HubSpot Marketing Hub Reviews

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. 

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. 

We use this solution for marketing. 

It’s a tool which works well to evaluate leads journey and conversion

The valuable feature I have found in this solution are:

• Lead generation is very helpful overall.
  
• Lead generation monthly email scheduling is very good.
  
• Email drafts at any point in time can be edited, even if you schedule it for tomorrow you can edit it easily.
  
• You can embed images in emails.
  
• There is integration with social sites.
  
• Integrates with other platforms, such as Salesforce. The data flow from HubSpot to Salesforce is very good. It is very powerful in automatically adding the data and the field you want into the dashboard.
• Very light solution with many types of marketing automation.

HubSpot is mainly for enterprise clients and there is a lot of competition. There are better solutions, such as Eloqua and Marketo. This solution needs to improve the analytics for social media monitoring to a level that it can compete with other solutions available in the market. There are some limitations with the features compared to other solutions.

The email recipients sometimes do not receive some of the call-to-action images that are not downloading and this happens no matter what browsers are being used. This should improve in a future release.

I have been using this solution within the last 12 months.

The solution is reliable.

The solution is scalable with the use of customer relationship tools with CRM solutions.

If we are having any difficulties, I can easily reach out to support executives and have a resolution. I am not sure if we paid for the technical support.

The help section on HubSpot's website has a lot of documents, there is no need to go to an external site. There is a search box you can input what exactly you want and the related information will come up. It is not a community-type forum that some other vendors have, such as Salesforce where the community adds the information to your question to assist you. I think HubSpot's support team took a lot of use cases and then provided the information for their customers online which has been a benefit. The help section is comprehensive and you can find what you need.

I have used Eloqua and Marketo previously. Eloqua has some specialized features, such as
radial fix for social media monitoring.

The initial setup was straightforward.

We are on an annual license for this solution. There have many different versions to meet the needs of their customers, such as professional enterprise and basic versions. They charge for the particular feature or components which are available in the license you have.

I have evaluated other solutions.

I rate HubSpot Marketing Hub a seven out of ten.

I use HubSpot for lead management, funnel management, and marketing.

The most valuable features are the reports, overall usability, and ease of use.

Being able to send emails from within it, and the email campaigns are good features.

It is very flexible.

When using this product, improvements often have to be made at the corporate level, such as improving their overall best practices. The reason for this is the flexibility that the solution provides. For example, when different people are talking about a certain sales stage, there should be certain qualifications. One person might refer to a deal at the commit stage, whereas another one considers it to be at the qualification stage.

Although the interface is good, it is not very intuitive. I usually have to go to the admin to look for help with certain functions. The search and questions aren't as intuitive as I would expect from a platform like this. However, it may just be me getting up to speed with it.

I have been using HubSpot Marketing Hub since I joined this company, several months ago.

Stability-wise, this is a good product.

As far as I know, the scalability is good. We have perhaps 30 users in the company.

I have not been in touch with technical support.

I have used Salesforce for close to 20 years, and it's fairly similar, but there are some little idiosyncrasies that differentiate them.

My advice for anybody who is implementing HubSpot is to have corporate best practices defined, or at least evolving in parallel with the implementation and bringing on new users. You want to make sure that everyone is using it the same way.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

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.).

Sales enablement, where it has been hard to manage leads and forgetting following up with clients, as we manage multiple geographies and managing data in a worksheet can be hard. 

It has eased managing the sales team and the sales journey right from setting up appointments. The best thing is the ease to customize per our needs. 

• Deals and closing
• Task reminders
• Call logs

We can choose the necessary stages as per the lead, and update it accordingly, then proceed it further.

They should integrate a bot, as it would be easier to get the status to the management team without logging into the CRM to get all the required details. I would recommend trying to use ElliQ, which is an excellent smart bot that can be used for automation.

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.

We primarily use the solution for contacts and sales. We need it for client enrichment and client outreach.

The contacts and the connection to sales as well as contact enrichment have been the most valuable aspects of the product.

It is a stable solution.

Technical support is helpful and responsive.

You can scale the product.

I don't use it that often. My colleagues use it more. I wouldn't be able to discuss in great detail areas that are lacking. 

They should increase the ease of actually creating the contacts and the workflows and enhance that aspect.

I've been using the solution for more than a year. The company has been using the solution for a long time.

It offers a stable performance. We haven't had issues with performance. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.

It's scalable. If you want to increase usage, you can do so. 

We have ten to 12 people using the solution currently. It's used on a daily basis. The users are in marketing and sales.

We've dealt with technical support in the past. They are very responsive and pretty knowledgeable. We've been satisfied with the assistance we get. 

Positive

We also use the Salesforce CRM. Salesforce we use more internally, whereas HubSpot is used externally. 

I'm not aware of the pricing. I have no visibility of that aspect of the product. 

I'm a customer and an end-user. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.