All-in-one online platform for a full inbound and outbound marketing platform!
November 18, 2013
All-in-one online platform for a full inbound and outbound marketing platform!
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
Professional
Overall Satisfaction
- The dashboard statistics were very important to my team. I was able to tell my management about the how we were tracking on leads we've received on a daily basis against our goals, last month or last three months, or even last year. The reporting in general was quite useful - being able to look at different time periods for board reports.
- The salesforce integration was essential for our sales team. Lead handling was simplified - prior to HubSpot, we were capturing leads in email, then recreating the lead in Salesforce. It was arduous and time consuming.
- Immediate creation of landing pages. This is something I miss greatly in my new position at a different company. We could whip out a customized landing page in a matter of minutes. And the tracking URLs were useful in comparing the performance of sources.
- No need for heavy IT involvement. The only thing we needed to get set up with HubSpot were a few minor details. The rest was up to us.
- Some of the updates to the dashboard in particular caused some issues with no data for several hours.
- The update to the email templates caused some issues with our existing templates. We also disliked that we couldn't use anchor text/tags to jump down to content in our newsletter unless it was in the web version.
- The requirement to move to HubSpot 3 was to create a new subdomain to host new landing pages. We actually decided against the upgrade since we had so much on the existing subdomain.
- We were able to more tightly integrate lead hand off and handling, along with lead data for our sales team. This cut down on "lead spin" since all the details were in one place.
- Our VP of sales and marketing strongly relied on the data fed from HubSpot into Salesforce.com since it was reliable and accurate.
- We were able to do more with the same platform - expanded marketing campaigns and an increased amount of money dedicated to our marketing efforts due to our success.
Evaluation and Selection
The functionality was at a level where we could use it right out the gate, and upgrade if necessary. The price was also within our budget range. Having had previous experience with HubSpot I was able to knowledgeably support its adoption internally. Marketo was out of our price range, and our website wasn't able to support some of the functionality that HubSpot didn't offer but Marketo did.
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Prior Experience with the Product
- Vendor Reputation
Product features - the whole package in one place! The integration of data across all activities was also important, along with the integration with salesforce.com. We ran all of our activities out of HubSpot including our blog, email campaigns and newsletters, our PPC lead capture, and landing pages for other activities like mailings.
I can't say I would do anything different. I still believe we made the right choice in HubSpot. We renewed twice for two years at a time. After our company was acquired, we urged our parent company to consider HubSpot for their own activities. I wish I had HubSpot today at my current company!
Usability
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Convenient Feel confident using Familiar | None |
- The dashboard was addictive to hit refresh to get the latest lead details.
- The email reporting once sent was simple to interpret.
- The keywords tool was very useful in seeing how we were doing with top terms.
- The competitive comparison was nice to check on a monthly basis.
- Email templates are finicky when you import code.
- The Email reporting seems to lock down right after the initial send with no updates except open rate.
- The tracking URL reporting wasn't in one place - had to navigate around to find performance.