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7 steps to organise data (2)

7 Essential Steps to Organising Your HubSpot Data

Bridget Pyne
Bridget Pyne
7 Essential Steps to Organising Your HubSpot Data
5:02

Maintaining pristine data in your HubSpot portal can feel like trying to keep a teenager's room clean. It requires strategy, consistency, and sometimes, tough decisions about what stays and what goes.

As a HubSpot solutions partner, we've seen our fair share of data disasters and organisational triumphs. That’s why we got our HubSpot expert, Hannah Fisher, in the hot seat during our Beyond The Hub podcast to find out what to do and what not to do.

Keep reading for the key takeaways or watch the full episode here.

1. Implement a Strategic Data Framework

Before diving into the technical weeds, let's talk strategy. Just as an architect carefully plans the layout of a building, you need to determine the structure and purpose of your data before implementing any tools or techniques. 

Key questions to ask:

  • What data serves a genuine purpose in your organisation? (If you’re not using a customer’s birthday for anything, you don’t need a field for it)
  • Which metrics drive actual business decisions?
  • How does each piece of information earn its place in your CRM?

By answering these questions, you can decide which data is the most critical for your business and ensure that your CRM only stores relevant and valuable information.

Related resource: Scoping your CRM Requirements

2. Optimise Your Property Architecture

Your HubSpot properties are more than just fields in a database—they're the structural framework that supports your entire customer relationship management system. Here's how to optimise them:

  1. Start with HubSpot's standard properties: These have been carefully designed based on years of business intelligence. For instance, the default 'Lifecycle Stage' property already incorporates best practices for tracking customer journey progression.
  2. Create custom properties sparingly: When designing custom properties, think about scalability. Instead of creating a property called "2024 Conference Attendance," make it a more flexible "Event Participation History" that can accommodate multiple events over time.
  3. Document everything: Keep a data dictionary to track properties and their uses. This will help not only current users but any future handover to a new CRM admin.

3. Design Your Permission Structure

Giving everyone super admin access is bad practice. Instead, implement role-based permissions and only grant super admin access to a select few. 

Not only does this provide more security for your portal but it also helps streamline onboarding for future users, makes it easier to update permissions in bulk and ensures everyone only sees what they need to see. Consider the following:

  • Marketing team members might need access to email templates and landing pages but not to sensitive deal information. 
  • Sales representatives should have detailed access to their assigned accounts while maintaining limited visibility to others. 
  • Managers require broader access but not necessarily system configuration capabilities.

4. Build a Data Management Dashboard

Every great CRM admin needs a mission control center and the data hygiene dashboard is the best place to start. Simply build a dashboard to highlight missing data points like

  • Email addresses
  • First name/last name
  • Company name
  • Deal amount

Watch the video below to learn more.

5. Create Security Infrastructure

Security isn't just IT's problem anymore. As a CRM admin, you're the frontline defender of your organisation's data integrity so making sure the following are in place is crucial:

  • Two-factor authentication (non-negotiable)
  • Regular permission audits
  • Role-based permissions
  • GDPR compliance automation

6. Leverage all of HubSpot’s tools

Keeping on top of HubSpot's latest updates is difficult but essential. If you’re struggling, make sure you sign up to our monthly product update webinars where we talk about all the updates and how to use them.  

Here's some of the latest updates you should be using:

  • AI-powered data enrichment
  • The ability to bulk merge contacts
  • Data quality digest email sent weekly
  • Data limits now visible
  • The data backup tool

7. Be prepared for when things go sideways

Even the most skilled CRM admins have their horror stories but it’s how you react that sets you apart. Having an emergency response plan can help, for example:

  1. Don't panic (easier said than done)
  2. Check HubSpot's version history
  3. Contact HubSpot support if you’re unable to restore something
  4. Document the incident for future learning

What to do next

Ready to transform your HubSpot portal? Start here:

  1. Audit your current data structure
  2. Document your property architecture
  3. Build your monitoring dashboard
  4. Schedule regular maintenance windows

Remember: Your HubSpot portal needs regular attention, occasional editing, and room to grow. But with the right approach, you can create a portal where your organisation's data doesn't just exist—it thrives.

Talk to an Expert

If you’d like to talk to our experts about how to optimise your data structure, book a call—we promise not to judge your current property count.

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Bridget Pyne
Author Bio
Bridget Pyne

Bridget is an Marketing Manager at BabelQuest.

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