Review Bounced Contacts

A weekly manual review process for contacts flagged with 3+ bounces. The bounce monitoring workflow auto-suppresses these contacts, but a human should decide whether to permanently delete or attempt recovery.

Prerequisites

• Bounce monitoring workflow active (run /bounce-monitoring-workflow first)
• email_health_flag custom property exists on contacts
• HubSpot API token in .env (for scripted pre-filtering)

Step-by-Step Instructions

Stage 1: Before — Pull the Review List

Use the HubSpot API to search for contacts where email_health_flag is set:

from hubspot import HubSpot
from hubspot.crm.contacts import PublicObjectSearchRequest

api_client = HubSpot(access_token=os.getenv("HUBSPOT_API_TOKEN"))

search = PublicObjectSearchRequest(
    filter_groups=[{
        "filters": [{
            "propertyName": "email_health_flag",
            "operator": "EQ",
            "value": "true"
        }]
    }],
    properties=["email", "firstname", "lastname", "company",
                "hs_email_bounce", "hs_email_hard_bounce_reason_enum",
                "lifecyclestage", "hubspot_owner_id"]
)

results = api_client.crm.contacts.search_api.do_search(search)

Export results to a CSV for review.

Stage 2: Execute — Review Each Contact

For each flagged contact, check:

1. Is the email domain active? Run a quick MX record lookup or visit the domain.
2. Is this a known customer or high-value contact? Check lifecycle stage and deal history.
3. What is the bounce reason? Hard bounce (invalid mailbox) vs. soft bounce (mailbox full, temporary error).

Decision matrix:

Stage 3: After — Execute Decisions

1. Delete contacts marked for deletion via the HubSpot UI or API batch delete.
2. Clear the email_health_flag on all reviewed contacts.
3. Log the review results (deleted count, kept count, recovery attempts) for the quarterly report.

Stage 4: Rollback

• Deleted contacts can be restored from HubSpot's recycling bin within 90 days.
• Contacts kept as suppressed can be restored to marketing status via a workflow or manual update in the UI.

Frequency

Run weekly, ideally Monday morning. Should take 5-15 minutes depending on volume. If volume exceeds 50 contacts per week, investigate the root cause (bad list source, form spam, etc.).