Stop CRM Data Decay with a Shared Account Guardianship Model

In most CRMs, a company record has exactly one "Company Owner" - often a sales representative. But because sales reps are focused on closing deals or responding to customer queries rather than data entry, critical account data (like industry, target tier, or annual revenue) often gets left blank. Marketing needs this data for hyper-targeted ABM campaigns, but they have no authority over the record, leading to data decay.

By creating a simple co-owned data guardianship field, you can assign both an aligned marketer and a sales rep to a target account, and you can then automate data health alerts, which then hold both teams accountable.

Step 1: Create the "Data Guardians" Multi-User Property

1. Go to Settings > Properties > Company Properties and click Create property.
2. Field Type: Select HubSpot user.
3. Toggle on: "Allow multiple users" (this converts it into a multi-select field).
4. Label: Account Data Guardians
5. Click Create.

Step 2: Assign the Shared Ownership

On your high-value target accounts or Tier-1 prospect companies, populate this new field with both the Account Executive (Sales) and the Growth Marketer (Marketing) who are co-managing that sector or territory.

To get the property showing on the CRM record you need to customise the contact record.

1. Go to a CRM company record

2. About this contact > Actions > Customise properties 

4. Add properties > search for the Data Guardian property > hit save

Step 3: Build the "Pipeline Decay & Missing Data" Workflow

Now we need to build a company-based workflow that acts as your automated data police.

1. Create a Company-based workflow.
2. Set the enrollment triggers to look for high-priority accounts that are missing vital data. For example:
   • Target Account is equal to True
   • AND
   • (Industry is unknown OR Annual Revenue is unknown OR Target Tier is unknown)
3. Set the workflow to Re-enrol companies if these properties are cleared out in the future.

Step 4: Trigger the Co-Owned Alert

Add an internal notification action if you wish to notify the owners.

1. Click the + plus icon and select Send internal email notification (or you can Send Slack notification if you prefer).
2. Under Send to users, choose Selected in a property and select your custom Account Data Guardians field.
3. Write your direct message to the team. An example could be: 

Subject:  Data Health Alert: [Company Name] is missing vital ABM data

Body: Team, this company is marked as a Target Account, but we are missing its Industry, Tier, or Annual Revenue. Sales cannot target accurately, and Marketing cannot run lookalike ads without this. Please update the record.

Why It Is Important:

• Destroys the "Not My Job": When data health is solely the sales rep's problem, it gets ignored. When a marketer’s campaign success depends on that data, giving them shared "guardianship" allows them to co-manage the record's integrity and helps keep your CRM records clean and up to date, whilst spreading the ownership.
• Guards Your Ad and Resource Spend: Running Account-Based Marketing (ABM) campaigns on companies with incomplete profiles means you are guessing at your targeting parameters. This system ensures no company is actively worked or marketed to unless the baseline data is 100% verified.
  
  

Mel Baker

HubSpot Marketing Consultant