Complete theory — from problem identification to final implementation · A to Z
Your company recently sponsored a B2B event and collected attendee data. The marketing team wants to send automated follow-up emails to these attendees and track engagement within HubSpot. How would you set this up?
After a B2B event, you have a spreadsheet of attendees — names, emails, companies, job titles, engagement levels, and sessions attended. The challenge is converting this raw data into a working automated email system. Without proper setup, the team faces these problems:
Without automation, someone must manually email each attendee. With hundreds of contacts, this is impossible to do consistently and at scale.
A generic "Dear Attendee" email performs poorly. The data has rich information — engagement level, sessions attended, industry — but without a system, it cannot be used for personalization.
High-engagement attendees (like John Doe — VP of Sales) need a different, more direct follow-up than low-engagement attendees (like Lisa Taylor). Without segmentation, everyone gets the same email.
After sending emails manually, there is no way to know who opened the email, who clicked, and who ignored it. Follow-up decisions are made blindly.
The CSV has a "Follow-Up Status" column (Pending, Sent, No Follow-Up) but managing this manually across hundreds of rows leads to errors and missed opportunities.
The collected CSV file has the following structure — each column serves a specific purpose in HubSpot:
| Column | Example | Purpose in HubSpot |
|---|---|---|
| First Name | John | Contact property — used for email personalization |
| Last Name | Doe | Contact property |
| john.doe@acme.com | Unique identifier — required for sending emails | |
| Job Title | VP of Sales | Contact property — used for segmentation |
| Company Name | Acme Corp | Contact property — personalization |
| Industry | SaaS | Custom property — segmentation filter |
| Company Size | 500-1000 | Custom property — segmentation filter |
| Engagement Level | High / Medium / Low | Custom property — determines which email to send |
| Event Session Attended | Keynote, Sales Panel | Custom property — personalization in email body |
| Follow-Up Status | Pending / Sent / No Follow-Up | Custom property — tracks outreach progress |
The 5 attendees from the sample dataset:
HubSpot handles this end-to-end using three core features working together:
The flow is simple:
Import CSV → Create Contacts → Build Segments (Lists) → Create Email Templates → Set up Workflow (Automation) → Track Engagement
The CSV file is imported into HubSpot Contacts. Before importing, custom properties must be created for columns that HubSpot does not have by default.
These columns need custom properties created first in Settings → Properties → Contact Properties:
| Column | Property Type | Values |
|---|---|---|
| Industry | Dropdown | SaaS, Tech, Finance, Manufacturing, etc. |
| Company Size | Dropdown | 100-200, 200-500, 500-1000, 1000+ |
| Engagement Level | Dropdown | High, Medium, Low |
| Event Session Attended | Single-line text | Free text |
| Follow-Up Status | Dropdown | Pending Follow-Up, Follow-Up Sent, No Follow-Up |
After creating properties, import the CSV:
CRM → Contacts → Actions → Import → Contacts only → Upload CSV → Map all columns to correct Contact properties → Import
Not all attendees should receive the same email. HubSpot Lists allow you to group contacts by properties so each segment gets a targeted message.
Create 3 Active Lists in HubSpot → CRM → Lists → Create List:
| List Name | Filter Condition | Who Is In It |
|---|---|---|
| Event — High Engagement | Engagement Level = High | John Doe, Mike Brown |
| Event — Medium Engagement | Engagement Level = Medium | Sarah Smith, David Johnson |
| Event — Low Engagement | Engagement Level = Low | Lisa Taylor |
Why segment? High-engagement attendees are warm leads — they need a direct, sales-oriented follow-up. Medium-engagement contacts need nurturing. Low-engagement contacts may not need a follow-up at all (matching "No Follow-Up" status in the CSV).
HubSpot's email editor supports personalization tokens — dynamic fields that pull data from contact properties. This means every email feels personal even though it is automated.
Create separate email templates for each segment:
The [First Name], [Company Name], and [Event Session Attended] fields are pulled automatically from contact properties — making every email personalized.
HubSpot Workflows (Automation) send emails automatically when a contact meets a specific condition — no manual sending required.
Select "Contact-based" workflow.
Trigger: Contact is a member of "Event — High Engagement" list. This means when a contact is added to this list, the workflow starts automatically.
Action: Send Email → Select "Email 1 — High Engagement Template." HubSpot sends this email automatically to all contacts in the list.
Create a second workflow for "Event — Medium Engagement" list → Send "Email 2 — Medium Engagement Template."
Add a workflow action: Update Contact Property → Follow-Up Status = "Follow-Up Sent" after email is sent.
After emails are sent, HubSpot automatically tracks engagement. Go to Marketing → Emails → Select the sent email → Performance tab.
| Metric | What It Means | Good Benchmark |
|---|---|---|
| Open Rate | % of recipients who opened the email | 20–30% for B2B |
| Click Rate | % who clicked a link inside the email | 2–5% is average |
| Reply Rate | % who replied directly to the email | 1–3% is good |
| Delivered | How many emails actually reached inbox | Should be 95%+ |
| Bounce Rate | Emails that failed to deliver | Should be below 2% |
From the screenshot in the task, the sent email shows: Sent to 2, Delivered to 1 — this indicates that some email addresses may be invalid or unverified, which is a common issue with event-collected data.
Individual contact tracking: HubSpot also tracks at the contact level. Open any contact profile → Activities tab → See exactly when they opened the email, which links they clicked, and what time they engaged.
1. Manual email sending eliminated — Workflows automate everything.
2. Personalization added — First Name, Company, Session tokens in every email.
3. Segmentation done — High/Medium/Low lists ensure right message to right person.
4. Engagement tracked — Open rate, click rate, reply rate visible in HubSpot dashboard.
5. Follow-Up Status updated automatically — no manual spreadsheet management needed.
To set up automated follow-up emails for B2B event attendees in HubSpot, import the attendee CSV as Contacts with custom properties (Engagement Level, Industry, Follow-Up Status), segment them into Active Lists by engagement level, create personalized email templates using contact tokens, and set up Workflows to automatically send the right email to each segment — then track open rate, click rate, and reply rate through HubSpot's email performance dashboard to measure engagement and trigger further follow-up actions.