How to Set Up Email Sequence in HubSpot

You use HubSpot as your CRM and want to set up an email sequence. It seems straightforward, but using a marketing automation tool for cold outbound is one of the fastest ways to destroy your primary domain's reputation.

HubSpot is built for inbound marketing, not for sending cold email at scale. The two workflows require fundamentally different infrastructure to avoid landing your entire company's email in the spam folder.

Trying to run a cold outbound motion from a platform not designed for it creates predictable, high-stakes problems. It's not about features; it's about fundamental infrastructure that CRMs lack.

1. Shared Domain Reputation Risk

HubSpot's email tools are designed to send from your primary corporate domain (e.g., yourcompany.com). When you send cold email from this domain and get marked as spam, it damages the reputation for everyone at your company. Your CEO's emails to investors, your support team's emails to customers, and your transactional receipts all become more likely to land in spam.

2. No Inbox Warmup or Rotation

Deliverability depends on building a good reputation for each sending inbox. This requires a “warmup” process of automated, human-like email exchanges. HubSpot has no concept of this. It also sends from a single inbox, making it impossible to rotate sending across multiple accounts to keep volumes low and avoid tripping spam filters.

3. Missing Deliverability Guardrails

Serious outbound platforms are built around deliverability. They provide automated monitoring, sending limits per inbox, and support for message variations with Spintax and Liquid syntax. HubSpot's sequencer is a simple blaster; it doesn't have the underlying infrastructure to manage sending reputation or help you avoid patterns that get you flagged.

A scalable, safe outbound system separates the contact database (your CRM) from the sending infrastructure (your execution layer). This model protects your core business assets while allowing you to scale outreach predictably.

Here’s the ideal state:

1. Isolated Sending Domains: Cold outreach is sent from secondary domains (like getcompany.com or trycompany.co), never your main corporate domain. Your primary asset is completely insulated from risk.
2. A Fleet of Warmed-Up Inboxes: Instead of one sending inbox, you have a pool of inboxes across your secondary domains. All are continuously warmed up and monitored for health.
3. Automated Rotation and Load Balancing: A sequence sends emails distributed across your entire pool of inboxes, keeping the daily volume for any single inbox well within safe limits (e.g., <50 new leads per day).
4. Multi-Channel Orchestration: The system doesn't just send emails. It coordinates touches across email and LinkedIn, automatically sending a connection request or viewing a profile as part of the sequence.

Setting this up isn't about finding a magic button in HubSpot. It's about building the right foundation first. Think of it as building the railroad tracks before you try to run the train.

Step 1: Procure and Isolate Your Domains. Buy a few variations of your primary domain specifically for outreach. Configure the SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records correctly for each one. This is non-negotiable.

Step 2: Provision Your Sending Inboxes. Create 2-3 inboxes on each new domain. This gives you a starting pool of inboxes to rotate through. For example, sales@getcompany.com, outreach@getcompany.com, etc.

Step 3: Warm Up Every Inbox. Before sending a single cold email, every inbox must go through an automated warmup process for at least 2-3 weeks. This builds sending reputation with providers like Google and Microsoft.

Step 4: Connect Infrastructure to an Execution Layer. Your domains and inboxes are your assets. You need a platform designed to manage them. This layer handles inbox rotation, warmup, sequence execution, and deliverability monitoring.

Step 5: Use HubSpot as the 'System of Record'. Keep HubSpot as your CRM. It's where you store lead lists, track deal stages, and manage customer relationships. Export the contacts you want to engage into your execution platform for the actual outreach campaign.

You can't manage this process manually with spreadsheets and a CRM. The job requires a purpose-built platform that handles the core functions of outbound infrastructure:

1. Centralized Infrastructure Management: A single place to connect and monitor all your sending domains and inboxes.
2. Automated Health and Safety: Manages warmup, enforces safe sending limits per inbox, and automatically rotates sending to protect reputation.
3. Multi-Channel Sequence Orchestration: Executes complex sequences across email, LinkedIn, and other channels without manual intervention.
4. Unified Inbox: Aggregates replies from all your sending inboxes into a single view for efficient handling.

SuperSend is designed as this execution and infrastructure layer for outbound teams sending at volume. It connects to your inboxes and LinkedIn accounts to run sequences safely, leaving your CRM to do what it does best: manage relationships. The next step isn't to just start sending, but to understand the core strategies behind building and managing this infrastructure for the long term.