HubSpot Marketing Hub Reviews

Pros

HubSpot has allowed us to streamline our marketing efforts so we can focus on what really matters. With We've been able to automates so many mundane processes that we used to do manually thanks to HubSpot workflows. HubSpot's ease of use also makes training and transferring ownership/management of the tool more efficient.

What I liked:
• Simple, intuitive fool-proof interface
• Great support and learning resources
• HubSpot Academy makes it easy to learn marketing automation
• Workflows look like they were designed by a kindergartener-- I love how simple they are to understand and build

Cons

Six months into using HubSpot we outgrew the "honeymoon phase" as we started running into limitations with the platform, mostly involving integrations with other tools we use. At the end of the day, HubSpot is phenomenal at what it does but has real limits to it's function and flexibility-- it doesn't scale comfortably to larger enterprise companies/databases. If HubSpot fits within the scope of your company's marketing needs, it's a delight to use. HubSpot is built by marketers for marketers and it's run by a very human company that injects soul and purpose into it's products.

Improvements I'd like to see:
• Better CRM function-- it was too limited for us to use
• Greater flexibility with reporting custom dashboards
• Ability to use spend/budget data from LinkedIn Ads connection
• Ability to A/B test automated emails without workaround

Alternatives Considered

Marketo Engage

Reasons for Choosing HubSpot Marketing Hub

ClickDimensions is a marketing tool built on top of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and that native integration is the best part. HubSpot is a marketing tool built on top of marketing best practices. Although both tools perform many of the same functions, getting from A to B is so much smoother with HubSpot's clean, simple interface. HubSpot's platform and available products are much more robust, but ClickDimensions is a better bang for your buck when it comes to the basic functionality-- that is, as long as you can find CRM-confident marketers who are willing to manage an intimidating (sometimes buggy) tool.

Switched From

ClickDimensions

Reasons for Switching to HubSpot Marketing Hub

HubSpot was a better fit because of our smaller company and database size. We felt we should be able to make HubSpot work for several years before we as a company outgrow it's ability to scale.

Pros

I like HubSpot easy to use user interface and powerful marketing automation feature the most. I love HubSpot mobile app which is very easy to use and effective, because of this now anyone can access their HubSpot account from anywhere easily with their mobile app and on the other hand I like their dashboard reports and email tracking system too.

Cons

There is one thing that I dislike about it and want to highlight it which is HubSpot is a little bit expensive but I can say also that this platform is worth to spend.

Alternatives Considered

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement

Reasons for Switching to HubSpot Marketing Hub

We choose HubSpot Marketing over Pardot because of its powerful automation features and amazing mobile app. We choose Hubspot because they have a strong customer support team which is very responsive.

Pros

The platform is easy to use and wasn't too difficult to get started with, especially as we had to transfer all items from our old platform into HubSpot

Cons

Some of the organization of contacts vs. companies vs. deals is a little frustrating. We should be able to create pipeline views beyond just deals

Pros

Aside from our incredible account representative, there is not a single aspect of HubSpot which has benefited our ecommerce business. In fact, we have spent nearly 12 months having to deal with broken transactional messages, false sends, false reporting statistics, and an entirely broken emailing platform altogether. It has put our company though serious financial pains and has not proved its worth. As it currently stands, no ecommerce business should ever sign up with HubSpot.

Cons

HubSpot, through its archaic systems, broken ecommerce bridge, and shoddy reporting tools, has single-handedly brought our marketing efforts to its knees. For nearly 12 months we have sent out broken transactional messages, been unable to track our email revenue, pour in countless hours of unnecessary developer work, and watch our revenue decline all because we chose to trust this platform.

Genuinely nothing works for ecommerce. Aside from hand-coding messages like its 1999, we can't even put products in our emails. Product data itself exists in HubSpot, however, no customer has access to it. The platform is broken.

