HubSpot Marketing Hub admin - ongoing maintenance retainer, US-based, remote (3-5 hrs/week)

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We’re an accredited vocational training school in California. Our Marketing Hub is already built - email sequences, lead scoring, lifecycle stages and an applicant flow are all live. We’re not looking for a rebuild, a strategy engagement, or an audit with recommendations.

We need one reliable US-based admin to keep it running and implement changes our team has already agreed on. Roughly half a day a week, ongoing. If you already work in marketing ops and want one well-defined retainer client, this is built for you.

The work

  • Implement approved changes to workflows, marketing emails, forms, properties and lists
  • Monitor deliverability: sends vs. not-sent reasons, bounces, unsubscribes, inbox vs. Promotions placement
  • Fix what breaks - emails delivering to zero recipients, stalled workflow steps, personalization tokens that don’t resolve
  • Maintain our SMS (10DLC) setup and opt-in/opt-out handling
  • Keep a living doc of every active workflow: what enrolls into it and what it does
  • One short monthly report: what changed, what’s broken, what needs a decision

How we work

  • Every change arrives as a written request already approved internally. You implement, confirm, log it. No selling required.
  • If you think an approved change is a mistake, say so before you build it. We want that.
  • Work in the HubSpot UI at a normal pace. No bulk scripting, no undocumented endpoints.
  • You may not install or connect any third-party app or integration to our portal. If you need a tool, ask and we’ll decide.
  • No Super Admin, and no access to student applications or records with sensitive personal data.
  • Your own business email with 2FA. No personal Gmail.

What we need

  • US-based, working through your own business entity with other clients
  • 2+ years administering a Marketing Hub portal you did not build yourself
  • Fluent in workflows, marketing contact status, subscription types, suppression and email analytics
  • HubSpot SMS / 10DLC registration experience is a strong plus
  • Same-business-day acknowledgment - response time matters more to us than volume

Terms

Two stages. First a fixed-price project (roughly $1,000-$1,500) clearing a short backlog of known issues - that’s how we both find out if it’s a fit. Then an ongoing retainer of $1,300/month for roughly 15 hours, long-term.

To apply

Reply or DM with your hourly rate, what you’d charge for the backlog project, and answers to these:

  1. A marketing email shows 5,733 contacts targeted but only 1,800 sent. Where do you look to find out why, and what are the likely reasons?
  2. What’s the difference between a marketing and non-marketing contact, and when does a workflow that sets a contact to non-marketing actually take effect?
  3. Describe a HubSpot portal you inherited from someone else. What was broken, and how did you find it?
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Hello,

Thank you for your message. Here are my answers to the three questions:

1. A marketing email shows 5,733 targeted contacts but only 1,800 sent. Where would you look to understand why, and what are the likely reasons?

I would start by checking the send details and the recipient list to compare the 5,733 targeted contacts with the contacts actually eligible to receive the email.

I would specifically check for reasons for non-sending/exclusion: contacts unsubscribed from the relevant subscription type, non-marketing contacts, addresses with hard bounces or previously rejected, deletions, list or workflow criteria, as well as any exclusions configured on the email.

I would also check if contacts were added to or removed from the list between the initial selection and the send. The goal would be to precisely identify where the 3,933 contacts were excluded, rather than assuming it is a deliverability issue.

2. What is the difference between a marketing contact and a non-marketing contact, and at what point does a workflow that defines a contact as non-marketing actually take effect?

A marketing contact is a contact that can be used for HubSpot marketing activities and therefore falls within the scope of the corresponding billing. A non-marketing contact remains in the CRM but cannot be targeted in the same way by the relevant marketing tools.

For a workflow that defines a contact as non-marketing, I would primarily check the delay and application rule associated with the status change. The change is not necessarily equivalent to an instantaneous modification at the exact moment the workflow action is executed; therefore, I would check the portal and HubSpot documentation for the behavior applicable to the specific configuration before providing a definitive answer.

3. Describe a HubSpot portal that you have taken over from someone else. What was broken, and how did you discover it?

I prefer to be transparent on this point: I have not yet taken over and administered a production HubSpot portal belonging to another team for several years. I therefore do not want to present a fictitious example as a real professional experience.

