Top 5 HubSpot Automation Mistakes (and How to Fix Them Fast)

Automation is supposed to make your sales and marketing teams more efficient — but you need to ensure it doesn't create more work, confuse your team, and/or hurt customer experience.

If you’re managing marketing automation or operations, you know how important clean, intentional workflows are. In this post, we'll walk through the top 5 HubSpot automation mistakes we see most often, plus exactly how to fix them so you can streamline your systems, protect your data, and drive better results.

1. Over-Automating Without Human Touchpoints

The Mistake: Over-relying on automation removes opportunities for genuine, human interaction—leading to lower engagement and conversion rates.

The Fix: Automation should support real conversations, not replace them. Use automation for handoffs, reminders, and organization, but make space for real human outreach at critical moments. For example, after an MQL downloads a pricing guide, assign a manual task for a rep to reach out personally—on top of that automated email.

2. Ignoring Enrollment and Re-Enrollment Triggers

The Mistake: Unclear enrollment criteria — or forgetting to manage re-enrollment — often leads to contacts stuck in the wrong workflows or getting communications at the wrong time.

The Fix: Map your enrollment logic carefully before building the workflow. Confirm whether contacts should re-enter based on behavior changes (e.g., a new form submission or deal stage change). Always use HubSpot’s Preview tool to test different scenarios.

Real-World Example: We often see companies accidentally re-enrolling into nurture workflows because they didn't restrict re-enrollment based on updated lifecycle stages.

3. Forgetting to Set Workflow Goals (for Reporting and Unenrollment Control)

The Mistake: Without workflow goals, you can't easily measure whether your workflows are successful, and you risk contacts staying stuck in irrelevant nurtures.

The Fix: Always define clear workflow goals tied to lifecycle movement or key engagement (e.g., "Contact becomes a Customer," "Form Submitted: Demo Request"). When contacts meet the goal, HubSpot automatically unenrolls them—keeping their experience relevant and clean.

Expert Tip: Because of privacy changes like iOS 15, avoid using "email open" as a goal. Instead, use higher-intent actions like clicks, form submissions, or meeting bookings.

4. Not Updating or Auditing Workflows Regularly (Including Unenrollment Logic)

The Mistake: Workflows that made sense a year ago might cause friction today. If you’re not auditing workflows regularly, you're likely delivering outdated messaging or missing opportunities to optimize.

The Fix: Run a quarterly automation audit. Review:

• Enrollment triggers

• Re-enrollment rules

• Goal settings

• Unenrollment settings (especially between nurture and sales workflows)

Update anything that no longer matches your current buyer journey or internal processes.

Real-World Example: We worked with a client who discovered that MQLs were still receiving early-stage awareness emails after they had already booked meetings, simply because unenrollment logic wasn't updated when they launched new sequences.

5. Using Workflows to Copy Data Instead of Using Sync Properties

The Mistake: Many users still create workflows to manually copy property values between objects (e.g., Contact → Deal, Contact → Contact) when HubSpot’s newer Sync Properties feature handles this automatically.

The Fix: When you want to display or track information across records, use HubSpot's Sync Properties field type instead of manual "copy property" workflows. Sync Properties:

• Auto-update in real time

• Are one-way and easy to configure

• Reduce workflow clutter

• Improve CRM performance and reporting

Expert Tip: Reserve workflows for true process automation—not basic data syncing. Keep your CRM clean and lightweight for scaling.

Clean, intentional automation is a key part of building a scalable revenue engine. It's not about automating everything—it's about automating the right things, the right way.

If you're responsible for marketing ops, sales ops, or revenue operations, these mistakes (and their fixes) can save you from massive headaches later.

Want to audit your HubSpot automations and make sure they're built for growth? Talk to us about a HubSpot HealthCheck below.