Managing marketing costs is a key priority for businesses looking to maximise their return on investment. One of the most significant areas where costs can spiral out of control is marketing contact management. HubSpot’s Contact Management System provides businesses with the tools to streamline lead segmentation, automate workflows, and reduce unnecessary expenses while maintaining effective customer engagement.
With HubSpot’s pricing structure based on marketing contact limits, businesses must adopt strategic contact management practices to prevent unnecessary expenses and optimise their marketing efforts. This guide explores the best practices for reducing marketing costs using HubSpot’s Contact Management System, allowing businesses to stay within budget without compromising on marketing performance.
Understanding HubSpot’s Contact Management System and Its Cost Implications
HubSpot’s Contact Management System is designed to help businesses organise, segment, and engage their contacts efficiently. However, marketing contact limits play a crucial role in determining costs.
Marketing Contacts vs. Non-Marketing Contacts
HubSpot divides contacts into two categories:
- Marketing Contacts: These contacts receive marketing emails, workflows, and ad targeting. They count toward HubSpot’s marketing contact limit, directly influencing pricing.
- Non-Marketing Contacts: These are stored in the CRM but do not receive marketing communications. They do not count towards marketing contact limits, making them a cost-effective way to manage customer relationships without increasing expenses.
Why Managing Marketing Contacts is Important
- Reduces marketing spend by ensuring that only engaged, high-value leads receive marketing emails.
- Improves email deliverability by avoiding sending campaigns to inactive or unengaged contacts.
- Enhances personalisation and lead segmentation, allowing businesses to focus on high-quality prospects.
Optimising contact lists ensures efficient budget allocation and prevents unnecessary marketing costs.
Best Practices to Reduce Marketing Costs Using HubSpot’s Contact Management
1. Conduct Regular Contact Audits to Remove Unnecessary Data
Many businesses accumulate inactive or duplicate contacts, which take up valuable marketing space and increase costs. Conducting regular contact audits helps identify and remove these unnecessary contacts.
How to Audit Contact Lists in HubSpot
- Use HubSpot’s duplicate management tool to identify and merge duplicate contacts.
- Filter contacts based on last engagement date to identify inactive subscribers.
- Identify bounced or invalid emails and remove them from the marketing contact list.
- Convert inactive or low-value contacts to non-marketing status to prevent additional costs.
Regularly cleaning contact lists ensures that only relevant, engaged leads contribute to marketing expenses.
2. Use Smart Segmentation to Prioritise High-Value Contacts
Not all leads are immediately ready for marketing campaigns. Using smart segmentation ensures that businesses focus marketing efforts on highly engaged contacts, reducing wasted email sends.
Effective Segmentation Strategies in HubSpot
- Engagement-Based Segmentation: Identify contacts who have opened emails, clicked links, or visited landing pages within a defined period.
- Lifecycle Stage Segmentation: Group contacts into Leads, MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads), SQLs (Sales Qualified Leads), and Customers.
- Lead Scoring: Assign numerical scores based on engagement, website visits, and past purchase history to prioritise high-value leads.
By targeting only active and engaged contacts, businesses reduce email marketing costs while maintaining effectiveness.
3. Automate Contact Workflows to Optimise Marketing Contact Limits
HubSpot’s automation tools help businesses efficiently manage marketing contacts, ensuring that only high-value leads remain in active marketing lists.
How to Use Automation for Cost Reduction
- Create Re-Engagement Workflows: If contacts have been inactive for six months, automatically send a re-engagement email. If they do not respond, convert them to non-marketing contacts.
- Set Up Auto-Tagging for Lead Qualification: Automatically tag contacts based on interaction levels, assigning them to marketing or non-marketing segments.
- Remove Inactive Subscribers Automatically: Use workflows to filter out contacts who no longer engage.
Using automation ensures that businesses only pay for active contacts, reducing unnecessary spending on unresponsive leads.
4. Improve Lead Capture and Qualification Processes
One of the most effective ways to reduce unnecessary marketing contacts is by ensuring that only qualified leads enter the CRM. Businesses should refine their lead capture strategy to focus on high-quality contacts.
How to Optimise Lead Capture in HubSpot
- Use progressive profiling in forms to gather gradual, meaningful insights about leads before adding them to marketing campaigns.
- Implement double opt-in email subscriptions to ensure only engaged leads receive marketing emails.
- Use lead scoring to separate high-quality prospects from casual browsers before designating them as marketing contacts.
By improving lead qualification, businesses can reduce unnecessary marketing contact additions, ensuring better budget control.
5. Monitor and Adjust Marketing Contact Limits Monthly
HubSpot allows businesses to change contact status (marketing vs. non-marketing) monthly, giving them the flexibility to adjust lists based on engagement metrics.
How to Monitor and Adjust Contact Limits in HubSpot
- Use HubSpot’s marketing contact dashboard to track how many contacts are counted toward marketing limits.
- Identify seasonal trends in engagement and adjust marketing contact lists accordingly.
- Set up alerts and reports to notify when contact limits are approaching capacity.
Regular monitoring ensures that businesses proactively manage contact limits, preventing unexpected increases in marketing costs.
Additional Strategies to Reduce HubSpot Marketing Costs
Beyond contact segmentation and automation, businesses should implement additional strategies to ensure long-term cost efficiency.
1. Optimise Email Campaign Performance to Reduce Costs
Sending emails to unengaged contacts increases marketing spend while reducing email deliverability. Businesses should focus on improving email performance to maximise ROI.
How to Improve Email Performance in HubSpot
- A/B test subject lines and email content to improve open rates.
- Send emails at optimal times based on audience behaviour.
- Personalise content using dynamic fields and segmented lists.
Better email engagement reduces wasteful email sends, optimising marketing contact usage.
2. Integrate HubSpot with Third-Party Tools for Efficient Contact Management
HubSpot integrates with various third-party applications that help businesses streamline contact management and marketing workflows.
Recommended Integrations for Cost Optimisation
- Customer.io: Syncs email data between HubSpot and other platforms, reducing redundant contacts.
- Salesforce & HubSpot CRM Sync: Ensures sales and marketing teams are aligned on contact usage.
- Zapier: Automates contact updates between HubSpot and other business platforms.
Integrating HubSpot with third-party applications helps businesses better manage their contacts and avoid unnecessary marketing costs.
Final Thoughts: Smart Contact Management for Cost-Effective Marketing
Effective contact management is essential for businesses looking to reduce marketing costs while maintaining high engagement levels. By implementing contact audits, segmentation strategies, automation workflows, and lead qualification processes, businesses can optimise HubSpot’s marketing contact system without exceeding budget limits.
Regularly reviewing marketing contact usage, improving lead capture strategies, and refining email engagement tactics ensures that businesses maximise their HubSpot investment while keeping marketing costs under control.
By proactively managing contact lists, automating engagement workflows, and leveraging smart segmentation, businesses can achieve cost-effective and highly targeted marketing that drives sustainable growth.