Most CRMs start out clean. Then the team grows, more tools get connected, and within a year the data turns into a mess.

You can have great automations, smart email campaigns, and a solid sales process — but if your data is broken, everything downstream breaks too. Deals fall through the cracks. Automations trigger in the wrong order. Reports don’t match reality.

Here are the seven data mistakes that hurt the most and how to get them under control.

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1. Duplicates that multiply over time

Duplicate contacts seem harmless until you try to run an automation or pull a report. One version of the contact has the right tags, another has the right deal, and neither tells the full story.

Use a cleanup tool or your CRM’s built-in merge feature every quarter. It’s boring, but it saves hours later when your automations actually fire correctly.

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2. Tag chaos

Tags are powerful when used consistently and disastrous when they aren’t. One person adds “Lead_Website,” another adds “website lead,” and now you have two tags doing the same thing.

Keep a simple document that lists approved tags and who can create new ones. If the team isn’t sure which to use, they’ll make up their own — and that’s when the data starts to slide.

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3. Missing lead source

If you can’t see where a lead came from, you can’t improve your funnel. Many CRMs collect contacts without a clear source field, which means marketing can’t prove what’s working.

Add hidden fields to your forms that capture UTM parameters. Make that source visible on every contact record. Over time, you’ll see which channels actually bring in customers, not just clicks.

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4. Automations built on bad logic

Automations are only as smart as the data they rely on. If a single field isn’t updated properly, an entire workflow can misfire.

Every few months, run through your core automations and check the assumptions behind each trigger and condition. Look at a few sample contacts and confirm the data paths make sense. You’ll catch issues long before they break something critical.

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5. No clear owner

A CRM without an owner quickly becomes a shared junk drawer. Marketing, sales, and support all add things, but nobody manages structure or cleanup.

Assign one person to own the CRM — even if it’s just a few hours a week. They don’t need to be a developer. They just need to care about data accuracy and consistency.

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6. Over-dependence on Zapier

Zapier is useful for testing ideas or connecting simple tools, but it’s not built for long-term reliability. When a zap fails, it often fails silently. You only find out later when data is missing.

For core processes, use a more robust integration platform or direct API connections. Anything that touches money, deals, or key customer actions should be monitored and logged.

Check out our article on integrations for more on this topic.

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7. Old data nobody touches

Inactive contacts make reports look better than they are and increase costs on most CRMs. Worse, they hurt email deliverability.

Set a policy for archiving or re-engaging contacts who haven’t interacted in six months. The smaller, active database will give you more accurate insight and higher engagement.

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Why it matters

Clean data doesn’t sound exciting, but it’s what allows automation to scale without breaking. Every duplicate, missing field, or wrong tag costs time and credibility.

At Zilla, we run data audits for clients every month. It’s common to find tens of thousands of duplicate records or outdated tags hiding in otherwise “working” systems. Once those are fixed, reports align, automations behave, and teams stop second-guessing their tools.

If you want to know how healthy your CRM really is, we can show you in under a week.

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