My training and HubSpot certification have allowed me to develop an understanding of CRM and Marketing Hub features, and I continue to develop my practical skills in workflows, properties, lists, emails, and automation.

If hands-on experience with an existing portal is an absolute requirement for this role, I fully understand that my profile may not fit this specific position. However, if you are open to a developing profile, I would be happy to demonstrate my skills through the backlog project or a practical exercise.

Best regards, Roger

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Hi Raz,

I’m very interested in this project. I’ve been working in HubSpot and Revenue Operations for over a decade, both as an in-house RevOps professional and as a consultant working inside existing HubSpot portals. I’m US-based and currently work as a Revenue Operations Manager in addition to taking on select consulting projects.

For the initial backlog project, $1,250 works for me, assuming the scope is consistent with what you described. The $1,300/month retainer for approximately 15 hours and is also perfectly acceptable to me.

To answer your questions:

1. A marketing email shows 5,733 contacts targeted but only 1,800 sent. Where do you look to find out why, and what are the likely reasons?

The first and most obvious culprit would be if the 3,933 were set as ‘non-marketing contacts’. If that’s the case, then a marketing email will not get sent to them. HubSpot treats ‘marketing emails’ (typically sent from a ‘noreply’ address or a dedicated email address, and utilizing more fully-designed HTML templates) from direct emails sent from individual sales reps that are either sent individually or via sequence.

Your question states that these emails we’re not sent, as opposed to they were sent and that they bounced, so this rules out any issues such as your domain getting marked as spam or otherwise flagged by a recipient’s security extensions or email client.

I’d also run a quick check on individual contact records to determine exactly why specific contacts were excluded.

2. What’s the difference between a marketing and non-marketing contact, and when does a workflow that sets a contact to non-marketing actually take effect?

Marketing contacts are contacts eligible to be used with HubSpot’s marketing tools and count toward the portal’s billable marketing contact tier. Non-marketing contacts can remain in the CRM and participate in normal CRM activity (such as emails sent directly from sales reps) but aren’t counted as marketing contacts and subject to certain features and tools available in HubSpot Marketing Hub.

If you set an existing marketing contact to non-marketing in a workflow does not make them non-marketing immediately. HubSpot schedules that change for the account’s next marketing contact update date, which is the same date as your monthly renewal. Until then, they remain a marketing contact. Setting someone to marketing however takes effect immediately.

3. Describe a HubSpot portal you inherited from someone else. What was broken, and how did you find it?

I’ve worked in several established HubSpot environments where I was coming into a portal that had already been built and used by other teams. This is much more often the case then being handed a ‘clean slate.’ One consulting engagement involved taking over an existing portal where the biggest problems weren’t one dramatic failure, but accumulated operational debt: inconsistent lifecycle stage handling, old workflows that were still active and colliding and interfering with one another through overlapping automations, churned accounts getting re-set to customers, and data coming in from outside systems that was rerouting account ownership.

My approach was to trace things from record history. If a contact had the wrong lifecycle stage, owner, or territory, I’d look at the property history, identify what changed it, then trace that back to the workflow, import, integration, or user responsible. I also reviewed workflow enrollment history and error logs rather than assuming the workflow logic itself was the only problem.

It’s important to get a holistic, bird-eye view over everything that is going wrong in a system before you set about fixing things, otherwise for every leak you fix, two or more might spring up!

That kind of troubleshooting is always part of any engagement, so I’m perfectly comfortable working within an existing system, documenting what I changed, and flagging something before implementation if I think I need to review it with leadership.

My LinkedIn is here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessemayhew/

Happy to discuss the backlog, provide references, and see if there’s a fit.

Jesse

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Hey @RazK,
Sent you a DM with more details!

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Hi, Raz! I’m based in Colorado and work independently with multiple clients, providing HubSpot administration and virtual assistant support. I have 3+ years of HubSpot experience, including administering an established CRM as Super Admin for a large B2B software company. Before that, I built CRMs for my own direct sales business and a friend’s roofing business.

