Avantages
Integration is the number one pro to HubSpot Marketing. You could piece together a dozen different software’s to get what Hubspot marketing does on its own, but that becomes a mess very quickly, which is probably why you’re looking for a solution in the first place. When we went with HubSpot it was night and day in terms of ease and efficiency for all the different inbound marketing tactics and strategies we had deployed. Hubspot is number 1 for a reason and we quickly saw that after implementing marketing automation.
The ability to have all your data in one place and get meaningful analytics on your efforts is unsurpassed in any of the programs I have seen out there today. Instead of having a dozen different programs we rely on hubspot for 90% of our marketing efforts. Running everything from one central hub (pun intended) is well worth the cost and comes with my highest recommendation.
Inconvénients
The one con is that hubspot is geared towards larger organizations and can be a bit of a nuisance if it doesn’t fit exactly what you are trying to do. The organization of the platform and what you’re trying to achieve may be at odds. Everything works great for us, and I’m sure it will for most users, but if you’re in a small minority of organizations, particularly smaller companies, you may want to first research the functionality or request a demo, but it should work wonders for you.
In general, hubspot is updated in a contacting manner that allows me to create a list of different groups, build my database so that the sales team can do a more efficient job and focus the strategies specific to each work group
Avantages
It is a software dedicated to automate marketing actions, where many departments must automate tasks related to emails, social networks, in addition to those that are related to websites, in order to facilitate tasks.
With hubspot you can manage contacts, activities related to websites, Live Chat, Conversational Bots, Marketing by mail, Ad Retargeting, among others.
It should be noted that with this Software, it helps create optimized content for search engines, in turn generates user traffic on the website or blogs.
This software is recommended to all professionals dedicated to digital marketing, because it unifies all the necessary tools into one, so they can do the work in less time. In addition, consumers are no longer only in the email, nor do we have to rely solely on their actions in this medium.
Personally, what I like most about this software is that it has a free plan and allowing any company to use it, in case of wanting a paid version it has good prices.
Among other benefits of hubspot, is that you can easily see the workflow that has had a client powers, such as downloads and their interactions with the company's website, this option is great, because it can help to know how many potential customers are ready for another email or a call.
It is important to note that once downloaded the program on your computer is integrated with all the tools that are already being used.
Inconvénients
Among the disadvantages of this program is: that you do not have any tool that can merge the contact information of different organizations.
It does not have the ability to register several email addresses of the same contact, this weakness is palpable at the moment of conversation by email with a user, because if we want to contact you by another address via e-mail is very difficult to connect .
You can not ignore unimportant records, this is to facilitate the reading of relevant interactions.
If you have a company that wants a smooth and powerful solution to manage contacts, that can see the visibility of the work, this program is not recommended
Hubspot has enabled me to work in a composed and quick way, without bringing about any mishaps.
Today I have 3 accreditations supported by this stage and I truly comprehend and apply the Inbound Marketing system that is the fundamental base of Hubspot.
It is astounding to deal with the site of the organization where I work and I trust that the expense/item proportion is reasonable. Picking Hubspot as our essential work instrument has been an incredible choice.
Avantages
The genuine estimation of HubSpot Marketing is the reconciliation of each promoting stage. Blogs, email, landing pages, workflows, work processes and more can without much of a stretch be made - and incorporated - for a simple to utilize, across the board promoting entryway.
Fundamentally, my organization utilizes HubSpot to rapidly construct and distribute blog entries. With the inherent online life apparatus, you can without much of a stretch offer the blog entry to your crowds. At that point, you can repurpose the substance you previously made for an email battle.
Another most loved component: you can create beautiful landing pages. With this, you can make delightful presentation pages that make it simple for clients to change over to a deal, or showcasing qualified lead.
Another extraordinary component is the examination instrument. You can see the presentation of each showcasing component in one nitty gritty dashboard. This encourages you see what's working - and so forth. This truly helped my organization put their advertising dollars where they're most powerful and effective.
Inconvénients
There's only a couple of disadvantages to HubSpot, from my point of view.
HubSpot works best when you can create a lot of substance. HubSpot is extraordinary at making your substance lovely and compelling, however in case you're not delivering content, you won't get the full esteem.
Second, the valuing level for HubSpot can be somewhat steep for private companies without optional salary. I'd state the administration is as yet justified, despite all the trouble, yet the speculation requires talk and responsibility from the group to be an extraordinary venture.
Ultimately, HubSpot requires an on boarding charge with each new contract. Presently, this on boarding expense isn't enormous, yet this was a hindrance for passage for my organization when we initially joined. The on boarding process unquestionably helped my group take advantage of HubSpot, be that as it may, as I stated, it was a slight obstacle for the group while considering HubSpot.
Overall, their sales people are fantastic! Before you buy - ask a ton of questions and make them show you everything. Get their sales folks to help you build custom reports. Ask them to help you import. Do all of this during the demo because once you're onboarded, it's much harder to get help. We ended up hiring a Hubspot Expert to help us get everything we need, but we also have some really complicated features we wanted to track like online courseware. For 99% of businesses, hubspot is the best at what they do.
