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(info) About HubSpot Sequences

With the sequences tool, you can send a series of targeted, timed email templates to nurture contacts over time. You can also automatically create tasks to remind you to follow up with your contacts. HubSpot’s Sequences tool automates email outreach, follow-up tasks, and A/B testing to increase efficiency and improve engagement.

🥇 Best Practices

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The HubSpot Sequences tool enhances productivity by automating routine tasks, such as sending follow-up emails, creating tasks, and running A/B tests. You can streamline your outreach efforts by leveraging sequences and focusing on meaningful interactions.

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🥇 Best Practices

Plan Before You Build and Include a Clear Exit Strategy

  • Define Goals: Know the objective of your sequence (e.g., lead nurturing, follow-up, sales outreach).

  • Segment Your Contacts: Group contacts by behavior, demographics, or stage in the buyer’s journey to ensure relevant messaging.

  • Use Pause Until Task is Completed for manual tasks to ensure the sequence doesn’t continue until critical actions are completed.

  • Avoid unnecessary steps by removing contacts who no longer require outreach.

Respect Daily Email Limits

  • HubSpot sequences have email limits based on your provider. Plan sequence enrollments to avoid exceeding limits, which could delay outreach.

Test Before Launch

  • Review every step of the sequence for accuracy, including:

    • Templates.

    • Personalization tokens.

    • Task details and timing.

    • Unenrollment triggers.

Optimize Timing

  • Space out sequence steps to avoid overwhelming contacts. For example, follow-up emails are sent every 2–3 business days. Use automated email send windows to deliver emails when contacts are most likely to engage.

Avoid Over-Enrolling Contacts

  • Use filters to ensure that contacts already enrolled in a sequence are excluded from others. Set unenrollment Triggers to automatically remove contacts when they:

    • Reply to an email.

    • Book a meeting.

    • Take an action that fulfills the sequence’s purpose.

Monitor Engagement and Adjust

  • Track key performance metrics such as open rates, clicks, replies, and meetings booked to identify low-performing steps. Leverage A/B testing to optimize performance and try different subject lines, email content, or CTAs. Update templates based on data insights.

Review Sequence Analytics

  • Regularly analyze the Step Performance Report to:

    • Identify drop-offs.

    • Assess email performance.

    • Improve based on data.

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📄 Step-by-Step Instructions for Creating and Managing Sequences

Expand
How to Use Sequences for Automated Outreach,
titleEnrolling Contacts in a Sequence

  • Accessing Sequences:

    • From Workspaces > Prospecting, go to the Leads tab and select the contacts you wish to enroll in a sequence. Click Enroll in sequence.

    • Alternatively, go to CRM > Contacts to select contacts and click Enroll in sequence.

  • Selecting and Customizing a Sequence:

    • Choose the appropriate sequence to enroll contacts. The sequence’s steps will display on the right, and all selected contacts will appear on the left.

    • To customize the content for a specific contact, click their name and adjust the email or task details in the pane on the right.

  • Adjusting Timing:

    • Go to All contacts in the top left to set the wait time between sequence steps. This controls the delay before each subsequent email or task.

    • Pause sequence until task is completed: By default, sequences pause at each task until it’s marked complete. You can uncheck this box if you want the sequence to continue regardless of task completion, though caution is advised (e.g., an email saying, “I tried calling you yesterday” won’t make sense if you haven’t made the call).

Setting Up Sequence Limits and Timing

  • Daily Email Limit:

    • The Sequences tool follows daily email limits based on your email provider’s settings. If you reach your limit, HubSpot will prompt you to schedule emails for another day.

  • Running Sequences During Specific Times:

    • Go to Settings in the top right corner to select the days and times you want the sequence to run (e.g., business days only, specific time frames). You can also set an email reminder for yourself at a specific date and time.

  • Automatic Sequence Pause for Replies:

    • If a contact replies to an email in the sequence or books a meeting using a link, the sequence will automatically stop for that contact. Use the Now in sequence property to filter and manage contacts currently in sequences.

