Re-engaging an 85,000-Contact Retail List
An online home-goods retailer has 85,000 marketable contacts in HubSpot. About 22,000 came from a co-registration partner 24 months ago; 38% of the full list has not opened an email in 180 days. The company sends two campaigns a week to the entire list. In the last 60 days, hard bounces rose to 6%, spam complaints to 0.4%, and Gmail placement has shifted toward the Promotions tab. Revenue per email is falling. The lifecycle team proposes buying 20,000 lookalike contacts to 'refill the top of the funnel' and continuing to mail everyone because 'even unengaged people might buy.' The CRM has engagement properties for last open, last click, and last reply, plus a subscription type for marketing. There is a consent record for the co-registration source that expires in some regions.
1. Evaluate the proposal to buy 20,000 contacts and to keep mailing the full list. Recommend a segmentation plan using HubSpot list types.
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Buying 20,000 contacts is the wrong move. Those contacts have not opted in, HubSpot's acceptable-use policy prohibits purchased lists, and the sending domain would absorb complaints and bounces from people who never asked for email. Mailing the full 85,000 is also risky: 38% have not opened in 180 days, and the 6% hard-bounce and 0.4% complaint rates show the list is already damaging reputation. Recommend active lists: Engaged 90 days (opened or clicked), Engaged 91-180 days, Unengaged 180+ days, and a separate Co-registration cohort with consent status. Use the active lists for normal campaigns and exclude Unengaged 180+ from regular sends. Use a static list only for a one-time suppression or migration snapshot. Do not use 'might buy' as a reason to keep mailing; non-engagement is a signal, not a neutral state. Segmenting by engagement lets the retailer protect deliverability while still giving recent and moderate engagers relevant content.
2. Design a compliant re-engagement and sunset process. What do you send, how often, and when do you suppress or delete?
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First verify the legal basis. For the co-registration cohort, check the consent record and expiration; if consent cannot be evidenced for EU/UK contacts, do not mail them. For others, send a two-email re-permission series 7-10 days apart with a clear value proposition and a preference center; make the ask explicit ('Do you still want to hear from us?'). Suppress anyone who does not open or click after 30 days from marketing sends, but keep the record for suppression. Do not delete engaged or customer records without a retention policy. In HubSpot, manage this with active lists and a workflow that sets a 'Marketing status' property; use the subscription type to honor opt-outs. Measure re-permission rate; if it is below 2-3%, sunset the cohort rather than repeatedly mailing it. Hard bounces should be suppressed immediately. This process treats re-engagement as a permission reset, not as another campaign to the same old list.