Kids Planet future-proofs its HubSpot setup for UK-wide growth

Data & analytics
Email & CRM

Client overview

Kids Planet Nurseries is an award-winning, family-led group of more than 350 early years day nurseries and pre-schools in the UK and Ireland. Operating across Greater Manchester, the North East, the Midlands, and the South of England, Kids Planet delivers calm indoor spaces and nature-based outdoor learning.

At CTI Digital, our email and CRM experts worked closely with the team at Kids Planet on phase 1 of a multi-stage HubSpot project. Together, we created a clean, reliable setup to aid the group's continued expansion.

The challenge

Kids Planet’s HubSpot platform was growing quickly and the business wanted to ensure that their underlying data structure and governance models were future-proofed. This project involved mitigating for potential barriers to family engagement and recruitment, including work on:

  • Data hygiene and deliverability

    Guarding against hard bounces, duplicate contact records and properties that could fragment information or threaten domain sender reputation.

  • Simplifying lifecycle architecture

    Ensuring lifecycle stages were rationalised, contact types were defined, and suppression logic in place – all to create relevant email journeys.

  • Reducing workflow estate complexity

    Consolidating workflows where necessary, reducing system errors, dormant flows and duplicate processes.

  • Governance and visibility gaps

    The introduction of standardised naming conventions, shared rules for email content hierarchy, and centralised reporting on database health.

The approach

  • Cleaning up data and protecting deliverability

    We isolated hard-bounced contacts into a master segment, rebuilt automated, four-part suppression lists (covering unsubscribes, opt-outs, quarantines, and hard bounces), and merged duplicate contacts using native HubSpot tools. To prevent inaccurate data from entering the platform, we enabled email validation across all live HubSpot forms to reject invalid addresses at the point of entry.

  • Simplifying lifecycle stages and contact rules

    We restructured the platform’s lifecycle model, rationalising 13 fragmented stages into eight clean stages mapped directly to the parent journey. To manage operational automation without cluttering standard lifecycle fields, we introduced a custom Parent Journey Status property (spanning 17 distinct milestones) and a universal Contact Type classification across all active workflows.

  • Consolidating the workflow estate into a scalable regional model

    We audited and triaged all workflows, resolving active errors and archiving dormant processes. We also implemented strict naming and documentation standards. To eliminate the need for separate workflows for every nursery site, we built a centralised regional model powered by a Nurseries custom object and location-based branching logic.

  • Targeting key enquiry drop-off points: Show round and Open Day automation

    Introduction of pre-visit reminder sequences, post-visit conversion workflows branched on attendance, and a clonable, always-on Open Day master framework.

  • Automating the apprentice recruitment pipeline

    Replacement of offline spreadsheets with a seven-stage recruitment deal pipeline, automated deal creation, and regional nurture workflows to support apprentice hiring.

  • Setting up health dashboards and clear guidelines

    To ensure long-term account health, we built a custom CRM Data Health. Dashboard within HubSpot. The dashboard tracks performance against platform benchmark thresholds for bounce rates, unsubscribes, spam complaints, and duplicate counts. Alongside the technical build, we developed documented standards covering workflow naming, CTA best practices, and content hierarchy rules.

Selected results

With Phase 1 complete, Kids Planet now has a clean and reliable HubSpot platform built for the future. Having sorted the basics, we are ready to help them tackle the exciting work in Phase 2. This includes automatically matching parents to the right nurseries for them, reporting on the full enrolment journey, and building new ways to support families post-enrolment.

  • Reduced duplicate contacts to double digits

    Established an automated merge protocol for future records.

  • Consolidated 13 fragmented lifecycle stages

    Combined into eight clean stages supported by a granular Parent Journey Status framework.

  • Audited and optimised hundreds of workflows

    Including triage of 29 error-state workflows and establishing custom health views for immediate account visibility.

  • Unified nursery locations

    Creation of a single regional branching model, streamlining updates across all locations.

  • Established live platform health benchmarks

    Set internal threshold tracking for hard bounces (<2%), unsubscribes (<0.5%), and spam complaints (<0.08%).