HubSpot Email Marketing flashcards

33 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

SMART goal components

Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound. For email, the measurable element must name the metric, the current baseline, and the target value.

Email program ROI formula

Subtract total program cost from email-attributed revenue, then divide by program cost. Attributed revenue must use a stated window, such as 7-day click or 1-day open.

Lifecycle email

A continuously running, trigger-based message tied to a contact's state or behavior, such as a welcome series or re-engagement flow, measured on cohort conversion rather than send-date performance.

Single-CTA principle

Each marketing email carries one primary call to action. Multiple competing CTAs split attention and make attribution of the resulting conversion ambiguous.

Send frequency cap

A maximum number of marketing emails a contact may receive in a period, set per contact and enforced across campaigns to prevent over-mailing and complaint spikes.

Funnel-stage email mapping

Awareness emails target opens and clicks; consideration emails target click-to-conversion; retention emails target repeat purchase, renewal, or reactivation. The stage determines which metric is primary.

List versus segment

A list is a managed grouping of contacts; a segment is a saved dynamic filter that re-evaluates as contact properties and behaviors change.

Marketing contact status

A designation controlling whether a contact is eligible for marketing sends. Unsubscribed, hard-bounced, and never-consented contacts should not hold marketing-eligible status.

Suppression list

A set of addresses or domains excluded from all sends regardless of segment membership. It overrides inclusion criteria and must be applied at send time.

Engagement recency tiers

Contacts bucketed by days since last open or click, such as 0-30, 31-90, 91-180, and 181-plus. Tiers drive sunsetting and re-permission decisions.

Deduplication key

The unique identifier, typically the email address, used to match imported records to existing contacts so imports update rather than duplicate records and prevent double sends.

Negative segmentation

Defining exclusion criteria, such as recent purchasers, open support tickets, or active unsubscribes, before defining inclusion criteria for a send.

Lifecycle stage property

A single-value contact property indicating funnel position, such as subscriber, lead, opportunity, or customer. Because it holds one value, a contact occupies exactly one stage.

Personalization token

A placeholder replaced with a stored contact property value at send time. Every token requires a defined fallback for contacts whose property is empty.

Preheader text

The snippet clients display after the subject line. It should extend the subject's message rather than repeat it, and it is set separately in most email builders.

Subject line truncation

Mobile clients typically display roughly 30 to 50 characters of a subject line. Front-load the distinguishing words so truncation does not remove the meaning.

Behavioral personalization

Adapting email content to observed actions, such as browsed products or prior purchases, rather than only to stored demographic properties. It changes relevance, not just the salutation.

Single-variable A/B test

A test changing exactly one element, such as subject line or send time, between randomly assigned variants. Changing two elements at once makes the result uninterpretable.

Transactional versus marketing

Transactional messages confirm a requested action and are generally exempt from marketing consent; marketing messages promote and require a lawful basis. Mixing promotional copy into transactional templates risks compliance breach.

Alt text requirement

Descriptive text attached to images. It renders when images are blocked by default and is read by screen readers, so it is a functional content requirement, not decoration.

600px layout width

A single-column email width of about 600 pixels that renders predictably across desktop and mobile clients without forcing horizontal scrolling on phones.

Tap target size

The clickable area of a button or link, which should be at least about 44 by 44 CSS pixels so mobile recipients can activate it without mis-taps.

SPF record

A DNS TXT record listing the sending IPs authorized to send mail for a domain. Receiving servers check it to detect forged sender addresses.

DKIM signature

A cryptographic signature added to outgoing mail using a domain key published in DNS. It lets receivers verify the message was authorized and not altered in transit.

DMARC policy

A DNS record that aligns the From domain with SPF or DKIM results and instructs receivers how to handle failures, using policies of none, quarantine, or reject.

Hard versus soft bounce

A hard bounce is a permanent delivery failure and requires immediate suppression. A soft bounce is temporary and may be retried a limited number of times before suppression.

Unsubscribe handling

Every marketing message must include a working unsubscribe mechanism that requires no login and no fee, and requests must be honored within the legally required window.

Open rate formula

Unique opens divided by delivered. Privacy features that pre-fetch tracking pixels inflate the figure, so open rate is directional rather than precise.

Click-to-open rate

Unique clicks divided by unique opens. It isolates content and offer relevance from deliverability, because it excludes recipients who never saw the message.

Delivered count

Messages sent minus messages bounced. All engagement metrics, including open and click rates, should use delivered as the denominator rather than sent.

Spam complaint rate

Spam complaints divided by delivered messages. Rates above roughly 0.1 percent indicate list-source, consent, or content problems that threaten deliverability.

Statistical confidence in tests

The probability that an observed difference between variants is real rather than random. A winner should not be declared until each variant has sufficient sample size.

Internal baseline benchmarking

Comparing a send against your own historical averages for the same audience and cadence. It is more actionable than external industry averages because list source and behavior differ.