Form Submission - Issue with creating a new contact

[Anonymous]

We had an existing contact forward an email to a coworker. That coworker filled out a form on a landing page, but a new contact was not created. The existing contact information was updated with the new person's info (name, email, etc). 

Does anyone know why this occured and how we can prevent this from happening in the future?

[farnold_lac · Accepted solution]

@Anonymous 

I am in agreement with @Phil_Vallender that there is a tracking element to that form that is causing problems. Under forms, you can change how your form behaves in regards to tracking data. Under the "Options" section while editing a form, you will see these options: 

You can select "Always create contact for new email address" option to make sure every new email address you submit creates a new contact. Also, you can turn off the "Pre-populate contact fields with known values" option to make sure no old data is being copied into the forms. 

One thing we have ran into is that if you are submitting forms internally on behalf of someone else (via the same IP address), you always want to take a look at those settings. We lost a bit of data due to an oversight on our part. 

Here is caveat to think of as well:

• These options do no exist for Meeting Link Forms. We submit meetings for each other via each others meeting links. Since we are all on the same IP address, we run into some interesting scenarios. Keep that in mind if you do this

Hope this helps!

Best regards,

Fred

[Phil_Vallender]

Hi @Anonymous 

This is one of the flaws of email tracking pixel technology. When someone forwards and email and the new recipient clicks or converts, it looks as if the first recipient is the one doing it. If they go on to convert, this can overwrite the contact's details in the system. 

The only sure fire way to prevent this is to send email clicks through to a HubSpot form that has cookies disabled. 

Hope this helps.