What is it?
Consent based email tracking for marketing and 1:1 emails coming to beta Fall 2026.
Why does it matter?
Updated regulations from Italy (Garante) and France (CNIL) now require explicit consent before tracking emails. This feature will give admins a practical way to manage consent for each contact, a built-in audit trail of how and when consent was collected, and tracking that automatically follows each contact’s consent status. No more having to manage tracking settings per email!
How does it work?
A consent record will be available in your CRM to manage email tracking consent. This record will be per email address and will store the following metadata which will be available for audit and legal documentation purposes:
Consent status
Timestamp
The source where consent was collected
Who provided consent
A “require consent to track emails” option will be available in your Data Privacy settings . If a portal admin opts into this feature, HubSpot will check a contact’s email tracking consent status when sending marketing and 1:1 emails, and decide whether to track opens and clicks. Four possible states will govern tracking behavior:
Consented → Track
Not Consented → Don’t Track
Not specified → Don’t Track
Not Applicable → Track
A “Consent to Track” option will be added to the contact’s Manage Preferences page, giving recipients a choice to opt in or out of tracking at any time. This option will appear for contacts with a Consented, Not Consented or Not Specified status. Contacts marked Not Applicable in the CRM will not see it.
Recipient updates via the Manage Preference page will automatically update the consent record. HubSpot users will also be able to update this record via bulk actions in Segments, Workflows, and on the individual Contact Record.
Please note: HubSpot provides tools and features to support your privacy compliance efforts, but every organization’s regulatory environment is different. We recommend working with your legal counsel to determine how these tools fit into your specific compliance program. The capabilities described in this post are in active development. Timelines and feature details are subject to change as we continue building.
This is great to hear! To confirm, if a contact is opted out of tracking, and a marketing email is sent to them, will HubSpot automatically not track their opens/clicks? But will still track opens/clicks for those who are opted in?
Or is this update primarily a way to keep track of consent via new properties?
Correct! If opted into consent based tracking all email tracking across the product will be governed by the new consent record. For marketing emails, this means that at time of send we will check that record for each recipient’s email address and if -
I don’t see anything being mentioned about Brands. Is this also going to work if you have multiple Brands (Business Units) Add-on? One consent status per Brand?
I assume that users can only update the consent status on a contact record if they have edit access to Contacts in HubSpot?
If you use a segment/lists where you have both (not consented + consented). Does it give you an indication on how many recipients receive a tracked email (just like with marketing contacts)? Do you know how many recipients have given consent when reviewing the email performance data?
Is there an option to still send out an untracked email even if someone has given consent? As we’re having lots of recipients who cannot open any of our links because it contains HubSpot tracking pixels (e.g. reset password, register for an account).
Through which touchpoints or interfaces will it be possible to obtain consent from the contact?
For our MVP customers can gather consent through their own means and then utilize workflows to update the record. The manage preferences option will be turned on automatically as well.
Will the data subject be able to amend their consent independently after giving it?
By ‘data subject’ I assume you mean will the contact be able to amend their consent independently. If so yes. See note above - A “Consent to Track” option will be added to the contact’s Manage Preferences page, giving recipients a choice to opt in or out of tracking at any time. This option will appear for contacts with a Consented, Not Consented or Not Specified status. Contacts marked Not Applicable in the CRM will not see it.
Can consent be updated manually, via workflows and/or APIs?
Yes. See note above - HubSpot users will also be able to update this record via bulk actions in Segments, Workflows, and on the individual Contact Record.
Hi Kim - Going to do my best to answer all of your questions!
Is this also going to work if you have multiple Brands (Business Units) Add-on? One consent status per Brand?
I’m actively working with our Brands group to get a Brands solution in place, but our MVP coming this Fall will have one consent record per email address at the portal level - meaning one consent record will apply across all brands.
I assume that users can only update the consent status on a contact record if they have edit access to Contacts in HubSpot?
Turning on consent based tracking will be super admin only action. We are still sorting out permissions for editing the record itself. If you have feedback here we would love to hear it!*
If you use a segment/lists where you have both (not consented + consented). Does it give you an indication on how many recipients receive a tracked email (just like with marketing contacts)?*
There will be no pre-send indicator of how many recipients will be tracked. If that’s something you’d find useful, let me know and we’ll consider it as a fast follow improvement.
Do you know how many recipients have given consent when reviewing the email performance data?
A number of changes will be made on the post send page to provide visibility into tracking when opted into the consent model -
The denominator for open rate, click rate, and reply rate will now be emails delivered and tracked opposed to just emails delivered.
A new “Tracked” and “Not Tracked” tab will be added to the Recipients tab, showing the count and list of recipients in each category.
Excellent news! Meanwhile, we had already created a “consent to being tracked” property and applied it to our newsletter forms. Will we be able to somehow integrate the already recorded responses to this feature?
Yes, currently only France and Italy have communicated this so explicitly. But I wouldn’t be surprised if other EU countries follow. I’m actually a little surprised that Germany wasn’t among the first to address this.
I expect other EU countries to follow, too. My question was more related to the implementation plan of Hubspot. If it will be implemented in a way that the tracking consent topic will be for contacts in France and Italy only (e.g. based on the country property) or if Hubspot will implement an “all or none”.
The latter would really not be a good option, because I honestly, do not expect to see many contacts providing a consent for being tracked.
Who would, if doing nothing is a no, actively say “Yes, please track all my steps, clicks, opens.”
HI @LeanScale2 , yes we can add you to the beta list. We plan to get this out in the coming 2-3 weeks! You will see a beta release for this in your product updates panel.
“A “Consent to Track” option will be added to the contact’s Manage Preferences page, giving recipients a choice to opt in or out of tracking at any time.” Will this be compatible with an existing property @JBrenna@Shane_Janssens ? See my previous message, please.
