topic Re: Updating contact properties after sending an email in Tips, Tricks & Best Practices

Updating contact properties after sending an email

YK11 — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 00:39:22 GMT

Hi all,

Trying to update a custom property on a contact after sending an email. I've created a workflow, but no one is enrolling. When I look into 'why didn't this contact enroll', it picks up that an email was sent but when it checks against the desired email name, the 'Email name' field of the email sent is blank for some reason (the actual email name is definitely not blank). The email being sent is transactional, and is done manually daily by uploading a list.

Has anyone else had this or have any ideas?

Re: Updating contact properties after sending an email

karstenkoehler — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 05:20:27 GMT

Hi @YK11,

Have you checked on the contact record timeline whether the email is listed there? https://knowledge.hubspot.com/records/filter-activities-on-a-record-timeline

If it's showing as sent there, it was sent.

You could also verify in the actions log of the workflow details page: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/workflows/understand-your-workflow-details-page

And yes, I just confirmed, transactional emails do not update the "Last marketing email name" field. This is apparently expected behavior - as a transactional email is not marketing. I've ran into this a few times before in other parts of the tool and the product team repeatedly has decided to not consider transactional emails in these default properties.

Best regards!

Re: Updating contact properties after sending an email

YK11 — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 05:43:53 GMT

Thanks Karsten for confirming - it would be so useful if we could do automations off a transactional email! Will try to find a way around it...

Re: Updating contact properties after sending an email

karstenkoehler — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 05:45:56 GMT

@YK11 there are many ways to accomplish that, "Last marketing email name" is not a reliable way to do so anyway as it gets permanently overwritten. What exactly do you want to automate?

Re: Updating contact properties after sending an email

YK11 — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 05:47:33 GMT

It's a custom contact property related to the payment status of the customer. When the transactional email has been sent, we want to update that field to a certain value.

Re: Updating contact properties after sending an email

karstenkoehler — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 05:50:51 GMT

@YK11 there you go:

You should see your email in there.

Re: Updating contact properties after sending an email

YK11 — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 05:57:47 GMT

Hi Karsten, setting up the trigger isn't the issue - I'm able to find the email fine. The issue is the enrolment. When I'm clicking "why didn't my contact enrol", it is looking for the email name, but the email that's being sent has a blank email (despite the email name not being blank in the email itself)

Re: Updating contact properties after sending an email

karstenkoehler — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 06:10:51 GMT

@YK11 if enrollment works fine, then what is it that's missing? What exactly do you need the "Last marketing email name" propert for?

Re: Updating contact properties after sending an email

YK11 — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 06:14:02 GMT

Setting up the trigger is fine, it's that when it's looking for the email name to enrol the customer, it is not enrolling because the email that was sent has a blank name (as per image).

Re: Updating contact properties after sending an email

karstenkoehler — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 06:27:52 GMT

@YK11 for the purpose of what we're trying to do here, the trigger is the enrollment.

Using the contact property "Last marketing email name" won't work as we've established. Please use the triggers as shown in my reply here: https://community.hubspot.com/t5/Tips-Tricks-Best-Practices/Updating-contact-properties-after-sending-an-email/m-p/946491/highlight/true#M5136

That way, you will reference the asset directly and not just a plain text name stored in a single-line text property.