Improving Your Data Quality Score

Overview

After running your free database health scan, you have a clear picture of where your HubSpot data stands. This guide provides practical, actionable steps to improve your score across each of the seven quality dimensions.

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Quick Wins (Do These First)

These actions provide the biggest improvement for the least effort:

1. Merge Obvious Duplicates

Go to Contacts > Actions > Manage duplicates in HubSpot. Review and merge contacts that share the same email address. This directly improves your uniqueness score.

2. Fill in Missing Company Names

Export contacts missing the company field. Many can be filled in from the email domain (e.g., jane@acme.com likely works at Acme). This improves both completeness and enrichment coverage.

3. Delete or Archive Clearly Invalid Records

Look for contacts with obviously invalid emails (test@test.com, aaa@bbb.com) and either correct or archive them. This improves validity and accuracy.

4. Update Stale Records in Bulk

Filter contacts by "Last modified date is more than 12 months ago." Review the top 50 and update any that you know have changed. This improves freshness.

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Improving Completeness

What it measures: The percentage of important fields that are filled in.

High-Impact Actions

Action	Effort	Impact
Add missing job titles from LinkedIn	Medium	High
Fill in company names from email domains	Low	High
Add phone numbers from sales team knowledge	Medium	Medium
Import LinkedIn URLs for key contacts	Low	Medium
Add city/state/country from company data	Low	Medium

HubSpot Workflow Idea

Create a workflow that tags contacts missing critical fields (job title, company, phone) so your team can fill them in during regular interactions.

Prevention

• Make key fields required on HubSpot forms.
• Include progressive profiling on gated content to collect missing fields over time.
• Set up form field validation to reject empty submissions for critical fields.

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Improving Accuracy

What it measures: Whether the data in your records is correct and verifiable.

High-Impact Actions

Action	Effort	Impact
Verify email deliverability using a validation tool	Low	High
Cross-reference company names with LinkedIn or Crunchbase	Medium	High
Check phone numbers for correct country code and digit count	Medium	Medium
Review contacts where company name does not match email domain	Low	Medium

HubSpot Workflow Idea

Create a list of contacts where the company property does not match the email domain company. Review these manually -- they often indicate job changes or data entry errors.

Prevention

• Use email validation on form submissions (e.g., ZeroBounce or NeverBounce).
• Implement data enrichment to verify and correct fields automatically.
• Train your team to verify data during sales calls and update records immediately.

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Improving Freshness

What it measures: How recently contact records have been updated.

High-Impact Actions

Action	Effort	Impact
Review and update contacts not modified in 6+ months	High	High
Set up automated re-engagement campaigns to detect stale contacts	Medium	High
Remove or archive contacts that have been inactive for 2+ years	Low	Medium
Schedule quarterly data review sessions for your team	Low	Medium

HubSpot Workflow Idea

Create a workflow that sends a re-engagement email to contacts not modified in 6 months. If they do not engage within 30 days, tag them for review.

Key Facts About Data Decay

• B2B contact data decays at approximately 34% per year.
• Job titles are the most volatile field (65.8% annual change rate).
• Phone numbers change at 42.9% per year.
• Email addresses change at 37.3% per year.

Prevention

• Set up regular (quarterly) data review processes.
• Use data enrichment tools that periodically re-verify contact information.
• Monitor HubSpot's "Last modified date" field to flag aging records.

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Improving Validity

What it measures: Whether field values conform to expected formats.

High-Impact Actions

Action	Effort	Impact
Fix malformed email addresses (missing @, double dots, etc.)	Low	High
Standardize phone number formats to include country code	Medium	Medium
Remove clearly fake entries (test@test.com, 123-456-7890)	Low	Medium

HubSpot Workflow Idea

Create a list using the filter "Email does not contain @" or "Email contains .." to find malformed addresses. Correct or remove them.

