HubSpot Hot 100: 100 Must-Know Tips for Success

1. An Online Resource Would Be a Hit - Patrick once stated that this resource was going to be a hit, and here we are. For now, we thought he deserved the top spot for his suggestion.  - Patrick O Callaghan
2. Type "hi+skipform@hubspot.com" to Skip - You can skip any form to jump straight to the thank you page or in-line message by typing "hi+skipform@hubspot.com" in the email field. - Roberto (Beto) Pacheco
3. Hello KB and Support, My Old Friend - You can find almost all the things you need answered via HubSpot knowledge base, the help button that remains in the bottom right of your portal, and the HubSpot community. - Alyssa Thornley
4. 😀🤩 Make the 🌎 Go Around -"Text and pick-list properties inside HubSpot accept emojis. Use emojis to color-code or score properties in various places to make it easier to see information in a glance. (Works best if values are set by workflows to keep things consistent.) I've even seen emojis pulled into custom reports for a bit of fun. Pro tip: You don't have to copy-paste emojis from other places. On mac control-command-space opens your emoji keyboard, and on Windows it's windows+period." - Kyle Jepson
5. NEW>>> I Get a Workaround -  Need a workaround for contact-to-contact relationships without custom objects? Create both contacts first. Then, add a Note to one of them about the relationship. Under Associations within the Note, search for the other contact under Contacts. Tick the box and Save the note. The information will be available in both contacts. Then, in the Note, click Actions and Pin. You'll then have the important information at the top :-) - Nicola Kieran
6. NEW>>> Pipeline to Success: Discrete Stages in Motion - Configure HubSpot to run customer success by using pipelines for each discrete stage in the customer lifecycle (onboarding & renewals) and rolling everything up to a 360-degree view of accounts in the company record, as shown in this playbook. - Stuart Balcombe
7. NEW>>> Day-O (Dynamically Added to Deals Song) - You can dynamically add the month/year to deal names. See how in this post. - Oliver Sherrington
8. Hash Taggin' All Day Long -  Use hashtags in comments on contact or deal records to make it easier to search notes/comments. Create a system for yourself or others to make this effective.  - Jennifer Nixon 
9. Embeddin' on Dashboards, Yeah! - Add some pizazz to your reports by embedding external content.  - Tyler Guthrie
10. NEW>>> Here Comes the Loom -  Record a quick Loom video where you run through the dashboard reports, what they cover, how to adjust the date ranges, etc., and link to it at the very top of the dashboard. This will help users navigate the dashboards and data effectively. - Jacob Olle
11. NEW>>>Scheduler - Make scheduling super easy with proposed meeting times in an email. Learn more here. - Eric Pratt
12. Love and Pride for Our Countries - "Create a custom checkbox property for Country, because people will put in UK/United Kingdom/Britain/Great Britain/England/GB/godknows what into the default Country/Region field in a form." - Rob Munnelly 
13. Impersonate Me Maybe - You can impersonate another user with Enterprise, which is helpful when configuring some settings for new users or to use in training team members where specific permissions are at play. - Aaron Smith
14. NEW>>> Never Let Original Data Go - Create a workflow that copies people's names,  emails, phone numbers, etc. to secondary properties so that if a form is refilled and properties are overwritten, you can ensure that you have the proper fields. If you don't want to allow people to override their original name, email, etc. then you can set up a second workflow that then copies what was duplicated into your secondary fields back into the original fields whenever a form is filled out since the form fill triggers can be re-enrolled for the same criteria. - Mandy Thompson
15. NEW>>> Dynamic Images and Links - You can dynamically insert images and links for emails and landing pages, which is a great feature that saves you from creating unique email templates for various offers or brands. - Jenna Boss
16. Shoot, I Did It Again - "Prevent "oh shit" workflow errors with QA testing: Before enrolling a ton of records (e.g. 10,000 contacts) in a workflow, conduct multiple scenario tests with different types of contacts and ensure they go through as intended. In the workflow, build a branch for contacts that didn't meet the criteria (and "error" branch) and add to a static list or assign a task to audit what happened. First, use the "test" function in workflows to handpick a few records. Then test a larger sample size of 25-50 and manually enroll. Only then will you be ready to enroll them all with confidence! Keep the error branch working for you though so you can be alerted anytime something goes wrong. Last but definitely not least, send it to someone who understands how workflows work (whether a team member or external peer) and ask them to review it and ask "how will this break?" - Hansen Hunt
17. The Desktop - Add HubSpot to your docket via an app shortcut using Chrome. Follow the steps using HubSpot as the app here. - Juan Carlos
18. Add ?developerMode=true in the Page Editor - If you are not a developer, you might need help understanding, but it is good for developers. - Erin Wiggers
19. NEW>>> Shortcodes on My Mind - You can replicate shortcodes common to Wordpress in HubSpot using HubSpot Macros. Learn how in this video. - Teun Rutten
20.  The Search Is On - You can use HubSpot's search feature to find things quickly and combine them with hashtags to make them more powerful. -Stjepan Grcic
21. Debugging in the Dark - Type ?hsDebug=true to see if your page is currently prerendered or not, plus other debug info. - Rob Harris
22.  Exportin' the Traffic Analytics Tonight - You can export data from the traffic analytics page (min last 24 months). "A bit of jiggery-pokery (like adding a color scale in Excel) and strategizing, and you'll have a lovely action list for content in terms of what's performing/not and high/low priority in terms of impact." - Jasmine Ojbro
23.  Smells Like a Static List - Turn your active lists into static lists and manage membership with workflows. You can only use static lists if you want to apply them to paid ad campaigns. Building them this way from the get-go will ensure you can run ads with your lists and will force you to think through all of the scenarios where you want to add or remove someone from a list! - Mandy Thompson
24.  Customize Your Attribution, Your Way - You can customize what activities/interactions are counted in attribution reporting via Tracking & Analytics > Attribution in settings. This allows you to apply value only to actions that you want to report on. - Kristeen Romero
25.  NEW>>> Campaigns of Love: Scoring Leads Like Never Before -  Create a custom lead score property for large marketing campaigns to give focus to your lead generation goals. Give positive scores for interactions with assets (emails, landing page views, ads, socials forms, etc) associated to that campaign. A workflow can then hand off high-scoring leads to the relevant sales team and mid-scoring leads can be given some extra love by the marketing team to push them over the line from Lead to MQL.  Extra side tip - create a feedback loop property for the sales team to tick.  This can adjust the score if the lead isn't a good fit and give an indication of the quality of MQL's being passed to Sales. - Charlotte Wilkinson
26.  Multiple Locations, No Problem - "It was a game-changer when I learned I could use fields to make emails smart for multiple locations. I can set the fields in workflows and only create one lead nurture instead of creating the same lead nurture for multiple locations." Learn more about this here. - Mary Cate Spires
27.  NEW>>> Automated Business Regions? Nbd. 
    1️⃣ Create a custom drop-down Company property called ‘Business Region’ and add values for ‘AMER’, ‘APAC’, and ‘EMEA’ (add a description – you’re not an animal). 
    2️⃣ Create a Company workflow: 
    ⚡️ WORKFLOW STEPS ⚡️
    • Trigger → Country/Region is known
                         OR Country/Region was updated in 
                         the last 0 days
                         (Re-enrollment, yes)
    • If / Then Branch → Check Country/Region
      • IF Country/Region = {list of AMER countries} 
         → Set ‘Business Region’ to ‘AMER’
      • IF Country/Region = {list of APAC countries}
         → Set ‘Business Region’ to ‘APAC’
      • IF Country/Region = {list of EMEA countries} 
        → Set ‘Business Region’ to ‘EMEA’
    3️⃣ Test, publish, and bask in the ambiance of completely accurate business regions that update in real-time, with zero manual effort or risk of human error. 🤓 - Emma English
    
