On its own, the HubSpot platform is a powerful sales and marketing platform. It’s also important for revenue operations (RevOps) for many companies. Thanks to its many “Hubs” (Marketing, Sales, Service, and CMS), HubSpot can help you align and synchronize each of your departments and their operations to optimize revenue generation and customer satisfaction.
But like any software solution, HubSpot also has its limitations. It’s unreasonable to expect a single company to imagine and incorporate every potential sales, marketing, and customer service feature into its software platform. That’s where HubSpot integrations come in.
Here’s what you need to know about HubSpot integrations and how you should think about them regarding your RevOps goals.
Why Should You Use HubSpot Integrations?
If you’ve ever found yourself having to switch back and forth between software to complete a project, or if you’ve had to manually copy data from one system to input it into another, you could probably benefit from an integration.
HubSpot integrations are nothing but connections between HubSpot and other software applications to allow the two to work together. However, integrations are not HubSpot features. The key difference between a feature and an integration is that the software that HubSpot integrates with is developed by other companies.
For example, HubSpot can integrate with Salesforce, one of the most popular cloud-based sales platforms in the world. Although both solutions are similar in that they serve as CRMs, they are different enough that users may wish to use both as part of their operations. By creating an integration between the two, both companies can benefit by sharing the same users.
But HubSpot integrates with many different types of software, and the types of integrations you choose should depend on your business and your operations.
If you’re a website design agency that builds websites for clients using the HubSpot CMS, you could benefit from integrations with design software that makes it easy to build new pages. This would help your employees develop websites directly within the HubSpot platform, but with the added benefits that the design software provides.
Similarly, if you need to create powerful data visualizations using your HubSpot marketing data, you could integrate a solution that aggregates that data to stakeholders in the form of inciteful images and interactive charts.
How Do You Use HubSpot Integrations?
Most HubSpot integrations can be installed easily because they are certified by HubSpot. That means both HubSpot and the app developer have created the integration, so it’s often as simple as plugging the app in and turning it on.
You can look for HubSpot integrations directly through the HubSpot App Marketplace. Likewise, if you’ve already started using your favorite tools, you can find out if they already integrate with HubSpot.
Once integrated, you may use your integrated app directly in HubSpot, or you might synchronize or aggregate HubSpot data for use in the third-party app itself. It all depends on the application and integration you choose.
Use Cases for HubSpot Integrations
As you can imagine, the possibilities for HubSpot integrations are almost limitless. HubSpot currently integrates with more than 500 third-party apps, and the list just keeps growing.
To give you an idea of how you could potentially use your HubSpot integrations, here are a few use cases for you to consider.
Workflow-Driven Integrations
In HubSpot, a “Workflow” refers specifically to an automated process in which tasks, information, and messages are triggered based on a set of rules and actions. For example, if a website visitor is using your website from a foreign country and fills out a form, they may be enrolled in a workflow that sends them a series of emails in the language they speak.
Likewise, your rules-based logic could automatically trigger a task for one of your marketers to complete—that individual who filled out a form may need a follow-up, so your workflow could create a task for your team to do so.
Similarly, if your team manages their tasks on a task management tool that’s separate from HubSpot, they’d need to log into the HubSpot platform to complete the task—but not if it can be integrated.
Asana, a project management tool, integrates with HubSpot to make this type of workflow possible. You can leverage all the customer data in your HubSpot CRM to trigger processes in Asana. You can even hand off work between your teams, create new tasks, and more.
Data-Driven Integrations
HubSpot generates a great deal of data—data about your customers, contacts, partners, sales, and more. HubSpot also provides you with some useful analytics and reporting tools to help you make sense of that data.
But not every business will want to manage their data in HubSpot, and they might need to be able to leverage that data in other applications to meet their objectives.
We mentioned earlier that Salesforce integrates with HubSpot. This is one type of integration that is completely data driven. You can send valuable marketing data and lead intelligence automatically from your HubSpot platform to Salesforce, allowing your sales team to use them for insights.
Synchronization Integrations
Sometimes, you need an integration that allows you to synchronize HubSpot with multiple apps at once. Zapier is an online automation tool that connects important business applications and allows you to automate repetitive tasks across them. Zapier also integrates with HubSpot, allowing you to link HubSpot to a multitude of apps in just a few clicks.
Considering Data Flows
Data flow is important to consider with HubSpot integrations. In some cases, data will synchronize across your entire application ecosystem. But some types of data only flow in a single direction.
For example, Zapier synchronizes its systems’ data with HubSpot Contacts, Contact Lists, Forms, Blogs, Calendars, and Social Media posts. It allows you to trigger actions in other systems when new contacts are created or updated in HubSpot, and you can create new or updated contacts in HubSpot when actions occur in other systems.
(Source: HubSpot)
But Zapier will only create Events, Tickets, Workflows, and Engagements in HubSpot when an action occurs in other connected systems—in these cases, new data flows from Zapier to HubSpot, but not from HubSpot to Zapier.
Find the HubSpot Integrations That Suit Your Business Needs
Choosing one or two HubSpot integrations is easy enough, but things can get complicated when you’re trying to synchronize data across multiple platforms. Each integration also represents an investment on your part, so you need to do your best to avoid wasting money on apps you won’t use.
Aptitude 8 specializes in HubSpot integrations, and we have extensive knowledge of the HubSpot App Ecosystem. We can help you find, implement, and use the best HubSpot integrations to meet your RevOps goals.
Contact Aptitude 8 today to learn more about HubSpot integrations.
