HubSpot Marketing Hub Reviews

CMS, social media tool, and analytics reporting.

I work for a marketing agency. We use the platform for a number of our clients. We typically run our client blogs and their social media programs through HubSpot. For some clients, their websites and reporting also goes through HubSpot. We don't typically rely on the HubSpot CRM or sales tools. The tools we do use are very user-friendly and incredibly scalable while allowing for intelligent automation. Scalability is hugely important to our clients and for me. As the person executing the marketing plan, it's very helpful to a have such a breadth of functionality accessible at one central portal.

Most of HubSpot's shortcomings come in functionality that is stopped just shy of the finish line, so to speak. For example, the social calendar tool should have a multi-select drag-and-drop functionality. The social scheduling tool similarly should be able to handle more than 15 unique messages at a time. The LinkedIn API seems to be somehow limited, as the social inbox tool often fails to pick up interactions/conversations on LinkedIn and frequently cannot retrieve the names of those individuals interacting with user messaging.

That said, there are some real issues, especially in the analytics reporting, where unexplainable gaps tend to show up. For example, the discrepancy between the number of social clicks reported and the number of social-media-generated visits reported often cannot be explained by the usual suspects - clicks directing to third-party content, partially-loaded page bounces, filtering, double clicks, etc. In fact, I've encountered instances where the reported number of social media generated visits exceeded the reported number of social clicks which makes for a real head scratcher. HubSpot support is usually of little help in explaining these discrepancies.

Another example can be found in the page performance reporting tool. In this view, the user is presented with a list of pages and some information associated with those pages - information like publish date, views, CTA %, etc. The problem is the figures presented under the CTA % column almost never match up with the numbers found if you click through to the individual page's reporting environment and divide the number of CTA clicks by the number of page views. In running AdWords campaigns, we've also found enormous discrepancies between the AdWords and HubSpot reporting. For these and other reasons, we tend to prefer data from Google Analytics.

Another feature leaving tremendous room for improvement is the keyword tool. This provides data on keyword difficulty and search volume that is frankly not very reliable, often contradicting more authoritative tools such as MOZ and Keyword Planner, as well as basic intuition.

Over two years.

For a web application, HubSpot runs fairly heavy, which can cause stability issues on the side of the user (due to processing issues). While effectively the same, it should be noted that when these problems occur, they are not technically issues with the stability of the platform.

No.

Fair, a seven out of 10.

As an agency, we have to work with many CMS, marketing automation, and social media tools. In these capacities, I find that HubSpot tends to provide for a superior user experience while allowing for a more effective, scalable digital marketing program. In terms of analytics and SEO, HubSpot offers a subpar solution. As a CRM, HubSpot is infinitely more user-friendly than Salesforce but considerably less robust in its offering.

In my experience, this depends more on the DNS you use than on HubSpot. I've been part of extremely smooth and easy setups and extremely difficult setups.

The Pro package should be adequate for most operations.

As an agency, we don't chose the solutions employed; our clients do.

I'd offer my strong endorsement. This is a very powerful tool that gets better each year.

The most important features are email marketing and lead scoring. We attend a lot of trade shows, host webinars, etc., so email marketing is a key part of our inbound marketing strategy.

Lead scoring helps us track our leads when we’re determining which ones are hotter and should be followed up. It allows marketing to pass more qualified leads to sales, so that the sales team can prioritize.

Before using HubSpot, we weren’t able to track our database activity as much. We were using MailChimp, which is a great beginner tool for email marketing and marketing automation. However, HubSpot is your all-in-one inbound platform. It allows us to track visitors' web views, download history, and more. Since using HubSpot, we’ve at least doubled our leads generated.

Sometimes the product can be glitchy in the email marketing and landing page creation and I find myself having to refresh the page. It’s not often and it usually fixes itself, but it can be frustrating if you need to turn something around quickly

For example, when building a new email or landing page, sometimes when I insert something like an image or Call-to-Action, it won’t show up - it’s blank. I have to try multiple times and usually have to refresh and/or leave the page entirely and come back to it later. .

