Skip to content
  • There are no suggestions because the search field is empty.

Creating block lists from HubSpot lists

Don't contact open deals, customers, competitors, and more using HubSpot lists as your source.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Creating your list in HubSpot
Pulling your block list into OutboundSync
     Step 1. Go to Block Lists in OutboundSync and select a list type
     Step 2. Select your list
     Step 3. Sales Engagement Platform API key
     Step 4. Select the type of blocking
     Step 5. Select clients (OPTIONAL)
     Step 6. Start blocking
Troubleshooting 

Introduction

With OutboundSync, you can designate any HubSpot list as a blocklist. Blocklists or exclusion lists help ensure that cold emails are not sent to existing customers, competitors, open deals, or contacts on Do Not Contact lists.

This article is for creating a block list in HubSpot. Go here if you're using Salesforce.

To create blocklists, you need to have a Sales Engagement Platform API key connected to OutboundSync. If you haven't done this yet, click here to set it up.

Creating your list in HubSpot

This method allows OutboundSync to identify emails associated with each contact in your selected list and exclude it from future outbound email.  This also works both at the individual contact level or at the company domain level. 

If contacts have multiple emails in HubSpot, OutboundSync will block all associated emails in their contact record by default.

If you don’t have a blocklist built yet, let's create one now. Otherwise, skip ahead.

Need inspiration? Popular examples include lists for newsletter subscribers, open deals, and active clients.

Build a new list in HubSpot by going to Contacts > Lists.

CleanShot 2023-12-20 at 13-15-02-png-2

Once there, click the Create List button to start creating a list.

CleanShot 2023-12-20 at 13-28-33-png

For this you can either create a list that is Contact-based or Company Based. 

After creating a list with the desired criteria to add contacts or companies to an exclusion list, you can use it in OutboundSync for blocking.

CleanShot 2023-12-20 at 13-29-45-png

Pulling your block list into OutboundSync

Now that you have created your list in your CRM, we need to pull that list into OutboundSync to start dynamically updating it in your Sales Engagement Platform. For this, we'll need to return to OutboundSync.

Remember that the user performing these actions needs to have sufficient permissions. If the user cannot access this data in the CRM, their credential cannot be used by OutboundSync to perform this action.

Step 1. Go to Block Lists in OutboundSync and select a list type

Now, go to the OutboundSync app and go to the Block lists tab on the left.

 

Step 2. Select your list

Search for the block list that you created. It can be either a contact list or company list in HubSpot.

Step 3. Sales Engagement Platform API key

Optional: If you are an agency and managing multiple clients under one Smartlead account, select the Client (5) this blocklist will apply to.

Step 4. Select the type of blocking

OutboundSync supports two types of blocking. You can block by address or by domain with the Type of Blocking.

Address (Individual Email Address)

Blocks each email associated with a contact in Hubspot individually and adds it to the blocklist in Smartlead.

Example: Blocking john@example.com doesn’t block all emails ending in @example; only John's email is blocked.

Domain (Every Email Address)

Blocks all emails associated with a contact’s domain and adds the domain to the blocklist in Smartlead.

If a contact had multiple email addresses, every domain would be blocked.

Exception: Leading email providers (e.g., Gmail, Outlook) won’t be blocked as they are common. View unblockable domains list here.

If you want to block these domains manually in Smartlead, download this CSV and import it into Smartlead directly. This would block you from emailing personal email addresses.

Step 5. Select clients (OPTIONAL)

If you are using a Sales Engagement Platform that has specific client IDs, this is the step where you will select that Client ID to match the blocklist to that client. Others use dedicated workspaces where this will not be relevant.

Step 6. Start blocking

Next, click Start Blocking (6). You will see your blocklist appear in the table.

This takes time to execute. The larger your list, the more time it can take. Refresh your browser or come back later to see OutboundSync's progress updating your blocklist. 

Troubleshooting

Once you've created a block list, use this article to understand how it's working and make changes ➔