HubSpot Email ROI: Automated vs. Manual Revenue Reports Explained

Hey there, ESHOPMAN readers! As folks who live and breathe HubSpot and e-commerce, we know how critical it is to understand exactly what’s driving revenue. It’s not enough to just send emails; you need to know which emails are actually putting money in the bank. Recently, a fascinating discussion popped up in the HubSpot Community about how to accurately report revenue from automated versus non-automated emails. It’s a common challenge, and the insights shared were gold for anyone trying to fine-tune their marketing spend.

The original poster, like many of us, was looking for a clear way to see:

Total revenue/deals from automated emails as a KPI.
Total revenue/deals from non-automated emails as a KPI.
Top 10 best-performing automated emails by revenue.
Top 10 best-performing non-automated emails by revenue.

Sounds straightforward, right? But as many community members pointed out, HubSpot’s reporting can get a little tricky when multiple emails touch a single deal. Let’s dive into the core problem and the brilliant solutions suggested.

The Attribution Head-Scratcher: Why Deals Get “Double-Counted”

The biggest hurdle the original poster encountered was deals being “assigned” to multiple emails, leading to inflated revenue figures. As one community member aptly explained, this usually means you’re looking at influenced or attribution-style data, not a clean one-email-one-deal relationship. When a customer interacts with several emails before making a purchase – say, an automated welcome series email and then a manual promotional blast – HubSpot’s default attribution might give credit to both. While useful for showing influence, it makes a simple KPI of “revenue from this specific email type” difficult to trust.

Another respondent highlighted that the key challenge is indeed attribution. A single deal can be influenced by multiple marketing emails, and when you build a custom report with Deals and Marketing Emails, HubSpot often associates the same deal with more than one email, duplicating your revenue figures.

Solutions for Clearer Email Revenue Reporting

1. Lean into HubSpot’s Revenue Attribution Reports (Especially for Enterprise)

For those on Marketing Hub Enterprise, the native Revenue Attribution Reports are your best friend. These reports are designed to handle multi-touch attribution and can often be filtered by email asset or campaign. If your automated and non-automated emails are categorized differently (e.g., by campaign or a specific email type), you can get much closer to the clean split you need for KPIs. A community expert recommended starting here, noting that funnel reports might not distinguish between automated and manual sends natively.

2. Create Custom Properties and Workflows for Cleaner Attribution

This was a popular and highly recommended solution, especially for those not on Enterprise or needing a truly clean, one-deal-one-email-type attribution. The idea is to create your own custom property on the deal or contact record (e.g., “Primary Email Revenue Driver” or “Email Type at Conversion”).

Here’s how it works:

Create a Custom Property: Go to Settings > Properties, and create a new custom property (e.g., a dropdown select or single-line text) for Deals or Contacts. Name it something like “Email Type at Deal Creation” or “Last Influencing Email Type”.
Build Workflows: Set up workflows that trigger when a deal is created or moved to a specific stage (like “Closed Won”). In these workflows, check which type of email (automated or non-automated) was the most recent interaction before that action, or perhaps the first touch, depending on your desired attribution model.
Stamp the Deal/Contact: Use the workflow to automatically populate your new custom property with “Automated Email” or “Non-Automated Email.”
Report with Confidence: Once this property is stamped, you can build custom reports using this field to get accurate, unduplicated KPIs and top 10 lists. This gives you a clear, single source for attribution based on your defined rules.

As one respondent put it, this method is “less elegant, but much easier to trust.” It allows you to build KPIs and top-10 tables directly from this field, avoiding the multi-assignment issue.

3. Using the Custom Report Builder for KPIs and Top 10 Tables

For both KPIs and top 10 lists, the Custom Report Builder is your go-to, but with a specific approach:

For KPIs: Use the “Marketing Email” or “Email Campaign” data source. Filter by “Email Type” (automated/workflow vs. regular/one-off). Then, build your revenue as a custom calculated metric tied to closed-won deals via first-touch or influenced revenue attribution. This helps avoid the multi-assignment issue.
For Top 10 Tables: When building your report, switch your dimension to “Email name” instead of “Deal.” Then, sort or limit by revenue. This keeps the reporting at the email level, preventing deals from being forced into single-email buckets and giving you an accurate ranking of individual emails.

Addressing Historical Data

A valid concern raised was about historical data. If you implement custom properties and workflows today, they won’t magically backfill past values. For historical reporting, one community member suggested:

Keep HubSpot’s native attribution/email performance reporting as the “historical view,” acknowledging the potential for double-counting.
Use the new custom property for all reporting from the go-live date forward.
If historical KPIs absolutely must match the new model, consider a one-time backfill: export relevant closed deals and email evidence, manually decide one email/type per deal, then import or update the new property. Be sure to clearly mark the cutoff date between backfilled and automated data.

ESHOPMAN Team Comment

For any online shop website builder, especially those deeply integrated with HubSpot like ESHOPMAN, precise email revenue reporting isn't just nice-to-have; it's essential for smart growth. We wholeheartedly agree with the community's emphasis on clear attribution. Relying on custom properties and workflows for a defined attribution model is often the most reliable path to actionable insights, preventing the common pitfalls of double-counting and giving you a true picture of your email marketing ROI.

Bringing it All Together for Your Online Shop

Whether you're running a thriving e-commerce website, or just starting to create an ecommerce website free with basic tools, understanding the direct impact of your email efforts on revenue is non-negotiable. The HubSpot Community discussion clearly shows that while HubSpot offers powerful reporting, sometimes you need to get a little creative with custom properties and attribution models to get the exact insights you need. By leveraging custom properties, intelligent workflows, and targeted use of the custom report builder, you can cut through the attribution noise and get a crystal-clear view of which automated and non-automated emails are truly driving your online store’s success. It’s all about making data-driven decisions to optimize your campaigns and boost your bottom line.