I also wish there were more capabilities with the new Lead Flow tool. I believe they are working on some upgrades since it’s still a new product as of today.

We have used the solution since August, 2015.

We didn't really have any stability issues, but I’ve encountered some glitches that usually fix themselves. Overall, it’s a very reliable platform and their support is very helpful and responsive if you have any issues.

We didn't have any scalability issues. That’s the best part about HubSpot. It allows you to scale your business.

We have multiple users in HubSpot for various reasons. I manage the email marketing piece and lead scoring, where our web person manages landing page creation and SEO reports. As we add more people to our team and grow our business, it’s very easy to manage.

I would rate the technical support as 10/10. I’ve never had a problem they couldn’t fix.

Usually, most issues are fixed within a day or two. I’ve had some larger scale technical problems, but their team is very thorough and even if it takes a week or so, they figure it out and get it right.

We previously used MailChimp, but we needed a more all-in-one platform. MailChimp was only offering email marketing services and we needed to add lead scoring, landing page creation, SEO, reporting, etc.

The initial setup was a big task, but HubSpot sets you up with an on-boarding specialist for your first three months. This is in addition to your customer success rep. They really focus on getting you started.

My on-boarding specialist was awesome. She really helped get me set up and she guided me through all the tools. We met on a weekly basis and I took action items away each week. She answered any questions I had when executing, and was very helpful.

It’s a costly product and it takes a little while to get set up. We didn’t see leads increase until about six months into using the product, but we’ve been increasing ever since. While it isn’t a cheap tool, we definitely see the value it brings.

We looked at Marketo. HubSpot seemed to be a more user-friendly interface, incorporated more of what we needed, and in the end, it was more affordable.

Take advantage of the free trial to take a look at the product. Once you start, really take advantage of your on-boarding specialist and ask a million questions.

HubSpot is a really robust tool, so there are a lot of features. Try to master one at a time (email marketing first, landing pages second, etc.).

HubSpot has a lot of great sources. Their online academy has video tutorials and example projects for you to master tools. They also offer certifications so you can take a test to check your knowledge. It’s a great way to study up and learn things about tools you might not have known existed.

There’s also a yearly conference called Inbound, which I attended as a new HubSpot user. It was really helpful in learning all about the product/service, making connections both at HubSpot and with other marketers to bounce around ideas.

I’ve also attended local trainings in my city which have been really helpful. I encourage everyone to go to at least one. The classes are usually 10-20 people, so you can really focus on what you need.

On my team, we mostly used Hubspot as a CRMand communications channel for our various communities. Hubspot has been a mostly successful solution for those two areas. 

We did not use the social media function; we've never been able to pin down a value for us there; we already had our social media system in order and were comfortable with the setup we had. 

Absolutely, hands-down the best platform of its kind that we've experienced. Our communications are better tracked, and the 'story' created around every user in the CRM is extremely helpful for us, especially since we integrated with Salesforce. 

There are specific functions that we require that don't exist yet. The landing page building feature leaves much to be desired; we abandoned it and integrated with Unbounce. The customer service is touch and go (speaking with a human; the docs are great). 

Two years.

It was complex but we hired a consultant to help guide us through it. Some technical issues lasted a while but that was because we needed the right resources on our side and didn't have them in place. 

For the most part, fairly stable. 

You get what you pay for (literally, by level of payment plan). 

We had several solutions scattered around; this made our CRM world unified (along with Salesforce). 

In-house, with the help of a consultant for one-time guidance. 

This is the first solution of its kind/caliber that I have personally used. 

The most valuable feature for us is the lead-nurturing workflows. They give us the ability to create automated workflows that will operate certain flows-of-action automatically on a duration of time I set. This enables us to decide that a certain segment of database will receive content throughout time without us having to do it.

