Manage contacts, companies, and marketing consent

Contacts are people, companies are the accounts they belong to, and consent is the permission that makes an address mailable. This article shows where each lives and how to keep them clean.

Steps

1. Go to CRM, then Contacts. Use the saved views and filters at the top, or search across the brand.
2. To add a person, click New contact, enter their email, name, and company. Typing a company name searches existing companies and offers to create one.
3. To merge duplicates, click Duplicates at the top of the Contacts page. It finds contacts sharing an email within the brand and lets you merge in one click. Companies have the same tool on their own page.
4. To bulk update, assign owners, set a lifecycle stage, enrol in a sequence, or add to a list, tick rows and use the action bar. Add to list offers the brand's static lists only (a smart list refills itself from its conditions); the confirmation names how many joined, how many are pending a double opt-in email, how many were already members, and any who had unsubscribed.
5. To export, use Export on the list page. Exports respect your current filters.

How does consent get recorded?

Every path that can make an address mailable writes a consent record: a form submission, a lead sent through the write API, a manual creation by a rep, and imports from HubSpot or the migration hub. Each record carries a basis, a source specific enough to defend ("Form: Contact us"), and when the person actually gave it.

Consent lives with the address at a brand, not with the contact id. A contact can be deleted, merged, or re-created and the permission still belongs to the address.

Suppressions and opt-outs

• Every CRM email carries an unsubscribe link. A click adds the address to the brand's suppression list.
• Postmark complaints and bounces also suppress the address.
• Admins manage the list under CRM, then Suppressions. Bookkeepers can view it for compliance audits.
• Sequences and campaigns check suppression before every send and skip rather than send.

Lead scoring

When an admin switches on lead scoring for a brand (CRM settings, then Scoring), every contact carries a 0-100 score and a Lead score panel that explains it. Fit points come from rules on the contact's fields (a job title, a country, a custom budget field), positive or negative. Engagement points come from what the contact did (opened, clicked, replied, submitted a form, booked or attended a meeting) and halve after each half-life, so a quiet lead drifts down on its own. Engagement is capped, so activity alone cannot outrank fit. The panel lists the rules that matched, the ones that did not, and each counted event with what it is worth today. Emails a sender marked private never count. Scores are a ranking aid for reps: they are not money and never change a lifecycle stage.

What to check

• Internal addresses (people in your workspace) are never created as contacts by inbound mail.
• Gmail sync can auto-create contacts from mail you send, never from mail you receive. See Connect Gmail, Calendar, and booking links.
• Lifecycle stages, lead status, and custom properties are managed under CRM settings, then Properties.