Will The Real HubSpot Email PLEASE STAND UP!

[MFrankJohnson]

True story.

So, recently we received a message from someone who has nine (9) email addresses in our CRM. This means they've emailed us from more different address than years they've been a client. Wow! (facepalm) haha

Good client? Yes. Great client.

Bad email habits? Absolutely.

What can we do to help them (and ourselves)? LOTS. (see image)

The first step is to merge each contact record containing their secondary email address into the contact record containing their primary email address. Merging cannot be easily undone, so you'll want to be certain that both email addresses belong to the same PERSON.

-1- How do I merge contacts?

How Do I Merge Contacts?
You'll also want a good understanding of what happens when you merge two contact records in HubSpot. In short ...

• The contact record on which you originally clicked Merge remains as the existing contact record. The contact you selected during the merge process will merge into that original primary contact.
• The most recent values from either contact will be the present values on the remaining contact record. However, there are some exceptions; please see below for details.
• The history of property values from both contact records can still be found in Property History in the remaining (primary) contact's record.
• You will see a combination of timeline activity from both the primary and secondary contact records on the remaining (primary) contact's record.

-2- What happens when I merge two contacts?

What Happens When I Merge Two Contacts?
The most important thing to remember about merging contacts in HubSpot is that,

"After merging contacts, you will not be able to create a new contact with the email address of the old contact record that was merged."

This means if you accidentally merge contacts from two different PEOPLE, you'll need to engage HubSpot support to assist with that separation. (it's a pain, so try to avoid it)

-3- HubSpot Developers - Merge Contacts 

HubSpot Developers - Merge Contacts
Ok, I can already hear some of you saying, "but my client(s) need(s) all of those separate email addresses".

No argument there. However, WE don't need all those email addresses SEPARATED. 🙂

Once merged, you will still be able to receive email from all of their email addresses. However, you will only be able to SEND to the PRIMARY email address in HubSpot.

This organizes all of the communications we receive for a single contact no matter how email address crazy they've gone.

[cbsembler · Accepted solution]

Hello @MFrankJohnson, 

Thank you for sharing this process with others! This is a great process and striving to keep your database up to date and clean continually helps you and your customers grow. 

Thanks again for sharing, keep em coming! 

Thanks, 

Courtney Sembler

Inbound Professor 

[adonahue · Accepted solution]

@MFrankJohnson This is great! Thank you so much for sharing 🙂 I would love to feature your story as its own blog post on the HubSpot Academy User blog. If you're interested, please email me at userblog@hubspot.com.  

Abi Donahue 

Content Editor, HubSpot Academy

[MFrankJohnson · Accepted solution]

Appreciate the kudos and share @roisinkirby, @adonahue, @cbsembler. Silly email stories are often 'sad but true'. Thought it might resonate with others who share our experience.

Thanks again.

Best,

Frank

[Derek_Gervais · Accepted solution]

Hey @MFrankJohnson (and others),

You still can't manage (add, delete, update) secondary emails programatically, but you could potentially read them by using the identity profile(s) of the contact(s) in question. This data can be pretty complicated, but generally speaking `EMAIL` identities are what appear as secondary email addresses. Here's an example:

{
// ...other stuff
  "identity-profiles": [
  // ...other profiles
    {
      "vid": 151,
      "saved-at-timestamp": 1536771311004,
      "deleted-changed-timestamp": 0,
      "identities": [
        {
          "type": "LEAD_GUID",
          "value": "48f5080a-9903-410e-b7cd-85d25cdca0f8",
          "timestamp": 1467126265060
        },
        {
          "type": "TAG_ID",
          "value": "presentations-ea25eae2-49ad-41bb-8b1d-1966160101e6",
          "timestamp": 1496852915102
        },
        {
          "type": "EMAIL",
          "value": "testalias@hubspot.com",
          "timestamp": 1513289053632,
          "is-secondary": true
        },
        {
          "type": "EMAIL",
          "value": "testalias2@hubspot.com",
          "timestamp": 1522252904599,
          "is-secondary": true
        },
        {
          "type": "EMAIL",
          "value": "test@hubspot.com",
          "timestamp": 1533757086702,
          "is-primary": true
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

This contact's `email` property would be "test@hubspot.com", and it's secondary email addresses would be "testalias@hubspot.com" and "testalias2@hubspot.com". If the email address is updated, new identities will be added and the `is-primary` and `is-secondary` fields will be updated appropriately.