Alternatives Considered

Klaviyo

Reasons for Choosing HubSpot Marketing Hub

Bronto handled ecommerce very well, however, their platform began to show its age and decided we needed to switch to a platform that could help our business grow exponentially. We unfortunately made the wrong choice.

Reasons for Switching to HubSpot Marketing Hub

Their sales team convinced us they had all the capabilities of Klavio and then some. However, after nearly 12 months of putting out fires on the daily, we found out that the HubSpot development team sees Klavio as the "gold standard" of ecommerce email platforms. We were sold a bouquet of roses with thorns so big that they've ruptured every aspect of our business' profitability.

Pros

Hubspot is a great tool for keeping track of contacts, creating lead gen forms, mailing, meeting automation

Cons

There are so many features, customization takes time and you really have to first outline specific usage to ensure you get all the features you need in the package you buy, otherwise you bleed money for every extra purchase. I find customer support to be quite reluctant to respond, when booking a meeting our account manager is available in 10 days to 2 week time

Alternatives Considered

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Reasons for Switching to HubSpot Marketing Hub

Pricing.sales force requires hiring a consultant for platform deployment

Pros

Lead capturing is most liked feature about Hubspot.

Cons

Searching feature, where we dont get accurate results sometimes.

Pros

I like most how we can track all our marketing sources and have a source of truth for all customer email communication.

Cons

When using Hubspot, they have a lot of features that when clicked on, it say's I need to upgrade or add as a paid add on.

Alternatives Considered

Pipedrive

Reasons for Switching to HubSpot Marketing Hub

Better features for our use case.

Pros

HubSpot is my CRM of choice. Providing the most bang for the buck, HubSpot has the features I need like email marketing, and lead management without having to pay for the bells and whistles that I don't need or use.

Cons

At times it can move slow and become cumbersome. It is still developing so sometimes it would become glitchy.

Pros

I like this platform:As it does automatic follow-up for me.Remind me for important pending tasks.Lead management.

Cons

The only thing I dislike about HunSpot is that pricing is bit high.

Pros

We use this mostly in our website for Lead capture and we have automated the process until the lead schedules a call and it has saved us so much time.

Cons

We some times get a lot of fake leads like bots, but I guess that's probably to be expected.

Pros

Great for small/startup or mid sized businesses to help their sales force track their sales data with many features for goals and customer data all in an easy to view window. Its pretty easy to setup companies and contacts with a ton of fields that you can customize. The file organization for each customer is easy to use and very self-explanatory. The software overall isn't overcomplicated and most of it is pretty self-explanatory. The emailing system is an excellent feature for making sure you have a record of all conversation with a customer.

Cons

So depending on the complexity of the business, the lack of features may be an issue, the software is pretty streamline right now just due to the limited amount of features available. I would've liked to see a few more options for file organization and customer organization. The email system as mentioned in the pro section is very useful in keeping track of conversations but it can only be applied to one customer at a time. It would be nice to be able to tell the software where you would like to store the messages. Another feature would be integration. There aren't a lot of options of integrating with custom CRM/ERP software right now, there are only 3 integration options available. So this is great for any company starting from scratch but alot of migration work for companies that have already established a system.

Alternatives Considered

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Reasons for Choosing HubSpot Marketing Hub

Needed a CRM that could store and track conversations between consumers and sales team.

Reasons for Switching to HubSpot Marketing Hub

The cost and the simplicity of the software. Due to a language barrier, Hubspot was easy to train users.

Pros

Setup is easy, support is there if and when you need it and the system just does the job. We use it as a CRM and sale automation platform and it has performed better and more efficiently than others we've used over the last 2 decades in business.

Cons

I would like to ability to make greater changes to the platform display so it outlines the exact customer / company information needed at a particular time.

Alternatives Considered

Zoho CRM

Reasons for Choosing HubSpot Marketing Hub

Looking to get a great system at a better price, and to try something different after 10 years.

