You've built a beautiful, intricate workflow in HubSpot. The triggers are set, the actions are in place, and you're ready to watch the magic happen. But then... nothing. Your contacts aren't enrolling, or the actions aren't firing. It's one of the most frustrating things a marketer can experience.
The good news? The solution is often simpler than you think. Here are five of the most common reasons your HubSpot workflows aren't working and how to get them back on track.
This is the most frequent culprit. Every workflow is built on a specific object—a contact, a company, or a deal. If you're trying to trigger a contact-based workflow using a deal property, it simply won't work.
The Fix: Double-check your workflow's enrollment triggers. Make sure you're using a property from the correct object type. For example, if your goal is to send a follow-up email when a deal is closed, make sure you're building a deal-based workflow, not a contact-based one.
You've set up an action, but it's not happening when you expect. This is often a timing issue or an incorrect setting.
The Fix: Review your action steps carefully. Is there an unintended delay? Maybe you added a 1-hour delay when you meant a 1-minute delay. Also, ensure your action is configured correctly. For example, if you're trying to update a property value, are you updating the correct property with the right value?
A contact can only be in a workflow once, unless you tell HubSpot otherwise. This is a crucial setting that can prevent a contact from entering a workflow a second time, even if they meet the enrollment criteria again.
The Fix: If your workflow is a nurturing sequence that you want to be repeatable, go into the workflow's settings and turn on re-enrollment. This will allow contacts to enter the workflow multiple times if they meet the trigger criteria again.
Sometimes a workflow is designed to enroll contacts who are part of a specific list. But what if a contact leaves that list after they enroll? Your workflow could still fire, but it could be based on outdated criteria.
The Fix: Be mindful of how your lists and workflows interact. If your workflow is based on a specific list, consider using an "if/then" branch to check if the contact is still on that list before performing a critical action.
This one is a big blind spot. If a contact has previously unsubscribed from your emails or is on a global suppression list, most marketing-related workflows will not be able to send them emails.
The Fix: There's no workaround here. This is HubSpot's (and good email marketing's) way of respecting user preferences. The best you can do is check your workflow's "History" tab to see if contacts were skipped due to unsubscribes.
If your workflows are still causing headaches, it might be a bigger issue than a simple setting. Our team can audit your HubSpot portal to identify and fix these issues permanently. Schedule a free HubSpot audit today!