Per-Contact Control for Email Open & Click Tracking (EU Data Privacy Compliance)

HubSpot Ideas
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The Problem:

Recent regulatory updates from data privacy authorities in Europe (such as CNIL in France and Garante in Italy) have established that email open tracking pixels and link-click redirects require explicit, individual user consent.

Currently, HubSpot only allows users to toggle tracking at the global Account Level or the Individual Email Asset Level. There is no native way to respect a “Do Not Track” request on a per-contact basis while still sending that contact necessary communications.

If an existing customer in France or Italy exercises their legal right to say, “Keep sending me my transactional order updates and newsletters, but stop tracking my behavior,” we have no clean way to handle this. The current workaround suggested by Support is to duplicate every single marketing and transactional email asset into “Tracked” and “Untracked” versions, and use complex workflow branching. As EU privacy laws tighten across more countries, this asset-duplication workaround creates massive, unsustainable operational overhead for scaling businesses.

The Proposed Solution:

HubSpot needs a technical enforcement layer that ties email tracking directly to a contact record’s preferences.

  1. Native Sub-Property or System Toggle: Introduce a native system field or property (e.g., Email Tracking Allowed = True/False) alongside the existing subscription types.
  2. Dynamic Pixel/Link Stripping at Send-Time: If a contact’s profile has tracking disabled, HubSpot’s email engine should automatically strip the 1x1 open tracking pixel and send raw, un-wrapped hyperlinks to that specific recipient, even if the email asset itself has tracking enabled globally for the rest of the send list.
  3. CRM and Transactional Alignment: This contact-level rule should apply universally across Marketing Email sends, automated Workflows, Sales 1-to-1 emails, and the Transactional Email Add-on/SMTP API.

Why this matters to HubSpot Users:

Data privacy regulations are moving away from blanket “All or Nothing” email opt-outs. Users want the granularity to accept communications but reject user-surveillance (tracking pixels). Without a per-contact tracking kill switch, HubSpot users are forced to choose between breaking European compliance laws or losing 100% of their email analytics by turning off tracking globally for entire regions.

Adding this feature ensures HubSpot remains the leading privacy-first, legally compliant CRM for global companies operating in the EU.

Allow per-contact control of email open & click tracking (re: France & Italy compliance)
Consentement pixel tracking ouvertures des emails CRM
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Thanks @Franci, this would be a huge improvement! We need this to be implemented ASAP!

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Great @Franci! Let’s hope HubSpot updates quickly to reflect the new developments regarding email consent.

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Until HubSpot supports this natively, I would not try to solve it inside one email send.

Use a contact-level tracking-consent property, then branch the workflow/list into two email assets: one normal tracked version and one tracking-off version for contacts who opted out of tracking but still need the message. Keep transactional sends separate. It is less elegant, but it gives you a clear audit trail: the consent property decided the branch, and the email asset matches the tracking choice.

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Hi @danielsinewe , thanks for chiming in! While the workaround of using active lists and duplicate email assets technically functions in a vacuum, the core issue is scalability and future-proofing.

When you factor in automated workflows, transactional emails, and scaling a database, relying on redundant logic creates massive operational overhead. Having to build a “Tracked” and “Untracked” version of every single email asset—and the complex workflow branching required to route contacts between them—is an unmanageable band-aid for scaling businesses.

Furthermore, this isn’t just an isolated issue for France and Italy anymore. The recent rulings from the CNIL and Garante aren’t rogue laws; they are strict enforcements of the European Data Protection Board’s (EDPB) Guidelines and beecause this is rooted in EU-wide EDPB guidance, in my opinion it is only a matter of time before DPAs in Germany, Spain, Ireland, and the rest of the EU follow suit. If HubSpot users rely on asset duplication now, those portal architectures will completely buckle as more countries are added to the list of strict enforcement zones.

We really need HubSpot to handle the pixel-stripping natively at the contact-property level (just like communication subscriptions) so our teams don’t have to build redundant routing for every single send. The CRM should adapt to data privacy laws natively, rather than forcing users to duct-tape their portals together to avoid fines!

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Let’s hope so, @aimar17!!!

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Thank you @Alessio.M! Let’s hope they manage ASAP!

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Yes, 100% agree. We need this yesterday!

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Totally agree. What are you all doing to address this while awaiting a native contact-level solution built by HubSpot? We are looking at the duplication of all assets and adding branches … what a nightmare.

