How to split a comma-separated string and update HubSpot contact properties

Hi Zapier community — I’m hoping for guidance on a Formatter / HubSpot mapping issue that I’ve spent a fair bit of time troubleshooting.

What I’m trying to do

I’m capturing Beehiiv survey responses and updating existing HubSpot contacts with the survey data.

• Beehiiv sends survey responses in a single comma-separated string via the Answer Data field

• Example value:

  email, job_title, country, phone, linkedin_url
  

• I need each value mapped into its own HubSpot contact property (Job Title, Country, Phone, LinkedIn URL)

Zap structure

1. Trigger: Beehiiv – New Survey Responses

2. Formatter (Text → Split Text):

   • Input: Answer Data

   • Separator: ,

   • Segment Index: tested both

     • All (as Line-items)

     • All (as Separate Fields)

3. Formatter (Utilities):

   • Attempting to flatten / name each split value (Item 1–5)

4. HubSpot – Find Contact

   • Lookup by Email

5. HubSpot – Update Contact

   • Update existing contact using Contact ID

What works

• Step 2 does split correctly in the test output:

  1: email
  2: job title
  3: country
  4: phone
  5: linkedin url
  

• I can see all five values clearly in the Formatter test panel

The problem

When mapping into Step 5 (Update Contact):

• Zapier only exposes a single Output field or a grouped array

• The individual split values (1, 2, 3, etc.) are not selectable or are treated as arrays

• HubSpot then receives JSON / list-style values instead of scalar strings, e.g.:

  ["Ireland"]
  

  instead of:

  Ireland
  

Even when using a second Formatter (Utilities → Line-itemizer), Step 5 often still receives arrays or the full output object rather than clean scalar values.

What I believe is happening

• Step 2 is sometimes outputting a single field containing line-items, not truly separate scalar fields

• Because of that, downstream steps (Utilities / HubSpot) cannot reliably reference 1, 2, 3, etc. as individual values

• This prevents HubSpot from accepting the data into standard contact properties

What I’m looking for guidance on

• The correct, supported way to:

  • Split a comma-separated string

  • Convert each part into a true scalar field

  • Pass those cleanly into HubSpot Update Contact

• Whether this requires:

  • A specific Formatter configuration

  • A Looping by Zapier step

  • A known workaround for HubSpot + line-items

If anyone has a known-good pattern for splitting text and updating HubSpot contact properties, I’d really appreciate guidance.

Thanks in advance — happy to provide screenshots or test outputs if helpful.