Switched From

Salesforce Platform

Reasons for Switching to HubSpot Marketing Hub

Easier integration, good support and overall

Pros

We used the service in our office get leads from some of our landing and referral websites. We received a lot of leads and it was hard to follow up with just a mail chimp our a google form and we needed automation to convert them to new customers. HubSpot helped us to managed the new leads and we were able to compare our campaigns with other cases similar to us that used this service so it increased out sales by 150%.

Cons

The service is expensive and you have to make sure all your team is dedicated to the training. Its a very different approach to follow up on leads and email marketing than other services so training is very important.

Alternatives Considered

Marketo Engage

Reasons for Choosing HubSpot Marketing Hub

We changed marketing agency and they used a different service.

Switched From

Marketo Engage

Reasons for Switching to HubSpot Marketing Hub

We got the recommendation from our marketing agency

Pros

- Very Powerful Software for the Value! - As a small small startup, we were really impressed with the value of the Starter CRM Suite bundle. We were able to get not only the marketing hub, but also sales hub, service hub and operations hub.
- Analytics - It is crazy how much you can do with their analytics! The reporting is very good for the value.
- Marketing Emails, Content Assistance - They do a great job with not only providing the above analytics, but they go over the top by providing resources (blogs, studies, etc.) within the analytics pages that can help with identifying how to improve.

Cons

- Support - knowledgable, but at times slow with response rates... If you don't get a hold of someone on their chat functionality right away, you likely will not hear back for a day. This proved to be difficult when setting up the account at times.
- Hubspot Marketing Academy - I was very excited to learn more about the tool with their educational academy videos. After going through the course, I saw that almost 30%-40% of the content was clearly focused on Hubspot account holders who had the two higher paid tiers (we have the "starter"). This was incredibly frustrating because in order to receive certification, you had to understand aspects of the platform that you didn't have... With that in mind, I was prepared to learn, but instead had to sit what felt like an informercial. This felt like a disconnect when there were other videos in the same academy course that emphasized how important it is to create content specific to your audience... I think they missed the boat on this. That said, I wish they had a way to have these certifications specific to your package. Last thing to note: it seems like this was the only certification that had this dynamic. Their other academy courses (thus far) have been good.

Alternatives Considered

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Reasons for Choosing HubSpot Marketing Hub

Pipedrive's least expensive version did not hit on stride with what we were looking for. There seemed to be a lot of clicks, I didn't like the user interface and it seemed like their integration partners were not as robust as Hubspots.

Switched From

Pipedrive

Reasons for Switching to HubSpot Marketing Hub

Way way way to expensive.

Pros

Hubspot contains all the tools you could wish for as a marketing or sales professional. Your results are clearly visible and manageable. Inbound marketing has never been so exciting and profitable!

I love the great user experience, which is constantly being improved thanks to monthly updates of new and improved features.

Finally, I am very satisfied with the customer service. Every time I have an issue, I am helped quickly and accurately. Even if there is no solution to my problem, we will look for an alternative together.

Cons

As a creative marketer, I would love more options to make my website even more appealing and less static. I'm looking forward to all the new features being added to the website builder in the future!

Improvements are also possible in terms of social media. The results (likes and interactions) are not always accurate. In addition, the posting options are fairly limited. I wish you could add a photo carousel or album (instead of max four pictures).

Alternatives Considered

WordPress and Mailchimp

Reasons for Switching to HubSpot Marketing Hub

Hubspot is a great tool to get your sales and marketing team on the same page with clearly visible and manageable results.

Pros

Intuitiveness. We've had several interns throughout the last 2 years of working in HubSpot and they've picked it up easily because of this.

Cloning. Makes it simple if you're only changing one or 2 conditions/criteria in a list or email.

GoToWebinar integration. Key for our monthly webinars.

Variety of ways to create a list/workflow. We work on many different nurture campaigns with different qualifiers for each.

Cons

It does tend to get buggy from time to time - for example right now I'm experiencing an issue in email when I go to replace a link, it won't paste to the text box, it'll paste outside of the hyperlinked words in the actual email, quite weird.

