1. Merge email duplicates
Same email, different People record = certain duplicate. Treat this like the Companies domain merge: pick the record with the most activity, re-point references, delete the loser.
If two records have the same email but different companies, that's the telltale of someone who switched jobs. Keep both only if your workflow depends on historical company context; otherwise merge and note the prior company in the history.
2. Clean up name hygiene
Placeholder names — "Unknown", "N/A", "Test", single-character first/last names — make outreach look amateur and break every sequence. In our audits, 2–10% of People records fail this check.
A second bucket: records whose "full name" equals an email address. This happens when a form submitted without a name field and Attio fell back to the email local-part.
- Filter: full_name matches placeholder regex OR null last_name.
- Enrich from LinkedIn / their current email domain before nuking.
- If enrichment fails, move to a "deactivate" list rather than hard-delete.
3. Orphans
People with no company, no deal, and a placeholder-looking name are almost always residue from a deprecated integration. Safe to delete after a final export.
4. Enrich the deal-linked contacts
The only contacts whose completeness actually affects revenue are the ones linked to an active-stage deal. Start enrichment there: job title, phone, LinkedIn URL, business email. Prospeo + a LinkedIn cross-reference will close most of the gap.