Keep Your HubSpot Clean: Mastering Bounces, Unsubscribes, and Marketing Contact Status

Hey ESHOPMAN community!

Keeping your contact database clean is one of those unsung heroes of successful marketing, especially for e-commerce businesses where every customer interaction counts. Recently, a great discussion in the HubSpot Community tackled a challenge many of us face: how to efficiently manage bounced emails and unsubscribed contacts to keep our marketing contact status precise and our email deliverability high.

The Core Challenge: What to Do with Bounces and Unsubscribes?

The original poster sought advice on automatically removing bounced emails and unsubscribed contacts from their marketing contact status in HubSpot. They had already started building a segmented list for hard bounces and an automation workflow, looking for expert recommendations on the best approach.

Community Insights: A Multi-faceted Approach to Contact Hygiene

The community quickly offered robust solutions to the original poster's query.

Building the Foundation: Smart Workflows & Enrollment Criteria

One community member provided a comprehensive workflow blueprint. They recommended enrolling contacts whose "Marketing contact status is any of Marketing contact" AND meet any of the following:

• Unsubscribed from all email is True OR
• Email hard bounce reason is known OR
• Invalid email is True OR
• Email is unknown OR
• Email domain is any of [your competitors]

The workflow action would then set their "Marketing Contact Status" to "Non-Marketing Contact." This comprehensive approach catches various reasons for unsuitability. The same respondent also wisely suggested a "flipside" workflow to re-enroll contacts who become valid again (e.g., email updated, re-subscribed).

Strategic Nuances: Hard Bounces vs. Unsubscribes

Another insightful community member, Emmytech, highlighted a critical distinction:

• Hard Bounces: These are clear-cut. "Definitely recommend removing them from Marketing Contacts automatically." They're undeliverable, hurting deliverability and skewing data.
• Unsubscribes: Here, caution is advised. "Unsubscribed doesn’t necessarily mean they’re no longer valuable—they may still be customers or active contacts in your CRM." For e-commerce, these contacts remain valuable, even if not receiving marketing emails. You might only remove them from Marketing Contacts if you're certain they won't be part of any future marketing campaigns.

Emmytech also stressed reviewing workflows to ensure only "Marketing Contact Status" is updated, avoiding accidental changes to other crucial properties. Timing was also questioned: immediate removal or after a period (e.g., 30-60 days)?

Putting It All Together: Your Action Plan for a Cleaner HubSpot

Based on these expert insights, here’s a refined action plan for keeping your HubSpot marketing lists pristine, optimizing your marketing efforts, and ensuring your data accurately reflects your audience's engagement:

1. Create an Active List for "Non-Marketing Candidates":

   Go to Contacts > Lists > Create list. Select Active list. Set criteria similar to what the community member suggested:

   • Marketing contact status is any of Marketing contact
   • AND (
   • Unsubscribed from all email is True OR
   • Email hard bounce reason is known OR
   • Invalid email is True OR
   • Email is unknown
   • )

   (Optional: Consider adding Email domain is any of [your competitors] for strategic segmentation.)

2. Build Your "Remove from Marketing Status" Workflow:

   Go to Automation > Workflows > Create workflow. Select Contact-based and choose Start from scratch. Set enrollment trigger: "Contact is a member of list" and select your newly created "Non-Marketing Candidates" active list. Add an action: "Set a contact property value". Choose "Marketing Contact Status" and set the value to "Non-Marketing Contact". Review and activate.

3. Strategize for Unsubscribes:

   Before including Unsubscribed from all email is True in your primary workflow, consider Emmytech's advice. Unsubscribed contacts, especially customers, are still valuable. For e-commerce, you might create a separate workflow or list for unsubscribed customers to manage them differently, perhaps for re-engagement campaigns outside of email, or to ensure they still receive important transactional updates from your woocommerce portal or other e-commerce platforms. This ensures you maintain valuable customer relationships even if they opt out of marketing emails.

4. Plan for the "Flip Side" (Re-Engagement/Re-Subscription):

   Create a second workflow that identifies contacts whose email status has changed (e.g., "Email hard bounce reason is unknown" AND "Email address contains @" AND "Marketing Contact Status is Non-Marketing Contact") or who have explicitly re-subscribed. This workflow would then set their "Marketing Contact Status" back to "Marketing Contact."

By implementing these strategies, you're not just cleaning your list; you're optimizing your marketing efforts, improving email deliverability, and ensuring your data accurately reflects your audience's engagement. This is a crucial step for any business aiming for effective growth, whether you're evaluating the best ecommerce website builder for small business needs or scaling an existing enterprise.

ESHOPMAN Team Comment

The ESHOPMAN team wholeheartedly agrees with the community's emphasis on meticulous data hygiene. For any e-commerce business built on HubSpot, managing bounced and unsubscribed contacts isn't just about saving money on marketing contacts; it's fundamental to maintaining sender reputation and ensuring your valuable messages actually reach your customers. We particularly appreciate the nuanced view on unsubscribed contacts – they are still customers, and their journey with your brand doesn't end with an unsubscribe. Leveraging HubSpot's CRM capabilities, even for non-marketing contacts, is key to sustained customer relationships and growth, something ESHOPMAN is designed to help facilitate.

The Real Impact: Why Clean Data Drives E-commerce Success

Imagine running an online store where a significant portion of your marketing emails never reach their destination. That's wasted effort, wasted budget, and missed opportunities. Clean lists mean:

• Better Deliverability: ISPs see you as a responsible sender, improving inbox placement.
• Accurate Reporting: Your engagement metrics become truly meaningful, guiding better decisions.
• Reduced Costs: You're not paying HubSpot for inactive or invalid contacts.
• Improved Customer Experience: You're respecting preferences and not sending to uninterested parties, fostering trust.

A well-maintained HubSpot CRM is the backbone of your e-commerce strategy. It ensures that every marketing dollar works harder and every customer interaction is optimized. Keep those lists sparkling!