Alternatives Considered

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement

Reasons for Choosing HubSpot Marketing Hub

Net-Results did not have half the capabilities HubSpot does on almost every level. Contact record, list creation, form capability, landing page versatility, and email templates, just to name a few.

Switched From

Net-Results

Reasons for Switching to HubSpot Marketing Hub

I was not key DM, just researcher and and helped make decision. From what I can tell, we chose HubSpot because of (1) intuitiveness (2) price (3) it seemed like it had so many more capabilities than other mktg automation platforms without being nearly as cumbersome.

Pros

I work for a marketing agency and I use the Hubspot Software to manage the website of the enterprise.

What i like the most about Hubspot is that it's frequently updating its functions, always at the forefront of changes in the market. As well, I love from Hubspot the Social Media tool, I can schedule all my post faster than others software or apps, and I can keep even-minded because I know all my post will be published on time.

When I have to write a post I love it helps me to apply SEO correctly, and it's very easy to put pictures into the text.

Hubspot is not only a tool for work, it's also a platform that allows me to learn and certificate new skills with the courses of the learning center, which has allowed me to become a better professional in my work area and it will be useful for me to find new job opportunities.

Hubspot is very functional and complete, I can even schedule corporate email with smart delivery, in such a way that the arrival time of the mail fits the time zone of each recipient.

I have tried others software for blogging before, but I really think Hubspot Software is the best of all.

Cons

I don't have many complaints about this software, I have had a great experience during all this time. I know it's not perfect, but what I also know and I can notice daily is that the Hubspot Team is always worried about improving it's services.

Maybe, what I like least about this software is that, sometimes, the platform falls when it's being updating any detail, is a bit annoying but I think is necessary because the reward is a functional, fast and useful service.

Pros

The CRM application is excellent and allows me to find phone numbers, emails and make calls while on the road. The customer relationship management and marketing tools merge easily. I am pleased with the fact that nothing needs to be recorded and all of our emails and interactions are recorded without difficulty. Hubspot's feature allows us to reduce the amount of reps we employ. Despite all the effort we put into our work, Hubspot works on the back end to increase our efforts.

Cons

Simple design features are easy to modify (e.g., change text or images), but more complex modifications require knowledge of COS and HubL. Because the COS version is updated so quickly, I have had problems with some components not being modifiable. This is not a drawback for new customers coming on board since they have updated the coding at least a year ago, however, this was something I had to troubleshoot.

Pros

I really like the easy and practical flow used to take an idea to a live page. I mean, is so easy to make a template, preview it in different devices and resposive sizes, then make a sandbox and send it to your approvers and finnaly take it live in less than a minute. That flow helps our team to reduce the time-to-market a lot, and thats really valuable.

Cons

May be the code editors embed in the Hubpot design tool , could be improved. Actually is a little hard to code in it, because its like a simple text editor. As a developer I would love to see more tools, helpers, code colors, debugging and another features like that into the code editors of hubspot. I know those are little deatils, but they could make the difference.

Pros

Hubspot is a seriously my best friend. I've been using hubspot for the last 18 months and after my first introduction with the tool, I now recommend it to every single client I have. What I love most is how easy it is to sync up with Gmail, Wordpress, Google Analytics, Woocommerce, Facebook and the list goes on and on. We've also synced Hubspot up with our LiveChat tool versus using the native inbox (Hubspots Chat) feature. Hubspot now tracks visitors and upon a form submission, checkout submission, a contact is created and we track the entire lifecycle from browser to buyer and retention. We can then record all interactions we have via email so the next person that touches that customer has the entire history. The workflow automations are fantastic for staying in touch with both clients and browsing visitors. We have 10 different workflows set up based our marketing goals to make sure subscribed clients are staying engaged with our product and then for leads we can add point values for every time a successful action is taken. I could write a sonnet on how much I love Hubspot's features and how easy they make it to love this tool. Hubspot easily replaces 5 other tools. What we use most is Landing Pages, Forms, Workflow Automations, Tasks triggered by website actions, and the dashboards. Dashboards are a reporting layout with widgets some of which are standard out of the box and the others are custom reports that we've created.

