Tame your marketing contact volume: essential tips for HubSpot users to avoid unnecessary charges
Navigating your HubSpot account without tipping over your marketing contact volume level and triggering overages is a common concern. Each account comes with a specific limit of billable marketing contacts - those who can receive your marketing emails and be targeted in your advertising campaigns. Going over this limit means moving up to the next tier of contact charges, something we want to avoid if unnecessary. Let's work together to keep your contact list lean and efficient, ensuring you get the most value without unnecessary costs.
How do marketing contacts work, exactly?
In HubSpot, you have the power to designate your contacts as either 'marketing' or 'non-marketing'. This important choice can be made with just a few clicks, either through a Workflow action or a quick update in the contact view.
Here's the deal: the moment you label someone as a marketing contact, they're counted towards your billable contacts. On the flip side, marking someone as a non-marketing contact places them in a queue for update at the start of the next month. This is why it's essential to be thoughtful about how you classify your contacts. Adding a new marketing contact increases your count right away, making them billable immediately if you've surpassed your plan's marketing contact limit.
To keep a close eye on your marketing contact count, simply head over to your profile setup button on the top right side of your HubSpot account, and then navigate to Account & Billing > Usage & Limits. This way, you can manage your contacts wisely and avoid any surprises.
How to bring down your marketing contacts volume in HubSpot?
HubSpot will give you a heads-up when you're getting close to your marketing contact volume limit. At this juncture, you've got a decision to make: either embrace the growth of your database and step up to a higher marketing contact tier, or take a moment to thoughtfully reduce your marketing contact count within your account.
Should you lean towards trimming down your contact list, here's where to direct your focus:
- Unsubscribed and bounced contacts: It's wise to set up a Workflow that automatically reclassifies unsubscribed or hard bounced contacts as non-marketing contacts. This simple step ensures that your resources are focused on contacts who are truly engaged.
- Unengaged subscribers: For those contacts who haven't interacted with your marketing emails in the last 6 or more months, consider setting up a Workflow to mark them as non-marketing contacts. Remember, they're not gone for good. If they show interest again in the future, they can easily be welcomed back as marketing contacts.
- New contacts: A proactive measure is to adjust your settings so new contacts are initially set as non-marketing contacts. This prevents automatic increases in your marketing contact volume from integrations and non-marketing forms, keeping your list lean and meaningful.
- An additional step to consider involves a closer look at permissions within your team: With various team members adding new contacts daily, it might be beneficial to limit who has the authority to designate contacts as marketing contacts. This ensures a more strategic approach to growing your contact list.
By taking these steps, you're not just avoiding unnecessary costs—you're also ensuring your marketing efforts are as effective and targeted as possible.
Looking for more assistance? As a HubSpot Platinum Partner serving Canadian and US clients, Titan ONE can help you and your team get the most out of your HubSpot account.
Read more at Intersection or book a consultation with Titan ONE.
