Automatic contact–company associations when multiple subsidiaries share the same domain

[COHagan8]

Hi everyone,

we’re currently trying to improve our inbound process in HubSpot and I’d love to hear how others are handling this scenario.

When a contact submits a form, HubSpot automatically associates them to an existing company based on their email domain. That’s fine most of the time — but in our case, several subsidiaries share the same domain, which causes wrong associations.

Example:
Let’s say we have

• AlphaTech Germany GmbH → domain: alphatech.com

• AlphaTech Denmark A/S → domain: alphatech.com

If a new contact from Denmark submits a form, HubSpot will usually attach them to AlphaTech Germany, because it’s the first record with that domain. That’s obviously not ideal — we’d prefer the contact to be linked to the correct local entity (based on country, language, or company name in the form).

How are you solving this problem in your HubSpot setup?
Have you found a clean or scalable way to ensure contacts are linked to the right company when multiple records share the same domain?

Thanks in advance for any tips or examples — I’m sure this is something many global teams face!

Best,
Conor

[BérangèreL · Accepted solution]

Hi @COHagan8, I hope that you are well!
 

Great question, thanks for asking the HubSpot Community!

To start with, here are some resources for reference on the topic:

- Manage the company domain name property on records
- Automatically create and associate companies with contacts

Also, I'd love to put you in touch with our Top Experts: Hi @danmoyle, @franksteiner79 and @TomM2 do you have any insights or bets practices to share to help @COHagan8, please?

Have a great day and thanks so much! 🧡
Bérangère

[TomM2 · Accepted solution]

Hey @COHagan8 there's not really any automatic way to handle associations outside of the predefine settings in HubSpot unfortunately.

Automatic association settings will just associate based on email domain and company domain. The only way to associate this with a child company would be manually. 

You can use a third party integration such as associ8 to try automate this on another field though! 

[danmoyle · Accepted solution]

Hey @COHagan8 - you're right it's something other users have brought up in Community and what @TomM2 said is right. Third party solutions seem to be the fix for now. 

I've also seen it suggested to build custom workflows that assign contacts to the correct subsidiary once HubSpot creates them. For example:

• Trigger: “Contact created” or “Form submitted”
• Filters: Country = Denmark → Associate with AlphaTech Denmark A/S (Company)
• Use custom properties like “Subsidiary” or “Office Location” in the form

HubSpot’s workflow actions let you associate contacts with existing companies if you identify them via a unique property other than domain—such as a “Company ID” or “Country” match in the form. It's not the easiest solve, but it's an option. 

Finally, you could opt out that domain under the “Automatic association exclusions” section. This prevents the system from attaching any contact with that domain automatically, leaving workflow or manual logic to handle assignment. If you have a list of specific domains and don't mind manually associating, or creating a workflow to do it, this could possibly be an option,

Hopefully that helps a bit. 

[SJeremias · Accepted solution]

Hi Conor - 
we have that problem AND also contacts using their personal email. We usually keep both companies associated but make the one it needs to be associated with the primary (and if you truly dont want it to be associated, remove the association).  Our users are pretty good at making sure, or watching, as like you said it does populate to the default domain of the company. 

[danmoyle · Accepted solution]

Hey @COHagan8 - you're right it's something other users have brought up in Community and what @TomM2 said is right. Third party solutions seem to be the fix for now. 

I've also seen it suggested to build custom workflows that assign contacts to the correct subsidiary once HubSpot creates them. For example:

• Trigger: “Contact created” or “Form submitted”
• Filters: Country = Denmark → Associate with AlphaTech Denmark A/S (Company)
• Use custom properties like “Subsidiary” or “Office Location” in the form

HubSpot’s workflow actions let you associate contacts with existing companies if you identify them via a unique property other than domain—such as a “Company ID” or “Country” match in the form. It's not the easiest solve, but it's an option. 

Finally, you could opt out that domain under the “Automatic association exclusions” section. This prevents the system from attaching any contact with that domain automatically, leaving workflow or manual logic to handle assignment. If you have a list of specific domains and don't mind manually associating, or creating a workflow to do it, this could possibly be an option,

Hopefully that helps a bit. 

[TomM2 · Accepted solution]

Hey @COHagan8 there's not really any automatic way to handle associations outside of the predefine settings in HubSpot unfortunately.

Automatic association settings will just associate based on email domain and company domain. The only way to associate this with a child company would be manually. 

You can use a third party integration such as associ8 to try automate this on another field though! 

[BérangèreL · Accepted solution]

Hi @COHagan8, I hope that you are well!
 

Great question, thanks for asking the HubSpot Community!

To start with, here are some resources for reference on the topic:

- Manage the company domain name property on records
- Automatically create and associate companies with contacts

Also, I'd love to put you in touch with our Top Experts: Hi @danmoyle, @franksteiner79 and @TomM2 do you have any insights or bets practices to share to help @COHagan8, please?

Have a great day and thanks so much! 🧡
Bérangère