Running A/B Tests in Sequences

Option 1: From the Prospecting Workspace

  1. From the main navigation, go to Workspaces > Prospecting.

  2. In the Prospecting Workspace, click on the Leads tab to view your lead list.

  3. Select the leads you want to contact.

  4. Instead of creating individual tasks, click Enroll in sequence to add them to an automated sequence.

Option 2: From the Contacts Index Page

  1. Navigate to CRM > Contacts in the main navigation.

  2. Select specific contacts or the entire contact list.

  3. Click Enroll in sequence to add them to an automation.

After Selecting Contacts:

  • Choose the desired sequence.

  • The next page will display contacts on the left and the steps in the sequence on the right.

  • To customize the sequence for individual contacts, select their name and edit the email or task in the pane that appears on the right.

Expand
titleCreating a Sequence

  1. Navigate to Sequences. In your HubSpot account, go to Automation> Sequences. In the top right, click Create Sequence.

  2. Choose a Template:

  • In the left panel, select Start from scratch or a pre-made sequence template.

  • Click Create sequence in the top right.

  1. Name Your Sequence:

  • Click the pencil icon at the top and enter a name for your sequence.

  1. Add Steps to Your Sequence: Click the sequence editor's + (plus) icon.

Step Options

What the step does

Automated email

You can automatically send an email to the contact enrolled in the sequence, start a new thread, reply to a previous sequence email, create a template, or use an existing template. 

Manual email task

Get a task reminder to send an email manually. The email will not be sent automatically. You can start a new thread or reply to a previous sequence email. You can use an existing template or create a new email when contacting the contact.

Call task

Get a task reminder to call the contact enrolled in the sequence manually. 

General task

Get a task reminder to complete an action manually.

InMail Task

If you're using HubSpot's integration with LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you can create a task to remind you to manually send an InMail.

Connection request task

If you're using HubSpot's integration with LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you can create a task reminder to manually send a connection request.

After adding steps to your sequence, you can edit the sequence settings, including the follow-up email send times and default task creation times (see below).

Expand
titleHow to Edit Sequence Settings and Edit a Sequence

How to Edit Sequence Settings in HubSpot

Once you've added steps to your sequence, you can configure various settings to control email timing, task creation, and other options. These settings apply only to the steps following the first in your sequence.

  1. Access Sequence Settings:

    • In the sequence editor, click the Settings tab at the top.

  2. Adjust Email Timing:

    • By default, emails are only sent on business days. To include weekends, toggle off the Execute steps on business days only switch.

    • Use the Automated email send window to set a time range for sending emails. HubSpot will optimize send times based on previous email opens and the contact's time zone.

  3. Configure Task Reminders:

    • Tasks are created at the start of your account's calendar day, based on the time zone used during contact enrollment.

    • To receive email reminders for tasks:

      • Toggle on the Email reminders switch.

      • Use the time picker to set when you want to receive the reminder.

      • Note: Tasks are due at 5 PM on the same day in the contact’s time zone.

  4. Associate with a Campaign (if applicable):

    • If you have a Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise subscription, link the sequence to a marketing campaign:

      • Click Add to marketing campaign.

      • Select a campaign from the dropdown menu.

    • Contacts enrolled in the sequence will be marked as influenced contacts for the campaign.

  5. Save Changes:

    • After configuring your settings, click Save to apply them to your sequence.

Editing Sequences

You can update email templates, adjust tasks, and modify settings for existing sequences.

  1. Reorder Steps:

    • Click the Actions dropdown menu for a step and select Move up or Move down.

  2. Edit Templates and Tasks:

    • Automated Emails: Click Actions > Edit email to adjust the email content.

    • Manual Emails: Click Actions > Edit task to update email templates.

    • Other Tasks: Click Actions > Edit task to adjust task details.

  3. Remove Steps:

    • In the Actions dropdown menu, select Delete to remove a step.

  4. Save Changes:

    • To update the current sequence, click Save existing.

    • To create a new sequence with changes, click Make copy, name the sequence, and save.

Expand
titleSequence Enrollment Automation in HubSpot

HubSpot allows you to customize enrollment and unenrollment triggers for sequences, ensuring that contacts move through your workflow efficiently. By default, contacts are automatically unenrolled when they reply to an email in the sequence or book a meeting on any scheduling page. These triggers cannot be disabled.

Editing Default Enrollment and Unenrollment Triggers

  1. Access Automation Settings:

    • In the sequence editor, click the Automation tab at the top.