[Derek_Gervais · Accepted solution]

Hey @MFrankJohnson ,

There isn't a more efficient way to search specifically for contacts that have secondary emails right now. The team is aware of this, and is thinking about more effective ways to manage secondary email addresses (though I don't have any specific timeframe).

[kallgood]

Thanks for the insight, Frank! Is there any way to identify records that have a merge history?  I'd like to build a list (if possible) so our admin team can review records post-merge to ensure data hygiene.

[MFrankJohnson]

Hey @kallgood,
We are unaware of any way to BULK identify contacts with multiple email addresses except via an export of the contact email address property history.
- see View Property History

Don't think we can even test for this criteria via the API. Couldn't find anything.
Pinging -- @Derek_Gervais (cited: Add a secondary email address ...)

[Derek_Gervais · Accepted solution]

Hey @MFrankJohnson (and others),

You still can't manage (add, delete, update) secondary emails programatically, but you could potentially read them by using the identity profile(s) of the contact(s) in question. This data can be pretty complicated, but generally speaking `EMAIL` identities are what appear as secondary email addresses. Here's an example:

{
// ...other stuff
  "identity-profiles": [
  // ...other profiles
    {
      "vid": 151,
      "saved-at-timestamp": 1536771311004,
      "deleted-changed-timestamp": 0,
      "identities": [
        {
          "type": "LEAD_GUID",
          "value": "48f5080a-9903-410e-b7cd-85d25cdca0f8",
          "timestamp": 1467126265060
        },
        {
          "type": "TAG_ID",
          "value": "presentations-ea25eae2-49ad-41bb-8b1d-1966160101e6",
          "timestamp": 1496852915102
        },
        {
          "type": "EMAIL",
          "value": "testalias@hubspot.com",
          "timestamp": 1513289053632,
          "is-secondary": true
        },
        {
          "type": "EMAIL",
          "value": "testalias2@hubspot.com",
          "timestamp": 1522252904599,
          "is-secondary": true
        },
        {
          "type": "EMAIL",
          "value": "test@hubspot.com",
          "timestamp": 1533757086702,
          "is-primary": true
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

This contact's `email` property would be "test@hubspot.com", and it's secondary email addresses would be "testalias@hubspot.com" and "testalias2@hubspot.com". If the email address is updated, new identities will be added and the `is-primary` and `is-secondary` fields will be updated appropriately.

[MFrankJohnson]

Thanks @Derek_Gervais ...

So basically, using the Get all contacts API example (shown below), we'd want to look at identity profiles for contacts that contain multiple 'EMAIL' identities?

[None in this example.]

Or is there a more efficient method to use (especially against portals with lots of contacts)?

Example GET URL:
https://api.hubapi.com/contacts/v1/lists/all/contacts/all?hapikey=demo&count=2


Example response:
{
  "contacts": [
    {
      "addedAt": 1390574181854,
      "vid": 204727,
      "canonical-vid": 204727,
      "merged-vids": [
        
      ],
      "portal-id": 62515,
      "is-contact": true,
      "profile-token": "AO_T-mMusl38dq-ff-Lms9BvB5nWgFb7sFrDU98e-3CBdnB7G2qCt1pMEHC9zmqSfOkeq2on6Dz72P-iLoGjEXfLuWfvZRWBpkB-C9Enw6SZ-ZASg57snQun5f32ISDfLOiK7BYDL0l2",
      "profile-url": "https://app.hubspot.com/contacts/62515/lists/public/contact/_AO_T-mMusl38dq-ff-Lms9BvB5nWgFb7sFrDU98e-3CBdnB7G2qCt1pMEHC9zmqSfOkeq2on6Dz72P-iLoGjEXfLuWfvZRWBpkB-C9Enw6SZ-ZASg57snQun5f32ISDfLOiK7BYDL0l2/",
      "properties": {
        "firstname": {
          "value": "Bob"
        },
        "lastmodifieddate": {
          "value": "1483461406481"
        },
        "company": {
          "value": ""
        },
        "lastname": {
          "value": "Record"
        }
      },
      "form-submissions": [
        