Cons

What I don't like about Hubspot is that their services are all "add-on". We started off with the free plan and then upgraded to the marketing plan, but then needed to add on the Sales plan for at least one user. Down the road we had to purchase an add-on for reporting because we wanted more than 10 dashboards. It feels a little like a nickle and dime tactic. But, I will admit it's smart business-wise. I probably wouldn't have signed up for hubspot with the price I'm paying now... so they make you love them and you willing fork over tons of cash to keep their brilliant shiny tool. The other feature that was a bit combersome at first was the landing pages. The few they give you are super blah... but they have free templates you can download. What they don't tell you is you need to edit the master files in the template to change the logo, footer, etc.... and that was super hard at first. I wanted to throw my laptop the first few times I build a landing page in Hub.

Pros

Hubspot has every essential feature you need to build and manage a digital marketing department. From CRM and lead forms to email automation and content marketing to advance reporting; almost anything that is missing from the platform can be easily integrated either thru partnerships or Zapier APIs and web hooks. Hubspot keeps up with the fast changing landscape of digital marketing with regular launches of new features like chat bots and improved contact management. Managing several brands thru one enterprise portal, I am able to track deliverables from various divisions, monitor multiple team progress, and aggregate lead acquisition strategies to maximize talent resources. I recommend Hubspot to all small to mid sized businesses.

Cons

Hubspot is a jack of all trades, yet master of none. Unless you pay for add-on features, your company will miss out on the more powerful integrations, reporting, and paid ads. Otherwise, Hubspot's normal customer service is really just a human connection to their extension support docs. For any custom or complicated support requests, pay the extra for designated priority tech support. Sending 12 million emails and 6,000 social posts annually for multiple brands through a single portal sometimes can to be difficult to work around. Some improvements are rolled out that aren't always an improvement over their previous features.

Pros

1. Easy to use and navigate: HubSpot’s marketing hub is designed with a user-friendly interface, making it simple to use and navigate.2. Comprehensive range of features: The platform offers a comprehensive range of features for marketers, including content creation, SEO, analytics, and email automation.3. Automation capabilities: HubSpot’s marketing automation capabilities enable marketers to streamline their workflow and get more out of their campaigns.4. Integrated marketing platform: HubSpot’s integrated marketing platform allows marketers to manage their campaigns from one central location.5. Scalable solution: HubSpot’s marketing hub is a scalable solution that can be used for businesses of any size.6. Free trial: HubSpot’s free trial offer allows you to test out the platform and see how it works for your business before committing to a paid subscription.

Cons

1. Expensive: The HubSpot Marketing Hub is one of the most expensive marketing platforms on the market. It has a wide range of features, but this means you’ll be paying a premium for those features.2. Limited Reporting Features: The HubSpot Marketing Hub is not the most comprehensive in terms of reporting features. It does not have the ability to track user behavior, for example, or be able to provide detailed segmentation for customers.3. Limited Automation: Automation is a key component of any successful marketing strategy, and the HubSpot Marketing Hub does not offer the same level of automation as other platforms. This means that many of your marketing processes may need to be done manually.4. Limited Integration: The HubSpot Marketing Hub does not have the same level of integration with other platforms or marketing systems as some other solutions. This could limit the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

Pros

Where do I start with my love for HubSpot. Our marketing team has been using HubSpot's Marketing Automation for 6 years, and we have seen a world of difference in our inbound strategy. From email drafting to analytics, social publishing, blog hosting, ABM (account-based marketing) and site traffic - it helps marketers keep track of nearly everything going on.

I mainly use the social publishing and tracking feature and the email scheduling tool. I can say I wouldn't be able to organize my social conversations with customers nor would I be able to schedule posts ahead of time and track their progress with such accuracy without HubSpot. The email section of the software is great too. I can tell who opens, reads and clicks on our emails - how long they spend reading and each email's conversion rate. I can also do A/B testing to track which types of emails perform best.