Avantages
Hubspot is a seriously my best friend. I've been using hubspot for the last 18 months and after my first introduction with the tool, I now recommend it to every single client I have. What I love most is how easy it is to sync up with Gmail, Wordpress, Google Analytics, Woocommerce, Facebook and the list goes on and on. We've also synced Hubspot up with our LiveChat tool versus using the native inbox (Hubspots Chat) feature. Hubspot now tracks visitors and upon a form submission, checkout submission, a contact is created and we track the entire lifecycle from browser to buyer and retention. We can then record all interactions we have via email so the next person that touches that customer has the entire history. The workflow automations are fantastic for staying in touch with both clients and browsing visitors. We have 10 different workflows set up based our marketing goals to make sure subscribed clients are staying engaged with our product and then for leads we can add point values for every time a successful action is taken. I could write a sonnet on how much I love Hubspot's features and how easy they make it to love this tool. Hubspot easily replaces 5 other tools. What we use most is Landing Pages, Forms, Workflow Automations, Tasks triggered by website actions, and the dashboards. Dashboards are a reporting layout with widgets some of which are standard out of the box and the others are custom reports that we've created.
Inconvénients
What I don't like about Hubspot is that their services are all "add-on". We started off with the free plan and then upgraded to the marketing plan, but then needed to add on the Sales plan for at least one user. Down the road we had to purchase an add-on for reporting because we wanted more than 10 dashboards. It feels a little like a nickle and dime tactic. But, I will admit it's smart business-wise. I probably wouldn't have signed up for hubspot with the price I'm paying now... so they make you love them and you willing fork over tons of cash to keep their brilliant shiny tool. The other feature that was a bit combersome at first was the landing pages. The few they give you are super blah... but they have free templates you can download. What they don't tell you is you need to edit the master files in the template to change the logo, footer, etc.... and that was super hard at first. I wanted to throw my laptop the first few times I build a landing page in Hub.
I LOVE this platform. Onboarding is great. My support person (yes, you get a dedicated success manager that you actually form a relationship with and can help you navigate intricate projects, offer suggestions, advice or just listen as moral support and confirm you are on the right path ANYTIME) is fantastic, the software is in my opinion best in class.
The contract renegotiation process is a bit of a bummer. Some of the folks there aren’t the easiest to talk to or deal with. My hope is that they can fix the issues and shine in this area too. Product developers and bright and knowledgeable and they are constantly improving the platform to our delight.
Avantages
I am not a marketer. In fact, it was a hat I took on with my family’s Small business just to help out. Boy are we all glad we did. First of all, it is intuitive. There isn’t a page in Hubspot that doesn’t offer help in the form of written, video and linked tutorials. It’s all in-line too. I don’t have to open a different screen most of the time. I can easily and quickly solve my issue or learn something new right within the page I am working on. It’s been a game changer.
It helps me be a better writer. Hubspot offers suggestions for how to compose and email, a landing page, an offer pop up. It also offers on page SEO and optimization help, identifying potential issues and offering suggestions before you publish it.
It caters to all ability levels. From a novice to an expert, there is something for everyone and online training to match whatever level that may be.
It also has incredible value. There are so many extras packed into Hubspot. Chat, automation, graphic editor, asset management, CRM, extreme integrations, and a wide open API.
Inconvénients
Obvs the price. It’s pricey. We have 3 different locations of the same franchise and we operate them as one business. But because we are required to have 3 domains, we were forced into the enterprise license. It is a lot for a small business with lean operations to pay. Luckily we negotiated a great deal for the time being so it isn’t breaking us.
Avantages
Where do I start with my love for HubSpot. Our marketing team has been using HubSpot's Marketing Automation for 6 years, and we have seen a world of difference in our inbound strategy. From email drafting to analytics, social publishing, blog hosting, ABM (account-based marketing) and site traffic - it helps marketers keep track of nearly everything going on.
I mainly use the social publishing and tracking feature and the email scheduling tool. I can say I wouldn't be able to organize my social conversations with customers nor would I be able to schedule posts ahead of time and track their progress with such accuracy without HubSpot. The email section of the software is great too. I can tell who opens, reads and clicks on our emails - how long they spend reading and each email's conversion rate. I can also do A/B testing to track which types of emails perform best.
If your marketing team has a budget for automation software, HubSpot should definitely be on your radar. As a medium-sized company with a small marketing team of 5, it's the perfect size for us. We have HubSpot's Enterprise Level Contract, which gives us access to all of their features. If your marketing team is small - a less expensive plan might be where you want to start out. They also offer sales solutions that fully integrate with their marketing platform, so everything stays consistent and everyone from sales to marketing is on the same page.
Inconvénients
HubSpot is pretty close to perfect, and my complaints are minor. From a social tool standpoint, I wish publishing across platforms was more consistent, often images and text sizing is a bit off in the actual social site. I also wish they would increase monitoring from just Twitter to both LinkedIn and Facebook.
Design limitations have been a slight issue for us in the past as well, but usually we can work around these and design items in house.
We saw an initial bump in lead generation when implementing HubSpot. Then, over the course of six months, we saw steady growth - particularly in generating new contacts, leads, and conversions.
