Last updated: April 10, 2025
When you send marketing emails to your contacts, your sending reputation will change based on how your recipients engaged with your email. If your cumulative open rate consistently falls below 10%, you should consider limiting who you're sending email to and instead focus on repairing your sending reputation. If you continue to send to unengaged contacts, inbox providers and private mail servers are much less likely to accept your emails.
By executing the following steps, you can gradually improve your sender reputation. Each step should take a few weeks, but you shouldn't move onto the next step until you've met or exceeded the recommended open rate.
1. Send only to contacts who've clicked on one of your emails in the past two weeks
For the first two weeks, you should only send emails to contacts who've clicked on any email you've sent since two weeks from your start date. These contacts have demonstrated clear engagement and interest in your brand and your content, and their continued engagement will increase your overall click rate.
To create the list of contacts for this step:
- In your HubSpot account, navigate to CRM > Lists.
- In the top right, click Create list, then click Next.
- In the top left, click the pencil icon and enter a name for the list.
- Select the Contact properties.
- Click Last marketing email click date.
- Select is between, then specify a time range:
- For the first date, select a day that's two weeks before your start date. For example, if the start date of your repair plan is August 14th 2020, you should enter August 1st 2020.
- For the second date, select the start date of your repair plan.
- Click Apply filter.
- Click Save.
You should use this list when specifying the recipients for your marketing emails.
2. Send only to contacts who've opened one of your emails in the past two weeks
After you've noticed your click rate improve, you can broaden your sending to include contacts who've opened one of your emails in the past two weeks.
To create the list of contacts for this step:
- In your HubSpot account, navigate to CRM > Lists.
- In the top right, click Create list, then click Next.
- In the top left, click the pencil icon and enter a name for the list.
- Select Contact properties.
- Click Last marketing email open date.
- Select is between, then specify a time range:
- For the first date, select a day that's two weeks before your repair plan start date. For example, if the start date of your repair plan is August 14th 2020, you should enter August 1st 2020.
- For the second date, select the start date of your repair plan.
- Click Apply filter.
- Click Save.
You should use this list for your marketing emails until your open rate has improved to 20 - 25%. You should not move onto the next step until you've achieved a 20 - 25% average open rate.
3. Send only to contacts who've opened one of your emails in the past four weeks
After you've noticed your open rate improve, you can broaden your sending to include the past four weeks from your start date.
To create the list of contacts for this step:
- In your HubSpot account, navigate to CRM > Lists.
- In the top right, click Create list, then click Next.
- In the top left, click the pencil icon and enter a name for the list.
- Select Contact properties.
- Click Last marketing email open date.
- Select is between, then specify a time range:
- For the first date, select a day that's four weeks before your repair plan start date. For example, if the start date of your repair plan is August 14th 2020, you should enter July 18th 2020.
- For the second date, select the start date of your repair plan.
- Click Apply filter.
- Click Save.
You should use this list when specifying the recipients for your marketing emails.
4. Expand criteria for email opens to include recipients based on older email engagement data
As your cumulative open rate continues to improve, you can expand the list criteria to a longer period of time. You can gradually broaden the criteria to two months, then expand to three months if your open rate continues to improve. You should also select the Don't send to unengaged contacts checkbox in the Recipients tab of your marketing emails.
If at any point, your cumulative open rate declines again, you should take one step back in the process and repeat that step prior to moving forward.