Managing email subscriptions is core to respecting customer preferences and ensuring compliance. Unlike HubSpot, which separates subscription status and marketing vs. non-marketing contacts, Conversion rolls everything into one simple and powerful system: Subscription Status.
This keeps things straightforward for both marketers and developers, while still giving you the flexibility to manage preferences at scale.
The Four Subscription Statuses
Every contact in Conversion will always have one of the following statuses:
1. Subscribed
A contact who has opted in to receive emails.
Stored only at the contact level.
These contacts will receive all eligible emails unless they unsubscribe from all or specific topics.
Subscribed is the default state for any customer who has explicitly opted in.
2. Unsubscribed
A contact who has actively unsubscribed from all emails or topics.
Global unsubscribe always overrides topic-level preferences.
No emails will be sent to unsubscribed contacts.
However, they remain fully available in Conversion for workflows, segmentation, and analytics.
You can also re-subscribe a contact manually if they opt back in.
3. No Subscription Status
This is the state for non-marketing contacts who haven’t actively unsubscribed but haven’t opted in either.
They are not considered subscribed, and no marketing emails will be sent.
You can manually subscribe or unsubscribe these contacts directly from the contact table or the contact view.
This simplifies the “non-marketing contact” concept in HubSpot into one clear status.
4. Bounced
A contact who was previously subscribed but whose emails have bounced.
Conversion will automatically mark these contacts as Bounced.
They will not receive further emails unless you manually resubscribe them.
This ensures you maintain a healthy sending reputation.
Email Topics and Subscription Logic
Subscription statuses can be managed globally (all emails) or at the topic level.
Topics let you group emails into categories like Product Updates, Newsletters, or Events.
If you’ve enabled topics, every new or existing email must be assigned a topic. If not, the email will default to “Other.”
When a contact unsubscribes:
From a single topic → they are still considered Subscribed globally, but that topic is stored in the
topic_unsubscriptionstable.From all topics → their global status changes to Unsubscribed, and they will not receive new topics.
Key Rules:
Global unsubscribe overrides everything. No emails are sent, regardless of topic subscriptions.
Subscribed contacts always get new topics by default.
Unsubscribed contacts never get new topics, even if added later.
Topic deletion by a business never changes global status. It just removes that topic from unsubscriptions.
How Conversion Simplifies vs. HubSpot
HubSpot uses two concepts:
Subscription status (whether they can receive certain types of emails)
Marketing vs. non-marketing contacts (which count toward your billing tier)
Conversion merges these into one streamlined status system:
Subscribed
Unsubscribed
No subscription status
Bounced
This eliminates the complexity of having multiple overlapping systems. You can still segment based on subscription status, but you don’t need to worry about juggling multiple properties across the CRM.
Manual Controls
Inside the contact table or a contact record view, you can:
Manually subscribe or unsubscribe any contact.
Manually resubscribe a bounced contact if you confirm their address is valid.
Assign topics and see topic-level subscriptions.
Why This Matters
This unified model gives you:
Simplicity: One clear status per contact.
Flexibility: Topic-level granularity without overcomplication.
Compliance: Easy to respect opt-outs and maintain sending reputation.
Control: Manual overrides when needed.