Introduction to timeline events in HubSpot
Last updated August 29, 2025
OutboundSync integrates deeply with HubSpot by creating timeline events on the Contact Object. These events represent key activities that occur inside your connected email sequencer.
By logging these events in HubSpot, OutboundSync ensures that your team always has a complete record of contact engagement, while also enabling powerful workflow automation, list building, and reporting .
Overview
What Are timeline events in HubSpot
Timeline events are custom activity records that appear on a HubSpot contact’s timeline. They capture meaningful interactions or updates that occur outside of HubSpot’s native tools, and bring them into the HubSpot CRM.
For OutboundSync, timeline events serve two main purposes:
- Historical Record Keeping Every activity synced through OutboundSync is mirrored into HubSpot, ensuring that your CRM reflects the full context of engagement across your connected tools. This allows sales, marketing, and success teams to view a unified contact history without needing to jump between platforms.
- Workflow Triggers Timeline events can be used to enroll contacts into HubSpot workflows. For example, you could automatically assign a task to a sales rep when a prospect replies to a sequence email, or update lead status when a contact unsubscribes.
How to enable or turn on visibility of timeline events
To see OutboundSync activities on your contact timelines, each HubSpot user must enable them in their own account. Go to any contact record → open the Activities tab → click Filter activity → and make sure the OutboundSync box is checked. This only needs to be done once per user.
OutboundSync's timeline event types
OutboundSync has two major timeline event types: Email and Social.
Depending on which channel you are syncing to your HubSpot account, it will determine which timeline event you may be interested in.
OutboundSync Email timeline events
When OutboundSync processes a webhook payload from your connected sequencer, we automatically create a new timeline event in HubSpot. Below are the supported events for email integrations:
| Event type | Description | Example use case |
| OutboundSync: Email Reply | Created when a contact replies to a sequencer email. | Trigger a workflow to assign follow-up tasks or move the contact into a new pipeline stage. |
| OutboundSync: Email Sent | Logged when a sequencer sends an email to the contact. | Track delivery history and step of the sequence or campaign a contact has reached. |
| OutboundSync: Email Opened | Logged when a sequencer detects that the email has been opened. | Enroll in engagement-based workflows (e.g., add to a “follow up” list for sales). |
| OutboundSync: Email Link Clicked | Created when a contact clicks a tracked link in an email. | Trigger follow-ups when prospects show strong buying intent. |
| OutboundSync: Email Bounce | Logged when an email cannot be delivered. | Automatically flag the contact for review or update deliverability status. |
| OutboundSync: Lead Unsubscribed | Captures when a contact unsubscribes from sequencer emails. | Maintain compliance by removing contacts from marketing workflows. |
| OutboundSync: Lead Category Updated | Triggered when the sequencer updates the lead’s category (e.g., Interested, Not Interested). | Sync sentiment-driven status updates directly into HubSpot to improve segmentation, scoring, and workflow branching. |
OutboundSync Social Timeline Events
| Event type | Description | Example use case |
| OutboundSync: Social Message Sent | Created when a connected account sends a message to a prospect. | Trigger a workflow that rotates the contact owner based on the sender. |
| OutboundSync: Social Message Reply | Created when a prospect replies to a message sent by a connected account. | Trigger a workflow that uses the lead category or tag and triggers property updates, follow-up tasks, and more. |
| OutboundSync: Social Connection Request Sent | Created when a connected account sends a connection request to a prospect. | Trigger a workflow to create a manual prospecting step task after the connection request is accepted. |
| OutboundSync: Social Connection Request Accepted | Created when a prospect accepts a connection request sent by a connected account. | Trigger a workflow to create a manual prospecting step task after the connection request is accepted. |
| OutboundSync: Social Follow Sent | Created when a connected account sends a follow request to a prospect. | Trigger a workflow to create a call task after the prospects' profile receives a follow request. |
| OutboundSync: Social Liked Post | Created when a connected account likes a social post of a prospect. | Trigger a workflow to create a call task after the prospects' post is liked. |
| OutboundSync: Social Profile Viewed | Created when a connected account visits a social profile of a prospect. | Trigger a workflow to create a call task after the prospects' profile is viewed. |
| OutboundSync: Lead Category Updated | Triggered when the sequencer updates the lead’s category (e.g., Interested, Not Interested). | Sync sentiment-driven status updates directly into HubSpot to improve segmentation, scoring, and workflow branching. |
Put timeline events to work with pre-built workflows
Instead of building workflows from scratch, you can accelerate setup with pre-built workflow templates designed specifically for OutboundSync users. These are available for installation in your onboarding plan.
By combining OutboundSync timeline events with these ready-to-use workflows, you’ll be able to:
- Automate sales follow-up when key email events occur.
- Keep lead status and lifecycle stages automatically in sync.
- Save time while ensuring best-practice automations are in place.
These pre-built workflows are just the start. You can build your own and ask for feedback from our team by emailing service@outboundsync.com .
Applying in your organization
By centralizing sequencer activity in HubSpot, OutboundSync ensures your CRM is both a source of truth for contact history and a launchpad for automation.
Your team can confidently track engagement trends, respect opt-outs, and design workflows that respond in real time to contact behavior.