Trying to figure out how to get more eyes on your emails in HubSpot? It’s a common challenge, but I’ve got you covered with a comprehensive guide. Understanding email opens in HubSpot isn’t just about a single number. it’s about seeing the whole picture of how your audience connects with your content. From the nitty-gritty of how HubSpot tracks those opens to smart strategies for bumping up your open rates, we’re going to walk through it all. We’ll even talk about what a “good” open rate looks like for your business, how to set up handy notifications, and the best ways to build a list of people who genuinely want to hear from you. By the end of this, you’ll not only know how to read your HubSpot email reports but also how to turn those insights into real engagement and better results. Because let’s be honest, getting an email opened is just the first step. getting someone to actually read and act on it? That’s the real win.

Table of Contents

What Are HubSpot Email Opens and Why Do They Matter?

When we talk about an “email open” in HubSpot, we’re basically referring to that moment a recipient views your email. It sounds simple, right? But it’s actually one of the most fundamental metrics that tells you if your email marketing is hitting the mark. An email open is counted when the images within your email load, or when someone clicks a link inside, even if the images didn’t load for some reason.

So, why bother tracking this? Well, if folks aren’t opening your emails, they definitely aren’t clicking your links, reading your valuable content, or taking that all-important next step you want them to. Open rates are like the gatekeepers to all other engagement metrics, such as your click-through rates CTR and conversions. A healthy open rate suggests your audience is interested in what you have to say, your subject lines are doing their job, and your emails are actually landing in the inbox, not the dreaded spam folder. It’s the first big indicator of your subscriber list’s overall health and engagement.

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How Does HubSpot Actually Track Email Opens?

Ever wondered how HubSpot knows when someone opens your email? It’s pretty clever, and most of the time, it’s completely invisible to the recipient. HubSpot mainly tracks email opens using a tiny, invisible one-pixel image embedded in the email after you hit send.

Here’s the breakdown: Is hubspot a erp system

The Tracking Pixel: When the recipient opens the email, their email client usually tries to download all the images within it. As soon as that tiny, invisible one-pixel image loads from HubSpot’s servers, an “open” is registered. That’s how HubSpot gets its data.
When the Pixel Might Not Load: It’s not foolproof, though. Sometimes, the tracking pixel might not load. This can happen if the recipient’s email client is configured to block images by default, if they view the email in plain text format, or if a corporate filter strips out images. In these cases, HubSpot can’t directly track the open via the pixel.
HubSpot’s Inference: But HubSpot is smart! If a recipient opens an email and then clicks a link inside it or replies to the email, HubSpot can infer that the email was opened and will retroactively report it as an open event. So, even if the pixel is blocked, you might still get credit if there’s other engagement.
Excluding Suspected Non-Human Interactions Bot Filtering: One cool thing HubSpot does, especially with bot filtering turned on, is try to weed out “unreliable opens.” These are suspected opens from non-human sources, like bots, or from recipients with mail privacy protection like Apple Mail Privacy Protection. Since August 2024, HubSpot has been moving towards simplified metrics, focusing on an “Excluding bots rate” to give you a clearer picture of real human engagement. This helps you understand how actual people are interacting with your content, giving you more accurate data to work with.
Tracking vs. Logging: It’s also good to know the difference between tracking and logging. Tracking is all about monitoring interactions like opens and clicks. Logging, on the other hand, simply saves a copy of the email and its attachments to the contact’s record in your CRM. You can choose to do both for one-to-one emails, giving you real-time engagement notifications and a historical record.

HubSpot’s email tracking works for marketing emails by default, and you can also track one-to-one sales emails sent from your connected inbox Gmail, Outlook, Office 365 using the HubSpot Sales extension or add-in. If you have a Sales Hub seat, you can also track link clicks within those one-to-one emails.

Decoding Your HubSpot Email Open Rates

Looking at your email open rates is like checking the pulse of your email marketing efforts. It tells you who’s interested enough to even glance at what you’ve sent.

