HubSpot Workflow Overlap: Stop Sending Too Many Emails at Once

Ever feel like you're bombarding your contacts with too many emails at once? If you're using HubSpot's workflows, especially with Marketing Hub Professional, you might run into a situation where contacts enrolled in multiple workflows receive emails too close together. Let's explore how to tackle this challenge, drawing insights from a recent HubSpot Community discussion.

The Problem: Workflow Email Overlap

The original poster highlighted a common issue: contacts overlapping across multiple workflows. Imagine you have Workflow A and Workflow B, targeting similar audiences. The goal is to nurture leads effectively, but sending emails from both workflows on the same day (or within a couple of days) can be overwhelming and lead to unsubscribes or decreased engagement. Coordinating send times manually across several workflows becomes a logistical nightmare.

Solutions and Workarounds

While HubSpot doesn't offer a built-in feature to smartly queue and space out emails for Marketing Hub Professional users (without heavy customization), here are a couple of approaches discussed in the community:

1. Custom Property and Enrollment Criteria

One community member suggested using a custom contact property. Here's the breakdown:

1. Create a custom property: For example, a single checkbox property called "Currently in nurturing."
2. Set the property at the beginning of the workflow: When a contact enters a workflow, set the "Currently in nurturing" property to "Yes."
3. Clear the property at the end of the workflow: Once the contact completes the workflow, clear the property (set it to "No").
4. Use as enrollment criteria: In each workflow, make it an enrollment criterion that the "Currently in nurturing" property must be "No."

This prevents contacts already in one nurturing workflow from entering another. The respondent also suggested adding a date filter to the workflows to prevent contacts from immediately entering another workflow after leaving one.

Caveat: As the original poster pointed out, this approach might not be ideal if you want contacts to overlap in workflows, just not receive emails simultaneously.

2. Send Frequency Cap (Marketing Hub Enterprise)

Another suggestion involved using the send frequency setting within HubSpot. This feature, found under Settings > Tools > Marketing > Email > Send Frequency, allows you to cap the number of emails a contact receives per day, week, two weeks, or month.

Limitation: This feature is only available in Marketing Hub Enterprise. The original poster had Marketing Hub Professional, making this option unavailable.

The Verdict

Unfortunately, for Marketing Hub Professional users, there isn't a perfect, out-of-the-box solution to smartly queue and space out emails across multiple workflows. The custom property workaround offers some control, but it requires careful planning and might not suit all scenarios. If email frequency is a critical concern, upgrading to Marketing Hub Enterprise to access the send frequency cap might be worth considering.

ESHOPMAN Team Comment

This HubSpot Community discussion highlights a common pain point for marketers juggling multiple workflows. The suggested custom property solution is clever, but it adds complexity to workflow management. We believe HubSpot should prioritize developing a more intuitive solution for managing email frequency across workflows, even for Professional users. This would significantly improve the user experience and prevent accidental email overload, especially for e-commerce businesses running numerous promotional campaigns.

Ultimately, the best approach depends on your specific needs and HubSpot subscription level. Carefully weigh the pros and cons of each workaround to determine the most effective solution for your situation.