Manage Bounced Contacts in HubSpot
To provide a clear process for identifying bounced emails in HubSpot, understanding where bounced email information appears, determining how to flag a contact as bounced, and establishing guidelines on when to delete or retain bounced contacts.
Identify Bounced Contacts Directly from HubSpot
Sequences are used to send email blasts to contacts.
To identify contacts that bounced, go to the Contacts page and click 'Advanced Filter' in the upper right-hand corner.
A search property pop-up will appear. Search and filter the following properties: Email Hard Bounce Reason is equal to 'Known' AND Description of First Engagement is equal to 'Known' AND Number of Sequences Enrolled is greater than or equal to 1.
The contact view will be filtered based on the criteria set.
How to Assess a Bounced Contact
Handling Bounced Contacts from Mailchimp
Obtain the Bounced Contact List from Mailchimp.
Go to HubSpot and check if any of the bounced contacts have an associated deal.
If the contact has an associated deal in HubSpot, follow the steps outlined in the 'If Contact is Associated to an Existing Deal' section above.
If the contact is not associated with any deal in HubSpot, import the list of bounced email addresses into HubSpot. Note: Since this is for deletion, it is fine to only import the Email Address.
Once the list of email addresses is prepared, save the file in CSV or Excel (.xlsx) format.
In the top navigation bar, go to Contacts → Contacts.
Click the 'Import' button in the upper right-hand corner.
On the Import page, click 'Start an Import'.
Choose 'File from computer' as the import source.
Select 'One file' and 'One object', then click Next. Select 'Contacts' as the object to import.
Click 'Choose a file' and upload the prepared spreadsheet from your computer, then click Next.
HubSpot will automatically match the columns in your file to HubSpot properties. Review the mapping and manually select the appropriate property from the dropdown for any unmatched columns.
Once all columns are mapped correctly, click Next.
Add an Import name to identify this import. Select 'Update contacts' so it will not create new ones, then click 'Finish Import'.
Once done, select the option to create a list from the imported file.
To check the imported list, navigate to Contacts → Lists in HubSpot. Look for the name of the imported file, which will usually appear at the very top of the list.
At the top of the contact list, tick the checkbox to select all contacts on the current page. If the list contains more than 100 contacts, click the option to select all remaining contacts.
Once all contacts are selected, click 'More' at the top of the page and select 'Delete' from the dropdown menu.
Follow the prompts to confirm the deletion of the contacts.
Notes
Contacts tied to deals should never be deleted.
Deleting contacts should only occur when they have no deal associations and no ongoing relevance.
Mailchimp imports should only include email addresses when the goal is deletion.
Always set Lead Status to 'Bounced' for contacts associated with deals that have bounced emails.
Add a note 'Left the company – email bounced' when a contact has left their company.