HubSpot Form Shortening: In practice and what it means for "you"

Now, picture this: A visitor downloads your whitepaper and fills out just their full name and email. Great - you’ve captured a new lead. A week later, they return to sign up for a webinar. This time, as soon as they enter their email, HubSpot recognizes them. Using Breeze Intelligence, it automatically enriches their company name, employee size, and location - while hiding those fields entirely. Now, your form only asks for one or two new pieces of information.

This is the power of HubSpot Form Shortening. It makes your forms smarter, more dynamic, and tailored to your users’ expectations: fast, personalized, and low-effort.

In this article, we’ll break down exactly what Form Shortening is, how it works, what it looks like in action, and most importantly—what it means for you and your growth strategy.

What is Form Shortening?

Form Shortening is a feature in HubSpot that automatically hides form fields if the data is already known about the user. That “known” data can come from previous interactions, existing CRM records, or real-time enrichment powered by Breeze Intelligence.

So instead of asking someone to re-enter their name, company, or phone number again and again, HubSpot checks what it already knows and only displays the form fields that are still missing. In addition, Breeze has its own rich database of business information, allowing it to auto-enrich a contact’s details - even if the person is filling out a form on your site for the very first time.

This leads to a faster, more seamless experience for the visitor—and better results for you.

How it works: a step-by-step look

Here's how Form Shortening operates behind the scenes:

1. The Email field is key

When a visitor begins filling out a form, the first field they enter is their email address. This serves as the unique identifier HubSpot uses to look up existing data on that contact.

2. Data Matching & Enrichment

HubSpot then checks if this contact already exists in your CRM, and if it can enrich the record in real-time using Breeze Intelligence, pulling from verified business databases.

3. Dynamic Field Display

Fields that already have values—either from previous submissions or real-time enrichment—are automatically hidden. The visitor only sees and fills out the fields that are still blank.

The result: each visitor gets a personalized and efficient form experience based on what you already know about them.

Why it’s a game-changer (for you)

Whether you’re in marketing, sales, or operations, here’s why Form Shortening should be on your radar:

1. Higher Conversion Rates

Shorter forms = less friction. It's that simple. The fewer questions you ask, the more likely users are to hit "Submit."

2. Better data quality

Form Shortening pulls data from Breeze Intelligence’s trusted enrichment sources. That means you get accurate, clean, and up-to-date information—without relying on the user to type it in perfectly.

3. Improved user experience

When visitors see that your forms are smart enough to remember them—or recognize them—they’re more likely to trust your brand and engage again.

4. Compatible with progressive fields

Already using progressive profiling? Great news: Form Shortening works hand-in-hand with it, giving you even more flexibility in what you ask and when.

How to enable Form Shortening in HubSpot

Setting up Form Shortening is simple, but there are a few key requirements:

Pre-Requirements

You must have Breeze Intelligence credits available.

Your form must be built using the updated form editor (legacy forms are not supported).

Conditional logic and redirects can’t be used on fields that are enriched or hidden.

Steps to enable it

1. In your HubSpot account, click the settings icon in the top navigation.

2. In the left-hand menu, go to Data Enrichment.

3. Click on the Tools tab.

4. Toggle the Forms switch to turn Form Shortening on or off.

Once enabled, you can apply Form Shortening to individual forms via the form editor settings.

Understanding credit usage

To use Form Shortening, you'll need an active Breeze Intelligence subscription. HubSpot uses a credit-based system to handle data enrichment behind the scenes.

So how does it work? Pretty simple - every time a form enriches a contact’s data, it uses one credit. If both the person’s contact details and their company information are enriched during the same form submission, it might use two credits.

The good news? Even if you enrich the same contact multiple times in a month, you’re only charged once per record per month. That keeps things predictable and cost-effective, especially if your contacts are interacting with multiple forms across your website.

It’s worth keeping an eye on your credit balance if you’re running a high-volume campaign, but for most teams, this system offers a clean, scalable way to collect better data—without putting more work on your users.

Final thoughts: smarter forms, better marketing

Form Shortening is a smarter, more modern way to build relationships through digital experiences. In a world where personalization, speed, and data quality matter more than ever, this feature helps you meet those expectations and build a lead generation process that’s frictionless, scalable, and ready to support long-term growth!