How to dedupe contacts
Duplicate contacts split one person's history across two records, so activity, ownership, and email preferences scatter. Deduping stitches them back together.
The safe approach is match, review, merge into a golden record, then prevent - not a blind bulk delete that loses history.
Short answer
Dedupe contacts by choosing match keys (email, then name plus company), finding matches with exact and fuzzy rules, reviewing the candidates, merging each set into one golden record that keeps the best value per field, and then turning on duplicate blocking so new duplicates cannot form. Merge, do not just delete, to preserve history.
Step by step
Choose your match keys
Email is the strongest key. Add fuzzy matching on name plus company to catch duplicates with different or missing emails.
Find match candidates
Run exact matches on email and fuzzy matches on name and company to surface likely duplicate sets for review.
Review before merging
Confirm the candidates are truly the same person. Two people named John Smith at a big company may not be duplicates.
Merge into a golden record
Combine each set into one record, keeping the most complete and recent value per field and preserving all activity history.
Block new duplicates
Turn on duplicate detection at entry so a new contact matching an existing one is caught before it splits history again.
Merge, do not delete
Deleting a duplicate throws away its activity, emails, and relationships. Merging preserves all of it under one surviving record. Always merge into a golden record so no history is lost, and let the merge pick the best value for each field.
How Ardovo helps
Ardovo detects duplicates with exact and fuzzy matching, presents clean merge candidates, and builds the golden record automatically. Rook handles the busywork of merging and keeps duplicate blocking on at entry, so contacts stay unified without a manual dedupe project.
Frequently asked questions
How do you find duplicate contacts?
Match on strong keys first - primarily email - then use fuzzy matching on name plus company to catch duplicates with missing or different emails. Exact-only matching misses the messy real-world duplicates, so combine both approaches.
Should you delete or merge duplicate contacts?
Merge, almost always. Deleting a duplicate discards its activity history, email engagement, and relationships. Merging combines everything into one golden record that keeps the best value per field and all the history, which is both safer and more useful.
How do you prevent duplicate contacts?
Turn on duplicate detection at the point of entry so a new contact that matches an existing record is flagged or blocked before it saves. Prevention at entry is the only way to stop duplicates from rebuilding after a dedupe pass.