My current work involves sorting out ongoing issues across contact and company data, workflows, sequences, emails, internal alerts, and lead management. I look at how those pieces work together, where information goes, and what the team needs to happen next. Your approach of working from approved requests, checking the results, and documenting changes fits how I like to work.

1. Why were only 1,800 of the 5,733 targeted contacts sent the email?

I’d go to Marketing → Email, open the email, then check Recipients → Not sent. I’d review the reasons HubSpot recorded and how many contacts fall into each group, then check individual records where something needs a closer look.

Likely reasons include non-marketing status, unsubscribes, previous hard bounces, missing or invalid email addresses, and unengaged-contact suppression if enabled. I’d also check the email’s exclusion settings and any applicable consent requirements.

I wouldn’t assume all 3,933 were excluded for the same reason or change their status just to get the email out. The fix depends on what actually prevented each group from receiving it.

2. Marketing versus non-marketing contacts, and when does the change take effect?

Marketing contacts count toward the billable marketing contact tier and can be used with HubSpot’s marketing tools, subject to subscription and sending eligibility. Non-marketing contacts remain in the CRM but don’t count toward that tier and can’t receive marketing emails.

A workflow changing an existing marketing contact to non-marketing schedules the change for the account’s next marketing contact update date; it isn’t immediate. I’d check the account’s actual update date rather than assume it matches a renewal date.

Marketing status also isn’t the same as consent. If someone unsubscribes, their subscription preferences need to prevent the relevant sends immediately, regardless of when their billing status changes.

3. An existing portal I took over

My current B2B software client brought me into an established portal to work through accumulated problems and make the CRM more reliable for the people using it. That has included contact and company deduplication, identifying data quality issues, and analyzing workflows alongside sales sequences to understand how contacts move through the system.

I’m reviewing enrollment criteria, follow-up steps, internal alerts, and where those alerts go, along with contact ownership and lead routing. The work means looking beyond whether an individual automation runs: does the right person receive the lead or notification, does the next step make sense, and does it match the team’s actual process?

I’ve also built event lead capture forms and worked on the broader lead collection process, connecting how information enters the CRM with who should own it and what should happen afterward. Email suppression is another part of that work, including keeping unsubscribes separate from hard bounces when contacts change employer email addresses.

The next phase includes building their SOPs, integrating QuickBooks, and incorporating a second brand into the CRM. Those are upcoming projects, but they reflect the broader systems and operations work I’m handling for this client. I’m comfortable working through an inherited setup, asking questions when the intended process isn’t clear, and implementing changes without losing sight of what they affect elsewhere.

I typically price work based on what’s involved. Your $1,300 monthly retainer for roughly 15 hours works for me. For the backlog, I’d want to review the issue list before confirming a fixed price, but the provided range seems acceptable depending on what “short” means.

I look forward to discussing this opportunity with you further! Thank you for your time.

Sarah Martinez

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Hello Raz,

Is this engagement still open? Venture Ops Desk would like to be considered for the initial backlog project.

Our owner’s experience is in maintaining an inherited internal operations platform, rather than HubSpot. Venture Ops Desk is also a new service business without an existing client book. Would you consider that transferable experience, or are the Marketing Hub tenure and other-client requirements firm?

Pricing: $85/hour reference rate and a conditional $1,250 fixed-price backlog proposal, subject to reviewing the issue list and agreeing scope and acceptance criteria. We would discuss the $1,300/month retainer after a successful initial project and an agreed acknowledgment schedule.

1. 5,733 targeted contacts versus 1,800 sent

Start with the sent email’s Recipients tab and group Not sent by its recorded reasons. Reconcile the 3,933-contact gap against targeting and exclusions, then inspect representative contact histories. Check non-marketing status, subscription/consent restrictions, previous hard bounces or spam reports, unengaged suppression and frequency caps. Include contacts missing email addresses, which may not appear in Not sent. Distinguish not attempted, sent, bounced and delivered; do not remove safeguards just to increase sends.

2. Marketing and non-marketing contacts

Marketing contacts count toward the billable marketing-contact tier and can receive marketing emails subject to consent and other eligibility checks. Non-marketing contacts remain in the CRM without counting toward that tier. A workflow setting an existing marketing contact to non-marketing schedules the change for the account’s next update date, rather than immediately. Check that date in the portal. Billing status is separate from honoring an unsubscribe immediately.

