What is a duplicate?

Deduplication often starts with the wrong question. Most teams are told to "clean the data" before anyone defines what that means. This guide isn’t about deduplication as a whole, it focuses on the first decision you need to make: what counts as a duplicate.

Dedupely helps you act fast, but the logic is yours. Before you start syncing, scanning, or merging, you need to define the one thing no tool can answer for you: what should and shouldn’t exist in your CRM.

What a duplicate actually is

There’s no built-in rule that tells a CRM what to keep. A record that looks wrong in one context might be essential in another. Your CRM is shaped by how teams use it, and sometimes duplicates exist because the system supports several entities with their own sync behaviors and third-party integrations, which means you need to define when those records are too close to keep both.

A duplicate is whatever your CRM structure, field usage, and segmentation logic cannot support twice.

Why definition comes first

One misstep when merging can replace or remove valid information, disconnect record ownership, or shift analytics without warning. Merges aren't just tidy-up actions, but structural changes. Every decision here affects pipeline views, automation steps, attribution logic, and task ownership.

A clear definition protects you and your team against those problems and helps you avoid mistakes you can't see until it's too late.

How to choose your match options

You need logic that fits your use case. Start with the most reliable identifiers:

• Contact First Name
• Contact Last Name
• Contact Email
• Company Name
• Company Phone Number
• Company Address

Then decide how thorough or lenient each comparison should be. Is “Global Tech Solutions” the same as “GlobalTech Solutions LLC”? Should a different phone number be enough to keep both records? What about one-letter differences or outdated domains?

Here’s how to structure your logic:

• Choose your base fields for matching
• For each, decide how lenient or thorough the matching should be (Exact, Similar, Fuzzy, Similar Word, Domain Root)
• Run a scan and review the resulting duplicates to check the outcome
• Keep a reference of edge-cases for consistency

Dedupely lets you apply match options field by field, each one influences what records are grouped. Before acting on any matches, talk to stakeholders in sales, marketing, and operations about how/if previous merges caused confusion and which fields tend to create risk.

How to handle edge cases

Edge cases don’t follow patterns, probably why they don’t appear in your first scans. These records may not look like duplicates on the surface, and your match setup needs to reflect that. Some examples include:

• Same company, but different teams or departments
• Shared domains, but different organizations
• Identical addresses, but distinct business units
• One record is more complete, the other more recent

If you want to find every duplicate, even the tricky ones, your match options must account for these overlaps. Edge cases usually need a mix of advanced match combinations and filters.

Pro tip: If you’re not sure how to handle duplicate edge cases, our customer success team can help you spot and define them before they create problems.

How to validate your match logic

In Dedupely, you can run multiple scans using the match options you've set, then review the matched duplicate records carefully, and spot patterns, surprises, or unintended matches. Adjust your match options until the results align with what your team considers a duplicate.

Use this checkpoint:

• Are the grouped duplicates clearly redundant?
• Is anything missing that should be matched?
• Do any matches raise uncertainty?

This is where you confirm that your match logic works. If you’re unsure, test with a few more cases.

Remember: No tool knows what a bad merge looks like. You do.

What effective deduplication creates

Better data is aligned with how teams work.

• Accurate ownership: Teams can trust who owns what
• Reliable automation: Logic fires correctly with fewer fallbacks
• Faster resolution: Less conflict, clearer activity history
• Consistent segmentation: Lists, campaigns, and triggers behave as expected
• Cleaner reports: Dashboards match the real pipeline

Own the logic before you act

Dedupely doesn’t define what a duplicate is for you; it follows what you say a duplicate is. The more thought you put into your match logic, the less cleanup you’ll need later.

Book a Zoom with our team here to define what a duplicate means for your CRM. We’ll help you configure Dedupely to find and merge every duplicate, based on your structure, your logic, and your data.