  2. Enable Additional Unenrollment Options:

    • To unenroll all contacts from the same company when one contact replies, toggle on the Unenroll: All contacts at the same company from this sequence switch.

  3. Save Changes:

    • After making adjustments, click Save.

Creating Embedded Workflows for Automatic Enrollment or Unenrollment

You can set up workflows to automatically enroll or unenroll contacts based on specific triggers, such as form submissions or page views.

  1. Create an Automation:

    • In the Custom automation section of the Automation tab, click Create an automation.

  2. Trigger Based on Form Submission:

    • Select Form submission as the trigger.

    • Choose one of the following:

      • Contact submits any form: Enroll contacts who submit any form on your website.

      • Contact submits a specific form: Select a specific form from the dropdown menu.

  3. Trigger Based on Page Views:

    • Select Page view as the trigger.

    • Refine the page view criteria by entering a URL (wildcards like * are not supported).

  4. Configure Workflow Actions:

    • Select an action for contacts meeting the trigger criteria:

      • Unenroll contact from this sequence: Remove contacts from the sequence.

      • Enroll contact in this sequence: Add contacts to the sequence.

        • Optionally, specify a delay before enrolling contacts.

        • Select the Sender and From email address for the sequence.

  5. Save and Activate the Workflow:

    • Click Create at the bottom left.

    • In the dialog box, choose Turn on to activate the workflow or Save as draft to finalize it later.

  6. Manage Embedded Workflows:

    • To edit, delete, or adjust triggers, go to the Automation tab in the sequence editor and hover over the workflow. The Actions dropdown menu provides options.

Expand
titleCreating and Managing Task Queues

To create, edit, or delete task queues:

  • In your HubSpot account, navigate to CRM > Tasks.

  • In the top right, click the Manage queues.

    manange-queues-updated.webpImage Added

  • To create a queue, click Create task queue in the right panel.

    • Enter a name for the queue > Save.

  • To edit a queue, select to edit the queue's name and the users that have access to the queue. To remove an invited user, click X next to their names in the dropdown menu. Click Save to confirm your changes

  • To delete a queue, click Delete in the dialog box to confirm. The tasks in the queue will not be deleted.

Expand
titleRunning A/B Tests in Sequences

HubSpot's Sequences tool allows you to automate A/B testing of emails to determine which versions resonate best with your audience. You can enhance engagement and improve conversion rates by experimenting with different email elements such as:

  • Subject Lines: Craft compelling subject lines to entice recipients to open the email.

  • Email Copy and Messaging: Experiment with different wording and tone to maximize reader engagement.

  • Personalization Tokens: Tailor the email content using personalization tokens for a more relevant experience.

  • CTA Placement: Test the placement and wording of call-to-action buttons.

Accessing A/B Testing:

  1. Go to Automations > Sequences and select the sequence you want to test. Click on the Steps tab to view the sequence steps and their performance metrics.

Adding

  1. Edit or Create a Sequence:

    1. Hover over the desired sequence and click Edit, or click Create Sequence to build a new one.

  2. Add an A/B Test:

Click

    1. Within any manual or automated email step, click + Add A/

B Test to create variations for an automated email step. This will split sends evenly between versions A and B, allowing you to track data on opens, clicks, replies, and meetings booked.Saving the Test:

    1. B test.

    2. In the right panel, select your alternate (B) email. You can search existing templates or click Create template to craft a new one.

    3. Toggle the Version B switch on.

  2. Once your A/B test steps are set, choose Save existing sequence or Save as a new sequence to start running the test. This will help refine your outreach strategy based on performance.

Analyzing A/B Test Results:

  1. Monitor the performance of each email version within the sequence builder.

  2. The Step Performance table on the sequence's Performance tab provides detailed metrics on sends, opens, clicks, replies, and meetings booked for each version.

Ending an A/B Test:

  1. Once you've identified the better-performing version, navigate back to the sequence editor.

  2. Toggle off the underperforming version.

  3. Save your changes to finalize the sequence with the preferred email version.

By leveraging A/B testing within HubSpot Sequences, you can systematically optimize your email outreach, leading to more effective communication and higher engagement rates.

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For additional instructions on creating and managing Sequences, view all HubSpot Sequences articles.