What’s a “Good” Open Rate in HubSpot?

This is a question I get asked a lot, and honestly, there’s no single magic number that fits everyone. What’s considered “good” really depends on your industry, your audience, and the type of email you’re sending.

However, if you’re looking for some current benchmarks, here’s what the data suggests for 2025: Master Email Marketing with HubSpot Academy’s Free Certification (Your Ultimate Guide)

Average Across Industries: Recent reports from April 2025 show the average email open rate across industries is around 42.35%. Some sources show a slightly lower average, around 32.55% as of 2024.
Industry Variations: These averages can swing a lot! For example, some industries like Health 61.23% and Agencies 57.2% might see much higher open rates, while Retail might be closer to 38.58%.
Email Type: Even within your own business, different types of emails will have different open rates. One-to-one emails from your sales team, for instance, typically have much higher open rates than automated blog notifications or mass newsletters. Triggered emails like abandoned cart reminders also tend to outperform standard campaigns, with an average open rate of 50.50%.

Instead of obsessing over a global average, your goal should be to identify your own average open rate and then work to improve it over time. Are your opens consistently growing? Are the right people opening your emails? That’s what truly moves the needle. I often use HubSpot’s email health tool and A/B testing to get real clarity on what’s working for my campaigns.

Where to Find and Analyze Open Rate Data

HubSpot gives you a few powerful ways to dig into your email open data:

Performance Tab for Individual Emails: After you’ve sent an email, head over to Marketing > Email in your HubSpot account. Click on the name of a specific email, and you’ll find a Performance tab. This is where you get a quick summary of how recipients engaged with that particular email, including its open rate.
Email Dashboard for Overall Performance: To get a broader view of all your email marketing campaigns, navigate to your email dashboard and click the Analyze tab. This gives you an aggregate look at recipient engagement and delivery data over a given time period.
Custom Report Builder for Deeper Analysis: For those who really want to get into the details, the Custom Report Builder available in Professional and Enterprise accounts is a must. You can access email performance metrics like open rate and click-through rate alongside other CRM data. This means you can build custom reports to track trends, compare different campaigns, and see how email performance impacts other areas of your business. You can look at open rates by budget, by the hour of the day, or even by subscription type.
Setting Up Bot Filtering for Accurate Data: As I mentioned earlier, bot activity can skew your open rates. To get more accurate insights into human engagement, make sure bot filtering is activated in your HubSpot settings. Go to Settings > Tracking & Analytics > Tracking Code > Advanced Tracking, and toggle on Bot Filtering. With this enabled, HubSpot will filter out suspected bot activities, giving you a clearer picture of real opens.

By regularly tracking and analyzing these metrics, you can make informed decisions to enhance your email marketing strategies.

Supercharge Your Open Rates: Proven Strategies That Work

You know what email opens are and how HubSpot tracks them. Now, let’s talk about how to actually get more people to open your emails. It’s not just luck. it’s a mix of smart choices and understanding your audience. Mastering Email Marketing: Your Ultimate Guide to the HubSpot Certification Exam

Crafting Irresistible Subject Lines and Preheader Text

This is probably the most critical piece of the puzzle. People often decide whether to open an email based on the subject line alone 47% of recipients, according to some data.

