Could really use some help on this.
We imported a list of contacts that were NOT to receive any marketing messages. Unfotunately that didn’t happen, per my post HERE.
Can someone point to a method where we can mass-select contacts and remove them (‘unsubscribe’) from all marketing lists?
Thanks in advance!
Hi @robertkreisler,
The easiest way would be to mark these contacts as non-marketing now: Set contacts as non-marketing
Generally, by default (as you already shared in the other posts), HubSpot will ask you during the import process whether contacts should be marketing contacts or not.
However, I’d recommend investigating how these contacts ended up as recipients of an email. Them being marked as marketing contacts does not say anything about consent or a subscription. It simply means that they are generally eligible to receive marketing emails because you’re being billed for these contacts by HubSpot.
When you create recipient lists in HubSpot, they should never contain all CRM contacts. I’d recommend being more selective here and leveraging HubSpot subscription types to document and filter by a legal basis for communication. Marketing contact status is not a tool for documenting a legal basis for communication.
Best regards!
Hi @robertkreisler,
Have you reviewed the criteria of your marketing lists? These are not set in stone. If the marketing list is filtering for “Create date is known”, it would pull in all contacts, for example.
I’d highly recommend reviewing the marketing list. The fact that a contact is marked as a marketing contact is not the issue here. If your list is pulling in all contacts who are marketing contacts, that would be the issue.
Your email sending list should not be based on the marketing contact status. Again, it’s just a billing feature. If your marketing list is based on the fact that you’re emailing everyone that you’re paying for, then you’re not considering legal basis for communicating at all.
Can you check the marketing list criteria and share them here?
Best regards!
I suspected it had to do with something related to how that list was originally created, but not being deeply familiar with Hubspot, I was looking for confirmation from someone who knew for sure.
Here are the criteria:
Last activity date is after 08/03/2020 (PDT)
Contact unworked is equal to True
Contact owner contains all of [seven account managers]
Owner assigned date is after 08/03/2020 (PDT)
Create date is after 08/03/2020 (PDT)
We do obtain opt-in, whether from our site, at a trade show by asking that their badges be scanned for this purpose. or from Auth0 when users create an account, so that’s not the issue. I think in this case it’s just a matter of how this list is including contacts in a send.
Where I’m confused is that if the list is based on ‘marketing contacts’ and we mark a user as ‘non-marketing’ why that preference is being overlooked and those contacts are still receiving emails.
At this point, all I really want to do is to mass-remove a handful (thirty or so) contacts from all emailing lists. Is there a way to do that?
Thanks again in advance!
Hi @robertkreisler,
These criteria do not look like they should constitute a marketing email recipient list – they’re based on sales activity, not any form of consent or other form of legal basis for communication.
My recommendation would be to zoom out, reconsider who should be receiving your marketing emails and start from scratch. If you obtain consent, build a list based on that.
The marketing contact status is not a a criterion in the list, it’s not the part that is to blame.
If you need to exclude contacts from all marketing emails immediately, there are a few options:
Hope this helps!
Karsten, my understanding is that all of our contacts - every one of them - are from existing business relationships or opt-in and then imported from either trade shows or account creations where customers agree to receive marketing communications. They can, of course, always opt out. Though we’re not subject to the GDPR here in the US, we observe its requirements anyway beause we have a growing international clientele and strongly desire to be good global citizens.
I have tried to create an exclusion list previously for a different newsletter without much success (some on the ‘exclusion’ list still received), but I’ll give it another try. Is there a way to test such a thing before actually sending?
Hi @robertkreisler,
Contacts on the exclusion should not be receiving an email. I’m approaching a decade of using HubSpot and during that time, this has never happened. If you are on a paid subscription and have an example of this occurring, I’d recommend reaching out to HubSpot customer support about this.
Regarding the marketing recipient list, I’d still recommend reconsidering the criteria. Even outside of GDPR, you want to be selective about who you’re emailing and define which contacts should receive email. Currently, your list is a conflicting mix of contacts who are not worked by a sales rep but still have an activity logged. I might be missing something but as it stands, it simply doesn’t make sense.
Additionally, using this list is risky, regardless of the legislation your marketing falls under. If any user imports a list of contacts in your portal, these contacts might end up on a marketing recipient list. This could be the HR team importing a list of students for an employer branding campaign. These contacts should not end up on the general marketing recipient list. Instead of the above criteria, consider creating a list that is more selective: contacts who you interacted with at a tradeshow (filter by import name, for example), contacts who submitted any form, contacts entered by sales but disqualified (filter by original source drill-down 1 and lead status) etc.
You should have a firm understanding of who’s receiving your marketing emails.
(My reply does not constitute legal advice.)
Best regards
I don’t necessarily disagree, and it’s entirely possible that our methodology may have been off-base from the start. I’ll do some research over the weekernd and reach out again with questions.
Thanks again for all your help.
