that specific form and re-instate the original email address as the primary email address and then deleting the other addresses.  You can then create new contacts with the addresses and form property values that overwrote the original. 

0 Upvotes
ubotero
Participant

Can I recreate contacts that were overwritten by multiple form submissions?

SOLVE

Best regards,

 

For us it has been an inconvenience because we cannot realize which contacts have been overwritten, so only when we do not find a contact that we were sure that existed is that we realize.  This affects the quality of the data.

 

Losing contact tracking is also a bad thing because it is the power of HubSpot. Then it would be good if they could find the form that in case of resending an email that leads to a form that no longer keeps track of cookies, that only tracks cookies to emails sent from hubspot.

 

Thank you.

CasperOng
Solution
HubSpot Employee
HubSpot Employee

Can I recreate contacts that were overwritten by multiple form submissions?

SOLVE

When a visitor submits a form in a browser with tracking cookies tied to an existing contact record, the submission will update the existing contact record and not create a new one. Learn how HubSpot deduplicates contacts and how to turn off cookie tracking in your form.

 

If form submissions have inadvertently overwritten a contact record multiple times, you can restore the original contact record and recreate the form submissions as new contacts.

 

 

1. Restore the original email address in the overwritten contact record
  • In your HubSpot account, navigate to Contacts > Contacts.
  • Click the name of the overwritten contact record.
  • In the About card, hover over the Email property and click See history.
  • In the right pane, view the history of changes to the Email property. Note the correct email address before the value was overwritten by the form submissions.
  • After you've identified the correct email address, in the right pane, click Close.
  • In the About card, hover over the Email property and click the pencil icon edit.
  • Next to the correct email address, click the Actions dropdown menu and select Make primary.
  • Next to each of the other email addresses that have come from your form submissions, click the Actions dropdown menu and select Delete. These email addresses are recorded in your form submissions and will be reimported as new contact records.

This restores the original email address in the overwritten contact record, and ensures existing information in the contact record remains associated with the correct email address.

 

2. Restore the other properties in the overwritten contact record
  • In your HubSpot account, navigate to Contacts > Contacts.
  • Click the name of the overwritten contact record.
  • At the bottom of the About card, click View all properties.
  • Hover over a property overwritten by the form submissions and click See history.
  • In the right pane, view the history of changes to the email property. Note the correct value in the property before it was overwritten by form submission data, then click Close.
  • Hover over the same property and click the pencil icon edit.
  • In the property, update the current value to the correct value.
  • In the bottom left, click Save.
  • Repeat this for every property affected by the form submissions.

Once you've corrected all the properties affected by the form, the overwritten contact record should look like the original contact record.

 

3. Re-import the form submissions to create new contacts
  • In your HubSpot account, navigate to Marketing > Lead Capture > Forms.
  • Export the submissions for the affected form. You'll receive a CSV file with the submissions data. 
  • Import the CSV file containing the affected form submissions. Ensure that the columns are mapped correctly to the properties.

If a contact with the email address does not exist, HubSpot will create a new contact. Since these email addresses were deleted in the overwritten contact record, a new contact record will be created for each of the affected submissions.

 

 

Please note: if you have existing contacts with email addresses matching any of the form submissions, importing the full CSV file may overwrite their property values. It's recommended to ensure that the CSV file only includes net new contacts that don't already exist in your database.

 
 
ShamashA
Participant

Can I recreate contacts that were overwritten by multiple form submissions?

SOLVE

Hi, if we restore the original (overwritten) email address and delete the new email address from a contact record, wouldn't the tracking cookie from the new (now deleted) email address visitor still be tied to the same user token and we would have their web activity logged in the same contact record?

0 Upvotes
kdeleon
Participant

Can I recreate contacts that were overwritten by multiple form submissions?

SOLVE

Thanks for this tutorial.

 

Do you have any ideas for identifying the contacts that have been overwritten? 

 

I had a form that was mistakenly tracking cookies for an extended period of time, so several different contacts have been overwritten. I basically need a way to search for all contacts which completed said form and also have more than two or three email adresses associated with it. Any thoughts/suggestions greatly appreciated!