---
name: review-bounced-contacts
description: "Weekly manual review of contacts with 3+ bounce events. Decide whether to delete or attempt recovery for each flagged contact. Prevents over-suppression while removing truly bad data."
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: tomgranot
  version: "1.1"
  category: ongoing-maintenance
---

# 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
- A HubSpot service key (`HUBSPOT_ACCESS_TOKEN` in `.env`; an existing legacy private app token also works) for scripted pre-filtering

## Step-by-Step Instructions

### Stage 1: Before

Use the CRM Search API to pull contacts where `email_health_flag` is set:

```python
import os, requests
from dotenv import load_dotenv

load_dotenv()
TOKEN = os.environ["HUBSPOT_ACCESS_TOKEN"]
BASE = "https://api.hubapi.com"
HEADERS = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {TOKEN}", "Content-Type": "application/json"}

resp = requests.post(f"{BASE}/crm/v3/objects/contacts/search", headers=HEADERS, json={
    "filterGroups": [{"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"],
    "limit": 100,
})
resp.raise_for_status()
results = resp.json()["results"]
```

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 — Apply Decisions and Log

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.

## 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.

## MCP Note

This weekly triage is exactly the interactive, judgment-heavy work HubSpot's MCP server is good at (see `/connect-hubspot-mcp`): ask Claude to pull each flagged contact's details, deal history, and bounce reason conversationally while you decide delete-vs-recover.

## 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.).


---
Source attribution: TomGranot
Original project: https://github.com/TomGranot/HubSpot-admin-skills/blob/15db04633834a089d7314410fe8928228e561703/skills/review-bounced-contacts/SKILL.md
License: MIT
License information: https://opensource.org/license/mit
Original upstream instructions; downloaded from Mega AI Hub.

## Upstream license notice

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2026 Tom Granot

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.



# Mega AI Hub resource metadata

Creator / publisher: TomGranot
Original project: https://github.com/TomGranot/HubSpot-admin-skills/blob/15db04633834a089d7314410fe8928228e561703/skills/review-bounced-contacts/SKILL.md
Attribution basis: Source repository record

Fields of work: Marketing, Sales
Roles: Customer Success Manager, Email Marketer, Marketing Analyst
Specialties: Specialty not specified
Tools: HubSpot
Country applicability: Country not specified
Classification basis: Source catalog labels
Instruction SHA-256: 54b7bdf9f952e1a58c6fdf4d9a0be4d07ef73bd154e1b686731c55af644c4974