How to Boost Email Deliverability in HubSpot and Get Your Message Seen

1. Connect Email Sending Domains

This is easily the most technical of the tips shared in this article, so you need access to change your company's domain DNS records. If you don't have access, make a friend in IT that can help you.

Start with the domain you use in the From address of your marketing emails. Go to your domain settings in HubSpot and follow the steps to connect it. 

SPF and DKIM help receiving mail servers verify who’s sending on behalf of your domain. DMARC tells those servers how to handle messages that fail its authentication checks. HubSpot’s email authentication setup guide offers a step-by-step guide for completing this task.

2. Make It Clear What People Are Signing Up For

Earning and keeping your audience’s trust starts with the signup form. Tell people what you’ll send, record their subscription choice, and make it easy for them to unsubscribe.

Use Double Opt-In for Cleaner Lists

Double opt-in asks new subscribers to click a link in a confirmation email. That extra step helps catch mistyped addresses and gives people a chance to confirm they want to hear from you.

To set it up in HubSpot, go to Marketing → Email in your account settings and open the Double opt-in tab. The options vary by plan. See HubSpot’s double opt-in instructions to set up this feature.

3. Create Relevant, Personalized Content

With your list cleaned up and permissions in place, focus on writing emails your subscribers will find useful. Give each email a subject line that tells people what they’ll find inside.

Use HubSpot’s personalization tokens to insert details such as the recipient’s name or company when they’re relevant. For instance, if someone downloaded a specific resource, reference it in the follow-up and give them something that builds on it. If you'd like to learn more about nurturing leads by email and marketing automation, see our guide to HubSpot lead-nurturing workflows.

Make the Most of HubSpot for Your Business

Use marketing and sales automation to generate and close more leads. Improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your team. Get the most from your investment in HubSpot. If you need help determining the best marketing automation approach for your business, learn more about our HubSpot consulting services.

4. Monitor Delivery and Engagement

What If HubSpot Says “Delivered” but the Email Is Missing?

You probably don’t have time to troubleshoot every email. Start with delivery reports or a message a customer was expecting.

Check the Recipients tab for the customer's name ask the customer to check their Junk or Spam folder. If several people at the same company report the issue, give their IT team the subject line, From address, recipient address, and delivery time so they can trace the message. If it’s happening across several unrelated domains, ask your own IT team to check your sending domain’s authentication. HubSpot has published a good guide to missing marketing emails.

Track Bounces, Unsubscribes, and Spam Reports

Hard bounces can spike after an import, especially when people have changed jobs or email addresses. Check the bounce reasons in HubSpot. An invalid address is a reason to review the list. A policy or authentication error is a reason to look at the receiving domain or your sending setup. Frequent unsubscribes or spam reports are also a reason to review who’s getting the email and what they signed up for. 

We suggest cleaning up hard bounces from your list by making them non-marketing contacts or deleting them from your contact database quarterly. Also, review contacts that marked emails as spam, and remove them from future mailing distribution lists.

Use Engagement to See What’s Working

Use HubSpot’s segmentation tools to group contacts by industry, location, or past interactions. If a group has shown interest in a particular product, send an email about how they might use it.

Open and click rates can help you see how people interact with your emails. If engagement drops, look at what changed in your audience, subject line, or timing. Keep in mind that privacy settings can affect opens and security scanners can click links. Check whether HubSpot filtered suspected bot activity, and look for actions you can verify, such as replies or webinar registrations. For more information, check out HubSpot’s guide to bot filtering.

Ease Back Into Your Normal Schedule After a Fix

Start with a small group of recently engaged subscribers and use the same From address as your regular campaigns. Watch whether hard bounces and spam complaints return to their usual levels across a few sends. If one company or mailbox provider was affected, ask a known recipient there to confirm the message reached their inbox. Then widen the audience gradually. HubSpot has also published a sending reputation repair guide that you might find helpful.

Bonus Tips for Improving Email Deliverability in HubSpot

Send Consistently

Find a cadence that gives you a reason to get in touch without overwhelming your subscribers. Watch how people respond as you adjust how often you send.

You really can't send "too much" email if it's tailored to your prospects' and customers' needs. If you start to see performance drop, you can decide to dial back frequency of sends.

Clean Up Hard Bounces Regularly

Make a habit of reviewing hard bounces and removing those addresses from your sending lists. HubSpot already excludes hard-bounced addresses from future marketing emails. If you still need the CRM record, you can keep it and set the contact as a non-marketing contact. For existing marketing contacts, that change takes effect on your account’s next update date.

We published a handy guide called How to Clean Your Contact Database Before Your HubSpot Renewal so you can keep your database clean.

Give Readers a Clear Next Step

Tell people what they’ll get when they click. “Register for the webinar” or “Download the guide” gives a reader a better idea of what to expect than “Learn more.” If you’re inviting someone to book a sales conversation, tell them what the meeting will cover.

Using Email Marketing to Power Your Sales Engine

Each email that reaches a prospect’s inbox gives you a chance to answer a question, share something useful, or help them take the next step. Set up your sending domain, keep your lists current, and give people a reason to look forward to the next message.