How a Canadian B2B equipment company got its HubSpot email health back on track

The problem

The company's one-to-one emails were reaching people. Its marketing emails sent through HubSpot were not: they were being filtered as spam or held back.

What we found

We started with a read-only review in September 2026, changing nothing:

• HubSpot rated the account’s email health 3 out of 10.
• Hard bounces (0.66%) and unsubscribes (0.91%) were both rated “Poor” by HubSpot for the period.
• The main sending list was built only from contact owner, region and marketing-contact status. It had no rules for recent engagement, lead source or past bounces.
• In the largest campaign that week, about 1.2% of emails bounced, and nearly two-thirds of those bounces were “unknown user” addresses.
• The sending domains were already authenticated in HubSpot. The evidence pointed to who was being emailed, and the rules around it, rather than to the technical setup.

What we did

The client approved each change and kept the final decision on every send.

1. Protected the history. No contacts were deleted, no unsubscribes were reversed, and bounce and suppression records were kept intact.
2. Built one reusable “safe to send” audience. It automatically leaves out hard bounces, contacts without a usable email address, global unsubscribes, and contacts who are stale or no longer engaging.
3. Fixed ownership. Contacts still assigned to deactivated users were reassigned, so replies and follow-ups reach a real person.
4. Moved contacts who should not receive marketing email to non-marketing status. They stay in the CRM; they just aren’t emailed.
5. Checked before sending. We tested campaign audiences, checked permission, source and links, and reviewed upcoming email drafts line by line before anything went out.

Results so far

About a month after the review, HubSpot reported that overall email health had improved: the score went from 3 to 9 out of 10.

HubSpot's email reporting for the 31 days to 18 October 2026, compared with the 31 days before:

• Click rate rose from about 1.4% to 3.7%.
• Of the people who opened an email, about 17% clicked, up from about 7%.
• Open rate rose from about 19% to 21.7%.
• Hard bounces fell by about two-thirds, to 0.22%, and unsubscribes by nearly half, to 0.45%.
• 99.6% of emails were delivered, and the spam report rate was 0%.

We don't promise inbox placement; no one honestly can. What changed is that the company now sends to people who want and can receive its emails, with rules that keep it that way.

If this sounds familiar

If your one-to-one emails land but your HubSpot campaigns don't, start with who you're sending to before changing anything else.