The Complete Guide to HubSpot's Prospecting Agent (2025 Edition)

• Research contacts and target accounts using internal and external data sources
• Compose and send hyper-personalized outreach emails
• Manage ongoing follow-up and reply detection
• Scale prospecting efforts without sacrificing relevance or brand voice

Key Features & Capabilities of Prospecting Agent

Through HubSpot's Prospecting Agent, you can empower your sales team to put outreach, prospecting, and cold engagements on autopilot with extremely personalized, context-rich outreach that hits the mark. As I've been utilizing Prospecting Agent, it has consistently exceeded my expectation in messaging, learning, research, and relevant context. Here are some of the key features and capabilities that are important to the use of Prospecting Agent.

1. Automated Research & Personalization

2. Flexible Enrollment Options

• Manual Enrollment: Select specific contacts or companies for the agent to research and engage.
• Automated Enrollment: Define rulesets or triggers (e.g., new lead created, property updated) to bulk-enroll contacts automatically.
• Workflow Integration: Use HubSpot workflows to enroll or unenroll contacts based on complex, custom criteria—enabling sophisticated automation and segmentation.

3. Selling Profiles

4. Brand Voice & Guardrails

• Brand Voice: Define tone, style, and value props for each profile, ensuring AI-generated emails align with your brand.
• Guardrails: Set maximum emails per enrollment, review/approve emails before sending (semi-autonomous mode), and configure advanced instructions or exclusions for sensitive audiences.

5. Outreach Execution & Follow-Up

• Email Integration: The agent sends emails from your connected inbox, using the assigned sender’s signature and meeting links.
• Reply Monitoring: Monitors for responses and automatically pauses or escalates outreach as needed.
• Send Limits: Up to 1,000 emails per day, with careful pacing to avoid spam triggers.

6. Analysis & Reporting

Step-by-Step Setup: How to Deploy Your Prospecting Agent

1. Permissions & Prerequisites

• Required: Super Admin or Prospecting Agent access
• Email Integration: Connect your inbox for email sending
• AI Settings: Enable generative AI features in account management
• Credits: Some features (like ongoing monitoring) require HubSpot Credits

2. Creating Selling Profiles

• Navigate to the Sales Workspace or Breeze Studio.
• Create selling profiles for each product, audience, or region.
• Define value propositions, tone, fallback languages, and guardrails for each profile.

3. Enrolling Contacts & Companies

• Manual: Select and enroll contacts/companies directly.
• Automated: Set up rules (e.g., lead score threshold, job title) for automatic enrollment.
• Workflows: Use “Enroll in prospecting agent” or “Unenroll from prospecting agent” workflow actions for advanced automation.

4. Configuring Outreach Options

• Choose call-to-actions (book a meeting, download content, etc.).
• Set maximum number of emails per contact.
• Exclude specific contacts or lists to avoid unwanted outreach.

5. Sending & Monitoring

• The agent researches and drafts personalized emails.
• In semi-autonomous mode, review and approve emails before sending.
• Monitor enrollment status, email performance, and reply rates in real time.

Advanced Use Cases

Account-Based Marketing (ABM)

• Researches each target account using internal CRM and public data
• Generates outreach tailored to account needs, industry pain points, and buying roles
• Supports multi-threaded engagement across stakeholders

Multilingual & Multi-Product Campaigns

• Uses contact’s preferred language or selling profile fallback
• Distinct selling profiles for each product line, vertical, or geography

Complex Lead Routing & Nurture

• Automate enrollment/unenrollment based on lead score, lifecycle stage, or engagement triggers
• Combine with workflows for sophisticated nurture tracks and pipeline acceleration

Technical Considerations & Best Practices

• Email Send Limits: 1,000 emails per day per agent; research up to 10 contacts per minute
• Reply Handling: Outreach pauses automatically upon reply
• Monitoring & Credits: Ongoing monitoring and research require HubSpot Credits; track usage in billing settings
• Avoid Duplicates: Ensure contacts aren’t enrolled in both sequences and the agent simultaneously to prevent duplicate outreach
• Exclusions: Use exclusion lists and rules to maintain compliance and avoid sensitive audiences

Strategic Recommendations

• Start in Semi-Autonomous Mode: Review and approve emails during initial rollout to ensure quality and compliance.
• Leverage Selling Profiles: Segment by buyer persona, industry, or product for maximum relevance.
• Iterate Messaging: Use reporting to refine value props, CTAs, and segmentation over time.
• Integrate with Workflows: Unlock advanced automation and fine-grained control by combining the agent with HubSpot’s workflow engine.
• Monitor Deliverability: Regularly check reply rates, bounce rates, and spam feedback to protect sender reputation.

What I've Learned

• Use the Custom Instructions
  One of the first things that I learned was that, just like every other LLM model in the world, you have to give extremely specific and guided instructions to get the right outputs. The standard instructions won't do it. So I highly recommend adding your own custom instructions (in the Advanced settings) to guide your agent. The more detail the better. Some of the things that I include in mine are — to only focus on companies in a specific industry (or even a sub group of an industry), specific client names and case studies to highlight, internal branding (HIVE is all caps for example), and even unenrollment criteria to ensure that messaging that doesn't resonate with any company won't be sent. 
  
  I think this is also an ever evolving area. You should be adding additional custom instructions as you review messaging to make the agent smarter and smarter.
• Create many agents
  Setting your agents to be relevant to only a certain group, industry, or product makes them significantly more powerful. Don't rely on a single agent, instead build out multiple agents to target each of your ideal customer profiles.
• Review the research
  The agent does a great job researching what is happening with the company and contact you're reaching out to. Take the time to review that research, especially for your higher priority prospects. It'll give you more context and information into what is happening in their world. It's worth a couple minutes to get deeper into their world.
• Start with low-impact targets
  As you begin your Prospecting Agent journey, start with prospects and companies that are of low importance. There will be a little bit of a learning curve (for you and the agent) so focus on prospect where the risk is low if it goes wrong. Start with a handful of those prospects and expand from there gradually getting to your most important prospects. It'll insure your work is progressing and if things aren't quite right, there aren't many consequences.

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