topic Re: Marketing Emails ending up in Spam in Email Deliverability

Marketing Emails ending up in Spam

NKieran6 — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 15:24:56 GMT

I'm seeing a high percentage of Emails ending up in Spam despite the email being verified (checked in HubSpot and external tools) and the content has been checked using an external spam tool.

HubSpot support wasn't great and just said it's an Outlook issue. We're going to contact the HubSpot account manager aswell.

The marketing emails are important communications that need to be sent (to engaged contacts). Anyone have an ideas on the next steps?

Re: Marketing Emails ending up in Spam

karstenkoehler — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 15:45:09 GMT

Hi @NKieran6,

How exactly are you checking how many emails are going into spam folders?

Could you share more about the industries you're sending emails to? Certain industries are difficult to email due to high security regulations (finance, med tech, etc) - and the marketing email tracking in HubSpot can be enough to trigger filters and policies.

Tracking can be turned off which will likely lead to better deliverability - but also means that you will lose functionality: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/marketing-email/manage-your-marketing-email-account-settings?hubs_content=knowledge.hubspot.com/de/marketing-email/manage-your-marketing-email-account-settings&hubs_content-cta=english

Lastly, simplified, HubSpot groups customers into swimlanes of shared reputation. This can trigger certain filters. One way around that can be a dedicated IP address for sending. This is a paid add-on, you're not sharing reputation with "swimlanes" that include other HubSpot customers and are fully responsible of your own reputation.

Best regards

Re: Marketing Emails ending up in Spam

NKieran6 — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 16:17:47 GMT

Hi - the contacts have fed back that they're not receiving the expected emails and they're in spam. The clients pay for a corporate membership so expect to be invited to events etc... The industry varies slightly but most could be considered as oil and gas.

Re: Marketing Emails ending up in Spam

karstenkoehler — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 16:21:38 GMT

@NKieran6 thank you for the added context. If you've ensured that authentication is spotless (you can verify with free tools like MX Toolbox), them you would have to pursue the options outlined in my previous reply /- or look into third party email sending tools that integrate with HubSpot. Deliverability is however a minefield and it gets tougher every year. The expectation should unfortunately not be 100% delivery rate.

Re: Marketing Emails ending up in Spam

NKieran6 — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 16:28:54 GMT

Hi - yes, we used MXtoolbox, plus a spam tool to assess the spam score. I don't think 100% is expected but unfortunatley the number ending up in spam has increased since moving to HubSpot (previously sent in bulk from Outlook) which is affecting confidence in HubSpot. This is 2nd scenario I've seen, the other is a different company with the same issue but recently moved from Campaign Monitor to send emails. Outlook recently added extra verification (like google did last year) but the verification was checked and is ok.

I heard that getting a different IP isn't great as you need to spend time warming it up.

Re: Marketing Emails ending up in Spam

karstenkoehler — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 16:42:50 GMT

@NKieran6 sending (regular untracked) emails from Outlook is an entirely different cup of tea. Emails aren't tracked, they're treated as one to one emails which enjoy better reputation, typically have previous documented positive signals, and they're not subject to the same leave of scrutiny as actual bulk emails. Bulk email sending will almost always perform worse. To some extent, you're trading convenience and efficiency for deliverability.

Yes, dedicated IP addresses need to be warmed up but HubSpot moves you off thee swim lane gradually. Still, yes, higher maintenance and risk.

Re: Marketing Emails ending up in Spam

NKieran6 — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 17:50:02 GMT

Just as a thought, have you seen any scenarios or can think of a way that the web version URL could affect deliverability? For example if the domain has been set-up but the web version URL is the default one rather than something descriptive.

Re: Marketing Emails ending up in Spam

karstenkoehler — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 17:51:53 GMT

@NKieran6 it's probably one factor among many but I'd expect it to be a minor one, not the main cause.