AviaryAI HubSpot ABM Automation Workflow

Overview

AviaryAI's ABM email sequences run through HubSpot and are governed by an enrollment/cancellation workflow. A logic flaw was identified during the ^[1] weekly call on 2026-03-11: the workflow cancels email sequences for a contact as soon as a HubSpot deal is created for them. This produces an unintended side effect in multi-business-unit accounts (e.g., large credit unions) where outreach to other contacts at the same organization is silently stopped.

Current Behavior

When a deal is created in HubSpot for any contact, the ABM email sequence for that contact is cancelled.
The intent is correct in isolation: once a deal exists, manual sales follow-up should take over and marketing automation should step back.
However, AviaryAI often engages with one business unit of a larger credit union while other business units at the same organization remain untouched prospects.
Creating a deal for the first contact causes sequences for other contacts at the same account to be cancelled — stopping outreach that should continue.

This was surfaced when reviewing the sequence dashboard, which showed a significant number of contacts in a Cancelled state that Aaron had not intentionally removed.

"I might be talking to one business unit and the other business unit might not even know. So I wouldn't say just because I have a deal, that means we shouldn't reach out to the whole credit union, especially the larger credit unions."
— Aaron Grossman, 2026-03-11

Root Cause

The cancellation trigger is set to deal creation, which is too broad. It fires for any deal associated with a contact, regardless of whether that contact's business unit is the one being actively worked.

Proposed Solution

Change the cancellation trigger from deal creation to the Opportunity lifecycle stage.

How It Works

HubSpot lifecycle stages progress through:
Subscriber → Lead → Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) → Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) → Opportunity → Customer

By triggering cancellation only when a contact reaches the Opportunity stage, the workflow becomes more precise:

Contacts actively in negotiation (Opportunity stage) are removed from automated sequences.
Contacts at the same account who are still in earlier lifecycle stages continue to receive ABM emails.
Sales reps retain control by deciding when to advance a contact to Opportunity, rather than the trigger firing automatically on deal creation.

Implementation Notes

The trigger change needs to be made in the HubSpot workflow editor for the active ABM sequence.
Aaron (AviaryAI) will propose his preferred approach and include it with the next 100-account list submission.
Mark Hope (Asymmetric) will implement the trigger change once the approach is confirmed.
Care should be taken to audit any contacts currently in Cancelled state to determine if they should be re-enrolled.

The ABM campaign covers 101 accounts (as of 2026-03-11), with a next batch of ~100 accounts to be added.
Sequences are built and managed in HubSpot; contact data is enriched and deduplicated by the Asymmetric team.
Click timestamps in the sequence dashboard are unreliable due to the N8N/SQS capture process — 3 AM timestamps do not necessarily indicate bot activity.

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