Transactional Single-Send API email withou creating contacts

[AndreMiranda]

Hi!

Would it be possible to send a transactional single-send API email without HubSpot automatically creating a contact (based on the recipient's email)?

Because, we would like to send it using an API using our internal system, but using a template we will create on HubSpot. But, we were reading that every time you send a single-send api email, HubSpot will create a new contact (if the email doesn't exist) and we would like to avoid that.

Thanks!

[coldrickjack · Accepted solution]

Hi @AndreMiranda,

It's not possible to do this using the Single Send API. It will result in a contact being created each time. You can use the SMTP API if you'd like to send a transactional email without creating a contact. It requires a slightly different approach in terms of development. 

When you configure your SMTP token in HubSpot you will be prompted if you'd like it to create (or not create) contacts as shown below:

If you still wanted to use the Single Send API another option to consider would be to update a contact property when you call the single send endpoint. Then setup a workflow with a delay of several minutes to delete the contact based on this property being "true". Also worth keeping in mind if you do this you'd need to ensure they're not enrolled into any other workflows that you have setup so there could be quite a bit of re-configuring!

If it helps I wrote an article breaking down the different use cases to Single Send and SMTP API here.

I hope this is helpful!

Jack

[AndreMiranda]

Hi @coldrickjack !

Thanks for you answer. And, unfortunately, that confirms to what I have been reading (that is not possible to send without creating a contact).

Yes, we already did some tests using SMTP API and it worked, but we wanted to use HubSpot's templates, so we will need to go with the Single-send option anyway.

Thanks a lot!