Enroll contacts in a sequence

Use sequences to automate outreach with your contacts. Customize the email send times, edit the delays between sequence steps, and personalize each email to increase your reply rate.

You can enroll individual contacts or enroll multiple contacts in bulk. In HubSpot, contacts can be enrolled from: 

• The sequence tool and embedded automation within the sequence tool
• An individual contact's record 
• Contacts index page
• Active and static lists
• Contact-based workflows (Sales and Service Hub Enterprise only)

You can also start a sequence from your inbox using the HubSpot Sales extension. Learn how to enroll contacts in sequences from your inbox using the HubSpot Sales Chrome extension, the HubSpot Sales Outlook desktop add-in, or the HubSpot Sales Office 365 add-in.

Before you get started

When enrolling contacts in a sequence and when sending a sequence from the contact owner property, please note the following: 

• To enroll contacts in sequences, you must have an assigned Sales Hub or Service Hub Professional or Enterprise paid seat. 
• You must have a connected email inbox. 
• The sequence must be shared with the user selected as the sender. If the user does not have permission to access to the sequence, enrollment will fail. 
• Each contact can only be enrolled in one sequence at a time. To enroll a contact in a different sequence, they must first be unenrolled from their current sequence.
• There is also a limit to the number of sequence emails a user can send each day. HubSpot will not be able to increase the sequence email send limit. If a user exceeds their daily send limit, the contact won't enroll in the sequence. 
• Sequences no longer update the contact's Lifecycle stage property. If you want to update the Lifecycle stage property for your enrolled contacts, you can do so using the Set a property value action in a workflow. 
• When enrolling multiple contacts, a maximum of three emails can be sent per minute.

Enroll a contact in a sequence

You can enroll individual contacts from either their contact records or the sequence tool in HubSpot.

• To enroll from the sequence tool: 
  • In your HubSpot account, navigate to Automations > Sequences.
  • In the top left, click the Manage tab.
  • Click the sequence name.
  • In the top right of the sequence page, click Enroll contacts.
  • In the right panel, select the checkbox next to the name of the contact you want to enroll.
  • At the bottom of the right panel, click Next. 
• To enroll from a record:
  • Navigate to your records: 
    • Contacts: In your HubSpot account, navigate to CRM > Contacts.
    • Companies: In your HubSpot account, navigate to CRM > Companies.
    • Deals: In your HubSpot account, navigate to CRM > Deals.
    • Tickets: In your HubSpot account, navigate to CRM > Tickets.
    • Custom objects: In your HubSpot account, navigate to CRM, then select the custom object.

    Please note: all contacts can be enrolled in a sequence. Other record types must have an associated contact to be enrolled in a sequence.

• • Select a record to enroll.

• • In the left panel, click the emaisequencesEnroll in a sequence icon. You may need to click the ellipses More icon and then click the sequences Enroll in a sequence icon.
  • In the dialog box, hover over the sequence and click Select. 

• At the top of the Select sequence dialog box, click the Start at dropdown menu and select the step where the contact should start the sequence.
• Then, click the Time zone dropdown menu and select a time zone. All steps will be executed in the selected time zone.
• To override the sequence's default follow-up settings, in the top right, click Settings. These settings only apply to the emails and tasks that execute after the first step in the sequence. 
• By default, the first email in the sequence will send as soon as possible. To set a send time for the first step:
  • Click the Send now dropdown menu and select Send later.
  • Then, select a date and time.
    
    

• For subsequent emails, in the Send email in section, select how many days should pass after the previous step before the email is sent. 
• If you're using placeholder tokens in an email and values are missing for the selected contact, the tokens will appear in red at the top:
  • Click a token and enter a value for the token.
  • Click Update all. Repeat for each token in the template.
    
    

• At the bottom of each email template, you can use the rich text toolbar to format the text or insert a link, snippet, document, or add a video.

• Customize your sequence tasks:
  • To schedule your tasks, set the [number of days] before the task is created.

• • To create a task immediately after the previous step executes, on the task step, click the dropdown menu and select Create task immediately.

• • To edit the task title, enter a new title in the Task title field

• • By default, a sequence will pause until the task is complete. To continue the sequence even if that task is incomplete, select the Continue without completing task checkbox.
• If your user has multiple inboxes connected to HubSpot, at the bottom, click the From dropdown menu and select an email address to send sequence emails from.
• In the bottom left, click Start sequence. 
  