The blog integration with landing pages really increased our conversion rate of customers. This made it easy for audiences to learn about our services, then go to the landing page to sign up for a free meeting / demonstration of our services. This really moved the needle in terms of lead gen.
We also saw our social media following grow, not just in overall followers, but also the engagement rate of our followers. Also, HubSpot made it easy to see the most popular content, across every form of marketing. We used this info to shape our overall digital strategy, influencing the type of content we produce.
HubSpots CRM also helped us keep tabs on customers who were most likely to convert to sales. This was especially important, since our business needs truly qualified leads - not just contacts - that we can work through the sales funnel and the buyers journey.
The best benefit though? Keeping all our marketing materials in one place. No more jumping between multiple platforms, programs, and in-app designs. Just one platform. Saves a bunch of time and headaches.
Avantages
The true value of HubSpot Marketing is the integration of every marketing platform. Blogs, email, landing pages, workflows and more can easily be created - and integrated - for an easy to use, all in one marketing portal.
Primarily, my company uses HubSpot to quickly build and publish blog posts. With the built-in social media tool, you can easily share the blog post to your audiences. Then, you can repurpose the content you already created for an email campaign.
Another favorite feature: the landing page builder. With this, you can create beautiful landing pages that make it easy for customers to convert to a sale, or marketing qualified lead.
Another great feature is the analytics tool. You can see the performance of every marketing element in one detailed dashboard. This helps you see what's working - and what's not. This really helped my company put their marketing dollars where they're most influential and impactful.
Inconvénients
There's only a few drawbacks to HubSpot, from my perspective.
HubSpot works best when you can produce a large amount of content. HubSpot is great at making your content beautiful and effective, but if you're not producing content, you won't get the full value.
Second, the pricing-tier for HubSpot can be a little steep for small businesses without discretionary income. I'd say the service is still worth it, but the investment requires discussion and commitment from the team to be a great investment.
Lastly, HubSpot requires an on boarding fee with each new contract. Now, this on boarding fee isn't huge, but this was a barrier for entry for my company when we first joined. The on boarding process definitely helped my team get the most out of HubSpot, but, as I said, it was a slight hurdle for the team when considering HubSpot.
Hubspot has allowed me to work in an organized and fast way, without causing any setbacks.
Today I have 3 certifications endorsed by this platform and I really understand and apply the Inbound Marketing methodology that is the main base of Hubspot.
It is excellent to manage the website of the company where I work and I believe that the cost / product ratio is fair. Choosing Hubspot as our primary work tool has been a great decision.
Avantages
I work for a marketing agency and I use the Hubspot Software to manage the website of the enterprise.
What i like the most about Hubspot is that it's frequently updating its functions, always at the forefront of changes in the market. As well, I love from Hubspot the Social Media tool, I can schedule all my post faster than others software or apps, and I can keep even-minded because I know all my post will be published on time.
When I have to write a post I love it helps me to apply SEO correctly, and it's very easy to put pictures into the text.
Hubspot is not only a tool for work, it's also a platform that allows me to learn and certificate new skills with the courses of the learning center, which has allowed me to become a better professional in my work area and it will be useful for me to find new job opportunities.
Hubspot is very functional and complete, I can even schedule corporate email with smart delivery, in such a way that the arrival time of the mail fits the time zone of each recipient.
I have tried others software for blogging before, but I really think Hubspot Software is the best of all.
Inconvénients
I don't have many complaints about this software, I have had a great experience during all this time. I know it's not perfect, but what I also know and I can notice daily is that the Hubspot Team is always worried about improving it's services.
Maybe, what I like least about this software is that, sometimes, the platform falls when it's being updating any detail, is a bit annoying but I think is necessary because the reward is a functional, fast and useful service.
Avantages
Amazing, if not the best user-experience in marketing automation. Workflows are particularly powerful with plenty of controls to map your buyer journeys. You can execute very powerful campaigns with tons of triggers, actions, and filtering options.
I really liked their training, including the HubSpot academy training which are built very professionally. The way they present their e-Learning platform makes the information easy to digest and ultimately understand the inbound marketing methodology. That is in itself worth the cost of admission, even though this is provided free of charge.
Inconvénients
HubSpot Marketing is an excellent solution, undoubtedly, but you will get about 80% of the features if you host your website externally. Initially, they will assess if your site can be migrated to their platform.
I imagine plenty of people would rather not do that. If you want a solution that you have to marry, then HubSpot will be okay for you.
They say you can utilize the majority of HubSpot features without hosting, and that is true, but some of their more advanced features such as A/B testing content on web pages or Smart Content will not be utilized. You can still utilize workflows, drip campaigns, and so forth...but these features are only available in the per month plan. Additionally, if you run multiple websites, you must have their per month plan, which is well out of our budget.
On top of that, there are certain modules (i.e. paid campaign tracking, additional contacts) that they will charge additional for. For every 1000 contacts past 1000 you get with the package, they will charge an additional monthly fee. There is also a fairly high onboarding cost. You are also required to commit to one year of their services.
