Blocklist remediation | Frequently Asked Questions

Find answers to commonly asked questions about the blocklist remediation process. The best way to prevent future email blocklistings is to follow email deliverability best practices.

If you have a paid subscription, your Primary Account Contact will receive an email from the HubSpot Deliverability Team if one of your emails triggered a blocklisting event.

Learn more about why your account triggered a blocklisting event and more details about the remediation process below.

General

How was this remediation list created?

The list created by the Email Deliverability team (Delivered blocklisted campaign. No recent opens.) contains all contacts that received the blocklisted email campaign but haven't opened any emails in the past year. The list also includes contacts who have never opened one of your marketing emails, as well as the spam trap that caused the blocklisting. Opting out or quarantining this list will help prevent future blocklistings.

How do I opt out this list?

To opt out all the contacts in the remediation list (Delivered blocklisted campaign. No recent opens.) in your account, you'll need to export the list from HubSpot and import it as an opt out list. If you opt out this entire list, you don't need to complete a permission pass campaign.

How do I quarantine this list instead of opting it out?

Quarantining a list of contacts will exclude the associated contacts from receiving marketing emails, but they'll remain eligible for use in sales email tools, including sequences and one-to-one emails. Learn more about how to quarantine the list of contacts in this article.

Please note: if you've purchased the business units add-on, there are limitations around using opt-out lists with your business units, so you must quarantine the remediation list instead of opting it out.

How can a quarantined contact become unquarantined?

Quarantine is automatically lifted if a contact responds to a tracked one-to-one email or submits a HubSpot form. Otherwise the quarantine will remain in place to prevent future blocklistings.

Please note: if you send a one-to-one email to a quarantined contact, they will only be eligible for unquarantining if they are the only recipient of the email.

Is this related to recent bounce or spam complaint rates?

This is not related to bounces, unsubscribes, or spam reports. These are all actions taken by real recipients or receiving servers. Spam traps are real emails maintained by blocklist operators, so they won’t bounce. They also won't engage with the email to unsubscribe or mark the email as spam.

Why was my campaign blocklisted even though I checked the box, “Don’t send to contacts with low engagement” before publishing it?

The Don't send to contacts with low engagement checkbox would not suppress a spam trap if it's a new contact in your system. This feature uses a suppression list called Contacts with Low Engagement, which includes contacts who haven't clicked or opened the last 10 emails (or more) they've received from you.

How will this remediation process help?

Completing the remediation process will also lead to better inbox placement and fewer soft bounces. Sender open rate is one of the biggest factors inbox providers like Gmail and Microsoft use to identify SPAM. After completing this process the spam trap and any other inactive email addresses will be removed, and you'll see fewer soft bounces across all of your recipients.

I’m concerned about losing valuable contacts and leads.

The list created in your portal only includes unengaged contacts. These contacts are lowering your overall open rate, which is the number one factor that inbox providers will use to determine if incoming email should be sent to the spam folder.

Can I still send marketing emails during the remediation process?

Yes, but you must suppress the remediation list from all marketing email sends until the remediation process is complete. Failure to suppress the remediation list may lead to additional blocklistings and you'll need to repeat the process.

Can I still send transactional email to these contacts?

Yes. Transactional emails can still be sent to contacts who have been opted out of all marketing email.

Permission pass campaigns

Will my permission pass campaign cause another blocklisting?

No, blocklist operators don't try to penalize senders who are in the process of resolving the issue. As long as it's a recognizable permission pass campaign, then this email should not cause another blocklisting.

Do I need to include contacts who were recently added to my database in my permission pass campaign?

Yes, contacts with a recent create date are included because of the possibility of this being caused by a 'Recycled' spam trap. In order to effectively resolve this issue we can not use Create Date as a criteria for exclusion from the list. 

Do I need to include contacts validated through a third-party list in my permission pass campaign?

Yes, a spam trap would appear valid to almost all list validation services. List validators test whether or not an email address will bounce, but spam traps are deliverable addresses that will not bounce. 

Do I need to include contacts with low Sends Since Last Engagement in my permission pass campaign?

Yes, the contact property 'Sends Since Last Engagement' is incremented for every email a contact is sent without opening. A spam trap will never open an email, but if the address was just added to your database it will have a value of 0 for this property.

Can you provide examples of permission pass campaigns?

Yes, here are a few examples from other HubSpot customers.

Spamcop

What is Spamcop?

Spamcop is a third party blocklist operator used for email security. They collect IP addresses and publish them publicly on their blocklist. Spamcop owns and operates spam trap addresses. When one of their active spam traps is included on an email from our servers, it will cause that IP address to be blocklisted for the next 24 hours.

How do I get delisted from Spamcop?

Spamcop blocklistings automatically expire after 24 hours.