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Duplicates and merging

The same person sometimes ends up in the CRM twice: once from a form with their work email, once added by hand with their phone. Merging joins the two into one record without losing anything.

How duplicates are found​

The same email address can never belong to two contacts. Possible duplicates are contacts with:

  • the same phone number (compared on the last nine digits, so +44 7700 900001 matches 07700 900001), or
  • the same full name.

A contact's page shows its likely duplicates. Contacts → Possible duplicates lists every group found.

Merge two contacts​

  1. Open the duplicate and choose Merge, or pick a group in Possible duplicates.
  2. Choose which record to keep, and for each detail that differs (name, email, phone, job title…) which value to keep.
  3. Confirm. The other record is merged into the one you keep.

What happens when contacts merge:

  • Everything moves to the kept contact: timeline, notes, consent log, lists and tags, companies, deals, tasks, files, campaign history and custom field values.
  • Email status becomes the safer of the two (for example, if either unsubscribed, the result is unsubscribed).
  • Lifecycle stage becomes the more advanced one; lifetime value is added together; the earliest date added is kept.
  • The merge is written on the timeline and in the audit log.

Two contacts linked to two different WordPress accounts cannot be merged, because one person cannot be two logins.

Merging is for CRM managers.