Cleansing Bad Data

[HSaunders]

Hi Community, 

First time posting and new HubSpot user here 😊

We have been using the free version of hhubSpot for aroun 18 months and now upgraded to sales, marketing and serivce pro. 

We have just over 8,000 contacts on our database however I believe a lot of these contacts have incorrect email addresses. I have a tool called Zero Bounce which I can run all the email addresses through and validate. 

My question is - is there a way to import that cleansed data back into our HubSpot and during that import "ask" HubSpot to remove the invalid email addresses? or is this a manual process of comparing the csv of cleansed data and deleting each contact on HubSpot? 

I have created a list of email hard bounce which has given me just over 800 contacts but as mentioned I don't want to send out mass emails to discover who actually bounces. 

I hope this makes sense. 

Thank you

Heather  

[karstenkoehler]

Hi @HSaunders,

I would approach this slightly differently. ZeroBounce should give you a list that specifies whether an email is valid or invalid. The invalid ones I would immediately remove from the ZeroBounce file. You can then import this list into HubSpot. This enables you to find all of the contacts which were not validated easily – and also apply additional filter logic.

To be more specific, you could then create a deletion list in HubSpot. This would be an active contact-based list that filters for all contacts that are not in the list you just imported. Once this list is done populating, you can select all contacts and bulk delete them.

More importantly, you could exclude contacts group from the upcoming deletion, e.g. contacts with Lifecycle stage 'Customer', business partners, internal contacts etc. That's what I was referring to above: applying additional logic to your deletion list.

So in other words, no, it's not possible to do this during the import process – but you can easily achieve what you're looking for with active contact lists.

Lastly:

• HubSpot automatically excludes contacts from marketing emails automatically if they have bounced before.
• ZeroBounce integrates with HubSpot. I haven't used the integration yet but you might not even have to export/import: https://ecosystem.hubspot.com/marketplace/apps/marketing/email/zerobounce

Let me know if that answers your question!

[HSaunders]

Hi Karsten, 

Thank you so much for replying to me. 

Could you just clarify how I see / distinguish between the valid and invalid emails when I import back into HubSpot? If  remove all the records marked as invalid from Zerobounce and then import the good contacts back in I don't understand how I then remove the invalid contacts already in HubSpot that are showing as invalid from Zero bounce. 

To be clear I am exporting all of our current contacts in HubSpot, running through Zerobounce to then re import those same contacts and delete the invalid returns from HubSpot easily. 

Sorry it's difficult to explain. 

Thank you 

Heather  

[karstenkoehler]

Hi @HSaunders,

If you're exporting all contacts for validation in ZeroBounce and only re-import the valid ones, you have two groups of contacts in HubSpot:

1. the validated ones from your import

2. anyone else

By definition, anyone else has an invalid email address. You could create a list of contacts who are not in your import and delete 'anyone else'.

Does that make sense?

Best regards!

[HSaunders]

Hi Karsten

I think I'm starting to understanding what you are saying (sorry as mentioned I'm new to HubSpot). 

I'm nervous that I don't fully understand and don't want to reimport contacts and make a mess and also potentially delete contact incorrectly. 

Would the process be: 

1. Import the valid cleansed data from HubSpot 

2. Create a list from that import and keep that list

Then 

1. Import that invalid data

2. Create a list from that import 

3. Select all and delete

That will then bring my contacts down from 8000+ we currently have to 6000 for example, depending how many come back valid?

When importing the records back into HubSpot, HubSpot will just updte records by matching the email addresses and not create new records. 

Apologies for all the questions and clarification, you're being really helpful. 

Thank you 

Heather 

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @HSaunders,

No problem at all. It's perfectly fine to not know these things and if I can help you get this right and make your HubSpot learning journey easier, that also makes me happy.

From what I understand, here's what you would do:

1. Export all contacts from HubSpot.
2. Import all contacts into ZeroBounce for validation.
3. Export all contacts from ZeroBounce.
4. Remove invalid contacts from Zerobounce export file
5. Remove all columns from file but the Email column
6. Import this file (valid contacts) into HubSpot
7. During import, create a list of imported contacts
8. Create a HubSpot new contact list that contains all contacts which are not in the list from step 7 (invalid contacts)
9. Delete contacts on the list from step 8

In the list of step 8, consider excluding contacts with Lifecycle stage Customer. You might want to consider other stakeholders as well. Personally, I would want to keep customer records, even if the email address bounces.

Let me know if I should detail any of the steps further!

[HSaunders]

Hi Karsten, 

Thank you so much for all of your help. 

I have follwed your steps above and completed within HubSpot. 

Really appreciate it. 

Heather