  

Enroll multiple contacts in a sequence

Users with Bulk enroll sequences permissions can enroll up to 50 contacts in a sequence at once. Enroll multiple contacts when you need to follow up with contacts after a trade show or conference, reconnect with contacts from inactive accounts, or send targeted messages to a segmented list of prospects.

Please note: when you bulk enroll contacts, HubSpot obeys throttling (a maximum of three emails per minute) and email send limits. This means your sequence emails may not send immediately.

• To enroll multiple contacts from the sequence tool: 
  • In your HubSpot account, navigate to Automations > Sequences.
  • In the top left, click the Manage tab.
  • Click the sequence name.
  • In the top right of the sequence page, click Enroll contacts.
  • In the right panel, select the checkboxes next to the name of the contact you want to enroll.
  • At the bottom of the right panel, click Next. 

• To enroll multiple contacts from the lists tool: 
  • In your HubSpot account, navigate to Contacts > Lists.
  • Click the name of the list to enroll from. 

• • To select all contacts in the list, select the checkbox in the top left of the table, then click Select all [x] contacts.
  • To select individual contacts from the list, select the checkboxes next to the contacts you want to enroll.
  • At the top of the table, click Enroll in sequence.

• To enroll multiple contacts from the contacts index page: 
  • In your HubSpot account, navigate to Contacts > Contacts.
  • Select the checkboxes next to the contacts you want to enroll.
  • At the top of the table, click Enroll in sequence.
    
    

• To customize the follow-up options and delays and for all contacts in the sequence, in the left panel, click All contacts.
  
  • In the right panel, at the top, click the Start at dropdown menu and select the step where the contacts should start the sequence.
  • Then, click the Time zone dropdown menu and select a time zone. All steps will be executed in the selected time zone.
  • To override the sequence's default follow-up settings, in the top right, click Settings. These settings only apply to the emails and tasks that execute after the first step in the sequence. 
  • By default, the first email in the sequence will send as soon as possible. To set a send time for the first step:
    • Click the Send now dropdown menu and select Send later.
    • Then, select a date and time.
  • For subsequent emails, in the Send email in section, select how many days should pass after the previous step before the email is sent. 
  • Schedule your sequence tasks:
    • To schedule your tasks, set the [number of days] before the task is created.
    • To create a task immediately after the previous step executes, on the task step, click the dropdown menu and select Create task immediately.
      
      

• To customize the sequence and email content for individual contacts, in the left panel, click a contact. You can also use the search bar to search for specific contacts. 
  • At the bottom of each email template, you can use the rich text toolbar to format the text or insert a link, snippet, document, or add a video
  • Customize your sequence tasks:

• • • To edit the task title, enter a new title in the Task title field
    • By default, a sequence will pause until the task is complete. To continue the sequence even if that task is incomplete, select the Continue without completing task checkbox.
  • If you're using placeholder tokens in an email and values are missing for the selected contact, the tokens will appear in red at the top. 
    
    • Click a token and enter a value for the token.
    • Click Update all. Repeat for each token in the template.
      
      

• If your user has multiple inboxes connected to HubSpot, at the bottom, click the From dropdown menu and select an email address to send sequence emails from.
• To enroll all selected contacts:
  • In the bottom right, click Enroll [all] of [X] contacts.
  • Then, in the dialog box, click Enroll [X] contacts.
• To enroll contacts one at a time:
  • In the left panel, click the [contact name].
  • In the bottom right, click Enroll [contact name].
  • Then, in the dialog box, click Enroll.
• To remove a contact from bulk enrollment:
  • In the left panel, click the [contact name].
  • In the upper right, click Remove contact.
    
    

Enroll contacts in sequences using embedded automation

You can create workflows from the Automation tab to automatically enroll or unenroll contacts from this sequence based on other triggers. These workflows can be turned on and off from the Automation tab, or managed in the workflows tool. 

Enroll contacts in sequences using workflows (Sales and Service Hub Enterprise only)

Using workflows, you can automate sequence enrollment and unenrollment. Learn more about the different use cases and limitations when enrolling contacts in sequences using workflows.