5 Workflows for Keeping Your HubSpot Database Clean

If you’re in marketing or sales, you know that data is the lifeblood that fuels growth and drives success. However, if you’ve ever worked with a messy and disorganized database, you also know running reports and analyzing your data is nearly impossible and can make you feel like throwing in the towel and starting all over. Coming from experience, I know it can seem like a steep mountain to climb to get your portal cleaned up. 

But I promise that a clean database has many benefits beyond just saving yourself the headache; there’s an economic advantage as well. HubSpot’s pricing model is based on the number of marketing contacts in your database, meaning you could save money by removing inactive contacts.

A clean and well-organized database not only benefits your bottom line but also leads to happier workers. Imagine the frustration of sales teams trying to close deals with inaccurate or incomplete customer information. By maintaining a clean database, you empower your teams with reliable data, enabling them to focus on building meaningful connections and driving revenue instead of wasting time on data cleanup tasks.

So, if you’re ready to roll up your sleeves and get cleanin’, you’ve come to the right place! In this post, we’re going to explore how to use HubSpot’s automated workflows to streamline data management and ensure the health of your database. It’s like having one of those Roomba robot vacuums running at your home, automatically cleaning while you get to focus your time on something else.

To help you get started on your cleanup, we have outlined five data hygiene workflows that will keep your HubSpot database mean n’ clean. These workflows are designed to address common challenges such as data validation, re-engagement of inactive contacts, handling unsubscribed contacts, and cleanup of invalid email addresses.

By taking the time now to set up these workflows, you can unlock the true potential of your HubSpot database, empowering your team with reliable insights, improving productivity, and ultimately driving better results. 

So grab your mop and bucket, and let’s get our clean on. 

Here's what's covered in this article - just click to jump to the section you're most interested in:

• Re-Engagement Workflow
• Inactive Contact Cleanup
• Unsubscribed Contact Cleanup
• Data Validation Workflow
• Invalid Email Address Cleanup Workflow

There are several HubSpot workflows that can help you clean up your database. But here are a few examples to start with:

1. Re-engagement Workflow:

Workflow Purpose: Sometimes your contact gets busy, goes on an extended vacation, or just forgets about you. But that doesn’t always mean they’re gone forever. This workflow is designed to re-engage inactive contacts in your database. It can segment contacts based on criteria like last activity date or engagement score and send them a series of re-engagement emails or other nurturing actions. By identifying contacts that no longer interact with your content, you can also clean up your database by removing unresponsive or irrelevant contacts.

How to Setup this Workflow:

1. Go to your HubSpot account and navigate to the Workflows dashboard.
2. Click on “Create workflow” and select “Standard workflow.“
3. Give your workflow a name, such as “Re-Engagement Workflow.”
4. Set the enrollment trigger based on criteria for inactivity, such as last activity date (for example, 90 days since last activity). 
5. Add delay steps and send a series of re-engagement emails or other nurturing actions to the enrolled contacts.
6. Monitor the performance of the workflow and adjust the timing and content of the re-engagement actions as needed.
7. Save and activate the workflow. This action will bring up a prompt asking if you want to enroll existing contacts that meet the trigger criteria, which we recommend enabling for this workflow.

2. Inactive Contact Cleanup: 

Workflow Purpose:

Despite your efforts to deliver the right content, to the right contact, at the right time – it’s a perfectly natural occurrence that a contact may become inactive. First, we recommend using the “Re-engagement Workflow” above to try and re-engage your inactive contact. However, if a contact has stopped engaging with your brand’s content and shows no signs of re-engaging, it’s often a sign that they are no longer interested and, therefore should be removed to reduce contact clutter. This workflow can help you identify and remove contacts that have been inactive for a period of time that you specify.

How to Setup this Workflow:

1. Go to your HubSpot account and navigate to the Workflows dashboard.
2. Click on “Create workflow” and select “Standard workflow.“
3. Give your workflow a name, such as “Inactive Contact Cleanup.“
4. Set the enrollment trigger based on criteria for inactivity, such as last activity date (for example, 60 days since last activity). If you have a re-engagement workflow in place, you could instead set your trigger to “Contact has completed (workflow name). Note: For those using engagement scores, a low engagement score can also be used as a trigger in this workflow. 
5. Add an action step to remove these inactive contacts from your database.
6. Optionally, you can add notification emails to alert your team about the contacts being removed.
7. Save and activate the workflow. This action will bring up a prompt asking if you want to enroll existing contacts that meet the trigger criteria, which we recommend enabling for this workflow.

