Find out what temporary or masked information is, and how to collect a lead's real information with Hatch.
Masked or temporary information is a new privacy solution being implemented by lead aggregators, where the email address or phone number they provide you is not the contact's real information, but instead is temporary information that will expire after a period of time, for instance 30 days from receipt.
In order to ensure you can contact these leads after the expiration date, you need to have the contact supply their permanent information and update it in Hatch. This article walks through how to do that.
The lead aggregator is the source of truth on whether a lead's information is temporary. Some lead aggregators also have restrictions on what message formats are supported to temporary phone numbers or email addresses. Please consult your lead aggregator if you have questions on whether they are sending you temporary or masked leads or what their limitations are.
Identifying a contact with temporary information in Hatch
Contacts with temporary information will have an indicator next to their name or contact information on the Sales Board, Open Card, and Contact List.
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Hovering over this new icon will reveal how much longer the temporary phone number and/or email address will be valid, or if it is already expired.
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Using a Hatch Assistant Bot to collect contact info
Collecting a contact's permanent information before the expiration date is crucial to continue to generate value from that lead. This is why using a Hatch Assistant Bot to collect a contact's real contact information is our recommended approach to handling temporary contacts.
To set up a bot to capture contact information, create a new bot from a template and toggle the Ask contact information for temporary leads setting to on.
This will automatically add 2 always included interactions: Obtain Email Address and Obtain Phone Number. The bot will attempt to collect the phone number and email address of any contact who goes through the specified campaign if Hatch does not already have their permanent contact information.
Once the bot collects the information, it will also update the contact record automatically. The bot will then finish the rest of the conversation according to the remaining interactions, requiring no manual intervention on your part to confirm and update the contact details of this lead.
If you takeover a bot conversation, the bot will not update contact information for you. If the bot had previously collected contact information before the takeover, you will need to manually update the contact.
Updating contact info without a bot
If you are not using the Hatch Assistant Bot to collect and update your contacts with real information, you will need to do so using the Edit Contact form accessible from the Open Card. Once a contact supplies their information, edit it here to remove the "temporary" status from their phone number or email address.
Using Hatch webhooks to update your CRM
If you are sending these contacts to your CRM, Hatch can help you keep information in sync as temporary contact information is updated to permanent information, or as a temporary contact expires. We offer 3 webhooks to help you keep your CRM up to date with accurate contact information:
- Contact created: Triggered when a new contact is created in Hatch
- The payload of this webhook contains the status of the contact's phone and email and if temporary, the expiration date
- Contact edited: Triggered when contact information is edited in Hatch
- This will help you sync the capture of real contact information in Hatch to downstream systems
- Contact (email or phone) expired: Triggered when the email or phone of a contact with temporary information expires