28.  The Workflow "Go-To Other" Action - "Workflows "Go To other Action" to do full-on medical surgery 🤣 (i.e., flow through multiple conditional logics/ going upstream back)" - Shadab Khan
29.  A Googling Affair - You can search Google with "site: hubspot.com or site: community.hubspot.com <topic>" to find what you need on either. - Amber Kemmis
30.  Check Yes or No (Quickly) - "Use the click-to-edit feature on list views for contacts, companies, deals, tickets, etc., to edit without opening the record." - Jennifer Nixon 
31.  VLOOKUP Is Here to Stay - Did you know? You can integrate Google Sheets with HubSpot. That's not all. In this video from Liam, he walks through how to map a custom Salesforce object data to HubSpot using VLOOKUP.  -Liam Redding
32.  Time to Close: Reporting Made Easy - "You can report on “Time to close” for deals by creating a calculated field that looks at the time between create date and the close date. Super useful if you want to compare performance between pipelines, lost vs. won deals, etc." - Kristeen Romero
33.  Descriptions & Diligence - "Be diligent about adding descriptions to your custom properties. It’s saved me so much time and effort when onboarding, integrating, purging, building reports, etc. You can now add descriptions to your workflows as well!" - Robert Rosenow
34.  Don't Go Chasing Parameters - Automatically capture UTM parameters from tracking links by creating these 5 custom single-line text properties for contacts:
    - utm_campaign
    - utm_medium
    - utm_source
    - utm_content
    - utm_term
    Add those properties as hidden fields on your forms, and any submission that comes from a tracking link will automatically capture those parameters on the contact record so that you can use them for attribution reporting. - Ryan Gunn
35.  Searching in a Description - You can search workflow descriptions from the workflow index page, but you have to enter a character into the search bar first, then the toggle pops up to turn on. You can use keyword tags in the descriptions to quickly find certain kinds of workflows like internal vs external. - Dan Morell
36.  NEW>>> Send After Send - HubSpot's blog subscriptions allow you to automatically send blogs to subscribers via email when they are published or create summaries of recently published blogs on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. - Amber Kemmis
37.  Today's Date - Create 2 custom properties for ''Today's date'' and ''Today's date loop''. Then, create a workflow triggered by ''Today's date loop is unknown'' -> Add an action to set a date stamp on ''Today's date'' property and another action to do the same to ''Today's date loop'' -> In the end, add an action to enroll all the registers in a second workflow that is gonna be responsible for the loop. In this second workflow, which will only be triggered by the ''master'' one, add a 24 hour delay, and then add an action to delete the values from the ''today's date loop'' property, which will be the re-enrollment criteria of the first workflow. Now you can be creative and enjoy having a property that will always be updated with today's date :grin:
    PS: The first time, you must add triggers using a property like ''create date is known'' to start the looping process. - Vinicius Chambela

