Fix Duplicate Companies in the HubSpot Salesforce Integration

If you’ve integrated HubSpot and Salesforce, you’re likely dealing with duplicate company records in HubSpot. Duplicates are an unfortunate but super common part of the integration. Several important steps are needed to prevent duplicates in the HubSpot Salesforce integration. But this post is for those of you who have hundreds (or thousands!) of duplicate companies that you need to clean up.

What is a Duplicate Record?

A duplicate record is two or more records that represent the same entity (company, individual, etc.) in your CRM. Duplicates occur in the HubSpot Salesforce integration in several different ways.

1. Companies - two or more companies are created by HubSpot or Salesforce to represent the same business. When this happens, contacts in HubSpot are split between the two companies based on domain associations from form submissions. 
2. Contacts - two or more Leads or Contacts in Salesforce using the same email address sync to one HubSpot Contact with a matching email address. HubSpot will not create duplicate Contacts with the same email address. The Contact will sync with the most recently updated Lead or Contact with the matching email address in Salesforce. 

Problems Caused by Duplicate Companies in HubSpot

Duplicates are created in every CRM, right? Yes! But duplicate Companies in the HubSpot Salesforce integration can be especially damaging for your business. How?

Let’s say Empire Kicks has been a customer of yours for 3 years. You install the HubSpot Salesforce integration and create Empire Kicks as a Company in HubSpot. But you didn’t follow the steps to prevent duplicate Companies in the integration. Then, a new marketing manager at Empire Kicks signs up for a webinar, is created as a Contact in HubSpot, and syncs back to Salesforce as a Lead. A new Company record for Empire Kicks is created in HubSpot, and the marketing manager is associated with that duplicate record. Because this duplicate Company isn’t syncing with the Salesforce Account, indicating that Empire Kicks is a customer, the marketing manager starts to receive emails as if they were a brand new marketing qualified lead. But, because they now own the contract with your company, they reach out to customer service asking if something is wrong as they’re getting emails selling them on your services. Oops.

Duplicate records are the primary cause of personalization emails sent via marketing automation tools. Managing and preventing duplicate records in the HubSpot Salesforce integration is an essential practice to keep your automated email campaigns healthy and on track. 

How to Check for Duplicates

Now that you see how this can derail your marketing efforts, let’s take a look at your HubSpot account and see if you have a duplicate issue.

Navigate to Companies in HubSpot and check for two scenarios using filters:

1. Salesforce Account ID is Known + Associated contacts = 0
2. Salesforce Account ID is Unknown.

If either of these filters shows more than 0 Companies, you have a duplicate problem. If you’re wondering why, take a look at how to prevent and manage duplicates in the integration. When you’re ready to solve the issue, keep reading!

Resolve Duplicates with Associ8 from Hapily

While there are several ways to solve duplicates in HubSpot, this is our favorite solution. It’s cost-effective, quick, and can be mostly automated!

Associ8 automates associations at scale using HubSpot Workflows. Associ8 can fix your duplicate Company problem in bulk using the tools you already have and know how to use (HubSpot!). Follow these steps to fix your duplicate issue in HubSpot quickly. Once you’ve done this once, set a monthly reminder to delete the duplicate companies in HubSpot to stay on track.

1. Ensure the following fields are mapped in the HubSpot Salesforce integration settings.
1. Company - Check that Salesforce Account ID is mapped
2. Contact - Check that Salesforce Account ID and Salesforce Contact ID are mapped
2. Install Associ8 for HubSpot.
3. Create a Contact-based Workflow.
4. Enroll Contacts when the Associated Company has an unknown Salesforce Account ID & the Contact has a known Salesforce Account ID.
5. Match the Contact to the Company using the Salesforce Account ID.
6. Run the Workflow.
7. Delete HubSpot Companies without a Salesforce Account ID.

Looking for Help Deduplicating Companies in HubSpot?

First, watch this quick webinar demonstrating a different way to manage duplicate records by using Insycle to mass deduplicate records. If you’re still looking for help, let’s have a quick chat and see how Coastal Consulting can help!