All in all we could not afford to do business with HubSpot because A) we didn't want to move our websites under their platform and B) their price point was not accommodating to our budget. As far as features and functionality...it's all you really need for marketing automation. Their CRM is lackluster though if you want true alignment!
Tracking all data from content to marketing automation within a single platform is extremely helpful for us. We've been able to align more in our inbound and outbound efforts and have the ability to create simple or sophisticated marketing plans with HubSpot.
Avantages
Customized dashboard for a quick snapshot to help track our department's KPIs
Support is responsive and always prompt to help answer your inquiries. They are currently in beta for live chat and I love that instant answers to your problems. They also send email follow-ups to make sure you're happy.
Knowledge-base is excellent to help solve problems you come across on the platform or in marketing in general.
HubSpot Academy is an excellent resource to learn about important topics in Marketing, Sales, and Design. They're always updating materials for the courses and you get certified at the end of so many lessons, which is a bonus for any LinkedIn profile or resume.
Robust amount of features and tactics to use within the platform but not necessary to use them all. Great for any-sized companies.
Ability to request product features from the community
User-friendly Workflows tool that allows you to create a workflow process using different elements of data.
Inconvénients
Changes are always rolling out, which can be hard to keep up-to-date on them all
Not fully prepared for features getting removed, renamed or consolidated. We have to play catch-up at times to adjust to what has changed.
Design Manager is confusing for someone without coding knowledge. Really wish they would integrate a drop and drag feature to create simple emails and landing pages, most importantly.
Reporting from the Sales vs. Marketing dashboard can be confusing. I get two different metrics in certain cases, but it's because one's default is different than the other.
Can't create lists of accounts/companies, for company's running an ABM program.
Can't add external landing pages to Campaigns in HubSpot, only HubSpot created landing pages, which makes reporting cumbersome.
I have access to all the major marketing tools and all the education I need to make sure I understand the market and how to better connect with my audience. HubSpot is a great tool that helps businesses reach their goals and grow by growing their online presence.
Avantages
I like that it hosts literally everything you need tool wise to help you execute your marketing strategy. Having the blogging and social sharing platforms in one place has been extremely easy to use. They truly set you up for success by having tons of resources, checklists, etc. available so that you know how to market and connect with your audience.
Inconvénients
Specifically for the software, I do not understand the Design Manager. This directly affects your marketing because if you are editing a template so that it is unique for the campaign you are working on you have to use the design manager. I think it is confusing to anyone who does not understand coding. The old design manager made way more sense to me. Looking at HubSpot as a product it is not convenient that their tier metric is contacts and the annual payment is inconvenient. As a HubSpot partner, we sell this to customers and lose a bunch of them because the annual price or we lose customers from going to Pro rather than basic because the contact metric will screw them over and they will wind up paying more.
Hello Hannah!
Thank you for taking the time to write this review - we appreciate you giving us feedback on our product!
I am so happy to hear that you have been so happy with the software up to this point - it sounds like you are doing an amazing job at using all the tools available to you!
As far as room for improvement - I'm sorry to hear about your experience with the new Design Manager, it can definitely be a bit overwhelming to a new user, particularly one who does not understand coding. We are working on producing more instructional content to help with this process but, in the meantime, here is one article that has some helpful instructions as well as links to other helpful pieces of content (https://designers.hubspot.com/blog/introduction-to-the-design-manager).
I would love to talk more about this and the other issues you have brought up. If you are open to it, please reach out to us at the email provided.
Thank you again for the review Hannah!
Avantages
Hubspot Marketing is a big product. It can do a lot. There are so many tools and features. Sometimes too many to use. We didn't know anything about using Hubspot Marketing before we started. Hubspot taught us all we know. Their training courses are easy to watch and easy to understand, but there is a learning curve.
As with anything in marketing, results do not happen overnight. We started using Hubspot Marketing in February of 2014. It took us 8-12 months to really start seeing major results. During this time, we had a personal customer success manager who was helping us along the way. Flash forward over 4 years later and we are still using Hubspot Marketing.
We primarily use it to host our blog content, CTAs, and landing pages.
Inconvénients
We would not be where we are without Hubspot Marketing. With that said, we feel like we are not fully using Hubspot to its potential. Unfortunately, because all of our marketing content is tied into Hubspot, we continue to pay for the software. It is hard to move your content to another provider (or just export your content to your own server), so sometimes we feel locked in.
Another con is that you will be automatically charged for contacts if you go over your limit. Once this happens, you are automatically moved into a higher level plan until you get in touch with Hubspot and tell them you would like to move back down to a lower plan. To do this, you have to sign another contract with them at the lower plan. We are always checking our statements to make sure we have not been automatically moved into a higher plan automatically.
Avantages
HubSpot makes it very easy to setup a blog and email based online business. Their ability to segment, tag and reach out to our list is powerful. Plus, their Calls to Action feature is very nice. The platform was very reliable and I don't recall having downtimes with it.
Inconvénients
1. Customization: They provide a template marketplace, but designs are limited and difficult to change unless your know their special markup and CSS. Most businesses will eventually require an expensive HubSpot-specific developer to tweak their website's appearance. We grew tired of needing more customization as the years went by and started looking at DIY page builder options in the market as an alternative.