Prevention

• Enable HubSpot form field validation for email and phone fields.
• Use input masking on forms to enforce phone number formats.
• Implement server-side validation for API-created contacts.

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Improving Consistency

What it measures: Whether data follows standardized patterns across your database.

High-Impact Actions

Action	Effort	Impact
Standardize state fields (pick one: abbreviations or full names)	Medium	High
Normalize country names (pick one: ISO codes or full names)	Medium	High
Standardize phone number formatting across all contacts	High	Medium
Normalize company name variations (Inc. vs Incorporated, etc.)	High	Medium

HubSpot Workflow Idea

Use HubSpot's "Format data" workflow action to standardize text formatting. For example, capitalize first letters of city and state fields.

Prevention

• Use dropdown fields instead of free-text fields for state and country where possible.
• Implement HubSpot's data formatting actions in your workflows.
• Create naming conventions documentation for your team.

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Improving Uniqueness

What it measures: How many duplicate contacts exist in your database.

High-Impact Actions

Action	Effort	Impact
Use HubSpot's built-in duplicate management tool	Low	High
Review contacts sharing the same email address	Low	High
Look for contacts at the same company with similar names	Medium	Medium
Implement deduplication rules for imports	Medium	High

HubSpot's Built-In Tool

1. Go to Contacts > Actions > Manage duplicates.
2. HubSpot will show suggested duplicate pairs.
3. Review each pair and merge where appropriate.
4. Choose the "primary" contact carefully -- this becomes the surviving record.

Prevention

• Always check for existing contacts before creating new ones.
• Use HubSpot's "Create or update" import option instead of "Create" only.
• Deduplicate your data before importing it into HubSpot.
• Consider implementing real-time duplicate prevention (a core feature of the MarketingSoda Refine™ full platform).

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Improving Enrichment Coverage

What it measures: How many contacts have professional enrichment data (LinkedIn URL, job title, company, seniority, department).

High-Impact Actions

Action	Effort	Impact
Manually add LinkedIn URLs for top 100 contacts	Medium	Medium
Use a data enrichment tool to bulk-fill missing fields	Low	High
Add job title information from LinkedIn or company websites	High	High
Fill in department and seniority from job title keywords	Medium	Medium

Data Enrichment Options

• HubSpot Breeze Intelligence: Built-in, but limited to ~40% field coverage.
• Third-party tools: Clearbit, ZoomInfo, Apollo, People Data Labs, and others offer higher coverage rates.
• MarketingSoda Refine (coming soon): Waterfall enrichment across 10+ providers for 80-95% field coverage, with BYOK (Bring Your Own Key) support to use your existing provider contracts.

Prevention

• Enrich new contacts automatically when they enter your CRM.
• Set up enrichment triggers in your workflows (e.g., when lifecycle stage changes).
• Periodically re-enrich existing contacts as data decays.

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Building a Long-Term Data Quality Strategy

Monthly Hygiene Routine

1. Run the free MarketingSoda Refine scan to get an updated grade.
2. Review and merge new duplicates.
3. Check for contacts with recently expired data (6+ months since last update).
4. Fix the top 3 issues identified in your report.

Quarterly Deep Clean

1. Export and review D/F-graded contacts.
2. Archive or delete contacts that cannot be rehabilitated.
3. Re-enrich contacts that have gone stale.
4. Update your team's data entry guidelines.

Annual Review

1. Audit your HubSpot forms for proper field requirements and validation.
2. Review import processes to ensure deduplication is standard practice.
3. Evaluate enrichment tool performance and coverage rates.
4. Set data quality goals for the coming year.

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Re-Running Your Scan

After making improvements, re-run the free scan to measure progress:

1. Visit marketingsoda.ai/en/audit.
2. Connect your HubSpot and run a new scan.
3. Compare your new report to the previous one.

Tip: Bookmark your previous report URL so you can compare side by side.

Each scan generates an independent report. Previous reports remain accessible at their original URLs for 12 months.