About this engagement
Our client is a multi-brand analytics platform serving marketers across retail, restaurant, and franchise industries. Three companies, each with its own marketing stack and RevOps team, were actively merging into one. On the sales side, consolidation had already happened, but on the marketing side, they were still running three separate HubSpot instances, one of which had gone unmaintained since 2012.
They needed someone to come in, take stock of what was there, and migrate everything into a single clean environment, without disrupting an active marketing operation or flooding Salesforce with duplicates. This engagement is ongoing, with two of the three HubSpot instances successfully consolidated, and the third in progress.
Our partnership has enabled the following results so far:
When three companies merge, the operational complexity surfaces gradually: in duplicated records, misrouted leads, redundant tools, and mounting costs that no longer make sense for a single org. Once you have merged, it stops being profitable to run three teams completely independently. From tooling to leadership to marketing operations, all of it carries a cost that only grows the longer it goes unaddressed.
What made this technically unusual was that two of the three instances were already feeding a single Salesforce. On top of that: a third instance still running independently, 500,000+ contacts untouched since 2012, duplicates across every system, and three overlapping tech stacks each carrying their own cost line.
Three RevOps teams, each with their own historical way of doing things, needed to get to a single approach.
Rather than attempting a one-and-done shift, we broke the migration into focused weekly workstreams. The team always knew exactly what was being worked on and what was not being touched yet. That is how you tame a monster of a project.
Before touching a single record, we audited both active instances, looking at which integrations were being used, which needed to migrate, which could be retired. Every connection between HubSpot and the shared Salesforce was mapped so nothing would break mid-transition. With two instances already feeding one Salesforce, getting this mapping wrong would have created a cascade of problems on the CRM side. This was the unglamorous work that made everything else possible.
|
Survivor criteria and deduplication Together with the team, we defined what was actually worth keeping for contacts, companies, and custom objects. Contacts that had never engaged, addresses that had never converted, records that had sat untouched since 2012 did not make the cut. Then we ran deduplication twice. First within the departing instance, cleaning up 10+ years of accumulation. Then again against the destination, to make sure nothing collided with what was already live in the clean environment. Since both instances had been sharing a Salesforce, many contacts already existed on both sides. 465K archived, not deleted 35K kept 500K+ contacts at the start 93% removed so far Pass 1 · internal dedupe Cleared 10+ years of duplicates and records that never engaged inside the departing instance. Pass 2 · cross-check destination Caught the overlap that existed because both instances already shared one Salesforce. |
| Full data migration: contacts, objects, tickets, and knowledge base
This was not just a contact migration. The client had been running everything HubSpot supports, and running it separately across three companies. That meant migrating their full ticket database, their knowledge base, and all custom objects that were still serving a purpose, recreated and repopulated in the destination instance. Every field was mapped to its equivalent in the new instance, including renaming and restructuring where definitions had drifted apart across companies. Three separate organizations had built their own field structures over years, and getting them to speak the same language in one environment was a significant change. |
| Form migration with product-intent tagging
The form migration came with an upgrade. We added product-interest fields to every form so that every inbound lead arrived with context. Before this, a sales rep getting an MQL had to go dig through activity logs, every page visited, every form filled, just to figure out what the prospect actually wanted. Three product lines now live in one system. Reps needed to know immediately what a prospect was interested in, not piece it together after the fact. Before: no product-intent tagging Inbound MQL John Doe Filled out a form, no product captured What the rep sees Source: marketing Sales rep Goes into HubSpot, checks every page visited, every form filled, tries to piece together which product they might want before reaching out. After: product-intent fields on every form Inbound MQL John Doe Product A - site selectionWhat the rep sees Source: product A form Sales rep Opens the lead. Product, fit, and next step are already there. Reaches out the same day with a personalized message. |
| Website updates and tech stack rationalization
With a full website overhaul still months away, we updated existing pages to point to the new forms so every inbound lead routed correctly in the meantime, regardless of which product page they landed on. In parallel, we helped map a path through the broader tool consolidation. Three companies meant three overlapping stacks: multiple sales engagement platforms, enrichment tools, and conversation intelligence software all running in parallel. We sequenced the rationalization so that nothing broke as tools were retired. It was not a cold cut. It was a clear, orderly path forward that the team could execute with confidence. |
| But wait, what happened to everything else?
Good question. When you remove 465K contacts from a system, it is fair to ask where they went. The answer matters, especially in a merger where data carries legal and operational implications. Nothing was deleted. Everything that did not meet the survivor criteria was archived in the departing instance, which remains accessible. If the team ever needs to reference or recover historical data, it is there. We moved what was valuable, preserved what was not, and nothing was lost. |
At the first meeting, one stakeholder said he did not think the project should happen at all: it was too big. Partway through, that same stakeholder was the one saying it "actually went really smoothly." Two of the three HubSpot instances have been successfully consolidated into one: contacts, companies, custom objects, tickets, knowledge base, forms, integrations, and website routing. All of it. The migration completed without disrupting live marketing operations, without flooding Salesforce with bad data, and without three RevOps teams going to war over whose way was right.
The ROI caseOnce all three companies are fully consolidated, the client is on track to save approximately $195,000 a year in platform costs, across HubSpot licenses, sales engagement tools, enrichment platforms, and conversation intelligence software that had been running in triplicate. That is not a one-time saving. It is a recurring cost the business stops carrying every year going forward.
The cost of waiting
Redundant platform spend the client carries for every year the stacks stay separate, at roughly $195K a year.
$195K
Year 1
$390K
Year 2
$585K
Year 3
$780K
Year 4
~$975K
Year 5
What comes next
With the foundation in place, the team is now building product fit scoring and company fit scoring across all three product lines. Before the consolidation, this work was not even possible. Now, when a lead comes in, the sales team can immediately see what the prospect is interested in and how well their company matches each product. No guesswork required.
Request a free consultation to see how we can help you consolidate your systems, without breaking what is working.