How do you auto-enrich HubSpot contacts?

Quick Answer: You can auto-enrich HubSpot contacts by building a Make.com automation that triggers on new contact creation, calls the Clearbit Enrichment API, and writes the returned data (job title, company size, industry, LinkedIn URL, and more) back to HubSpot custom properties. The whole workflow takes under an hour to set up and runs without any manual input.

Manually updating contact records is one of those tasks that feels productive but produces nothing. You add a job title here, a company size there, and an hour later your pipeline is still the same length. If you are running HubSpot as your CRM, there is a straightforward way to stop doing this entirely: connect Make.com to Clearbit and let the enrichment happen automatically the moment a new contact lands.

This tutorial walks through the exact trigger, enrich, and write-back workflow. By the end, you will have a live automation that fills in 40+ data points on every new HubSpot contact without you touching a single record.

What Is HubSpot Contact Enrichment and Why Does It Matter?

HubSpot contact enrichment is the process of appending third-party data to a contact record automatically, covering fields like job title, company revenue, employee count, industry, LinkedIn profile, and technology stack.

Most teams start with incomplete contact data. A form submission gives you a name and email. Everything else requires research, guesswork, or a manual lookup. Enriched contacts give your sales team the context to prioritise outreach, your marketing team the signals to segment campaigns, and your RevOps function the data quality to trust their reporting.

The difference between a contact record with 3 fields and one with 40 is the difference between a cold call and a warm, informed conversation. If you are building this as part of a broader B2B SaaS digital marketing and CRM strategy, enrichment quickly becomes foundational rather than optional.

What You Need Before You Start

Before building the workflow, get these three things in place:

• A HubSpot account with API access (any paid tier, or a developer sandbox)
• A Make.com account (the free tier supports this workflow)
• A Clearbit API key (Clearbit offers a free enrichment tier with 2,500 lookups per month)

You also need to create the custom properties in HubSpot where enriched data will be written. Clearbit returns data that does not map to default HubSpot fields, so you need to create them first.

If you need outside help implementing HubSpot cleanly, it can be worth reviewing specialist B2B SaaS HubSpot agencies before you build more automation on top of messy data.

Step 1: Create Custom Properties in HubSpot

HubSpot's default contact properties do not include fields like company technology stack or LinkedIn handle. Create these before building the automation, otherwise Make has nowhere to write the data.

Go to: Settings > Properties > Contact Properties > Create Property

Create the following properties (adjust based on what Clearbit returns for your use case):

• clearbit_company_size (Number)
• clearbit_industry (Single-line text)
• clearbit_linkedin_url (Single-line text)
• clearbit_company_revenue (Single-line text)
• clearbit_role (Single-line text)
• clearbit_seniority (Single-line text)
• clearbit_enriched_at (Date)

Give each property a clear internal name and group them under a "Clearbit Enrichment" group so they stay organised in your CRM.

Step 2: Set Up the Make.com Trigger

The trigger fires every time a new contact is created in HubSpot. Make.com handles this with a native HubSpot module.

1. Open Make.com and create a new scenario
2. Add the HubSpot: Watch Contacts module as your trigger
3. Connect your HubSpot account via OAuth
4. Set the trigger to fire on new contacts only
5. Choose which contact properties to pull through (at minimum: email address, first name, last name)

Run a test trigger. Create a dummy contact in HubSpot with just an email address and confirm Make picks it up. You should see the contact data appear in the module output panel on the right.

One thing to check: Make sure the contact's email address is present in the trigger output. Clearbit's enrichment API uses email as the primary lookup key. Without it, the enrichment call will fail silently.

Step 3: Call the Clearbit Enrichment API

Clearbit does not have a native Make module, so you use the HTTP: Make a Request module to call the Clearbit API directly.

1. Add an HTTP: Make a Request module after your HubSpot trigger
2. Set the method to GET
3. Use this endpoint:

https://person.clearbit.com/v2/combined/find?email={{email}}

Replace {{email}} with the email variable from your HubSpot trigger output.

4. Under Headers, add:

Authorization: Bearer YOUR_CLEARBIT_API_KEY

5. Set Parse Response to Yes

Run a test using a real business email address. Clearbit returns a JSON object containing two main sections: person (individual data) and company (organisation data). You will map fields from both in the next step.

What Clearbit returns (partial list):

• person.title (job title)
• person.seniority (senior, manager, director, VP, C-suite)
• person.role (engineering, sales, marketing, finance)
• person.linkedin.handle
• company.metrics.employees
• company.metrics.estimatedAnnualRevenue
• company.category.industry
• company.name

If you are comparing tools for the technical side of your stack, this kind of workflow also benefits from knowing where platforms differ across crawling, auditing, and data depth, which is why articles like Screamingfrog vs SEMRush vs AHREFS can be useful context for broader ops and growth decisions.