2. High cost: Hubspot is *expensive*. It became even more expensive when we needed a specific feature which required us to jump into the per month Enterprise tier package (at the time).This tier included the feature we needed plus many others we honestly didn't need (but no ala carte options were available).
In the end, after reviewing the high monthly costs and features, we realized we could replace HubSpot with WordPress (blog) + ActiveCampaign (email, tags, segmenting) + LeadPages (landing pages) + ConvertPlus (lightbox popups, hello bars).
Two months later, the migration was complete and we canceled HubSpot. Our monthly costs dropped. With the money saved, we expanded our staff and advertising budgets.
Regarding canceling, keep in mind they require 45 days written notice, not the usual 30 days. They use debt collectors (McCarthy, Burgess & Wolff, Inc) on unpaid balances.
Knowledge and Insight. Knowlege is power and having insight into all activities your marketing, sales and business development team implement is extremely powerful in knowing where to tweak things and where you excel.
Shooting blindly from the hip on massive marketing campaigns is extremely expensive and rarely effective for increasing your ROI.
But with the knowledge and insight, the HubSpot MAP provides you, you always know what you're doing, why you're doing it, the ROI of your campaigns and where you are lacking.
Not having to rely on the complexity of Google Analytics or manual entry of Excel is a huge time and money saver. You also don't have to have a million different tools, software and extensions to try to piece together your marketing strategy, analytics and results. This eliminates about 90% of all the tools you are paying for and using and brings it all into one single platform. Not to mention that it's merely impossible to get all the third-party tools and integrations to talk to each other to give you one bottom line result.
With the HubSpot MAP's benefit of cutting hours and labor basically pays for the cost of the software itself.
Knowledge is power and time is money.
Avantages
Obviously, as it's stated in its name, but the Automation part of the platform. The workflows, lists, how a published blog with automatically distribute your blog via your social media accounts, the analytics of how well your strategy, content, and workflows are working, etc. are all exceptional qualities to the HubSpot MAP.
The abundance of features and abilities available to a user is endless and always being updated, upgraded or enhanced.
I love how the HubSpot MAP is 100% synced with the HubSpot CRM and CMS. In fact, since they are open to third-party integrations, you can enhance any or all of the features given to you all throughout the HubSpot system.
Inconvénients
From experience in teaching the software to our clients, it can be an overwhelming learning curve. Especially for the CEOs and people in non-related marketing departments that have to learn to use the system as well, since it is meant to effect a company as a whole, obviously in a positive way.
As stated above, HubSpot MAP is open to third-party integrations to better your user experience and insights into your marketing performance. The only downside to that is the budget. If you're a startup company, purchasing the HubSpot MAP and platform is expensive by itself. And when you add on purchasing other third-party integrations to get all the features you want, can be extremely costly or just over-budget in general.
The other feature I would like to see HubSpot improve is their Social Media Platform, included in the HubSpot MAP. Yes, you can schedule tweets in bulk or a month's worth of social media posts for the next month, but in reality, it is very time-consuming. Especially for a feature that is meant to cut the manual labor out of your day.
One reason for this is because you have to create a customized shortened tracking URL, located in a different area of the platform, to place into each social media message. That means a separate URL for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn & Google+, all for the same message. Now imagine having to do that for social media posts for the next week. It does get exhausting. That is one area you would want to get a third-party integration.
HubSpot's marketing platform is very robust and contains everything an inbound marketer needs. Every time I speak with their support team, they are friendly and quickly resolve my issue. Since HubSpot is a pay-per-contact platform, the cost can easily increase if your organization is rapidly growing or doesn't keep a clean list of contacts. If your company currently uses a WordPress blog, integrating it with HubSpot is easy, but may result in having to create 301 redirects if the templates don't match up exactly. I recommend, if possible, converting the entire website (including the blog) to HubSpot.
Aside from the ease of use, the product is continually evolving to meet the needs of current marketing trends. HubSpot requests user feedback on a variety of aspects - from design to feature functionality - to make their product the best. It also integrates well with a variety of other platforms, including WordPress and Salesforce.
Avantages
It is very use full in tracking web and analyze business metrics to ensure marketing campaigns are progressing into the right direction.Our favorite part of Hubspot Marketing is the data that is made available on lead source, web traffic, and blog and email marketing performance. Prior to Hubspot we were not running any website analytics. By tying marketing efforts to website performance we are able to see what is working and what isn't and make better decisions going forward.
Good general functionality for tracking activity and reporting, and nice to have automatic download of company contact information when entering new contacts. Campaigns are fairly easy to set up.
Inconvénients
I have only found 2 things - if you send an email and use the Smart Send feature to accommodate for different time zones, then it disables the ability to "Send to More". Second: at first, there are what feels like a lot of pieces to fit together - a form, campaign, landing page, emails, etc. Until you get that mapped out, it felt a little overwhelming.
Layout is a little out dated.
You can't change the default on the list of company names from recently added to alphabetical.
You can change the sort, but the next time you sign in or refresh, it goes back to sorting by recently added.