      ],
      "identity-profiles": [
        {
          "vid": 204727,
          "saved-at-timestamp": 1476768116149,
          "deleted-changed-timestamp": 0,
          "identities": [
            {
              "type": "LEAD_GUID",
              "value": "f9d728f1-dff1-49b0-9caa-247dbdf5b8b7",
              "timestamp": 1390574181878
            },
            {
              "type": "EMAIL",
              "value": "mgnew-email@hubspot.com",
              "timestamp": 1476768116137
            }
          ]
        }
      ],
      "merge-audits": [
        
      ]
    },
    {
      "addedAt": 1392643921079,
      "vid": 207303,
      "canonical-vid": 207303,
      "merged-vids": [
        
      ],
      "portal-id": 62515,
      "is-contact": true,
      "profile-token": "AO_T-mPMwvuZG_QTNH28c_MbhSyNRuuTNw9I7zJAaMFjOqL9HKlH9uBteqHAiTRUWVAPTThuU-Fmy7IemUNUvdtYpLrsll6nw47qnu7ACiSHFR6qZP1tDVZFpxueESKiKUIIvRjGzt8P",
      "profile-url": "https://app.hubspot.com/contacts/62515/lists/public/contact/_AO_T-mPMwvuZG_QTNH28c_MbhSyNRuuTNw9I7zJAaMFjOqL9HKlH9uBteqHAiTRUWVAPTThuU-Fmy7IemUNUvdtYpLrsll6nw47qnu7ACiSHFR6qZP1tDVZFpxueESKiKUIIvRjGzt8P/",
      "properties": {
        "firstname": {
          "value": "Ff_FirstName_0"
        },
        "lastmodifieddate": {
          "value": "1479148429488"
        },
        "lastname": {
          "value": "Ff_LastName_0"
        }
      },
      "form-submissions": [
        
      ],
      "identity-profiles": [
        {
          "vid": 207303,
          "saved-at-timestamp": 1392643921090,
          "deleted-changed-timestamp": 0,
          "identities": [
            {
              "type": "EMAIL",
              "value": "email_0be34aebe5@abctest.com",
              "timestamp": 1392643921079
            },
            {
              "type": "LEAD_GUID",
              "value": "058378c6-9513-43e1-a13a-43a98d47aa22",
              "timestamp": 1392643921082
            }
          ]
        }
      ],
      "merge-audits": [
        
      ]
    }
  ],
  "has-more": true,
  "vid-offset": 207303
}
      

Source: Get All Contacts | Contacts API

[Derek_Gervais · Accepted solution]

Hey @MFrankJohnson ,

There isn't a more efficient way to search specifically for contacts that have secondary emails right now. The team is aware of this, and is thinking about more effective ways to manage secondary email addresses (though I don't have any specific timeframe).

[kallgood]

@Derek_Gervais Thanks for the insight. One clarification from my original question (and it may not change anything) I'm not necessarily looking for contacts with multiple addresses, but rather, we want to identify contact records that have ever gone thru a merge process.  Many do in fact have multiple addresses, but some have since had an old address deleted and just have one. 

[Derek_Gervais · Accepted solution]

Hey @kallgood ,

Understood. It's not possible to create an active list in-app with merged contacts, but you can confirm whether or not a contact was merged in two ways:

• In app, you can filter the contact's timeline to show merge events; any/all merges will appear here.
• When pulling a contact via the API, you can look for the `merged-vids` field, which is an array of vids that have been merged into the current contact record. If this is empty, then the contact has never been merged before.

[MFrankJohnson · Accepted solution]

Appreciate the kudos and share @roisinkirby, @adonahue, @cbsembler. Silly email stories are often 'sad but true'. Thought it might resonate with others who share our experience.

Thanks again.

Best,

Frank

[adonahue · Accepted solution]

@MFrankJohnson This is great! Thank you so much for sharing 🙂 I would love to feature your story as its own blog post on the HubSpot Academy User blog. If you're interested, please email me at userblog@hubspot.com.  

Abi Donahue 

Content Editor, HubSpot Academy

[cbsembler · Accepted solution]

Hello @MFrankJohnson, 

Thank you for sharing this process with others! This is a great process and striving to keep your database up to date and clean continually helps you and your customers grow. 

Thanks again for sharing, keep em coming! 

Thanks, 

Courtney Sembler

Inbound Professor 

[roisinkirby]

Thanks for sharing @MFrankJohnson!

@kcooper, @KyleJepson, @JorieMunroe, @cbsembler check this post out.