Get started with marketing contacts

In HubSpot, you can set certain contacts as "marketing" and others as "non-marketing" to control the number of contacts that count towards your contact tier and who your users can and cannot market to.

Please note: even if your HubSpot account has a Marketing Hub subscription, you may not have access to marketing contacts. You can reach out to your Customer Success Manager to get access.

Check out the marketing contacts FAQ for quick answers on the functionality.

• Marketing contacts will count towards your contact tier. HubSpot email marketing and ad targeting tools can work with these contacts.
• Non-marketing contacts will not count towards your contact tier. HubSpot email marketing and ad targeting tools will not work with these contacts.

Marketing contact properties

• Marketing Until Next Update: indicates if the contact will become a marketing or non-marketing contact upon the next update date.
  • When it is Yes, the contact will be set as a non-marketing contact on the next update date.
  • When it is left blank, the contact will remain as it is.
• Marketing status: indicates if the contact is currently a marketing or non-marketing contact.
  • When it is Marketing contact, the contact is a marketing contact and will count towards your contact tier in this period.
  • When it is Non-marketing contact, the contact is a non-marketing contact and will not count towards your contact tier in this period.

Learn how to check a contact record's property value.

Check your access to marketing contacts and your contact tier

In your HubSpot account, you pay for your contact tier. If you have access to the marketing contacts functionality, only marketing contacts will count towards your contact tier. Non-marketing contacts will not count towards your contact tier.

Your billing contact will receive a notification in 24 to 48 hours when the number of marketing contacts:

• reaches 75% of your current tier;
• reaches 90% of your current tier;
• reaches 98% of your current tier; and
• exceeds your current tier.

To check your access to the marketing contacts functionality, your number of marketing contacts in your HubSpot account, and your current contact tier:

• In your HubSpot account, click your account name in the top right corner, then click Account & Billing.
• In the Products & Services tab, view your Marketing Hub subscription. If you have access to marketing contacts, you should see Marketing contacts stated in your subscription.
• To check the number of marketing contacts and your current contact tier, click the Usage & Limits tab.
  • View the number of marketing contacts, your current contact tier, and the total number of contacts you have. This is updated once a day.
  • View a chart of your total contacts and marketing contacts over time.
  • Learn more about using reports to analyze your marketing contacts.

• You can also set contacts to be non-marketing on the next update date.

Once the number of marketing contacts exceeds your current contact tier, you'll automatically be upgraded to the next contact tier and will receive a pro-rated charge the following day.

Please note: even if the number of marketing contacts you have is below your contact tier, your contact tier will not be downgraded to the next contact tier. Reach out to your HubSpot Customer Success Manager if you've any further questions on your contact tier.

Tools that only work with marketing contacts

The following marketing tools in your HubSpot account will only work with marketing contacts:

• Marketing emails
• Ads
• Marketing actions in workflows, such as Send email and Add to or Remove from ads audiences.

Learn what happens when you try using the above tools on a non-marketing contact and how you can set a contact as marketing to use the above tools with them.

Please note: other types of emails can still reach your non-marketing contacts, including sales one-to-one emails, chat transcript emails from conversations, registration emails, ticket kickback emails, and customer feedback surveys.

Set contacts as non-marketing

When you don't intend to market to a certain contact, learn how to preemptively set them as non-marketing so they don't count towards your contact tier when they are updated on the next update date.

You can also prevent other users from updating contacts as marketing.

Set contacts as marketing

You may decide to market to a contact that was previously set as non-marketing. Learn how to set them as marketing so you can use HubSpot marketing tools with them. Once a contact is deemed as a marketing contact, they cannot be set as non-marketing within the same period.

Default marketing status for HubSpot lead capture tools

Contacts can be created by different HubSpot tools, such as forms and chatflows. These tools have a default marketing status for the contacts they create.

Learn the default marketing status for these lead capture tools and how you can update the default marketing statuses for some of them.

Analyze your marketing contacts with reports

Apart from viewing the marketing contacts in your contact tier, you can also use default marketing contact reports to analyze your marketing contact usage. To access these reports, create a new dashboard and select the Marketing contacts dashboard from the dashboard library.