We can script it beforehand and then set it so that it automatically goes out to segments. The workflow abilities are quite wide so we can make a complex workflow and play with its logic based on conditions, triggers, actions, level of engagement, etc.

The modules of workflow are also quite well developed and give us a lot of flexibility to play with actions I take inside of it.

The landing pages are also great as we can quickly create them from the UI. My team and I have the ability to create pages in just minutes and we can make new templates quickly.

We can also perform A/B testing on landing pages without working too hard. They have smart content that will dynamically change when users change and I can segment users based on database, source, and different conditions.

The module of scoring can improve immensely. It uses manual scoring, which is a tedious process because you have to design in advance and update it all the time. They've recently added predictive scoring, but it won't replace manual scoring. It's only complementary and is too manual and cumbersome. It can't aggregate scores and I have to input them manually, which is annoying. What's also missing are guidelines for best practices for scoring so that it instructs you on how to build scoring strategy.

Also, it's quite basic on SEO. There's only a keywords module, but not much you can do with it because it's not very developed.

They've inserted new modules over time, but they're add-ons and require additional licenses depending on packages. Instead of adding to purchased package, they require you to pay extra, even if you're an enterprise customer.

I've used it for over two years.

With the CRM integration, it wasn't as smooth as we wanted in the beginning and we had to work with support to get it up and running. There was an issue with the number of API calls that could be made, and other issues that weren't so clear. But it wasn't a big issue. Otherwise, deployment was good.

I've detected a few bugs here and there, mostly related to the UI, and sometimes behind the scenes in the database, but very rarely. They don't happen very often as we've only had downtime once in three years of use.

We've scaled it based on number of users in database.

The technical support is very good. They're responsive and never neglect problems, but sometimes their solutions are too superficial and not deep enough. They'll always stick with you until they find a solution, but the solution is not always future-proof.

There was no previous solution in place.

We started with a free trial, and inside of it I could already set up some of my platform, and when we moved to the paid version, I didn't have to start over. Integration with Salesforce wasn't too complicated. What is complex is, as a marketeer, we have to load, and design a lot of our content to the system. But I don't think that's a limitation of the platform.

We implemented it in-house with our IT department who had Hubspot's support.

I think pricing is fair compared to others. It's average -- not too expensive and not too cheap. They didn't limit the number of internal users and sales people I could onboard, unlike Pardot, which limits and requires additional payment for additional users.

Work with an agency for deployment to make it easier on yourself to begin. Plan out content inside the platform (i.e. workflows, content, landing pages, emails, etc.).

One of the companies I'm involved with is using HubSpot for their marketing automation. They also integrate their cloud solution with HubSpot to allow for lead nurturing based on their activities in the software.

It works well for email automation and workflows.

It has reasonable social tracking module.

They need to improve their report and the ability to customize them, especially as some of the more fancy reports they have are not available unless.

Pretty smooth

HubSpot have had multiple cases in the past 3 month where their performance was not good. Pages wouldn't load or require refresh.

No

Pretty good and very responsive support.

Very good

Yes, I've considered Marketo and Pardo.

When considering this product, check if all the features you need are in the tier you are planning to pay for.

We use the solution for marketing automation. It's used by the marketing team. For example, we use it to send emails automatically to customers. The main purpose is to have a hub for all marketing outreach and to keep track of members.

The workflows on offer are very useful.

It's a pretty flexible product.

There are customizable templates and we can easily make the templates more dynamic.

It is fairly straightforward to set up.

It's a good CRM tool.  

There aren't any missing features.

Sometimes we've had issues with the usability of the product. It's more of a user problem than a technology problem. The way the staff uses the system sometimes leads to processes not being followed. 

I've used the solution for two years. 

I'd rate the initial setup seven out of ten in terms of ease of use. It's okay to set up. It isn't overly complex.

We're a customer and end-user and use it for our CRM.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. It's an important tool to have in a company, and this solution meets all of our business requirements.