How to Resolve Email Sending Probation in Hubspot

When your marketing email performance drops, Hubspot may place your account on email sending probation to protect deliverability and sender reputation. Understanding what this means and how to fix it quickly is essential for keeping your campaigns running smoothly and safely.

What Email Sending Probation Means in Hubspot

Email sending probation is a temporary safeguard that limits or pauses your marketing email sends after poor engagement or high risk indicators are detected.

Common triggers include:

• High hard bounce rates
• Elevated spam complaint rates
• Very low open or click rates
• Sending to low-quality or purchased lists

When probation is active, you will see warnings in your email tool and may be unable to send to some or all of your usual recipient lists until performance improves.

How Hubspot Notifies You About Probation

When your marketing email account is placed on probation, you can expect one or more of the following notifications:

• An in-app alert in the marketing email dashboard
• Messages on specific email send screens
• Possible email communication from the deliverability team

These notifications usually include a brief explanation of the issue and links to performance data to help you investigate.

Step-by-Step: Resolve Email Probation in Hubspot

Follow these steps methodically to recover from probation and restore full sending access.

Step 1: Review Hubspot Email Performance Metrics

Start by examining your marketing email analytics to identify what caused the issue.

1. Open your marketing email dashboard.
2. Review recent campaigns for:
   • Hard bounce rate
   • Spam complaint rate
   • Unsubscribe rate
   • Open and click performance
3. Compare underperforming campaigns with your historical averages.

Pay special attention to campaigns sent to new or untested lists, or those that used dramatically different content or subject lines.

Step 2: Identify and Remove Risky Contacts

List quality is one of the most common reasons for probation in Hubspot. Clean your database with a clear and conservative approach.

Remove or suppress contacts who:

• Hard bounced in previous sends
• Marked your email as spam
• Have not opened or clicked any email for a long period
• Came from purchased, scraped, or third-party lists

Whenever possible, rely only on contacts who have given direct, verifiable permission to receive your marketing communications.

Step 3: Use Hubspot Engagement Filters for Safer Sending

Before sending any new campaign while on probation, use strong engagement filters to target active contacts.

For example, create or apply lists such as:

• Contacts who opened or clicked any email in the last 30–90 days
• Contacts who recently submitted a form or converted on your site
• Customers or highly engaged leads with known recent activity

By focusing on engaged recipients, you signal to inbox providers that your messages are wanted, which helps restore deliverability.

Step 4: Adjust Your Email Strategy in Hubspot

Improve your strategy so that future sends meet performance and compliance expectations.

Consider these changes:

• Reduce total send volume temporarily.
• Send fewer, more targeted campaigns instead of broad blasts.
• Refine subject lines to be clear and non-clickbait.
• Align content tightly with what contacts signed up to receive.
• Avoid sudden shifts in email frequency.

Small, high-quality campaigns are safer and more effective while you rebuild trust and performance metrics.

Step 5: Confirm Compliance With Hubspot Email Policies

Ensure your practices comply with the marketing email terms and acceptable use guidelines shown in your account.

In particular, verify that you:

• Do not send to purchased or rented lists
• Include visible unsubscribe links in all messages
• Honor unsubscribes promptly
• Send only to people who have granted permission

If you are unsure whether a particular use case is allowed, err on the side of caution and exclude those contacts until you can verify compliance.

Step 6: Monitor Results and Gradually Scale

Once you have cleaned your lists and refined your strategy, send a small test campaign to your most engaged contacts.

1. Send to a limited, highly active segment.
2. Wait for engagement data to populate.
3. Track opens, clicks, bounces, and complaints closely.
4. If metrics are strong, slowly increase volume over time.

Stable, positive performance is usually required before restrictions begin to ease.

Best Practices to Avoid Future Hubspot Probation

To prevent probation from happening again, embed strong deliverability and permission practices into your ongoing email program.

Build a Healthy Permission-Based List

Maintain a clean and compliant database by:

• Collecting addresses through clear opt-in forms only
• Using double opt-in where appropriate
• Regularly removing long-term inactive contacts
• Never importing purchased or scraped addresses

A smaller, fully permission-based list will normally outperform a large, low-quality list and will reduce your deliverability risk.

Send Relevant, Expected Content

Recipients should clearly recognize why they are receiving your emails and what value they will get.

• Set expectations at signup about frequency and topics.
• Segment by interests and lifecycle stage.
• Deliver content that matches those expectations.
• Offer clear options to manage preferences.

When subscribers receive what they expect, they are less likely to complain or disengage.

Maintain Consistent Sending Patterns

Inbox providers look for stable patterns from reliable senders.

• Avoid sudden spikes in volume.
• Warm up new sending domains gradually.
• Keep a reasonable and predictable cadence.
• Regularly monitor performance after large changes in content or audience.

Consistency makes it easier to spot and correct issues early, before probation becomes necessary.

Where to Learn More About Hubspot Probation

You can review the original help documentation on resolving email sending probation directly from the platform provider here: official email sending probation guide. It explains how probation works, why it is applied, and additional deliverability considerations.

For broader strategy support around list hygiene, permission, and campaign structure, you can also explore specialist resources such as Consultevo, which provides guidance on sustainable email and CRM growth.

Summary: Getting Safely Back to Sending in Hubspot

Email sending probation is a protective mechanism designed to safeguard your reputation, your contacts, and your long-term results. By cleaning your lists, targeting engaged subscribers, following permission-based best practices, and monitoring performance carefully, you can resolve probation and build a more reliable marketing email program for the future.

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