3. Unsubscribed Contact Cleanup:

Workflow Purpose: No matter how great your emails are, it’s likely you’ll get some contacts who unsubscribe – it’s the email equivalent of saying, “Thanks, but this just isn’t for me.” Contacts that unsubscribe are asking to be left alone. Therefore, it’s important to do just that. This workflow can help you identify and remove your unsubscribed contacts so you’re not paying for them.

How to Setup this Workflow:

1. Go to your HubSpot account and navigate to the Workflows dashboard.
2. Click on “Create workflow” and select “Standard workflow.“
3. Create a new standard workflow and provide a name, such as “Unsubscribed Contact Cleanup.”
4. Set the enrollment trigger based on the contact’s subscription status, such as “Opted out of all email.“
5. Add an action step to delete the enrolled contacts. 
6. Optionally, you can add notification emails or other actions to alert your team about the contacts being removed.

Save and activate the workflow. This action will bring up a prompt asking if you want to enroll existing contacts that meet the trigger criteria. Note that enabling this will delete all of your past unsubscribers. We recommend this step unless your organization prefers to handle unsubscribes differently.

4. Data Validation Workflow:

Workflow Purpose: Did the Mickey Mouse just download my ebook? What is a “.cob” email address? If you’re asking questions like these, then you’ll want to check out this workflow to help you validate your data and correct common data quality issues such as missing email addresses, incomplete contact records, or inconsistent formatting. It can use a combination of form submission triggers, contact property filters, and action steps like sending notification emails to alert your team about the data issues.

How to Setup this Workflow:

1. Go to your HubSpot account and navigate to the Workflows dashboard.
2. Click on “Create workflow” and select “Standard workflow.“
3. Give your workflow a name and select the criteria for triggering the workflow, such as “Data Validation Workflow.”
4. Add filters to identify data quality issues, including invalid email format, incomplete contact records, inconsistent formatting, and invalid characters.
5. Set up action steps to address the data issue you want to clean up. For Data Validation tasks, the action depends on the data issue. However, internal notification emails can be sent to your team, tasks can be created for contact owners, or you can even trigger other automated processes.
   
   For invalid email format, we recommend notifying the contact owner by triggering an internal email. 

    

   For incomplete contact records, trigger an action to create a task inside HubSpot for the appropriate staff to complete the record. 

   For inconsistent formatting, like capitalizing contact or company names, we recommend triggering a format data workflow action. HubSpot provides some great step-by-step instructions for leveraging this powerful workflow tool in this article. 

6. Save and activate the workflow. This action will bring up a prompt asking if you want to enroll existing contacts that meet the trigger criteria. Enable this feature if you want to apply the same data validation to your existing HubSpot contacts.

5. Invalid Email Address Cleanup Workflow

Workflow Purpose: It happens all the time with forms – someone enters their email address into your form incorrectly, or someone enters a fake email to bypass the form. Whatever the case, this workflow is designed to help you easily identify and amend invalid email addresses and keep them out of your database.

How to Setup this Workflow:

1. Go to your HubSpot account and navigate to the Workflows dashboard.
2. Click on “Create workflow” and select “Standard workflow.“
3. Give your workflow a name such as “Invalid Email Workflow.” 
4. Set the enrollment trigger based on criteria for invalid email addresses, such as a contact property indicating an invalid format or a bounce email status.
5. Add an action step to remove the enrolled contacts or update their email addresses to a placeholder value.
6. Optionally, you can add notification emails or other actions to alert your team about the contacts being removed or updated.
7. Save and activate the workflow. This action will bring up a prompt asking if you want to enroll existing contacts that meet the trigger criteria. Enable this feature if you want to apply the same email address cleanup to your existing HubSpot contacts.

Keep in mind that the specific workflows you choose will depend on your specific needs and goals. It’s always a good idea to review your database regularly and look for opportunities to clean up your data. If there’s a cleaning task you’re looking to complete at scale, workflows can be a good option.

Getting Clean and Staying Clean

Maintaining a clean and organized HubSpot database is crucial for the success of your marketing and sales efforts – and for keeping sanity. The benefits range from accurate reporting and better targeting to potential cost savings and happier colleagues. By utilizing HubSpot’s automated workflows, you can streamline some of your data management and ensure the health of your database without consuming valuable time and resources.

In this post, we covered five essential workflows for keeping your HubSpot database clean: 

1. Re-engagement Workflow
2. Inactive Contact Cleanup
3. Unsubscribed Contact Cleanup
4. Data Validation Workflow
5. Invalid Email Address Cleanup Workflow

Setting up these workflows allows you to unlock the true potential of your HubSpot database. Your team will have access to reliable insights, empowering them to build meaningful connections, drive revenue, and focus on more productive tasks rather than wasting time on data cleanup.

Remember, it’s important to regularly review your database and assess opportunities for data cleanup. The specific workflows you choose will depend on your specific needs and goals.