Let’s talk about the least sexy topic in your CRM: naming conventions.
No one wants to think about them. No one wants to make them. But when they don’t exist—or worse, when they exist and no one follows them—you get chaos.
Duplicate forms. Mysterious emails. Workflows that trigger other workflows like a Rube Goldberg machine from hell. Reporting that looks like a toddler’s finger painting.
It’s not a coincidence. It’s the result of skipping the “boring admin stuff” that keeps the system clean. And naming is at the root of it.
“Test Form 3” isn’t a strategy. It’s a cry for help.
Bad naming doesn’t usually show up in a strategy meeting. It shows up when your new marketing manager creates a fourth version of the newsletter signup form because they couldn’t find the existing ones — and honestly, who can blame them when the current options are:
“form-newsletter”
“newsletter_form_2022”
“test form - final?”
“NWSLTR-SIGNUP-WEBSITE-NEW-FIXED-v2”
Congratulations, your database now has four forms doing the same thing, sending contacts into four different workflows, with four different thank-you emails. Hope your brand consistency enjoys its vacation.
This is how it happens: people can’t find things, so they recreate them. Over and over. And every new hire adds their own little naming twist, like a chaotic CRM potluck. Before long, your HubSpot is a graveyard of duplicate assets and broken dreams.
Worse, no one knows which version is “correct,” so you end up in Slack threads like:
"Hey does anyone know which of the webinar invites we’re actually using???"
(Answer: No. And they’ve all been sent.)
TL;DR: Naming things randomly wastes time, kills reuse, and makes your system look like it was organized by a raccoon on Red Bull.
When every team builds their own automations, but no one labels them properly.
Nothing says “we’ve lost control” like a workflow named “Nurture Final New.” Especially when it’s one of six workflows with suspiciously similar names, and half of them are still active.
Bad naming in workflows isn’t just annoying. It’s dangerous. You end up with duplicate automations sending mixed messages, conflicting internal updates, or my personal favourite, looping each other into infinity.
A new lead fills out a form. That triggers Workflow A.
Workflow A enrolls them in Workflow B.
Workflow B sends a Slack alert and updates a lifecycle stage... which triggers Workflow A again.
And around we go.
Meanwhile, your sales team gets 47 notifications about the same lead, marketing thinks someone’s being nurtured, and the contact unsubscribes because they’ve received four emails with slightly different subject lines and vibes.
The cherry on top? No one knows which workflows are actually “live” vs. just “leftover.” Because they’re all named like variations of a group project Google Doc. ("Welcome Series FINAL FINAL PLEASE USE")
TL;DR: Poor naming turns automation into guesswork. And nobody wants to play “Who Built This?” every time a lead goes rogue.
Your dashboards aren’t broken. Your naming is.
Here’s the thing about reports: they only work if the underlying data isn’t trash.
And when half your assets are named inconsistently, your reports start gaslighting you.
It’s not that HubSpot can’t do reporting. It’s that your naming system broke it before it even got the chance.
When forms, emails, lists, and workflows aren’t named clearly, they can’t be grouped or tracked correctly. So your performance metrics are full of gaps and overlaps — and suddenly, no one trusts the dashboard. Which means you’re now reporting with your gut. Again.
TL;DR: Bad naming equals bad data. Bad data equals bad decisions. Which is how you end up giving credit to the “legacy” campaign that hasn’t run since 2021.
And yes, you can fix it without losing your mind.
A solid naming convention isn’t a “nice to have.” It’s the thing that makes your HubSpot usable.
Prevents duplication.
Improves reporting.
Reduces confusion.
And keeps you from sending five emails to the same person because “no one knew that workflow was still running.”
If you’ve been blaming HubSpot for being clunky, slow, or confusing — start by looking at your naming. It’s not the software. It’s the swamp you built inside it.
The good news? You can fix it.
We built a free tool that does the naming cleanup for you. It scans your HubSpot portal, finds assets, inconsistent labels, and naming chaos — then gives you a point-and-click way to clean it all up. Emails, forms, workflows… the works.
A naming pattern that actually makes sense. We make sure your whole system sticks to it.
✅ No spreadsheets.
✅ No "naming committee" Slack threads.
✅ Just a sane system that actually works.
Because you’ve got better things to do than play detective in a pile of “final-final-v2” assets.
TL;DR:
Bad naming ruins everything.
Good naming makes your CRM (and your team) run smoother.
And with the right tool, you don’t even have to break a sweat.