38.  But You Don’t Really Care for Numbers, Do Ya? - “You can display numbers as percentages in HubSpot using Ops Hub.” - Mitch Richards

39.  Task Control to Major Tom - “Ever struggled to get more control over task dates in HubSpot? Yeah, me too! 😅This tip might help you to get a little more control over them. I KNOW this use case in the video is relatable for a lot of people.” - Kevin Van Beers

40.  Meet Me At Our ChatSpot - “ChatSpot - ChatSpot combines the power of ChatGPT and HubSpot CRM. It lets you ask questions and provide instructions in natural language through a chat interface.” - Elison Maclaud Barbeta-Comstock

41.  Don’t Stop Linkin’ - “Take advantage of image links within HubSpot emails. Any embedded image/logo can link to a page of your choosing (i.e., the homepage for a general email header, offer-specific page for a supporting image in the email body).” - Jacob Olle

42.  We Will, We Will, Approve You - “Use the comment feature for dashboards, workflows, website pages, and blog posts to get approvals and communicate changes.” - Jennifer Nixon

43.  I Just Called to Say… You Can Edit the Create Date - “If you create a deal days after you actually started working on it, you can edit the “Create date” on the deal to whatever date you want.” - Kristeen Romero

44.  Aint No Sunshine When She Has Workflow Errors - “Create a bounced and unsubscribed contact list and set it as a suppression list for all of your workflows that send external marketing emails. That should help reduce the number of workflow errors!” - Jacob Olle

45.  Turn the Association Label Around - “I use this "Record ID is known" workflow hack to use the association labels as triggers. You can also use the association labels as filters by using a custom report builder and adding your associations when setting up the data.” - Liam Redding

46.  You’ve Got A Fast Car, And I’ve Got A Way To Build A HubSpot Quiz - “In this video, I'll show you how you can build a multiple-choice quiz inside HubSpot with a custom module and some Vanilla JavaScript.” - Teun Rutten

47. All About That Lead Source Clean Up - "Lead source clean up: 

    → How a lead hears about your business

    Typical values: Organic Search, Paid Ads, Referral, Social Media, Referrals, Word-of-mouth, Prospecting, Events (even though it could be an edge case).” - Matthias Werner

48. My Forms Will Go On - “Instead of adding multiple forms one by one on a workflow trigger, you can create a naming convention for all the forms you want to add and then use the “Recent conversion” field in your trigger to filter by a keyword in your naming convention.” - Kristeen Romero

49. All You Need Is Emojis - “✅ ❌ Use emojis in properties for better visual cues when viewing records and reports.” - Jennifer Nixon

50. Livin’ La Vida Lead Source - “De-anonymization/CRM Entry/Technical Lead Source — (name it as you like).

    → How you hear about your lead

    Typical values: Sign-ups for free trials, newsletters, asset downloads, demo requests, basically all kinds of web forms, manual creation, and third-party tools.” - Matthias Werner

51.  Don’t Go Chasin’ Workflow Triggers - “It’s totally fine to have workflows without triggers and have other workflows enroll records into it instead.” - Kristeen Romero

52.  The Sound of Avoiding Unnecessary Data Entry - “Use custom properties to make sure you're capturing critical information from the start and automate as much as possible to avoid unnecessary data entry.” - Jennifer Nixon

53.  It’s Me. Hi. I’m the Ticket-Owner. It’s Me. - “Users have a lot of different responsibilities inside of HubSpot. It can feel overwhelming to monitor open tickets, aging deals, incomplete tasks, reengaged leads, voicemails, etc. Leveraging HubSpot's reports and adding one simple filter can create a world of help! That filter is ME! For example, adding this dynamic filter onto a list of untouched leads where Contact Owner = "Me" creates a targeted list of contacts for the user that is reading the report. This logic can be applied all over! Ticket Owner = "Me," Deal Owner = "Me," Task Assigned to = "Me." A dashboard full of these dynamically "filtered to me" reports is the perfect place for all users to gain clarity on what is critical... and only one dashboard needs to be created: "My" Dashboard.” - Angie Jones

