Turning on "Always create contact for new email address" option in forms

[jjokinen]

Hi!

I was wondering what the use case for turning on the "Always create contact for new email address" option in forms is?

Seems like we've had this turned on in most of our forms but to me, it looks like turning it off would make a lot more sense.

Thanks,

Joel

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @jjokinen,

If this is not turned on, HubSpot will update an existing contact instead of creating a new contact in a few scenarios.

One of the two notable ones would be multiple people using the same device. HubSpot would update the same contact with a new email address instead of creating another contact.

Similarly, if a marketing email is forwarded and a second person click a link and submits a form, HubSpot will also think this is the same person, as marketing email tracking links are personalized.

Enabling the "Always create contact..." option is a good idea.

Let me know if you have any follow-up questions!

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @jjokinen,

If there are contacts who submit a form first with a personal email, then with a business email, then yes, this might result in duplicates. And correct, you will not have access to progressive fields.

This comes down to personal preference. Personally, I prefer these two issues over having incorrectly merged contacts – very hard to clean-up and potentially risky when it goes unnoticed. Much harder also than merging contacts, especially if you have access to the duplicates tool.

Best regards

[donrua]

Karsten, thanks always for the incredible job you do to provide answers to others.

I had an issue. I created a new form for a funnel. It was built from people clicking a QR code at a conference, going to form, if they completed it, they got a download fo slides. It ran, great response.

I could see the names of people, their details, but it did NOT create a contact record for them. If you click the names that submitted, HS would tell you there as no record for them.

I chatted with HS, and they said it's because I didn not have the "create contact" switch discussed above turned on.  They told me my only option was to resubmit all of the names myself, after adjusting the form. So it changes all of the timestamps, and some tracking perhaps, to get a record created for them.

I had the switch for prefiling fields turned on, and to turn that on, it turns off the Create Contact button. I feel like I'm hearing bad advice, as that makes no sense to me. To paraphrase how I hear that: "To improve the UX for form fills, by pre-populating when someone is a contact, I have to forgo leadgen because it will not create a contact for them."

Where is my miss here? Was the explanation of why there was no record incorrect? 

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

@chighsmith thank you for tagging me.

---

@donrua wrote:

"To improve the UX for form fills, by pre-populating when someone is a contact, I have to forgo leadgen because it will not create a contact for them."

---

This is exactly right. It's however not a conscious decision, it's a technical limitation. HubSpot has two options: it can either say "new email address? that must be a new contact" or "new email address? someone must by trying to update their information" – there is no in between. Since the latter relies on cookies, the former must ignore them. That means, we lose the pre-populating feature.

So yes, it's a trade-off between data quality and user experience. Although in this case, bad data quality directly negatively influences the user experience.

[chighsmith]

Hi @donrua, 

Thank you for posting to the Community! Tagging in Karsten to see if he has any insight here. 

Hi @karstenkoehler, I hope your having a wonderful day! Do you have any ideas on @donrua's comment above?

Thank you!

Cassie, Community Manager

[PeterPu]

It is a bummer that it is not possible to turn off the automatic update after form submission. I am trying to get a workflow going that will trigger once a contact's first name or last name is changed upon form submission to trigger a task to fix it manually. 

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @jjokinen,

If this is not turned on, HubSpot will update an existing contact instead of creating a new contact in a few scenarios.

One of the two notable ones would be multiple people using the same device. HubSpot would update the same contact with a new email address instead of creating another contact.

Similarly, if a marketing email is forwarded and a second person click a link and submits a form, HubSpot will also think this is the same person, as marketing email tracking links are personalized.

Enabling the "Always create contact..." option is a good idea.

Let me know if you have any follow-up questions!

[jjokinen]

Thanks @karstenkoehler!

That makes sense. However, doesn't turning it on create more duplicates in the system and block us from using progressive fields?

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @jjokinen,

If there are contacts who submit a form first with a personal email, then with a business email, then yes, this might result in duplicates. And correct, you will not have access to progressive fields.

This comes down to personal preference. Personally, I prefer these two issues over having incorrectly merged contacts – very hard to clean-up and potentially risky when it goes unnoticed. Much harder also than merging contacts, especially if you have access to the duplicates tool.

Best regards

[TSagan]

I didn't turn it on and now in have incprrectly merged contacts.  How do I unmerge them?

[DianaGomez]

Hi @TSagan, 

Thank you for your inquiry. 

I am afraid it is not possible to unmerge contacts, you may confirm the information in this article: Merge records

Hope this helps clarify,

Diana

[PKlaschka]

Where do I turn this on? I urgently need this!

[DianaGomez]

Hi @PKlaschkam, hope you are doing well!

You can follow these steps:

• Go to Marketing- Lead capture- Forms
• After you create the form with the properties you want 
• Go to the second tab : Options
• Scroll down until you find: Always create contact for new email address
• Turn on the option
• All set

Hope this helps,

Diana

[PKlaschka]

Hi Diana,

I still have this issue. I have users uploading many businesses, and since it is the same user. It always just overwrites one entry... Please help me activate this option for non Hubspot Forms!

[PKlaschka]

Hi Diana, thanks for your reply, but I am using a non-Hubspot form.

[DianaGomez]

Hi @PKlaschka, hope you are doing well!

Thanks for the clarification. This option is not available yet, I found the idea submitted here, please upvote it so it will have more chances to be implemented in the future.

Best,

Diana