How to manage a contact database: deduplication, enrichment, and hygiene

Resolution protocol

1. 01

   Run a quarterly deduplication pass

   HubSpot's built-in dedup tool, or a manual pass using VLOOKUP on email address. Merge duplicates, don't delete — you lose activity history. The primary record keeps the oldest creation date. The secondary record's notes merge into the primary.

2. 02

   Enrich data automatically

   Use Clearbit, Apollo, or HubSpot Insights to auto-fill: company name, industry, company size, LinkedIn URL, job title, phone. Enrichment turns a name+email into an actionable prospect profile. Cost: $0.01–0.10 per contact — worth it for your top 5,000 prospects.

3. 03

   Set a 6-month staleness rule

   Any contact with no activity (email open, page visit, CRM update) in 6 months gets tagged 'Dormant'. Any email that bounces twice gets marked 'Invalid'. Review Dormant contacts quarterly: re-engage campaign or archive. Never delete — re-engagement campaigns have 5–10% conversion on warm-ish audiences.