A Practical Guide to Marketing vs Non-Marketing Contacts in HubSpot

In HubSpot, managing your contacts efficiently is key to running cost-effective and targeted marketing campaigns. One essential feature is the ability to categorise contacts as marketing or non-marketing. Understanding this distinction helps you make the most of your marketing budget while keeping your database clean and organised. Let’s dive into the differences, how to set them, and why they matter.

What Are Marketing vs Non-Marketing Contacts?

Marketing Contacts

Marketing contacts are individuals you actively engage with through marketing emails, ads, or other campaigns. These are the leads and customers you aim to nurture or retain using your marketing tools. Think of them as the contacts that consume your marketing resources.

Non-Marketing Contacts

Non-marketing contacts, on the other hand, are those who do not actively receive marketing communications. These could be outdated leads, unsubscribed customers, or internal team members. HubSpot doesn’t count non-marketing contacts toward your subscription limit, which makes it cost-efficient to categorise contacts accurately.

Why is it Important to Know the Difference?

The distinction between marketing and non-marketing contacts directly impacts your HubSpot subscription cost. You’re billed based on the number of marketing contacts in your database, so properly categorising your contacts can prevent unnecessary expenses. Moreover, this segmentation ensures targeted marketing and a cleaner database.

Where to Set Marketing Contacts in HubSpot

Setting Marketing/Non-Marketing Contacts Manually

Here’s how you can successfully set a contact as marketing/non-marketing:

1. Navigate to Contacts in your HubSpot account.
2. Use the checkboxes to select the contacts you want to update. You can choose multiple contacts for bulk editing.
3. Once selected, go to the More dropdown menu.
4. Choose Set as marketing contacts or Set as non-marketing contacts depending on your goal.

For detailed steps, check out HubSpot’s guide on setting marketing contacts and non-marketing contacts

If this is too manual for you and you don't have enough time in a day to do this, workflows can automate this process. Workflows are particularly useful for setting contacts based on specific criteria, saving time and ensuring accuracy.

Automating Non-Marketing Contact Updates

To automate the classification of non-marketing contacts:

1. Go to Automations > Workflows in HubSpot.
2. Create a new workflow and set the enrollment criteria based on the following:

• Lifecycle stage: Is none of Customer, Evangelist, or is empty.
• Invalid email address: Is true.
• Opted out of marketing information: True.
• Email hard bounce reasons: Includes “mailbox full,” “spam,” or “unknown user.”
• Lifecycle stage: Is any of Other.
• Unsubscribed to all emails: Is true.
• Email: Is unknown.
• Engagement:
  • No associated deals.
  • Last activity date is less than 180 days ago.
  • Last email open date is less than 180 days ago.
  • Last marketing email open date is unknown.

Once the workflow is live, HubSpot will automatically set contacts meeting these criteria as non-marketing, saving you from manual updates.

Industry-Specific Considerations

While the criteria listed above are common for non-marketing contacts, it might not be applicable for all types of businesses. Your business or industry may have unique requirements. For instance:

• In B2B, you might exclude internal contacts such as vendors.
• In ecommerce, you might exclude customers inactive for a year, if they don’t repurchase.
• In healthcare, inactive patients might be non-marketing.

By customising workflows to fit your needs, you can ensure that your database remains cost-efficient and targeted.

If you have any questions or need help managing your data—whether it’s marketing, non-marketing, or overall data hygiene—feel free to contact us. Our team is here to support you!