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:

Domain active?	High value?	Bounce type	Action
No	Any	Any	Delete
Yes	No	Hard	Delete
Yes	No	Soft	Keep suppressed, recheck next quarter
Yes	Yes	Hard	Attempt to find updated email
Yes	Yes	Soft	Keep suppressed, monitor

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.).