Personalization is Key: Don’t just send generic emails. Using personalization tokens like the recipient’s first name, company name, or industry in the subject line can significantly boost open rates, sometimes by 10-14% or even 26% higher. It makes the email feel like it’s just for them.
Keep it Short and Sweet: Subject lines get cut off on many devices, especially mobile. Aim for under 50-70 characters to ensure your entire message is visible. Short, concise subject lines tend to get higher open rates.
Pique Curiosity, Ask Questions, Use Humor: A good subject line should provoke enough curiosity to make someone click. You can ask a question, hint at the content without giving everything away, or even add a touch of humor. Examples like “Are you free this Thursday?” or “Bob, have you seen this?” can really draw someone in.
Emojis Use Sparingly!: Adding a relevant emoji to your subject line can sometimes increase opens by as much as 56%. Just make sure it fits your brand’s tone and isn’t overused, or it might look unprofessional.
Avoid Spam Triggers: Steer clear of words that scream “spam” like “Free,” “Save,” “Quote,” “Only $,” or overly dramatic all-caps messages. HubSpot has resources listing words you should avoid.
Don’t Forget the Preheader Text: That little snippet of text that appears right after the subject line? That’s your preheader text, and it’s precious real estate! Use it to complement your subject line, offer a little more context, or provide another hook. It’s your second chance to convince someone to open.
A/B Test Everything: The best way to know what works for your audience is to test it. HubSpot allows you to A/B test different subject lines to see which ones perform better. Try variations in length, personalization, questions, and emojis.

Optimizing Your Sender Name and Reputation

People are more likely to open emails from senders they recognize and trust.

Send from a Real Person: Instead of sending from a generic “Marketing Team” or “[email protected],” try sending from a real person, like “Sarah from ” or even “Your Sales Rep, Omar.” Seeing a familiar name in their inbox can significantly increase open rates.
Build Brand Recognition: Consistency is key. Use a sender name that reinforces your brand while still feeling personal.
Maintain Good Sender Reputation: High engagement opens, clicks and low bounce/spam complaint rates contribute to a good sender score, which means your emails are more likely to reach the inbox. Regularly cleaning your email list helps with this.

Smarter Segmentation and Personalization

Sending the same email to everyone on your list is like shouting into a crowd and hoping someone listens. It’s far more effective to talk directly to smaller groups.

Why Segment? People want to see emails that are relevant to them. By segmenting your audience into smaller groups based on their interests, behaviors, demographics, or where they are in their customer journey, you can tailor your messages to be far more relevant.
Using HubSpot’s Segmentation Tools: HubSpot makes it easy to create segmented lists based on various contact properties and activities. Use these segments to send highly targeted campaigns.
Tailored Content: When your email content directly addresses the needs and interests of a specific segment, it’s naturally more likely to be opened. For example, if you have a segment interested in a specific product, send them updates related to that product, not your general company newsletter.

Timing is Everything: When to Send

While there’s no universal “best time” to send emails it really depends on your audience, playing with send times can impact open rates.

Analyze Your Own Data: The “perfect time” is the time that works for your audience. Look at your past HubSpot reports to see when your emails get the most opens.
A/B Test Different Send Times: Experiment! Send the same email to different segments of your list at different times of the day or on different days of the week.
Consider Seasonal Factors: Open rates can fluctuate around holidays or during certain seasons when people might be away or less engaged with emails. For example, engagement often drops significantly on December 24th and 25th.

Keeping Your Email List Squeaky Clean

A clean email list is the foundation of good email marketing. HubSpot Extension for New Outlook: Your Ultimate Guide to Seamless Sales

Regular Cleanups: Regularly remove inactive, unengaged, unsubscribed, or hard-bounced contacts from your list. HubSpot’s data-driven system can help automate some of this, but periodic manual review is a good idea.
Impact on Deliverability: Sending emails to a lot of inactive or invalid addresses hurts your sender reputation and can lead to lower deliverability rates, meaning your emails are less likely to even reach the inbox.
Remove Disengaged Contacts Graymail: Contacts who consistently don’t open your emails what some call “graymail” can also negatively impact your sender score. Over time, it might be best to remove these contacts or try re-engagement campaigns.

HubSpot Email Open Notifications: Staying in the Loop

One of the really handy features in HubSpot is the ability to get notifications when someone opens your emails. This can be especially useful for sales teams or anyone sending one-to-one emails where timing is crucial.

