HubSpot Forms - adding contact ID as a parameter

[ChrisChiha]

Hello,
 
I have a HubSpot form set up in my account. We share this form with customer to collect more data, and if the email is already in HubSpot, the existing contact is updated.
 
However, in many of our scenarios, existing contacts in CRM have email address missing so a new contact is created although the contact already exists. So the only way that this could work, is to use a more reliable property/field to identify the contact. (Contact ID)
 
My Question :
Can i pass the contact ID as an identifier instead of the email address? My thoughts were, as it is possible in Hubspot surveys, to pass the "Contact ID" as a parameter to the Form URL, so that each customer will get the form associated to his existing contact, and the updates will happen accordingly.
  
Thanks,
CHris

[Mike_Eastwood · Accepted solution]

It was worth a shot @ChrisChiha 

Do you have another unique identifier e.g. a Customer Number that could be used to deuplicate Contacts? Then you could merge the Contacts.

With one of our clients we surface their "Customer Number" on the deduplication screen to make it easy to dedupe. But, it's still a manual dedupe (although I saw a beta dedupe endpoint in the API docs the other day).

How do you share the form? (if you don't have an email address)

Mike

[JPhipps]

Hey Chirs, 

One thing you could use is URL parameters.  I am not sure how you share the form with your clients but if you use a URL in an emial thtat is sent from HS you can use URL parameters to auto fill any field using tokens.  We use this in one of our processess and it works great.  

1) grab form URL and append with ?email= {{contact.email}}

2) Hide the email on the form so the user cannot change

3) Send email through HS email and the URL will be appended with email address on the contact record

[NSirois]

Hello @ChrisChiha, I want to do a similar thing. I find that emails are not always the best way to identify a user because they tend to have multiple ones. I want to use a unique ID that we assign to our users in Hubspot to link the form information to the proper contact. Did you find a solution to your problem?

[ChrisChiha]

Hello @NSirois ,
 
I am still trying to find a workaround, as this is a deal breaker for me.
As the business grows, this could become a nightmare when dealing with tens of thousands of contacts.
 

[NSirois]

I think there's a workaround with Zapier but it means we have to use an
external form and pay for Zapier which is annoying knowing how much we pay
for Hubspot already. If I manage to make it work, I'll share my solution
with you here.

[ChrisChiha]

@NSirois 
Hello, 
You can find the solution i figured out through Zapier here:
https://community.hubspot.com/t5/Sales-Integrations/Google-sheets-x-HubSpot-integration-Contact-ID/m...

[Mike_Eastwood]

Hi @ChrisChiha 

I haven't tried it yet... BUT, I would see if you can add a Hidden Field in the Form for the HubSpot Contact ID.

It's a long shot, but it would save a heap of time if it works.

If you try it you will need to test thoroughly (preferably in a test portal).

Let me know how you get on – if it doesn't work there must be another way.

Have fun

Mike

p.s. thank you for the mention @PamCotton 

[ChrisChiha]

Hello @Mike_Eastwood ,
 
Thank you so much for the reply.
 
I tried adding the "Contact ID" as a hidden field, but wasn't able to find this property in the left sidebar when creating the form. I could find all my "Contact Properties" except for the "Contact ID", for some reason this contact property was not available to be added on the form.
 

[Mike_Eastwood · Accepted solution]

It was worth a shot @ChrisChiha 

Do you have another unique identifier e.g. a Customer Number that could be used to deuplicate Contacts? Then you could merge the Contacts.

With one of our clients we surface their "Customer Number" on the deduplication screen to make it easy to dedupe. But, it's still a manual dedupe (although I saw a beta dedupe endpoint in the API docs the other day).

How do you share the form? (if you don't have an email address)

Mike

[ChrisChiha]

Hey @Mike_Eastwood ,
 
So basically at the moment of contact creation in CRM, email address is not mandatory and many information will be missing.
Form link is then shared with the client through phone number mostly for them to fill and update their existing data.
 
I thought of using the phone number, but it is not a unique identifier as sometimes multiple related individuals apply with same phone number + Even if phone number already exists in our CRM, Hubspot will create a new record with the same phone number (Unlike email address and contact ID properties where existing contact is updated)
 
My thought was, i am using HubSpot survey links in other use cases, and i tried passing the Contact ID in the survey link and it worked. I added "&utm_medium=ContactID" but turns out it always fill the information for the email associated with HubSpot account only despite the contact ID passed.
I tried implementing same solution on the normal form link, the page didn't even load.
 
Update:
So i guess the email address is the only way to update existing contacts, right ?
 

[Ian_Matt · Accepted solution]

Hi @ChrisChiha , when a contact is created HubSpot users either their email address or a user token (a cookie) to de-duplicate them. 

If 'Sam Test' is filling in his email address in a form HubSpot won't know that it's the same Sam Test that already exists with no email address in your CRM unless there's a cookie that's already being tracked from him clicking an email, filling in a form etc (Mostly thing which require an email address anyway!)

Contact ID is mostly only used for depulicating when running an import.

HubSpot does have a deduplication feature which you can run manually every so often. Not ideal but might help out a bit.

 

Hope this helps!

Ian Matthews Freelance HubSpot Expert ianjosephmatthews@gmail.com ianmatthewsfreelance.com Book A Chat Here

[ChrisChiha]

Hello @Ian_Matt ,
 
Unfortunately this is not scalable as the business grows 😞
 
This is so confusing as the Contact ID is the only unique property inside a contact, so it makes perfect sense to use it as a contact identifier when updating a contact.
  
Thank you for your response,
@ChrisChiha 

[PamCotton]

Hello, @ChrisChiha happy Monday!

I would like to invite to this conversation some of our top experts @Mike_Eastwood @Ian_Matt @Ben_M any recommendations to @ChrisChiha matter?

Thank you,

Pam