Audience Targeting

Foundation

Read bulk-operations/SKILL.md first — pagination, JSONL piping, destructive-op safety. Reshape recipes in bulk-operations/resources/json-patterns.md. Resource: resources/contact-segmentation-filters.md is the filter-expression cookbook (lifecycle, lead status, email engagement, activity, deals, owner).

Filter syntax cheat sheet

Source of truth: hubspot objects search --help.

• One --filter flag = one AND group: --filter "lifecyclestage=lead AND !hubspot_owner_id".
• Multiple --filter flags are OR'd. Use for enum-OR-enum.
• Operators: =, !=, >, >=, <, <=, ~ (CONTAINS_TOKEN — whole-word, NOT substring), @= (IN), @!= (NOT_IN).
• HAS_PROPERTY: bare name or name?. NOT_HAS_PROPERTY: !name. Dates: YYYY-MM-DD.
• Limits (CRM search API): max 5 --filter flags, max 6 conditions per flag, max 18 conditions total. Prefer @= / @!= for enum lists — lifecyclestage@=lead,customer is one condition, --filter "lifecyclestage=lead" --filter "lifecyclestage=customer" is two groups.
• "None of these, or empty" needs two groups — @!= skips records where the property is unset, so OR in a !name group and repeat the shared conditions in both: --filter "hubspot_owner_id=123 AND lifecyclestage@!=customer,evangelist" --filter "hubspot_owner_id=123 AND !lifecyclestage"

~ gotcha: jobtitle~director matches the token "director", not arbitrary substrings. No regex operator — search broadly, post-filter with jq.

Properties this skill turns on

Full live list: hubspot properties list --type contacts. Enum options: hubspot properties options-list --type contacts <name> | jq -r '.value'. As a fallback (e.g. to see which values are actually in use), read live records: hubspot objects list --type contacts --properties <name> --limit 100 --format json | jq -r '.data[].properties.<name> // empty' | sort -u.

Core fields used here: lifecyclestage, hubspot_owner_id (bare/! for owned/unowned; hubspot owners list for IDs), hs_email_optout (!=true excludes opted-out), hs_email_last_open_date / notes_last_contacted (recency), jobtitle / country / city (string = or ~), num_associated_deals (0 net-new, >=1 has-pipeline).

Firmographics (industry, numberofemployees, annualrevenue) live on companies — see cross-object section.

Common segments

# Recent leads (this quarter, not yet owned)
hubspot objects search --type contacts \
  --filter "lifecyclestage=lead AND createdate>2026-01-01 AND !hubspot_owner_id" \
  --properties email,firstname,lastname,createdate

# Decision-makers by jobtitle (OR across tokens)
hubspot objects search --type contacts \
  --filter "jobtitle~director" --filter "jobtitle~vp" --filter "jobtitle~chief" \
  --properties email,jobtitle,company

# Engaged but not yet MQL (opened recently, still lead, opted in)
hubspot objects search --type contacts \
  --filter "lifecyclestage=lead AND hs_email_last_open_date>2026-04-01 AND hs_email_optout!=true" \
  --properties email,firstname,hs_email_last_open_date

# Geographic — US contacts opted in
hubspot objects search --type contacts \
  --filter "country=United States AND hs_email_optout!=true" \
  --properties email,state,city

More patterns (lead status, deals, owners, combined AND/OR) in resources/contact-segmentation-filters.md.

Cross-object: companies-in-industry → their contacts

industry/numberofemployees/annualrevenue live on the company. Build the company set, then traverse — never xargs -I{} hubspot objects get per company. associations list emits {"id":"...","labels":[...],"associationTypes":[...]} — {id} feeds directly into a single batched objects get.

# Step 1: target companies. Industry options are portal-specific — discover with:
#   hubspot objects list --type companies --properties industry --limit 100 --format json \
#   | jq -r '.data[].properties.industry // empty' | sort -u
hubspot objects search --type companies \
  --filter "industry=SOFTWARE AND numberofemployees>=100" \
  --properties name,industry,numberofemployees \
  > target_companies.jsonl

# Step 2: gather association IDs (associations list has no batch --from), then ONE batched
# objects get for all contacts. Page each company with --limit/--after — a company with >100
# associated contacts truncates silently on a single call.
while read -r cid; do
  after=""
  while :; do
    page=$(hubspot associations list --from "companies:$cid" --to contacts --limit 100 ${after:+--after "$after"} --format json)
    echo "$page" | jq -c '.data[]?'
    after=$(echo "$page" | jq -r '.meta.next // empty')
    [ -z "$after" ] && break
  done
done \
  < <(jq -r '.id' target_companies.jsonl) \
| jq -c '{id}' | sort -u \
| hubspot objects get --type contacts --properties email,firstname,jobtitle,hs_email_optout \
> target_contacts.jsonl

# Optional: drop opted-out
jq -c 'select(.properties.hs_email_optout != "true")' target_contacts.jsonl > campaign_audience.jsonl

Saving and reusing a segment

A segment is a JSONL file. Re-use for updates, exports, or re-fetches:

# Save
hubspot objects search --type contacts \
  --filter "lifecyclestage=lead AND hs_email_optout!=true" \
  --properties email,firstname,lastname,jobtitle \
  > segments/opted_in_leads.jsonl

# Assign owner (dry-run first per bulk-operations/SKILL.md)
jq -c '{id, properties:{hubspot_owner_id:"12345"}}' segments/opted_in_leads.jsonl \
| hubspot objects update --type contacts --dry-run

# Re-fetch with different properties later
jq -c '{id}' segments/opted_in_leads.jsonl \
| hubspot objects get --type contacts --properties email,lifecyclestage,hs_lead_status

Destructive ops on a saved segment follow the dry-run → digest → confirm flow in bulk-operations/SKILL.md.

Save as a HubSpot list or view

A JSONL segment is portable, but you can also persist an audience in HubSpot:

• List — hubspot segments create saves a list; segments get / list inspect it; segments members-list reads members; segments members-add / members-remove manage membership. Use segments update-filters to set a dynamic list's filter criteria.
• View — hubspot views create --type <t> --name "..." --columns a,b [--filters-file filters.json] [--sort prop:asc] saves a filter set as a reusable object view; views list / get / update / replace-field / delete manage it.
• Size it first — hubspot objects count --type contacts --filter "..." returns {"object_type":"contacts","total":N} without paging, so you can size an audience before saving or exporting it.

Related read-only signals (context for targeting)

• hubspot buyer-intent — visiting-company intent signals (read-only). Requires OAuth login (hubspot auth login); service keys are NOT supported.
• hubspot analytics traffic sources — where sessions/contacts came from, for source-based segmentation.
• hubspot marketing forms list — form definitions, to segment by which form a contact converted on.

Run each command's --help for the full surface.

Known limits

• ~ is token-match, not substring. No regex operator.
• Enum options: hubspot properties options-list --type contacts <name> (fallback: read live records via objects list + jq).
• associations list has no batch --from, and returns one page (default 100) per call. Loop to gather IDs and page each call with --limit/--after until .meta.next is null, then batch the downstream objects get — otherwise a company with >100 associated contacts truncates silently.
• For >100 results, use the pagination loop in bulk-operations/SKILL.md.