HubSpot Email Tracking – Guidelines & Best Practices

1. Core Tracking Principles in HubSpot

Understand Track vs. Log

HubSpot distinguishes:

Track
Open & click tracking using an invisible one-pixel image and tracked links. Tracked opens/clicks appear in the activity feed and on the record timeline.

Log
Saves a copy of the email (and attachments) to the contact/company/deal/ticket timeline for history, but logging alone does not give open/click metrics for one-to-one emails.

Logged but not tracked emails will not show opens/clicks in analytics.

How HubSpot Actually Tracks Opens & Clicks

For all tracked emails (marketing or sales), HubSpot inserts an invisible one-pixel image after send. When images load, an open is recorded.

For tracked one-to-one emails, clicks are recorded via redirected links through a HubSpot tracking domain.

Marketing emails are tracked by default (open & click tracking controlled by your marketing email tracking settings).

When Opens/Clicks Will Be Missing or Look “Wrong”

HubSpot excludes some activity from sales email analytics:

• Suspected bot or non-human activity
• Emails logged retroactively
• Emails sent via forwarding addresses
• Emails logged manually

Opens will also not be tracked if:

• The recipient reads email in plain text
• Their client does not auto-download images

A corporate filter removes images from incoming email.

2. Best Practices – One-to-One & Sequences (Sales Emails)

Always Use Track + Log Together

When sending from CRM, Gmail/Outlook with the HubSpot extension/add-in, or sequences, ensure:

• Track enabled – for opens/clicks
• Log enabled – to save the message to the record

This combination is the recommended approach for managing prospect relationships and gives both real-time engagement and historical context.

Make Sure Inboxes Are Correctly Connected and Eligible

For tracking to work consistently:

• The sender’s inbox must be connected to HubSpot (personal email or team email).
• For Office 365, users must be on a supported version and have the HubSpot Sales add-in with the task pane open when sending tracked/logged emails.
• For sequences, the connected inbox is what actually sends the email; if the inbox disconnects or the provider blocks sends, steps will fail or not track properly.

Use Default Log/Track Policies (Admin Level) – Already Configured

As Super Admin, configure:

Objects > Activities > Email Log & Track

• Enable “Allow all users to track emails and see recipients open and click on their emails.”
• Turn on “Apply Default Track setting” if tracking should be on by default.
• Optionally enable “Apply Default Log setting” (log by default).

This avoids MPs accidentally sending untracked emails because their local extension setting is off.

Be Aware of Data Privacy Settings

If data privacy is enabled:

• Opens can only be tracked for contacts with a legal basis set.
• For multi-recipient emails, opens are tracked anonymously.

Missing opens for some contacts with strict privacy / no legal basis is expected in that case.

Don’t Rely on Forwards or Manual Logs for Analytics

HubSpot excludes:

• Emails sent via forwarding addresses
• Emails logged manually or retroactively

These won’t provide reliable open/click data. If someone needs a fresh tracked touch, they should send a new tracked one-to-one email or enroll in a sequence, not just forward an old email.

3. Best Practices – Marketing Emails (Bulk Sends)

Only Send to Contacts With Proper Consent

For the marketing email tool:

• Contacts must have personally provided their email address.
• Contacts must have verifiable opt-in to receive marketing emails.
• Contacts must not have opted out or marked your email as spam elsewhere.

Misaligned consent and mailing unengaged contacts are major causes of spam placement and poor, “inaccurate-looking” metrics.

Authenticate and Configure Your Sending Domain - Already Configured

To protect deliverability and ensure ISPs trust your tracking:

• Connect an email sending domain.
• Configure DKIM, SPF, and DMARC in DNS.
• Use a dedicated email subdomain (e.g., @news.example.com) rather than your main web content subdomain when possible.

Poor or missing authentication often leads to deferrals, bounces, or spam filtering, which marketers perceive as “inconsistent” metrics.

Follow Deliverability Best Practices

HubSpot recommends:

• Keep your lists clean and only email contacts who want to hear from you.
• Turn on graymail suppression and/or exclude unengaged segments.
• Avoid over-emailing; use frequency controls and segmenting.
• Limit URL shorteners and suspicious-looking links, which increase spam reports.

These practices help ensure that your open/click rates reflect real engagement, not filtering.

Connect a Reply-To Inbox If You Want Reply Tracking

To track replies to marketing emails:

• The reply-to address must be a connected team or personal inbox.
• You must set that inbox as the email’s Reply-to.
• Replies from before the connection, or to aliases, won’t be tracked.
• Auto-replies (OOO, etc.) are filtered out of reply metrics.

 

Monitor Overall Health, Not Just Single-Send Numbers

Use:

Marketing > Email > Health tab
(to track open, click-through, unsubscribes, spam reports, and bounces vs. benchmarks)

Delivery tab on the email index
(to monitor ISP-level trends and bounce reasons)

This helps identify when “inaccurate metrics” are actually deliverability issues.

4. Explaining the Issues You’re Seeing

Common causes for “no tracking” or “inaccurate” metrics include:

• They only logged emails, but didn’t have Track enabled.
• Inbox not correctly connected.
• Extension/task pane not active at send time.
• Used aliases or forwarding addresses.
• Data privacy settings blocking opens.
• Recipients’ clients blocking images or using plain-text mode.
• Activity excluded as suspected non-human/bot traffic.

For deeper reference, see:
Understand email sending and tracking in HubSpot

Verification Step

Pick one incident reporting “no tracking” and:

1. Open a recent email on the contact’s timeline.
2. Confirm it shows as Tracked & Logged.
3. Confirm it was sent from a correctly connected inbox.
4. Confirm the contact has legal basis (if privacy enabled).

If any of those are missing, you’ve likely identified the root cause.

For more help, you can initiate a live chat on HubSpot by clicking on Help icon.