Avantages
Hubspot is easy to understand and implement as the user interface is pretty straight forward. The tutorial, when first launching the software, guides you through the basics and gives quickly an understanding of the structure and functionality. The level of customization is enough to make it suit most businesses needs. Most importantly though, not everything has to be done by the user. Hubspot offers a variety of features to automate processes and avoid the time consuming manual input of all the data while using the software. By inserting the email address of a contact, Hubspot will fetch information from the web to create a profile for the contact's company. Contacts' status will update automatically every time a sale involving that contact is materialized. You can also link your email to Hubspot allowing to keep a record of your correspondence, organized by contact or specific related deal. The software integrates a contact, a customer and a project database along with a To-Do list, notes and calendar which is really great, since you have all the tools you need in one place. Additionally you can attach files in each of your deals, which comes handy in some cases. Along with a variety of marketing tools, you will love being on Hubspot's mailing list. Instead of annoying newsletters, Hubspot will email you marketing tricks usually enriched with free goodies, like templates, guides and more.
Inconvénients
I have to think a lot in order to find a negative aspect of Hubspot. A feature I would like to be enhanced is the ability to issue sales forecasts. You can do it, but it lacks some useful options like stage invoicing and invoicing/payment schedules.
HubSpot was designed to be a fully integrated robust marketing automation platform and when the company introduced its Content Optimization System (COS) in 2014, it was a game changer. HubSpot was designed from the ground up to be an inbound marketing platform.
The HubSpot COS enables you to do many things including, but not limited to, the creation and management of Demand Generation Campaigns, Content Marketing, and Marketing Automation, that can be targeted and customized for different buyer personas and different stages of the sales process.
The HubSpot COS provides a website that is automatically responsive to all screen sizes. It has a drag-and-drop template builder and WYSIWYG for those who desire simplicity. It also accommodates virtually whatever functionality and vision your designers and developers might have for your website.
It has fully integrated SEO, Social Sharing, Analytics, Landing Pages, Contact List, Email and Workflows into a powerful platform. It also seamlessly integrates into the most popular CRMs including Salesforce.
For those who do not need all the bells and whistles that come with Salesforce, HubSpot has developed their own CRM that both aligns with the marketing process and allows for the tracking and automation of many sales processes.
Imagine having a website that transitions to be unique for each buyer persona at each stage of the buyer’s journey. Each time someone visits your site they see new, fresh information that directly relates to their concerns and interest.
HubSpot’s Contextual Marketing and Personalization abilities allow you to have a conversation with your website visitors. Each vertical you serve and every different buyer persona has unique pain points and concerns.
So after you identify where a visitor fits, your site can morph to show them the information most relevant to them. Even the same individual will have different concerns and interests as they navigate from awareness to consideration and finally onto a buying stage. With HubSpot your site can be setup to show different information as they navigate this buyer’s journey.
Your website is now having a conversation with each visitor.
Avantages
Hubspot contextual marketing capabilities allows you to have a conversation with each buyer persona at each stage of the buyer's journey. It allows each website visitor to find exactly what they need to see in order to take that next step down the sales funnel.
Inconvénients
The basic package is restricted to a small number of contacts. Once you start using HubSpot and seeing results you will need to move up to Professional or Enterprise
I've been using Hubspot for about 15 months now.
It is great software.
I love how it consolidates so many different services into one platform and makes it easy to get the analytics for that data.
Now I don't have my blog in one place, my email marketing software somewhere else, my landing page software somewhere else, etc.
It's all in one platform, consolidated, and fairly easy to use.
Avantages
Their support answers questions fairly quickly and accurately.
They are always coming out with new features.
Inconvénients
Limited.
Hubspot allows you to filter out visitors so they don't skew your analytics. Great.
However, you can't filter out countries.
Even though, they know based on the IP address the country of the person who submits a form or visits a site, they can't filter it out (won't filter it out). Even though all my clients are from the US, visitors from India who visit my site and try to sell me stuff all the time are skewing my analytics and making it look like my conversions are higher than they really are. Can't filter out by country.
You also can't change the source of a lead.
True story:
I host podcast. A listener stumbled upon my podcast, went online, googled my name and found my website.
Hubspot now classifies this as an 'organic lead'. The worst part is I can't change it. I've brought this up with Hubspot, and they said that they don't allow it to be changed 'to protect the integrity of the data'..... Hmm. So they'd rather have incorrect data than wrong data? So forever my analytics will be off because I can't change the source.
This happens also on referrals. Somebody is referred to me, they then google my name or business and fill out a contact form, and Hubspot classifies it as organic, but really, it's not. (They don't even have a field for referral in the source).
Another downside is you can't create your own lead status. So, if you get a lead to your site, and they will never buy (say they are a spammer of competitor or former customer you had a falling out with), you can't change their status to say for example:
No Opportunity-Former Client
No Opportunity-Marketing Agency
No Opportunity-Spammer
This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as cons.
Still even with all these cons. they offer a great product. That said, for the price and these limitations, I will be looking around when I am close to up on my agreement.
HubSpot is truly an all-in-one marketing automation platform. Expect to get your entire team involved as there are tools for everyone; email, calls-to-action, workflows, reporting, lead scoring, CRM, website CMS, social dashboard and so much more.
