Hubspot is spot on for scaling B2B SaaS companies
Updated January 22, 2022
Hubspot is spot on for scaling B2B SaaS companies
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
Professional
Overall Satisfaction with HubSpot Marketing Hub
We use HubSpot as our primary platform for Marketing and integrate with Salesforce CRM, which is the primary platform for our Sales and Business Development teams. Our Marketing team uses HubSpot for emails, workflows, ads, lead management, scoring, nurturing, and some reporting. Our Customer Success team also uses it for one-to-many emails.
Pros
- All-in-one software - the main thing HubSpot does well is the breadth of functionality.
- Easy of use - personally, I find it more intuitive than Marketo, which is the other MAP that I know well.
- Ads - I like that we can drill down on ads by channel, ad group, campaign, and even create and see performance data at each level.
Cons
- ABM - HubSpot was built for inbound marketing, which is lead-centric. There is now ABM functionality, but it's less developed than other parts of the platform.
- CMS - I found their page builder relatively difficult to use. I would recommend using a landing page builder like unbounce as a complement to HubSpot.
- Reporting - I've run into more limitations with HubSpot report building than I have in Salesforce.
- Ads - built-in ROI measurement in HubSpot's Ads to help improve ad optimization.
- Workflows - opened the door to automate some processes at scale.
- Campaigns - some room for improvement here. It could be a knowledge gap, but we've found that having email opens as a default engagement that's part of campaign performance muddies the waters on what actually is working in campaigns.
I used Marketo as a power user for two years. In my experience, I found Marketo to be better suited to companies that have a dedicated Marketing Ops professional due to the complexity of their platform. In general, I find HubSpot more intuitive and easier to use than Marketo. I also prefer having broader functionality, such as HubSpot's Ads functionality, than needing another (Ad) tool or needing to go to each ad platform for performance data.
Do you think HubSpot Marketing Hub delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with HubSpot Marketing Hub's feature set?
Yes
Did HubSpot Marketing Hub live up to sales and marketing promises?
Yes
Did implementation of HubSpot Marketing Hub go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy HubSpot Marketing Hub again?
Yes
HubSpot Marketing Hub Feature Ratings
Using HubSpot Marketing Hub
50 - Marketing, Customer Success, and Sales
5 - We now have a Marketing Operations Specialist who has developed deep expertise in leveraging marketing technology like HubSpot. We also have other a few other members of the Marketing team who can support others in the company use HubSpot when needed.
- Email
- Lead management
- Workflows (marketing automation)
- Ads - easily creating ad audiences and campaigns from HubSpot
- Targeting accounts - HubSpot is evolving beyond a purely lead-centric inbound platform by adding more account-oriented functionality (e.g. target account lists)
- Lead and account scoring - We're building this out
Evaluating HubSpot Marketing Hub and Competitors
Yes - HubSpot replaced Mailchimp when PartnerStack started a Marketing team and wanted to graduate from an email marketing tool to a marketing automation platform.
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Product Reputation
- Prior Experience with the Product
While the decision took into account multiple factors, I would say the single most important factor in our decision to go with HubSpot was the prior experience with the product from the two Marketers building out the function at PartnerStack. We had both used HubSpot extensively at other companies and liked it. As we were building up the Marketing function from near scratch, we liked the all-in-one functionality of HubSpot to serve as the main platform for Marketing.
The competitive landscape continues to evolve in marketing automation. Some of the legacy competitors, such as Marketo, are now less appealing to an SMB, but there are now other marketing automation platforms that also seem appealing to SMBs.
Using HubSpot Marketing Hub
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar | None |
- Emails - it's easy to create emails, set up A/B tests, and get insight into email performance from their intuitive email performance report
- Workflows - templates make it easy to get started, and even creating workflows from scratch is intuitive; the visualization of the workflow from the enrolment trigger to the goal(s) helps make it easy for both the workflow creator and others needing to understand the workflow to see how it work.
- Contact management - it's easy to use HubSpot's list importing, filtering, and syncing with third-party systems (e.g. using a HubSpot list for LinkedIn Marketing Solutions (ads)
- CMS - I struggled to make landing pages on HubSpot. Once I tried Unbounce, I realized there are alternatives to HubSpot that I find easier to use to make webpages.
- Reporting - My experience (at two B2B SaaS companies) has been with HubSpot Marketing Hub for Marketing and Salesforce CRM for Sales, and I've found it easier to build reports in Salesforce. At times, I make a list instead of a report because it's easier (though not ideal)
Yes, but I don't use it
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