Duplicates From Events, Webinars and Meetings

Events bring in hundreds of people at once, and many are already in your CRM. Webinar and meeting tools add more: a registration with a personal email or a booking under a new address becomes a new contact. In Dedupely, you handle this in two ways: dedupe event lists before you import them, and run searches that merge new duplicates from your webinar and meeting tools soon after they reach Dedupely.

Where do event duplicates come from?

Before the event: dedupe the list

Upload the list to Dedupely as a spreadsheet and merge its duplicate rows before you import it. Several lists with the same column titles can be uploaded together and deduped as one. A spreadsheet can't be matched against your CRM, so after the import, your searches in the CRM catch the people you already had. Spreadsheet uploads are unlimited and don't count toward your record limit. See Dedupe a List Before You Import It.

After the event: catch what the tools add

Build a search for new contacts from events, and focus it on recent records:

• Fields: First Name: Similar Words (Any Order) with Match nicknames · Last Name: Exact · Company: Similar Words (Any Order), with Ignored terms Inc., LLC, Ltd.
• No company on the sign-ups? Use Phone Number: Similar instead of Company. Blank values never match, so records without a company drop out of a search that matches on it.
• Filter: Create Date is within the past 14 days, Applies to one or more records in the match. This shows matches where at least one record is new.
• Visible Fields: Email, Phone Number and Create Date, so you can compare.

Keep an exact search too (First Name, Last Name and Email on Exact) for people who registered twice with the same email. In HubSpot, contacts with the exact same email are usually caught by HubSpot itself, so this search finds the most in other CRMs.

Which record should survive?

• Primary Record: Oldest Record. The contact your team already had survives, with its history.
• Phone: if attendees bring newer numbers, keep the newest with a Win Rule on Create Date.

Blank values never overwrite existing data, so a short registration won't erase a complete contact. See Merge Rules.

How to keep it running

1. Test each search by hand. Merge 1–2 matches, check them in your CRM, then bulk merge 1–2 pages.
2. Turn on Auto Merge on the exact search, with the As soon as possible schedule, once it has run without false matches, so registrations that repeat an email are merged soon after they reach Dedupely. See Auto Merge.
3. Turn on Auto Match on the name-based search, so someone reviews it after each event. See Auto Match.

Example setup

A marketing team runs a monthly webinar and two trade shows a year, with HubSpot.

1. Before each trade show import: dedupe the badge-scan list as a spreadsheet.
2. Contacts · Events · No company: First Name (Similar Words, Match nicknames), Last Name (Exact), Phone Number (Similar), for webinar sign-ups without a company. Auto Match.
3. Contacts · Events · New people: First Name (Similar Words, Match nicknames), Last Name (Exact), Company (Similar Words, Ignored terms), filtered to records created in the past 14 days. Auto Match, reviewed the Monday after each event.
4. Merge Rules: Primary Record set to Oldest Record.

Common mistakes

• Importing the list as it comes. Dedupe it first, so duplicates never reach your CRM.
• Merging event contacts into the newest record. The newest is usually the thinnest. Keep the oldest.
• Auto Merge on the name-based search. Event data is messy. Review it first.
• Only checking after the big events. Webinars and meeting tools add duplicates every week.

FAQs about event and webinar duplicates

• Why do webinars create duplicate contacts? People register with a different email than the one in your CRM, so the CRM creates a new contact.
• Should I dedupe an event list before or after importing it? Both. Dedupe the list as a spreadsheet before importing it, then let your searches in the CRM catch the people you already had.
• Do spreadsheet uploads count toward my plan? No. They're unlimited and don't count toward your record limit.
• Can Dedupely stop meeting tools from creating contacts? No. It merges new duplicates soon after they reach Dedupely, with Auto Merge on the "As soon as possible" schedule.