As a HubSpot Platinum Partner, not only do we use this software for ourselves, but we use it for all of our inbound marketing clients. Inbound marketing gets results, if you do it correctly. Don't be fooled, executing a solid inbound campaign takes a lot of hours and a lot of know-how, HubSpot can help to alleviate that pain. With a dashboard that incorporates all of the necessary tools, you can forget about wasting time and focus on getting results.
The HubSpot community is also something to be coveted. HubSpot has built a vast network of brand evangelists that are willing to help and share experiences with other users. HubSpot helps to facilitate these communities and offers a lot of their own content and expertise to aid users.
Avantages
HubSpot is easy to use once you have gone through their training. You will need to understand the inbound methodology to see results, and with a HubSpot certification, you will have a great basis for how to use the tool out of the box. If you run into trouble, you can always call their very helpful support staff, or look to their online resources for help. Between HubSpot and their communities, this tools is very well documented.
HubSpot also does everything. You will be able to cancel all other automation subscriptions after adopting this software.
Inconvénients
HubSpot can seem expensive up front, especially if you are just starting out. It's worth the money if you can justify the amount of sales you will need to generate to justify the cost.
You will also need to sign a one year contract, there is no month to month. Inbound isn't an instant fix, and HubSpot knows that. You will have to commit to a year to understand the full use of the tool.
You will need to work with an agency. This isn't required, but in order to get the best out of the tool, you need to utilize a company that is in this tool day in and day out who is willing to partner with you strategically. Don't sell yourself short by trying to do it all yourself, it simply isn't feasible and you will be disappointed with the results.
I enjoy using the automation workflows! They are my favorite to set up and monitor in HubSpot. I love the flexibility of the application and the user-friendly quality that makes it easier for me explain how the workflow operates.
Avantages
Workflows are easy to set up and can be used for a wide range of purposes, from nurturing leads to tracking event registrations. I have also used them for data management by copying data from the company level into the contact level. I am also able to test the workflow before activating and see which contacts would be enrolled in the workflow based on my enrollment criteria. I can also stop and adjust the workflow settings at any time.
Inconvénients
Workflows have some limitations on the triggering criteria, time settings and company properties. Overall there is a lot of freedom on how to set up workflows. Only occasionally I will hit a curb but I can still get the job done.
I save a lot of time that I can use to be more productive in my business.
Avantages
Easy dashboards and the social aspect and it's ability to manage my social media presence.
Support is amazing. If you call them, they will be very kind and they'll love to help you.
It's very easy and fun to use.
It has easy to use interface and it allows a Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It will improve your experience daily.
The platform design is simple. No programming knowledge required, easy for everybody.
Its reports are detailed, straightforward but easy to read and understand.
It has a lot of resources and training tools very helpful for an easy learning.
It's a great CRM tool for manage your customers needings and discover opportunities in business.
It can generate reports in a large variety of metrics, making it vesatile.
Easy data finding just typing customer's name.
It reduces the need of other tools. You can save a lot of time.
There is an mobile app available, so you can use it and work anywhere.
This software really simplifies marketing automation .
Inconvénients
It's price. If your business is small and you have not a medium cash flow, good sales level and full-time dedicated worker it seems to be to much expensive in its cost-profit relation. Pricing can be expensive depending on the version you need.
It stops working completely sometimes.
It's hard to find customers with latin names because important characters like the accent are not available.
It's hard to get friendly with the app. Sometimes information finding is difficult, it may take a while to find it.
The contract is billed annually, not monthly.
The market platform reporting could be better.
Too much time needed for customizing it before you can use it easy.
It's not the dream application fot multinational companies that work in multiple currencies.
Sometimes you get daunted using it.
The editors for mailing or webpage creating can be clunky. If you are not enough carefully you can get awful results.
Sometimes tools need to be improved for a better performance and to be functional and friendly to the user.
We currently use HubSpot for our mMarketing campaigns, social media publishing and email tracking. We are also currently integrating the HubSpot tracking metric with our CRM database to use lead scoring for not only new customers, but also for our existing accounts. HubSpot is also the host for our website and we have integrated 2 additional Shopify site domains for tracking and campaign workflow purposes.
- Great for marketers who want to host a website in an easily edited platform.
- Also great for web-based content offering and automation.
- New sales tools are great for sales/ marketing integration and alignment!