Real-time Notifications for Sales Emails: If you’re sending a one-to-one email using the HubSpot Sales Chrome extension, Office 365 add-in, or Outlook desktop add-in, you can get real-time desktop notifications when a contact opens your tracked email. This means you can follow up when your message is fresh in their mind. HubSpot records these opens in your activity feed and on the contact’s timeline.
Configuring Your Notifications: You have control over what notifications you receive and how you receive them.
1. In your HubSpot account, click the settings icon gear icon in the top navigation bar.
2. In the left sidebar menu, navigate to Notifications.
3. You’ll see tabs for Email, Desktop, Other apps, and Mobile app. Click through these tabs to customize your preferences.
4. You can turn on email notifications for various activities, including when contacts open emails, visit your website, or submit forms. For desktop notifications, you can choose between bell, pop-up, or browser notifications and even set different sounds!
Understanding “Someone” Notifications: Sometimes you might get a “Someone” notification instead of a specific contact’s name. This usually happens if you send a tracked email to multiple email addresses including CC/BCC, as HubSpot might not be able to pinpoint exactly which recipient opened it. Also, if you have data privacy settings turned on and a contact doesn’t have a lawful basis for data processing, HubSpot Sales will track the email but the notifications will appear anonymous.

Setting up these notifications can help you respond quickly to engaged prospects and prioritize your follow-ups more effectively.

HubSpot Email Opt-In: Building a Healthy Subscriber Base

Building a good email list isn’t just about collecting as many emails as possible. it’s about collecting emails from people who genuinely want to receive your content. This is where opt-in consent comes in, and HubSpot takes it seriously. You absolutely have to follow HubSpot’s Acceptable Use Policy, which requires verifiable permission from recipients before sending them marketing emails. HubSpot Newsletter Templates: Your Ultimate Guide to Engaging Your Audience

The Importance of Verifiable Consent: Simply put, you need proof that someone agreed to receive your emails. Verbal consent, for example, isn’t verifiable and doesn’t meet HubSpot’s requirements for sending marketing emails.
Implied vs. Explicit Consent:
- Implied Consent: This is when someone gives you their email for a business purpose but hasn’t explicitly said they want marketing emails. For instance, if they downloaded a resource from your site. While it gives you some leeway for one-to-one communications, it’s not ideal for mass marketing emails.
- Explicit Consent: This is the gold standard. It means you’ve specifically asked for permission to send marketing emails, and they’ve clearly agreed – perhaps by checking a box on a form, signing up for a newsletter, or confirming via a double opt-in process. Explicit consent contributes to a much healthier email sending reputation.
Setting Up Double Opt-In for Stronger Engagement: A double opt-in process is highly recommended for building a super engaged list. Here’s how it works: after someone submits a form, they receive a follow-up email with a link they must click to confirm their subscription. This extra step ensures they genuinely want your emails and helps filter out invalid addresses or unengaged users.
- How to Set it Up in HubSpot:
  1. Go to Settings > Marketing > Email > Subscriptions.
  2. Before enabling, click Edit opt-in email to customize the confirmation email. Make sure it’s clear and has a prominent “Confirm” button.
  3. Once customized, toggle on the Enable double opt-in switch.
  4. You can also choose which pages the double opt-in applies to and select a confirmation page where contacts will land after confirming their subscription.
Customizing Subscription Types: HubSpot also lets you create and customize different subscription types. Instead of just one generic “marketing” option, you can offer choices like “Monthly Newsletter,” “Product Updates,” “Event Invitations,” or “Critical Customer Alerts.” This empowers your contacts to opt-in only to the content they truly want, which in turn reduces unsubscribe rates and improves overall engagement. It’s all about giving your audience control and building trust.

Real-World HubSpot Email Examples for Higher Opens

Looking at what works for others can give you some great ideas for your own HubSpot email campaigns. While I can’t show live examples here, I can tell you about the elements that consistently lead to higher open rates.