3. Relevant inherited-system experience

In an existing internal operations platform, our owner investigated a dashboard that sometimes displayed an incorrect zero usage count after a restart. He reproduced the behavior, traced inconsistent calculations across views, and contributed a shared calculation that distinguished missing information from a valid measurement. Regression tests caught the original defect and passed with the fix; the broader suite was compared before and after. He reports that the change was reviewed and merged without introducing additional failures. This is transferable reliability work, not a claim of prior HubSpot administration.

Delivery would combine that experience with AI-assisted implementation and documented checks. We would need your approval before using an assistant with client information, follow your normal-UI and limited-permissions requirements, and avoid unapproved integrations or bulk scripting.

If that could fit, could you share the non-sensitive backlog descriptions and required acknowledgment window?

Venture Ops Desk

Prepared with AI assistance. Technical answers checked against HubSpot documentation; experience supplied by the business owner.

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Hi Raz,

This looks like a great fit for my experience and something I’d be interested in. I’ve worked extensively in HubSpot Marketing Hub for the last 7 years managing existing portals, including workflows, lead scoring, lifecycle stages, email marketing, forms, lists, reporting, and automation. In my recent marketing operations work. Most recently I’ve been doing contract work that aligns with what you’re looking for and have experience with project-based and hourly setups.

I’m comfortable working within an established system and handling approved changes carefully, testing and documenting them along the way. I’m not looking to come in and rebuild your setup I’d be happy to provide reliable ongoing administration and support to keep your HubSpot environment running smoothly, including SMS and 10DLC experience which is not something that is easily picked up in my experience.

Price wise I think everything looks fair, I’m guessing the backlog will uncover more issues as things are fixed so I would lean towards the $1,500 end of the spectrum but that is just my best guess without seeing a scope.

Here are my responses to the questions you posed:

A marketing email shows 5,733 contacts targeted but only 1,800 sent. Where do you look to find out why, and what are the likely reasons?

As this starts with targeting my assumption is that the list for the marketing email send contains 5,733 contacts. There are several reasons as to why a contact would not receive an email despite being on the send list.

To start with the discovery of why the send is lower than the full list size I would look at the Recipients tab in performance of the email and review the “Not sent” portion of the contacts. This shows the specific reasons why a contact didn’t receive an email despite being on the list. I would expect most of the contacts to fall into two categories, either Previously hard bounced – meaning the email address is not valid – or Low engagement. Low engagement is a default setting in HubSpot that will stop sending emails to contacts that have not opened any of the last 11 sends. This can be overridden manually but should be done with caution as low engagement can negatively impact the send score.

What’s the difference between a marketing and non-marketing contact, and when does a workflow that sets a contact to non-marketing actually take effect?

A marketing contact is a contact within HubSpot that can be included in HubSpot’s marketing activities and counts toward the billing limits for the HubSpot account. This does not mean that non-marketing contacts are completely unreachable. Those contacts continue to live within the CRM and can still be sent individual emails, included in reports on lifecycle stages or deals, and can be moved from non-marketing to marketing depending on changes to the relationship.

A workflow that sets a marketing contact to non-marketing will change the status immediately. However, HubSpot’s internal change will only take place on the start of the next billing cycle, almost always the 1st of the following month, meaning that there could be a delay of upwards of 4 weeks if the contact switch happens at the start of the billing period.

Describe a HubSpot portal you inherited from someone else. What was broken, and how did you find it?

I’m currently in the midst of cleaning up a portal for a company and have done a couple of these in the past. I am currently finding that, due to leadership changes during HubSpot implementation, many important facets had been left unfinished. For instance, new MQLs were not being diverted to the proper salesperson and instead manually changed and assigned. I created a workflow to assign MQLs to the proper sales lead based on the contact information and data provided as well as alerts to the broader team and Head of Growth on who was being assigned leads.

