What is the best way to manage unsubscribed and bounced contacts?

[pina]

I just ran this report: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/articles/kcs_article/email/how-do-i-export-a-list-of-unsubscribes

and it gave me a list of all contacts that have unsubscribed, marked our email as spam, or bounced. 

What is the best way to deal with these contacts? In your experience, have you just deleted them from Hubspot completely? Tried to salvage them in any way? 

Let me know!

Thanks. 

[edileo · Accepted solution]

No problem!  I would say so, given the definition (included below).  Also, here's a guide for removing the "ineligibles."  How can I delete all contacts who have unsubscribed from email or bounced?

- Evan

• Hard Bounce - A hard bounce means that the address is invalid and should not be sent to again. The email might belong to an unknown user, the content of your email might have triggered their spam filter, or the server might have seen too many other contacts marking your email as spam. When a contact’s email returns a hard bounce, they will be marked as ineligible the next time you include them in a send.

[SparkReaction · Accepted solution]

We create an automated workflow that sends anyone who bounced or unsubscribed to a smart list.

We periodically check this list (to make sure there isn't anyone in there by mistake!) and bulk delete the list of contacts.

A couple caveats though:

• You might want to rule out existing or past customers so you can maintain their data and look back on their journey through your website
• Not everyone who bounces once will always bounce, so I usually set up the "bounce" criteria for "bounced more than once"

Good luck!

[charltonhua]

I'd like to know if any of you users have problems with Hubspot list reporting? I'm constantly cynical regarding Hubspot's data and the reason I bring this up is to see if users of this platform who are created lists for bounced contacts are trusting the reporting. I seriously laugh at how they're becoming one of those companies where they'll gladly take your money however spend $0 on R&D. 

This knowledge article on how to create a list of global bounces. You have to download and reimport to create a list just to mass delete unsubscribed / global bounced contacts. Hubspot for whatever reason doesn't even offer you to create such a list within the platform is ridiculous. 

https://knowledge.hubspot.com/articles/kcs_article/email/how-can-i-send-an-email-to-a-contact-that-h...

[AndrewDream]

How can we automate that if an email bounces it just removes that email from the contact? we dont want the contact deleted, just the bad emails removed. This way sales team can go in and try to update email. Also these bad emails dont keep randomly being added into various lists/srequences. Thanks!

[agnsob]

hey guys, one thought here.

If the email bounces (marketing or sales), we mark its lead status as Bad Data (via workflow) and add it to the smart list for further review.

The problem occurs when the bounce is global (it appears on HS prior to sending any email) so it can't trigger the workflow for setting their lead status to Bad Data.

Does this piece of information that Contact has bounced globally live in some contact property? I want to set up a workflow for adding these to the smart list as well. Ideas?

[edileo]

Hi There,

Here's a great guide that goes over identifying -- and auditing -- these addresses while keeping your sender reputation intact:  Article: How can I send an email to a contact that has previously bounced?

Here's another that I've found helpful, for context:
Article: What is the difference between a hard bounce and a soft bounce?

And one more for re-engaging those "accidental" unsubscribers: How do I enable resubscription emails for forms?

Hope this helps!

Evan 

[usadreamclean]

Hi Evan - is there a way to filter opted-out contacts rather than to delete them? Please advise and thanks...

-JP

[pina]

Thank you! 

So would deleting hard-bounced contacts from Hubspot be a logical solution to keep our list clean?

[SparkReaction · Accepted solution]

We create an automated workflow that sends anyone who bounced or unsubscribed to a smart list.

We periodically check this list (to make sure there isn't anyone in there by mistake!) and bulk delete the list of contacts.

A couple caveats though:

• You might want to rule out existing or past customers so you can maintain their data and look back on their journey through your website
• Not everyone who bounces once will always bounce, so I usually set up the "bounce" criteria for "bounced more than once"

Good luck!

[KateElizabeth]

Hi there - I want to do this to keep our lists clean, however I'm struggling with the fact that our sales guys might want to refer back to the notes on these contacts records. What are your thoughts on this? Thanks!

[KeyWestScott]

Hey Kate.  What I do here is for our sales people, assuming that they have been designated as the Contact Property Owner.  I exclude anyone that is assigned to these people.

Does that help?

Scott.

[jennysowyrda]

@SparkReaction do you mind sharing your workflow set up with the Community? 

[KeyWestScott · Accepted solution]

I'd assume something of this nature....  

Scott

[l007oneil]

Awesome, Scott! Thanks for sharing. I set up a smart list to include something similar. 

[KeyWestScott]

Make sure to exclude anyone that you may not want to be included here...  For Example your own staff or others.  Though the bounced setting should clear most of the deadbeats.

Scott

[l007oneil]

Can you please share how you set the workflow up? 

[ChurchWest]

What steps did you take to create the spam workflow? Unsubscribes was easy, but I don't see an option to trigger the workflow if *any* email is marked as spam ... 

[pina]

Thank you! This is so helpful. Great tips! 

[edileo · Accepted solution]

No problem!  I would say so, given the definition (included below).  Also, here's a guide for removing the "ineligibles."  How can I delete all contacts who have unsubscribed from email or bounced?

- Evan

• Hard Bounce - A hard bounce means that the address is invalid and should not be sent to again. The email might belong to an unknown user, the content of your email might have triggered their spam filter, or the server might have seen too many other contacts marking your email as spam. When a contact’s email returns a hard bounce, they will be marked as ineligible the next time you include them in a send.

[KeyWestScott]

Thanks for the article, but does HS do this internally, YET????  I know that HS makes its money from a per contact basis.  But this is foolish.  Evidently the information exists.  You just need to make a way for us to access it.

[kbento]

Is there anything on the product's team horizon to bring this data to the contact level?  The solution posted doesn't allow us to automate this process.