54.  You Got Blood on Your Face, You Big Disgrace, Triggering Workflows All Over the Place - “Use numbers in "list of answer options" in playbooks to trigger workflows. I've used this hack to enroll contacts in sequences from playbooks and build reports of playbook usage.” - Kelton Brough

55.  Tell Me How I’m Supposed To Integrate With No Create Contact - “Tired of 'Offline Source' - 'Integration' as source for your SaaS signups? Use 'Submit a form' endpoint when you integrate your custom SaaS signup form with Hubspot, not Create Contact! This form endpoint allows you to send the 'hutk' token with the submission, so you'll be able to get correct Original/Latest Source information.” - Bob Balm

56.  I'm Defying Gravity And Plan Limits Won't Bring Me Down - “You can use workflows to have control over your marketing contacts, so you stay within your Plan limits.” - Guilherme Guedes

57.  Whisper Words of Wisdom, “What Do These Analytics Mean?” - "Oh, here's a big one for me: A lot of the questions I get from my clients are, "What do these analytics dashboards mean, why should I care what they say, and now what do I do?" I'm in the middle of writing a "HubSpot Survival Guide" for one of my clients, and that was a big part of it. They're not as tech-savvy, so this section is a big help for them. For my more tech-savvy clients, I'd dig right into the SEO tool, the data quality insights, and formatting fix tools." - Nicole R. Alvarez

58.  Marketplace Queen. Young and Sweet. Only (Well, It’s Free!) - “There are a lot of free Apps in the Marketplace, and a lot of paid tools like Databox offer a free Tier as well. That is a lot of added value to HubSpot, which can be evaluated without risk when starting out, because of no added additional costs.” - Andreas Wessolly

59.  Yeah, I’m Free, A Free Website - “You can host a free website on a custom domain with HubSpot CMS Free.” - Rob Harris

60.  And I Think To Myself, “What A Wonderful Workaround” - "HubSpot lacks a lot of the validation rule power that Salesforce has (for now), but here's a workaround for requiring that a company is tied to a deal when a stage changes or before it closes. 

    - Make a property on the deal called Is associated with Company? (yes/no checkbox)
    - Make this property read only for everyone
    - Build a calculated property that sums number of companies tied to a deal
    - Build a workflow that enrolls when Number of Companies is known (turn on re-enrollement) and build a branch for >0 (set is associated with company? to ""yes"") or =0 (set to ""no""). 
    - Make ""Is associated with company?"" a required property for the relevant stages. 
    
    The only way sales can set it to ""yes"" is by associating a company. This can be used with any record you want to require association for. The limits are endless, and this can be used for more than just requiring associations." - Tyler Guthrie

61.  Cant You See? You Belong with Me (In The HubSpot Community)! - "Find your people. Take advantage of the HubSpot Community, attend events and network. If you look hard enough and/or ask enough questions, you’re bound to find what you need or at least a path to get you there. You’ll find that HubSpot advocates are happy to share their expertise with anyone that will listen and bounce ideas off each other to make the community even better! 🧡” - D'Ana Guiloff

62.  This Tech Is Crazy! Call Me, Maybe! - “When in doubt, call support!” - Ashton Adair

63.  Rolling in the Naming Conventions - "Proper admin! Basics like naming conventions on things will save your butt further down the line when you need to keep track of which landing page is connected with which workflow and follow-up email.” - Jasmine Ojbro

64.  Girls Just Wanna Have Links - “You can use links on dashboards. Links internally, externally to resources, hubs, and even Wordle!” - Chris Skalicky

65.  Active Lists Got Me Feelin’ So Crazy Right Now - “Create active lists for contacts that:
    - Have unsubscribed
    - Have hard bounced
    - Are key accounts
    - Don’t have contact owners
    
    Storing all of these in a Master folder in your lists will save so much time and keep your email domain healthy so you don’t have to check.” - Chris C.

66.  Cause’ Baby Now We Got Bad Data - “Is Aircall filling your HubSpot with duplicate contacts and/or contacts with bad data?” Try this hack. - Ryan Gunn

67.  Tech-Stack That Cheese - “HubSpot Insights includes web technologies. If you are targeting businesses based on the kind of tech you can see online, these Insights can help you segment your audience and target/ personalize based on that tech.” - Amber Kemmis

You may notice we're very short of 100, but you can help get this list to 100. Do you happen to have a HubSpot hack or hit to add? You can submit here or use #hubspot100 and #hubspottipsandtricks when sharing.  Remember, we will update the list weekly.