You probably watch your open and click rates like a hawk. But if you’re not reviewing your email delivery metrics, you could be flying blind.
A well-crafted campaign won’t help if the emails never reach your audience’s inbox. Worse, inaccurate delivery data can skew performance reports, leaving you chasing the wrong fixes.
Understanding how HubSpot handles delivery, what’s considered delivered, bounced, deferred, or flagged as spam, gives you the foundation to troubleshoot effectively.
Many teams hit roadblocks due to unclear metric definitions, gaps between email types, and mismatches between marketing and CRM data.
This guide gives you a clear path forward. You’ll learn how HubSpot captures delivery metrics, how to interpret those numbers, and how to use them to maintain a healthy sender reputation.
You’ll also walk through setting up custom delivery reports, pinpointing reporting mistakes, and tying delivery health back to revenue.
Measuring Inbox Reach and Bounces with HubSpot Email Reports
Email delivery metrics in HubSpot tell you what happens after your message is sent from the platform: did it reach the inbox, bounce, or get rejected outright? You can find this data primarily in HubSpot’s Marketing Email tool, inside each email’s Performance tab, the Email Performance Dashboard, or through custom-built reports using the Reporting tool.
You’re tracking core statuses like Delivered, Bounced, Dropped, and Marked as Spam. A message is considered delivered when the receiving server confirms it has accepted your email. Hard and soft bounces reflect long-term or temporary issues, like invalid addresses or full mailboxes.
All of it ties back to individual contacts, impacting segmentation, list hygiene, and future send eligibility.
These events also update each contact’s CRM timeline. That helps your marketing, sales, and service teams understand whether key messages reached recipients and how recently that person engaged, or didn’t.
How It Works Under the Hood
To understand the metrics you see in HubSpot, it helps to know what happens in the background during the send-and-delivery process.
Behind-the-Scenes Look
Input Types: You start by selecting a marketing email or workflow, a recipient list, and a scheduled send time.
Transmission Step: HubSpot routes emails through shared IPs or your dedicated sending domain. Domain authentication (via SPF, DKIM, and optionally DMARC) confirms to recipient servers that your messages are legitimate.
Response Tracking: After sending, HubSpot captures responses from recipient servers. These include codes for success, soft bounce, hard bounce, or defer (delayed delivery).
Bounce Processing: Hard bounces (e.g., invalid email) are logged on the contact record and automatically suppressed from future sends.
Report Output: All statuses are recorded and normalized into metrics such as Delivered, Bounced, and Dropped, which are visible in your dashboards.
Optional But Recommended: Configure your own sending domain, set DNS records correctly, and consider using a dedicated IP to maintain long-term control over your sender reputation. These steps do not change how delivery is reported in HubSpot, but can significantly affect results.
Main Uses Inside HubSpot
Your delivery data tells a story. Ignoring it risks misreading engagement and undermining campaigns. Here are three ways to use email delivery metrics effectively in HubSpot.
Tracking List Quality and Sender Reputation
If delivery rates drop, your list is often the first thing to check. High bounce rates usually indicate outdated or unverified email addresses.
Mini Example: Your team notices a 4.8% hard bounce rate across recent campaigns. Opening the Email Performance tab, you drill into the bounce data and find that the issue stems from contacts imported more than 2 years ago. You immediately build a suppression list targeting that segment, and future sends improve as a result.
Diagnosing Deliverability Health in Campaigns
Delivery metrics help confirm whether emails consistently reach recipients across different segments or geographies.
Mini Example: A B2B company notices that emails to tech clients are lagging in delivery. Comparing performance across industries, they find lower delivery inside major SaaS domains. A DNS check reveals a DKIM error. Once corrected, delivery rebounds in the next round.
Evaluating Email Automation Reliability
Automated emails only work if they reach their destination. If delivery rates fall in your workflows, you risk missing key lifecycle moments.
Mini Example: You’re running a welcome email in a form-triggered sequence. 6% of recipients aren’t receiving the first email. Digging into the workflow, you notice that those contacts skipped the double-opt-in step. You adjust enrollment criteria to require confirmation, fixing the delivery gap without affecting compliance.