Step 4: Handle Clearbit's Async Response

Clearbit sometimes returns a 202 Accepted response instead of the enriched data immediately. This happens when Clearbit needs to look up the record rather than serve it from cache.

Add a Router module after the HTTP call with two paths:

• Path A: Status code is 200 (data returned immediately, proceed to write-back)
• Path B: Status code is 202 (data pending, add a Wait module for 60 seconds, then retry the API call once)

For most business email addresses, Clearbit returns a 200 on the first call. The 202 path is a safety net, not a regular occurrence.

Step 5: Write Enriched Data Back to HubSpot

With the Clearbit data in hand, write it back to the contact record using the HubSpot: Update a Contact module.

1. Add the HubSpot: Update a Contact module
2. Use the contact ID from the original trigger output to identify the record
3. Map Clearbit fields to your custom HubSpot properties:

4. Add a static value for clearbit_enriched_at using Make's now date function. This gives you a timestamp you can filter on inside HubSpot.

Run a full end-to-end test. Create a new HubSpot contact with a real business email. Watch the scenario execute in Make's run history. Open the contact in HubSpot and confirm the custom properties are populated.

Step 6: Add Error Handling

A production workflow needs to handle the cases where Clearbit returns no data. This happens when the email belongs to a personal domain (Gmail, Hotmail) or when the person is not in Clearbit's database.

Add an Error Handler module on the HTTP call:

• If Clearbit returns a 404, set clearbit_enriched_at to today's date and add a custom property clearbit_found: false
• This prevents the scenario from failing and gives you a way to filter unenriched contacts in HubSpot later

You can also add a HubSpot Create Note step on the 404 path, logging "Clearbit enrichment: no record found" against the contact. This keeps your team informed without cluttering the property fields.

For teams that want this workflow to feed cleaner lifecycle stages, attribution, and handoff rules, working with dedicated B2B SaaS marketing ops agencies can help turn enrichment data into something operationally useful.

Step 7: Activate and Monitor the Scenario

Once testing passes, set the scenario to Active in Make. Set the schedule to run every 15 minutes (or use an instant trigger if you are on a Make plan that supports webhooks).

Monitor for the first 48 hours:

• Check Make's run history for failed executions
• Spot-check 10 enriched contacts in HubSpot to confirm data quality
• Look for patterns in failed lookups (personal emails, misspelled domains)

After 48 hours, the workflow runs itself. Every new contact gets enriched before your sales team even opens the record.

What to Do With Enriched Contacts in HubSpot

Enriched data is only useful if you act on it. Here are three immediate applications:

Lead scoring: Add points in HubSpot's lead scoring tool based on clearbit_seniority (Director+) and clearbit_company_size (100+ employees). Contacts that match your ICP float to the top automatically.

Workflow enrolment: Build a HubSpot workflow that enrols contacts with clearbit_industry = SaaS and clearbit_seniority = VP into a high-touch sales sequence within minutes of creation.

List segmentation: Create active lists filtered by enriched company size, industry, or seniority. These lists update in real time as new enriched contacts arrive, keeping your segments accurate without manual curation.

This becomes even more effective when paired with a clear inbound motion, which is why many teams connect enrichment work to broader programmes run by B2B SaaS inbound marketing agencies or specialist B2B SaaS ABM agencies.

FAQs

How do I auto-enrich HubSpot contacts without paying for HubSpot's native enrichment?
Use Make.com to connect HubSpot to a third-party enrichment provider like Clearbit, Apollo, or Hunter. Clearbit's free tier covers 2,500 enrichment lookups per month. The Make.com free tier supports the automation logic. This approach costs nothing for most early-stage teams and gives you more control over which fields get written back to HubSpot.

What data does Clearbit return when enriching a contact by email?
Clearbit returns person-level data (job title, seniority, role, LinkedIn handle, location) and company-level data (employee count, estimated revenue, industry, technology stack, company domain). The exact fields available depend on whether Clearbit has a record for that email address. Personal email addresses like Gmail accounts return little or no data.

Can I enrich existing HubSpot contacts, not just new ones?
Yes. Instead of using the "Watch Contacts" trigger in Make, use the "Search Contacts" module to pull contacts where clearbit_enriched_at is unknown. Loop through them in batches and run each email through the same Clearbit API call. Add a delay between requests to stay within Clearbit's rate limits (600 requests per minute on the free tier).

What happens if Clearbit does not find a record for a contact's email?
Clearbit returns a 404 status code. In your Make scenario, route 404 responses to an error handler that sets a clearbit_found: false property on the HubSpot contact. This marks the record as attempted and prevents the scenario from retrying the same email on every run.

Is this workflow GDPR compliant?
Enriching contact data with third-party providers requires a lawful basis under GDPR, typically legitimate interest for B2B contacts. Clearbit processes data under its own privacy policy and offers a Data Processing Agreement. Review your legal basis for processing before activating the workflow in markets covered by GDPR or similar legislation.