Subject Lines That Intrigue:
- “Quick question about ” Personalized, curiosity-driven
- “Your in – Here’s How We Can Help” Value-focused, relevant
- “Did you forget something?” For abandoned cart emails, high open rates often around 50.50%
- “A special offer just for !” Personalized, exclusive
- “We think you’re going to love this” Creates anticipation
Concise and Clear Content: High-performing emails, especially sales emails, are often between 50 and 125 words. Brevity and clarity are essential. you want to get your point across quickly.
Leveraging HubSpot Templates: HubSpot provides a ton of free sales email templates with historically high open rates some even hitting 60% or higher!. These templates are designed with best practices in mind, incorporating personalization, clear calls-to-action, and concise messaging. They often explain why certain tactics work, helping you refine your own approach. You can find templates for introduction emails, follow-ups, re-engagement, and more.
Strong Preheader Text: A good preheader reinforces the subject line without repeating it. For example:
- Subject: “Your weekly dose of marketing tips”
- Preheader: “Don’t miss our latest strategies for boosting your online presence.”

Remember, the goal is always to provide value and build a relationship. When your audience trusts you and expects good content, they’re far more likely to open your emails.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the average email open rate for HubSpot emails in 2025?

As of 2025, the average email open rate across industries reported by HubSpot is around 42.35%. However, this number can vary significantly depending on your specific industry, the type of email you send e.g., marketing versus one-to-one sales emails, and your audience’s engagement levels. It’s always best to compare your performance against your own historical data and relevant industry benchmarks.

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How accurate is HubSpot’s email open tracking?

HubSpot tracks email opens by embedding an invisible one-pixel image into the email. When the recipient opens the email and images load, an open is recorded. While this method is generally reliable, its accuracy can be affected if recipients have image blocking enabled in their email client, view emails in plain text, or if corporate filters strip images. HubSpot also uses bot filtering to exclude suspected non-human interactions, which improves the accuracy of reported open rates for real human engagement. Additionally, if an email isn’t directly tracked by the pixel but the recipient clicks a link or replies, HubSpot can infer an open.

Can I get real-time notifications when someone opens my HubSpot email?

Yes, absolutely! If you send a one-to-one sales email using the HubSpot Sales Chrome extension, Office 365 add-in, or Outlook desktop add-in, you can receive real-time desktop notifications when the recipient opens the tracked email. This feature is very useful for sales teams to follow up promptly. You can configure these notifications within your HubSpot settings under the “Notifications” section, choosing between email, desktop pop-ups, browser alerts, and mobile app notifications.

What’s the difference between “Email Tracking” and “Email Logging” in HubSpot?

“Email Tracking” in HubSpot refers to monitoring recipient interactions with your emails, such as when they open an email or click on a link within it. This data helps you gauge engagement. “Email Logging,” on the other hand, is about saving a copy of the email and its attachments to the contact’s record in your HubSpot CRM. This creates a historical record of your communications. While logging doesn’t provide open or click data, you can choose to both track and log one-to-one emails to get both engagement insights and a communication history.

How can I improve my HubSpot email open rates?

There are several effective strategies to boost your open rates: The Real Talk on HubSpot Academy Digital Marketing

Craft compelling subject lines and preheader text using personalization, curiosity, clear language, and A/B testing.
Use a recognizable and trusted sender name, ideally from a real person.
Segment your audience to send highly relevant content to specific groups.
Optimize your send times by analyzing your audience’s peak activity and A/B testing.
Regularly clean your email list by removing disengaged, unsubscribed, or bounced contacts to maintain good deliverability.
Ensure your emails are mobile-friendly, as many people check emails on their phones.

Does HubSpot support double opt-in for emails?

Yes, HubSpot fully supports double opt-in. This is a process where, after a contact submits a form to subscribe, they receive a confirmation email with a link they must click to verify their subscription. Setting up double opt-in is a best practice for building a healthy, engaged email list and ensuring verifiable consent, which aligns with HubSpot’s Acceptable Use Policy and data privacy regulations. You can configure and customize the double opt-in email and associated landing pages in your HubSpot settings under Marketing > Email > Subscriptions.

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Mastering HubSpot Email Opens: Your Ultimate Guide to Boosting Engagement