If your marketing team has a budget for automation software, HubSpot should definitely be on your radar. As a medium-sized company with a small marketing team of 5, it's the perfect size for us. We have HubSpot's Enterprise Level Contract, which gives us access to all of their features. If your marketing team is small - a less expensive plan might be where you want to start out. They also offer sales solutions that fully integrate with their marketing platform, so everything stays consistent and everyone from sales to marketing is on the same page.

Cons

HubSpot is pretty close to perfect, and my complaints are minor. From a social tool standpoint, I wish publishing across platforms was more consistent, often images and text sizing is a bit off in the actual social site. I also wish they would increase monitoring from just Twitter to both LinkedIn and Facebook.

Design limitations have been a slight issue for us in the past as well, but usually we can work around these and design items in house.

Pros

Obviously, as it's stated in its name, but the Automation part of the platform. The workflows, lists, how a published blog with automatically distribute your blog via your social media accounts, the analytics of how well your strategy, content, and workflows are working, etc. are all exceptional qualities to the HubSpot MAP.

The abundance of features and abilities available to a user is endless and always being updated, upgraded or enhanced.

I love how the HubSpot MAP is 100% synced with the HubSpot CRM and CMS. In fact, since they are open to third-party integrations, you can enhance any or all of the features given to you all throughout the HubSpot system.

Cons

From experience in teaching the software to our clients, it can be an overwhelming learning curve. Especially for the CEOs and people in non-related marketing departments that have to learn to use the system as well, since it is meant to effect a company as a whole, obviously in a positive way.

As stated above, HubSpot MAP is open to third-party integrations to better your user experience and insights into your marketing performance. The only downside to that is the budget. If you're a startup company, purchasing the HubSpot MAP and platform is expensive by itself. And when you add on purchasing other third-party integrations to get all the features you want, can be extremely costly or just over-budget in general.

The other feature I would like to see HubSpot improve is their Social Media Platform, included in the HubSpot MAP. Yes, you can schedule tweets in bulk or a month's worth of social media posts for the next month, but in reality, it is very time-consuming. Especially for a feature that is meant to cut the manual labor out of your day.

One reason for this is because you have to create a customized shortened tracking URL, located in a different area of the platform, to place into each social media message. That means a separate URL for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn & Google+, all for the same message. Now imagine having to do that for social media posts for the next week. It does get exhausting. That is one area you would want to get a third-party integration.

Pros

Customized dashboard for a quick snapshot to help track our department's KPIs
Support is responsive and always prompt to help answer your inquiries. They are currently in beta for live chat and I love that instant answers to your problems. They also send email follow-ups to make sure you're happy.
Knowledge-base is excellent to help solve problems you come across on the platform or in marketing in general.
HubSpot Academy is an excellent resource to learn about important topics in Marketing, Sales, and Design. They're always updating materials for the courses and you get certified at the end of so many lessons, which is a bonus for any LinkedIn profile or resume.
Robust amount of features and tactics to use within the platform but not necessary to use them all. Great for any-sized companies.
Ability to request product features from the community
User-friendly Workflows tool that allows you to create a workflow process using different elements of data.

Cons

Changes are always rolling out, which can be hard to keep up-to-date on them all
Not fully prepared for features getting removed, renamed or consolidated. We have to play catch-up at times to adjust to what has changed.
Design Manager is confusing for someone without coding knowledge. Really wish they would integrate a drop and drag feature to create simple emails and landing pages, most importantly.
Reporting from the Sales vs. Marketing dashboard can be confusing. I get two different metrics in certain cases, but it's because one's default is different than the other.
Can't create lists of accounts/companies, for company's running an ABM program.
Can't add external landing pages to Campaigns in HubSpot, only HubSpot created landing pages, which makes reporting cumbersome.