Pros
- Web, Email, Social, SEO, Page performance, AB Testing metrics (essentially all metrics a marketer would look at can be tracked on HubSpot)
- Workflow and Campaign Automation tools
- Integrations and Apps
- Ease of website updates. Modules and coding are easy to rearrange, update and change
- Excellent customer service and fast response times to inquiries/ challenges
Cons
- Only meeting tool integration is with GoToMeeting (No WebEx)
- More in depth website auditing for SEO, Ranking Words, Backline profile
ROI
- Great email campaign ROI
- Website updates and promotion since the move to HubSpot in 2016 has led to more leads and conversions than in company history
- Website views and social impressions have more than tripled since using HubSpot
Avantages
Web, Email, Social, SEO, Page performance, AB Testing metrics (essentially all metrics a marketer would look at can be tracked on HubSpot)
Workflow and Campaign Automation tools
Integrations and Apps
Ease of website updates. Modules and coding are easy to rearrange, update and change
Excellent customer service and fast response times to inquiries/ challenges
Inconvénients
Only meeting tool integration is with GoToMeeting (No WebEx)
More in depth website auditing for SEO, Ranking Words, Backline profile
We investigated HubSpot as a way to help us be more efficient in managing our client's digital marketing efforts, which had become time consuming using multiple different platforms. With HubSpot, we're able to keep everyone focused on the same goals across the various channels (email, blog, social, PPC) and view the results all in one place. Better yet, it gives us a platform where we can collect all this information on a contact and company basis, making it easier for us to see the interactions we're having with a single contact across the board. Reporting has become easier, and it's much easier now to make an impact with our marketing efforts with everything centralized.
Avantages
The system is pretty intuitive, more so than other platforms we've used. You don't need to learn multiple platforms (different email clients like MailChimp, Constant Contact, etc, plus WordPress, Blogger, and all the social outlets), just keep up with the one and launch everything from the same place. There are helpful guides along the way that ensure you're following best practices, and warnings when you're not. We are heavy users, ultimately deciding to become a HubSpot Certified Partner Agency due to the efficiencies and value. Much easier than other marketing automation suites we've used in the past, including Marketo and SalesFusion. And if you do need help, their Support line is phenomenal, incredibly personable and willing to take the time to help.
Inconvénients
As with most applications, the software can be a bit "hinky" sometimes, getting hung up or taking too long to process. Usually they flag the situation though, so you know what's going on and that they're working on it. If there's no flag, we report it, and they get someone working on it right away - nice to be taken seriously. The reporting generally requires that we need to take screenshots instead of using the ppt that the system auto-generates at month end - it's just not detailed enough for most of our clients. Sometimes it's difficult to keep up with all the system updates/upgrades, so be ready to invest some time in the training or find a partner to help.
Avantages
I like that HubSpot practices what it preaches. They educate customers (and the public) in inbound marketing techniques, the very techniques they're using themselves to earn customers! The product itself is easy to use and intuitive. Whenever we think up something we want to do (a specific tactic or approach), we always know that HubSpot can accommodate that idea. What I like best is the seamless way in which we can manage all of our blogging, website, social media, and enews all in one platform and see all of the analytics in that same place. Everyday we are logging into Hubspot to schedule social media posts, blogs, edit automated workflows, and more. Other staff use the tool for a monthly touchpoint email they send to their lists of contacts. And weekly, we send our FatherSource enewsletter from within HubSpot using the email templates. Further, HubSpot integrates with our Salesforce CRM, and provides valuable information to our sales staff, which can help them better help our customers/potential customers. We assign leads that come through HubSpot and feed into Salesforce for personal follow-up from NFI staff.
Inconvénients
As for what I like least: nothing! Seriously. We couldn't be as successful as we are today without this tool. We have two people managing our marketing and Hubspot acts as a third person. Before HubSpot we were using Constant Contact, The Raisers Edge contact database, Blogspot, and Blackbaud Net Community for our website, and posting separately on twitter, Facebook, and linked in. Now we can do all of this in one place! If I had to choose one thing I like least, it's that there is a not a plug-in for drafting, distributing, and monitoring press releases and incorporating them into overall marketing campaigns. I think HubSpot could help us be more efficient in this way. Fortunately, this deficiency isn't not really a major concern for us.
It allowed us to quickly implement user-specific content for our clients' websites.
Avantages
It's fairly easy for anyone with moderate tech skills to get up and running with HubSpot, and it produced noticeable improvements across virtually all commonly measured key performance indicators for our customers. Integrating HubSpot was relatively quick and easy, and we were able to work with our clients to launch basic customized user content on their websites within a few days. Their all-in-one inbound marketing software is also quite flexible and scalable, so our clients were able to steadily build out more campaigns and customized user content as they were able to dedicate more time and resources to using HubSpot. It's also worth mentioning that there are multiple pricing tiers which have vastly different features depending on the price, and the bulk of my experience was with the 2 highest pricing tiers (Professional & Enterprise), so lower pricing tiers aren't nearly as robust, and probably wouldn't be nearly as scalable or effective, but you can always upgrade to higher tiers should you need additional functionality. There is even a free tier with minimal functionality that newer users can try out at first, and then upgrade to the higher tiers if they think that it's worthwhile.
Inconvénients
The various types of rules for serving automated content to users are good, but it's impossible to build out more complicated rules that involve using multiple criteria to create more complex user flows that branch out based on differing user behaviors. It would also help if there were a way to create new automated content campaigns in bulk using different criteria somehow, like filling out and uploading an Excel template or something like that.
Hubspot has not only made our efforts more effective, it has saved us an immense amount of time through having all of our marketing efforts streamlined and integrated through the central hubspot platform. If you’re serious about marketing, make the investment and you won’t be disappointed. We are very happy with Hubspot and won’t be considering a change anytime soon.