How to Delete Irrelevant Contacts or Label them as Non-Marketing Contact in HubSpot

Introduction

A clean contact database is the foundation of effective marketing, sales, and reporting. But knowing when to delete a contact versus simply setting them as non-marketing isn’t always obvious.

Whether you're managing pricing, improving segmentation, or staying GDPR-compliant, it’s important to have a smart process for cleaning up irrelevant or outdated contacts. 

Not all contacts need to be deleted, some can be merged! Don’t miss our Ultimate Deduplication Guide and Guide to Merging Contacts in HubSpot for best practices on streamlining your CRM.

Step 1: Deleting Contacts versus setting them as Non-Marketing Contacts

When to Delete Contacts:

1. Irrelevance
   • Contacts with outdated or irrelevant information, such as incorrect names or disconnected phone numbers, can be candidates for deletion. These contacts clutter your database and provide little to no value.
2. Legal Compliance
   • Compliance with regulations like GDPR mandates the deletion of contacts upon request. Ensure you have processes in place to handle such requests promptly and securely.
3. Pricing
   • If you're on an older plan where all contacts affect pricing, reducing their number directly impacts your costs. However, with our new plan tailored for marketing contacts, there's no need to remove them. Just designate them as non-marketing contacts for precise pricing and streamlined management.

When to keep contacts and set them as Non-Marketing:

1. Previous Engagement
   • Contacts with past interactions, such as associated deals or activities, may still hold value even if they're not currently engaged in marketing efforts. Designating them as non-marketing ensures you maintain their data without including them in marketing campaigns.
2. Historical Reporting
   • Contacts are integral to historical reporting metrics. When you report on metrics like MQLs and SQLs, each contact record contributes to these insights. Deleting contacts can disrupt past reports and data accuracy. Rather than deleting contacts that could impact historical reporting, consider marking them as non-marketing to maintain data integrity and ensure accurate insights.

Step 2: Assess Your Current Database

Before jumping into the deletion process, take a moment to evaluate your current database.
Identify the criteria that make a contact record irrelevant. Common indicators include:

Irrelvant contacts:

These are contacts with irrelevant data, such as generic names like "Test Test" or "Unknown" and standard phone numbers like "0123456789" or "000000000." They clutter your database without providing any meaningful information.

Hard bounced emails:

Although these contacts may have changed companies, they could still be valuable partners. They might help introduce your company to their new employer, especially if they were advocates or champions before. It's worth considering their potential before deciding to remove them. Check our article on dealing with contacts that leave a company.

Duplicates:

Step 3: Use Filters and Lists

HubSpot provides powerful filtering tools to help you sift through your company records. Head over to your Companies page and use filters to create a view or list of potentially irrelevant records. Depending on your use case, you can filter by:

• Irrelvant contacts: Incorrect First & Last Names
• Hard bounce contacts: Hard Bounce Reason is known
• Duplicate entries: Koalify Duplicate Rules to select only the certain duplicates

These are some extra filters to consider; ensuring that you're only excluding irrelevant records:

• Number of Associated Deals is unknown
• Number of associated companies is equal to 0
• Number of form submissions is equal to 0
• Number of times contacted is unknown
• Next activity date is unknown
• Last activity date is unknown

Step 4: Review and Validate Records

Before mass-deleting records, take a moment to review your filtered list for accuracy. This step is crucial to avoid accidentally deleting important data. Verify each entry against the criteria you've identified and check if you might want to include extra rules. If needed, involve the company owners who might have additional insights into the relevance of specific records.

Step 5: Delete Irrelevant Records

There are different options:

• Manual Deletion:
  • Take control by manually deleting contacts individually from their records. You'll have the choice between restorable and permanent deletion. Permanent deletion, stricter in nature, is typically reserved for legal obligations, such as GDPR compliance, where contacts may request the removal of their personal data.
• Bulk Deletion via View or List:
  • Streamline your cleanup efforts by deleting contacts in bulk from a view or list. This method offers efficiency when dealing with multiple contacts that meet specific criteria.
• Bulk Deletion (Professional or Enterprise Hubs):
  • If you're using our Professional or Enterprise Hubs, leverage automation to simplify the process. Set up workflows to automatically delete contacts based on predefined criteria. This not only ensure

Final Thoughts

Cleaning up irrelevant contacts helps you save costs, improve targeting, and ensure your reports stay accurate.

By following a structured process — and understanding when to delete vs. when to mark contacts as non-marketing, your team can stay focused on what matters: meaningful, data-driven engagement.

For more advanced guidance, check out our Ultimate Deduplication Guide and learn how to properly merge duplicate records in our Guide to Merging Contacts in HubSpot.