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).
• HAS_PROPERTY: bare name or name?. NOT_HAS_PROPERTY: !name. Dates: YYYY-MM-DD.

~ 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 aren't exposed by properties get; discover with 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":"...","type":"company_to_contact"}, feeding 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.
while read -r cid; do hubspot associations list --from "companies:$cid" --to contacts; 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.

Known limits

• No Lists API surface. Can't save as a HubSpot list or filter by list membership.
• ~ is token-match, not substring. No regex operator.
• properties get does not return enum options — discover via objects list + jq.
• associations list has no batch --from. Loop to gather IDs, batch the downstream objects get.
• For >100 results, use the pagination loop in bulk-operations/SKILL.md.