Contact Management
This domain tests how HubSpot stores and organizes contact data: contact records, properties, lifecycle stages, lists, consent, subscription types, and associations. The exam rewards knowing which object or list type solves a segmentation problem, not just definitions.
Core rules
- A contact is a CRM record keyed primarily by email; duplicates are usually created by case or whitespace differences and should be deduplicated before campaigns.
- Properties are fields; default properties are HubSpot-built and custom properties are team-defined. Property type affects filtering.
- Lifecycle stage tracks relationship stage such as Subscriber, Lead, MQL, SQL, Opportunity, Customer, Evangelist. Lead status is a separate sales-owned field and should not be used as lifecycle.
- Active lists recalculate as contacts qualify; static lists are snapshots. Subscription types define what a contact opted into, separate from a global unsubscribe.
- Consent and lawful basis must be recorded; opting out of a subscription type is not the same as deleting the record.
Worked example
A marketer wants an ongoing send to people who downloaded an ebook and are not customers. Build an active contact list: form submission equals ebook download; email subscription type is subscribed; lifecycle stage is not Customer. Because it is active, new downloaders enter and customers drop out automatically. If the same list were static, it would freeze at build time and miss later downloaders, so use static only for a one-time snapshot.
Traps
Confusing lifecycle stage with lead status; sending to a static list for an evergreen campaign; treating unsubscribe as delete; ignoring consent source; duplicating contacts by email formatting; and filtering on a property that is not updated by the form.