But that was only a portion, they were not leveraging campaigns and had not fully implemented the HubSpot tracking code. I created guidelines for campaign creation, installed the tracking code and validated proper installation. Additionally, I created a streamlined reporting hierarchy and dashboards for key stakeholders including the CEO, Head of Growth, and sales teams.

Looking forward to hearing from you and if you want to check my LinkedIn profile here it is: Matthew Gleeson - bolt | LinkedIn

10

I reviewed your requirements, and the ongoing HubSpot admin scope is a strong fit for our team. We’re a HubSpot Certified Diamond Partner agency with 10+ years of experience, with hands-on experience maintaining existing Marketing Hub portals.

We can provide a dedicated HubSpot resource working in US time-zone hours, with same-business-day communication and ongoing ownership of the portal.

For the initial backlog project, we’d review the approved issues and deliver:

  • Fixes for the agreed workflow, email, form, property, and list issues
  • Investigation and resolution of delivery, enrollment, and personalization problems
  • Review and fixes for relevant SMS/10DLC configuration
  • Updated documentation for active workflows
  • Testing and confirmation of each completed change
  • A concise completion report covering what was fixed and any items requiring a decision

1. 5,733 targeted but only 1,800 sent:
I’d first check the email’s recipient and exclusion details. Common reasons include non-marketing contacts, unsubscribes, suppression lists, bounced/invalid addresses, or contacts excluded by send criteria.

2. Marketing vs. non-marketing contacts:
Marketing contacts are eligible for marketing communications and count toward the portal’s marketing-contact limit. Non-marketing contacts are not eligible for marketing emails. A workflow changing a contact to non-marketing follows HubSpot’s marketing-contact update timing rather than necessarily taking effect immediately.

3. Inherited portal:
We map the existing workflows, triggers, actions, lists, properties, and dependencies, then review workflow history and errors. This helps identify stalled enrollments, incorrect triggers, broken personalization, or unintended exclusions before making changes.

We can provide a fixed-price proposal for the backlog within your $1,000–$1,500 range, followed by the ongoing retainer if it’s a good fit.

Would you be open to a short call to review the backlog and confirm the scope?

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Hi Raz,

I handle email and HubSpot for a ministry TV network. I’ve been in HubSpot two years. I took over our portal when it was about four months old and taught myself as I went. What you describe is what I do now. Make the approved changes, log them, and tell you if something looks off.

I’ll reply the same business day.

Rate: $75 an hour. Backlog: I’d want to see the list first, but if it’s what you described, $1,250. The $1,300 a month retainer for about 15 hours works for me.

  1. 5,733 targeted, 1,800 sent
    I’d open the email, go to Recipients, and look at the Not sent reasons. Most likely it’s non marketing contacts, unsubscribes, past hard bounces, or unengaged suppression. I’d also check that the send actually finished and the list didn’t change before it went out. Then I’d open a few contact records to confirm. I wouldn’t override anything just to push the number up. I’d show you what’s in each group first.

  2. Marketing vs non marketing
    Marketing contacts can get marketing email and count toward your billed tier. Non marketing contacts stay in the CRM but don’t count and can’t get marketing email. If a workflow sets someone to non marketing, it doesn’t happen right away. It takes effect on your next update date, and they count until then. That date is separate from your renewal date. An unsubscribe is honored right away either way.

  3. A portal I inherited
    At my current job the portal was only about four months old when I took it over. It was still messy. Nobody had deep HubSpot knowledge, so it was handed to me and I taught myself. The segments had no structure, the workflows were a mess, nothing was built for specific segments, subscriptions weren’t set up right, and the forms were off. I went through it piece by piece. I checked every workflow trigger, opened the contacts in each segment to see if they belonged, and checked each form’s setup and submissions. I also went through the contact properties to make sure they were set up right. Then I fixed it. I cleaned up the segments, built the missing workflows, and set up the subscription preferences and visibility rules. I fixed the forms too. Sends went up, the errors stopped, and I got time back for more productive work. I also helped set up the right segment for a Facebook ad, and that ad brought in leads and grew our list.

A few months ago we started migrating to a new portal. I’m heavily involved and work with our IT and database team on the setup.

Happy to hop on a call.

Ronny