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How to create marketing email

A marketing email in HubSpot is an email you send to a group of contacts for promotional, educational, or nurture purposes. It connects directly to your CRM, so every send, open, click, and reply is tracked against contact records. Marketing emails in HubSpot support personalization tokens, list-based segmentation, automation, and campaign attribution all in one place.

How It Is Useful

  • Direct communication at scale: send one email to hundreds or thousands of segmented contacts at once

  • CRM-connected tracking: every open, click, and reply is recorded on the contact's timeline automatically
  • Personalization: insert contact properties like first name, company, or any CRM field directly into the email body or subject line
  • Segmentation: send to specific lists and exclude others so the right people get the right message
  • Automation: automated emails can be triggered by workflows based on contact behavior, lifecycle stage, form submissions, and more
  • A/B testing and optimization: schedule sends by recipient time zone or use AI to suggest the best send time

When to Use It

Use marketing emails for newsletters, product announcements, promotional offers, event invitations, lead nurture sequences, re-engagement campaigns, and post-conversion follow-ups. If you are sending a one-time email to a segment, use a Regular email. If the email is part of a workflow that sends automatically based on a trigger, use an Automated email.

Types of Marketing Emails

Regular: a one-time send to specific contacts or lists. You schedule or send it manually. Use this for newsletters, announcements, and campaigns.

Automated: saved to be used inside a workflow. The email sends automatically when a contact meets the workflow's enrollment criteria. Use this for welcome sequences, lead nurture flows, re-engagement, and any email triggered by a contact action. Requires Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise.

Blog/RSS: sends automatically when you publish a new blog post or RSS feed update. Use this for blog subscriber notifications.

How to Create a Marketing Email Template

Before sending, it helps to have a reusable template so your emails are consistent and faster to build each time. You create a template by designing an email and saving it for future use.

Step 1: Go to Marketing > Email and click Create email

Step 2: Select Regular as the sending method (you can design and save the layout from here)

Step 3: Browse the built-in template library in the left sidebar. Filter by category (newsletter, event, engagement, promotional, etc.) or click All templates. If you have a brand kit configured, use the dropdown above the templates to apply your brand colors and fonts automatically.

Step 4: Hover over a template and click Choose template

Step 5: Design your email using the drag and drop editor. Add, remove, and rearrange content modules such as text block, image, button, divider, and social icons. Build the layout the way you want it to look every time this type of email goes out.

Step 6: Once the design is ready, click Actions in the top menu and select Save as template.

Give it a clear name (for example, "Monthly Newsletter Layout" or "Promotional Email Base") and save. It will now appear in your template library every time you create a new email.

How to Create and Send a Marketing Email

Step 1: Go to Marketing > Email and click Create email

Step 2: Choose your sending method.

Step 3: Choose a template from the library. Use one of your saved templates or pick from HubSpot's built-in options. Apply your brand kit if available.

Step 4: Design the email content using the drag and drop editor

Step 5: Set sending information by clicking the inbox content module at the top of the editor:

  • Subject line: write your subject line and add personalization tokens if needed

  • Preview text: the short summary some email clients display before the email is opened

  • From name: select or add a sender name

  • From address: select a verified email address. Replies go here by default. You can set a separate reply-to address if needed.

Step 6: Set recipients by clicking the send icon in the left sidebar:

  • Select a subscription type that matches the content of this email

  • Use the Send to field to select contacts or lists who should receive the email

  • Use the Don't send to field to exclude specific contacts or lists

By default, HubSpot will not send to unengaged contacts (those who have not opened your last 11 marketing emails). If you want to send to your full list regardless of past engagement, uncheck the "Don't send to unengaged contacts" checkbox. This is important for newsletters or campaigns where full coverage matters.

Step 7: Schedule the send by clicking the schedule icon:

  • Send now to send immediately

  • Schedule for later to pick a date and time. You can send in the account's time zone, your own time zone, or each recipient's individual time zone.

Step 8: Configure email settings by clicking the setup icon:

  • Associate the email with a campaign for attribution tracking

  • Set the internal email name (not visible to recipients)

  • Select the email language

  • Toggle on View in browser if you want a web version recipients can open in their browser

Step 9: Preview and test by clicking Preview and test in the top right:

  • Preview as contact to check how personalization tokens render

  • Preview in an email client to check rendering across Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail, and others

  • Send a test email to yourself or a colleague before the real send

Step 10: Click Review and publish, Review and schedule, or Review and send. Resolve any required fields flagged in red, review warnings, and click Publish, Schedule, or Send to finalize.