When it comes to the HubSpot software, the product engineers have done a pretty good job of making the platform user friendly. With some guidance and training, new users are able to perform important marketing tasks like publishing social media, sending emails, and posting blog articles.
That said, the fact of the matter is that every HubSpot portal encompasses a lot of different functions and there are many moving parts that must be perfected in order to run a successful campaign with the software.
I often forget about the learning curve that new HubSpot users must overcome, because I have been so embedded in the software for the past few years. Recently, we have brought on a few new members of the Bluleadz team, and through the training process, I quickly remember how HubSpot can be initially overwhelming. There's a lot of ground to cover.The first is the HubSpot lingo. What is a buyer persona? What about a lead flow? What’s A and what’s B in "A/B?" What makes something “SMART?" Is a workflow really just a series of emails?
Once the lingo is down-pat, there’s also digging into the tools and learning how they all work together to support a common goal: often, generate traffic, turn traffic into leads, produce new customers, and delight existing customers.
If you're working with the HubSpot software, there are some tips and tricks I have learned along the way that can help you out. Don’t get me wrong, these HubSpot hacks won’t instantly transform you into a HubSpot expert in t-minus one hour; however they will save you some valuable time, whether you are brand new to HubSpot or are an existing user of the software.
By customizing your dashboard, you can then filter through the most important data and pay closer attention to the analytics that mean the most.
In the marketing world, analytics are everything. They provide the only information we can use to accurately gauge results and the ROI of our efforts.
On each individual report of your dashboard, you will see “Date Range,” which gives you the ability to change the time and range being used. Depending on the complexity of your dashboard, it can be time-consuming to change each and every date range (and may lead to an error in reporting if you have different date ranges applied).
To measure the effectiveness of increasing qualified traffic and new contacts over a specific period time, filter your dashboard in one easy step. Simply click “Filter Dashboard” at the top left of your dashboard and choose a date range. This range will then be applied to the entire dashboard, ensuring that all analytics are properly compared.
Having multiple blogs is not uncommon in individual website portals. You may have one blog for educational content and another set up for industry news. You may even have a technical blog and a "fun" blog, each delivering different content. By using the dropdown options at the top of the screen, you can select the blog that you are publishing and/or analyzing.
Oftentimes, there will be one blog that is more frequently used. If this is the case, simply "star" that blog, which will make it your default option.
Say "goodbye" to creating a blog post in the wrong blog and having to switch it after the fact—or worse, publishing to the wrong domain.
If you’re a bit familiar with HubSpot, you may have noticed that the blog views shown on your dashboard differ from the views that are shown in the Analytics tab of the Blog tool.
For example, on the Marketing Dashboard, you might track Blogging Performance and see that you have 5,000 blog views this month. When you hop into the Blog tool itself, you’re seeing 15,000 blog views.
HubSpot glitch? Nope.
These two numbers are actually pulling different information.
Within the Blog tool, all blog views are being accounted for in the selected time range, for any article ever published. When you hop over to your dashboard, the number will be less because the Blogging Performance report on the dashboard only includes the views associated with blogs published during the selected time frame.
So, if your most popular blog from 2010 is still getting a ton of views, then these views will not be portrayed in the Blogging Performance for this month-to-date or last month’s review; they will be included in the overall blog views within the Analyze portion of the tool.
In addition to the predisposed fields, there’s also the custom properties that you have created for the forms on your website. The list of properties, at this point, can get lengthy.
To quickly get a grip on who the contact is, select a default “About” section for all of your contacts. Set this as a default property, and it will be applied across the contacts in your database.
You’ve likely noticed that, when uploading a PDF to the File Manager and sharing this asset on social media or behind a thank you page, the link looks something like:
Cdn2.hubspot.net.newdownloadabletitle.pdf
There is actually an easy way to keep your website and branding as a part of the URL when sharing your assets. On an individual PDF, there will be a dropdown option to change the subdomain that the URL will root from.
Pro tip: This will not change existing URLs used on your site. The URLs will have to be updated where they appear (on each thank you page or email, for example).