HubSpot Email Marketing Best Practices: How to Boost Engagement and Reduce Unsubscribes

Email marketing is a powerful way to connect with your audience—but it can quickly become ineffective if your emails fail to engage or, worse, if they cause recipients to unsubscribe. The key to successful email marketing lies in balancing personalization, timing, and value-driven content.

In this article, we’ll explore best practices that will help you increase engagement and reduce unsubscribes, all while walking you through practical steps you can implement in HubSpot today.

1. Segment Your Audience for Personalization

Sending the same email to your entire list is a common mistake. People have different needs, behaviors, and interests, and if your emails aren’t relevant, engagement will drop, and unsubscribes will rise. Audience segmentation ensures that the right message reaches the right people.

Why it matters:

Personalized emails are proven to perform better. HubSpot reports that segmented campaigns have a 14% higher open rate and 101% higher click-through rate than non-segmented ones. By speaking directly to your audience’s interests, you increase the chance they will engage with your content and stay subscribed.

How to Segment in HubSpot:

Segmenting your contacts in HubSpot is straightforward:

1. Go to Contacts > Lists in your HubSpot dashboard.
2. Click Create List, and select Active List to create a dynamic segment that updates based on criteria like past purchases or interactions.
3. Define your segmentation rules (e.g., location, recent activity, or lifecycle stage).
4. Save the list and use it to send more personalized emails that match your contacts’ specific needs.

Personalized emails based on segmented lists not only improve engagement but also reduce the chances of people opting out because they receive irrelevant content.

2. Optimize Email Timing to Maximize Engagement

You may have a fantastic email ready to go, but sending it at the wrong time could mean the difference between high engagement and a wave of unsubscribes. Email timing plays a crucial role in how your audience interacts with your messages.

Why it matters:

Timing impacts when your recipients are most likely to open and engage with your emails. Industry research suggests Tuesdays and Thursdays are the best days for sending emails, but the reality is that testing is the best way to find what works for your audience.

How to Optimize Timing in HubSpot:

HubSpot’s Send Time Optimization helps automate this process:

1. When setting up your email, go to the Send or Schedule section.
2. Select Smart Send to automatically send emails at the best time for each individual recipient based on previous interactions.
3. Alternatively, you can use HubSpot’s A/B testing to experiment with different send times and analyze the results.

Using Smart Send or testing different times ensures your emails land in inboxes when recipients are most likely to engage, reducing the chance of your email getting buried and unread.

3. Create Compelling and Value-Driven Content

Even if your timing and segmentation are perfect, your content must be engaging to keep readers interested. Valuable, relevant content is the most critical factor in keeping subscribers loyal.

Best Practices for Content:

? Write clear, concise subject lines: Your subject line should immediately communicate value. HubSpot recommends keeping them under 50 characters.

? Focus on the reader’s needs: Use the 80/20 rule—80% valuable content, 20% promotion. Provide useful insights, tips, or offers that make your readers’ lives easier.

? One clear call-to-action (CTA): Keep your CTA simple and focused. Too many CTAs can overwhelm readers. Stick with one clear goal for each email.

How to Create Engaging Emails in HubSpot:

HubSpot’s Drag-and-Drop Email Editor makes it easy to create visually appealing, content-rich emails:

1. Go to Marketing > Email > Create Email.
2. Choose a template or start from scratch and drag in content blocks such as text, images, and CTAs.
3. Use Personalization Tokens to dynamically insert details specific to each recipient (like their first name or recent purchase), adding a personal touch that increases engagement.
4. Include A/B testing to test different content strategies and optimize performance.

By delivering relevant content that speaks directly to your audience, you not only build trust but also reduce the likelihood of unsubscribes.

4. Monitor Results and Continuously Optimize

The final piece of the puzzle is consistently reviewing and adjusting your approach. If you aren’t analyzing your email marketing data, you’re missing opportunities to improve.

Why it matters:

Email analytics can reveal patterns about what’s working and what isn’t. Are people engaging with your content? Which emails led to the most unsubscribes? Use this information to tweak your strategy.

How to Track Performance in HubSpot:

HubSpot provides robust Email Analytics to help you track open rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribes:

1. Go to Marketing > Email > Analyze to see data on how your emails performed.
2. Compare engagement metrics like open and click rates across different campaigns.
3. Identify trends in the data to improve future email sends—adjust your content, timing, or audience based on these insights.

Continual optimization is key to ensuring that your emails remain effective and your subscriber base stays engaged.

Email marketing is more than just sending out regular updates; it’s about sending the right message, to the right people, at the right time. By following these best practices—segmenting your audience, optimizing timing, creating engaging content, and analyzing your results—you’ll build stronger relationships with your subscribers, boost engagement, and reduce unsubscribes.

Ready to take your email marketing strategy to the next level? Let Pearagon help you leverage HubSpot to create high-performing campaigns that deliver results.

Reach out today to learn how we can support your business.