Dealing with "out of office" or "no longer with company" auto-responses can be a frustrating, yet important, part of email marketing. These automated replies from inactive email addresses can negatively impact your email deliverability and engagement metrics. While HubSpot doesn't currently offer a fully automated solution to detect and opt-out these contacts, there are steps you can take to streamline the process and maintain a healthy email list.
This guide will walk you through a practical approach using HubSpot's existing features, along with a potential workaround to help you manage these situations more efficiently.
Manual Option:
1. Create a "Left Company" Contact Property:
This custom property will be crucial for tracking contacts who have triggered a "left company" auto-response.
- Navigate to Settings (the gear icon in the main navigation bar).
- In the left sidebar menu, go to Properties.
- Click Create property.
- Select Contact property.
- Group: Choose a relevant property group (e.g., "Contact Information" or create a new group like "Email Management").
- Label: Name the property something clear like "Left Company".
- Description (Optional): Add a description like "Indicates if this contact has sent an auto-response stating they have left the company."
- Field type: Select Single checkbox.
- Click Create.
2. Manually Identify and Update Contacts:
This step still requires manual effort, but it's essential for accurately identifying the affected contacts.
- Monitor your inbox: Regularly review replies to your sent newsletters. Look for subject lines or email body content indicating an auto-response such as:
- "Out of Office"
- "Automatic Reply"
- "No longer with [Company Name]"
- "This email address is no longer monitored"
- Access the Contact Record: When you receive such an auto-response, locate the corresponding contact record in HubSpot.
- Update the "Left Company" Property: In the contact's property section, find the "Left Company" property you created and check the box to mark them.
3. Utilise Lists to Manage "Left Company" Contacts:
Creating lists based on the "Left Company" property will help you easily exclude these contacts from future sends and automatically opt them out.
- Navigate to Contacts > Lists.
- Click Create list.
- Choose Active list > Give your list a clear name (e.g., "Left Company - Do Not Email").
- Set your list criteria:
- Select the Contact property filter.
- Search for and select your "Left Company" property.
- Set the filter to "Left Company is equal to True" (or "is any of" and select the checked option).
- Click Save.
4. Create workflow to auto-unsubscribe
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Navigate to Automation > Workflows.
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Click Create workflow and choose Contact-based.
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Give your workflow a clear name (e.g., "Auto Unsubscribe - Left Company").
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Set up the Trigger:
- Select List membership as the trigger type.
- Choose your "Left Company - Do Not Email" list.
- Select the option "is added to list".
- Click Save.
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Add the Unsubscribe Action:
- Click the + icon below the trigger to add an action.
- In the left panel, search for and select the "Unsubscribe from marketing emails" action.
- Choose the specific email subscription(s) you want to unsubscribe these contacts from. This will likely be your main newsletter subscription. You can select multiple subscriptions if needed.
- Click Save.
5. Exclude the "Left Company" List from Future Sends:
Before sending any new newsletters or marketing emails, ensure you exclude the "Left Company" list from the recipient selection.
- When setting up your email send, go to the Recipients tab.
- In the "Don't send to" section, search for and select your "Left Company - Do Not Email" list.
More Automated Option:
As mentioned in the provided solution, you can explore a more advanced (though still not fully automated) workaround by connecting your inbox and setting up workflows triggered by specific keywords in replies.
- Connect your inbox to HubSpot: This allows HubSpot to track email interactions.
- Create a contact-based workflow:
- Trigger: Set the trigger to be "Email Reply Received".
- Filters: Add filters based on the content of the reply:
- Body contains keywords like "no longer with"or "not monitored".
- Subject contains similar keywords.
- Actions:
- Set contact property value: Set the "Left Company" property to "True".
- (Optional) Create a task: Assign a task to a team member to manually review the contact and confirm they should be opted out. This adds a layer of verification.
While a fully automated solution for opting out contacts based on "left company" auto-responses isn't currently available in HubSpot, implementing the manual process outlined above, combined with the potential workflow workaround, will significantly improve your ability to manage these inactive email addresses. By consistently identifying, marking, and excluding these contacts from your sends, you'll maintain better email health, more accurate engagement metrics, and ultimately, a more effective email marketing strategy. Remember to regularly review and refine your process to adapt to the evolving nature of email communication.