Common Setup Errors and Wrong Assumptions
HubSpot provides reliable reporting if set up correctly. Watch for these traps:
Skipping Domain Authentication:
Result: Emails are more likely to land in spam.
Fix: Set up SPF, DKIM, and optionally DMARC via your DNS. Verify them in HubSpot under Settings > Domains.
Misclassifying Email Types:
Result: Assigning a marketing send to a transactional list inflates bounce metrics.
Fix: Select the correct subscription category for each email type.
Using Stale or Disengaged Contacts:
Result: High hard bounce counts damage sender reputation.
Fix: Filter contacts using HubSpot’s engagement status and suppress bounced or inactive contacts.
Assuming Open Rate Equals Delivery Health:
Result: Open tracking depends on images, which many email clients block.
Fix: Focus on Delivered and Bounced numbers first, then layer in engagement metrics.
Step-by-Step Setup or Use Guide
To analyze delivery metrics, you need HubSpot’s Marketing Email tool, a verified domain, and a valid contact list.
- Go to the Marketing Email Tool: Click Marketing > Email from your HubSpot navigation bar.
- Choose a Submitted Email or Campaign: Click into a previously sent email to analyze.
- Open the Performance Tab: View high-level stats like Delivered, Bounced, and Sent. Hover over each to see definitions.
- Filter Bounce Reasons: Click Bounced to view grouped causes like Invalid Address or Spam Filter. Export the data if needed.
- Build a Custom Delivery Report: Go to Reports > Create Custom Report > Single Object > Marketing Email. Add metrics like Hard Bounce Rate, Delivered, or Spam Complaints.
- Compare by Type or Campaign: Add filters to group delivery rates by Email Type or Campaign Name to spot trends.
- Display on Your Dashboard: Save and attach your report to a dashboard, such as Email Performance Overview.
- Monitor Trends Regularly: After each send, review your report to detect delivery declines or improvements.
Measuring Results in HubSpot
Email success starts with delivery. If emails do not land, every subsequent metric loses meaning. Track these metrics closely:
Delivery Rate: Anything over 97% is strong. A drop may indicate poor list quality or spam filtering.
Hard Bounce Rate: Should stay below 2%. Sudden rises indicate invalid addresses.
Soft Bounce Rate: Often temporary, but recurring patterns suggest systemic send issues.
Spam Complaint Rate: Even small percentages can harm your reputation.
Suppression Count: Tracks how many contacts are auto-excluded due to bounces or unsubscribes.
Domain Authentication Status: Issues here can prevent emails from reaching inboxes.
Use HubSpot dashboards, such as Email Performance Overview, or custom reports filtered by date or campaign. Exporting to CSV or syncing with Sheets simplifies collaboration.
Short Example That Ties It Together
Running a biweekly newsletter across industry lists, opens have been inconsistent. Reviewing delivery metrics, the healthcare list delivers at 98%, but the tech segment lags at 93%.
Bounce details show recurring ‘Policy Rejection’ errors. In Settings > Domains, you find a DKIM key that expired two weeks ago. Updating it lifts delivery above 97%.
A custom delivery report grouped by industry adds real-time visibility to your dashboard. Every team member can check the delivery status without guesswork.
How INSIDEA Helps
You don’t need to untangle reporting and delivery data on your own. INSIDEA works with teams to ensure email campaigns reach inboxes and provide clean, accurate metrics for sales and leadership.
We help with:
- HubSpot Onboarding: From domain authentication to dashboard setup, all building blocks are covered.
- Ongoing Management: Keep data clean. We manage bounce handling, contact cleanup, and compliance with send logic.
- Reliable Automation: Audit workflows to ensure emails fire only when they should and deliver as intended.
- Performance Visibility: Align reporting dashboards with CRM data so you see the full picture without conflicting numbers.
If delivery metrics or dashboards feel unreliable, we help you get them back on track. Working with INSIDEA, you can hire HubSpot experts and use HubSpot consulting services to optimize delivery, maintain clean lists, and improve reporting accuracy.
Start treating email delivery data like the foundation it is. Track it often, fix issues quickly, and build reporting your team can trust.