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Hi @Nquilf,

I escalated this to our Customer Success Manager and afterwards one of the product managers actually reached out to me privately about this, and we will be discussing this later today!

I will absolutely keep you and everyone on this thread posted on the outcome of that conversation.

In the meantime, you are spot on, the duplication workaround is a total nightmare and incredibly difficult to scale.

Honestly, at this point, the best thing we can all do is get as much traction on this post as possible to raise awareness and elevate its priority internally at HubSpot.

The more real-world impact stories we can bring to the product team, the faster we can push this across the finish line. :four_leaf_clover:

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Thank you @Franci , I did the same with my Customer Success Manager. Hopefully Hubspot will come up with a solution quickly!

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Excellent @Franci I have also been in touch with Support and our Customer Success manager about this.
We also need a check box and the related edit options to be added to the subscription and privacy editor in the form builder.
Sadly, there is also a knock on effect to reporting, so it would be great to eventually see the option on the Email performance page to see e.g. open rates either adjusted/guessed or excluding tracking rejectors.

A positive is, if Hubspot can implement granular individual level tracking on/off, this would be the kind of feature that will reduce churn as many competitors will not and theur users will have to persist with complex manual workarounds including clones etc.

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Agree and well documented

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Thank you. Crossing fingers and everything else. We have deactivated all tracking for the moment :smiling_face_with_tear:

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Agree 100%

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Agreed.

My only addition would be to separate permissions for open tracking (through pixels) from click tracking (through links) as CNIL appears to address them differently.

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Couldn’t agree with this more! Hubspot is in a unique position to interpret these ever-changing laws, and implement tools with recommended settings to help us comply.

I had a great conversation with a Hubspot Product Manager this week and its definitely on their radar. Its complicated to solve, and I feel like they’re behind the curve right now, but they’re looking in the right direction. I appreciated that they reached out and listened to my views.

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agreed. duplicating emails for a tracked/untracked version is not a sufficient solution

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:police_car_light::police_car_light::police_car_light: UPDATE: Direct Alignment with HubSpot Product Management! :police_car_light::police_car_light::police_car_light:

A massive shoutout to the HubSpot Product team for reaching out and being so proactive; this is definitely not an easy technical fix, but it’s incredibly reassuring to know they are actively working on it!

Hi everyone, I have some fantastic news to share regarding this feature request. Thanks to the rapid traction, comments, and upvotes on this post, one of the Product Managers reached out to me directly.

We just concluded an incredibly productive call to discuss the technical realities of this regulatory shift (CNIL/Garante) and how HubSpot can build a scalable, long-term solution.

Here is a summary of what we discussed and the official next steps on HubSpot’s radar:

1. The Current Reality & Current Stopgaps
HubSpot confirmed that their immediate priority was pushing out the recent Individual Email Tracking Toggle (Beta) ahead of schedule to ensure a baseline compliance option exists. (Bravo!) However, HubSpot explicitly recognizes that asset-level toggles and manual email duplication are not scalable long-term solutions for complex or global portals.

2. The Solution Under Review: Contact-Level Tracking
We deep-divined into what a “dream flow” looks like. I heavily advocated for a native contact-level tracking mechanism (e.g., a system contact property or a dedicated subscription type).
The goal is to allow marketers to send one single email asset, while HubSpot’s back-end rendering engine dynamically strips the 1x1 tracking pixel and click wrappers only for the specific contacts who have opted out. This separates the legal basis to send an email from the legal basis to track it.

What Happens Next?
HubSpot is officially moving this problem into the discovery and design phase. Here are the exact next steps coming out of our meeting:

  • Internal Proposals: PM is compiling official MVP (Minimum Viable Product) proposals regarding granular contact-level tracking to present to HubSpot’s group leadership team.
  • UX/UI Design: The messaging group will collaborate with their product design leads to map out how this configuration and consent management will visually look in the portal.
  • Community Feedback Loop: Before moving proposals into active engineering, HubSpot will share early design wireframes with selected accounts to gather real-world customer feedback.

:megaphone: Keep Spreading the Word!
We have officially bypassed the general support queue and are directly influencing the product roadmap. If you haven’t already, please keep liking, sharing, and commenting on this post. The more noise we make, the easier it is for the product team to secure the engineering resources to build this fast.

@JMcCain8 @b2bCarl @MBeran6 @Nquilf @Kim-Carolyn @ema_negrisan @danielsinewe @ian_dollimore @Alessio.M @jillaworth

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Upvote! :slight_smile: