How to Set up the HubSpot-Salesforce Integration Hitch-Free

HubSpot and Salesforce
One of the major advantages of the HubSpot platform is its integration capabilities, which allow users to integrate other marketing and sales solutions with their HubSpot platform. One such tool supported by HubSpot is SalesForce, which is arguably one of the most popular CRM (customer relationship management) solutions currently available.

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How to Set up your HubSpot account and Install Salesforce Integration

HubSpot is one of the most popular marketing and sales platform solutions on the market. Businesses that sign up to HubSpot, whether it’s their free version or one of their paid versions, are provided access to an extensive library of marketing and sales software tools.

One of the major advantages of the HubSpot platform is its integration capabilities, which allow users to integrate other marketing and sales solutions with their HubSpot platform.

One such tool supported by HubSpot is SalesForce, which is arguably one of the most popular CRM (customer relationship management) solutions currently available.

Setting Up Your HubSpot Account

Many first-time users tend to be a little overwhelmed when they first sign up for HubSpot. It’s a very comprehensive marketing and sales platform, and its feature list is so extensive that it can leave you bewildered how to even get started. Fortunately, HubSpot does an admirable job providing step-by-step guidelines for getting started if you need help. If you’re a first-time user, the following should be a big help:

Starting Your Account

The first thing to do is sign up for HubSpot and create an account. There are four versions available: Free, Starter ($50 a month), Professional ($800 a month), and Enterprise ($3,200 a month).

The free version is no slouch and comes with features that include forms, contact management, contact insights and activity, live chat, Facebook and Instagram lead ads, and traffic and conversion analytics. Although free, it’s incredibly effective for converting website visitors into leads. The Starter version includes everything that the free version has as well as email marketing, lists, and mobile optimization features.

The Professional version is much more comprehensive. It includes everything that the starter version has as well as blog and content creation tools, SEO and content strategy, calls-to-action, landing pages, A/B testing, Salesforce integration, and more.

The Enterprise version boasts nine more features beyond the Professional version, including custom event reporting, predictive lead scoring, YouTube integration, Facebook Messenger tools, and more. If you want an all-in-one software to help you run your inbound marketing campaigns from beginning to end, the Professional and Enterprise versions are your best options.

Once you sign up for HubSpot, you’ll be given an account. HubSpot provides simple directions for getting started, including directions on how to add and delete users, create and edit teams, set up company branding, customize your language and region settings, set up your lead revisit notifications, and customize your cookie tracking settings and privacy policy alert. HubSpot also provides detailed step-by-step directions for taking your website live with HubSpot.

The Most Important Piece – Your Lead Tracking

Once you’ve set up your HubSpot account and connected your website to HubSpot, the next step is to set up your lead tracking. This is essential for collecting and analyzing your visitor data on every page of your website, so you can accurately judge how well your site is generating traffic and leads, as well as how you can improve your web traffic.

To set up lead tracking, you’ll need to install a tracking code on every page. If you don’t install tracking code on one page, the data for that page won’t be tracked, which can throw off the accuracy of your analytics.

Setting up lead tracking in HubSpot is relatively simple. Here are the step-by-step directions.

  • Go to the Settings option on the main page of your HubSpot account.
  • Choose Reports>Tracking Code on the left sidebar menu.
  • Click on Copy below the Embed Code field.
  • Paste the tracking code into the HTML code for every webpage on your site. It should be pasted right before the </body> tag in the page’s HTML code.

HubSpot does provide more specific directions for installing your tracking code onto every page of your website based on the website host you are using. Once you have installed the tracking code, you’ll want to test it. You can do this by verifying your HubSpot ID (located in the top-right corner of your account) and then going to the webpage you want to test.

Once on that page, right-click anywhere and choose either View Source or View Page Source in the drop-down menu. The HTML code of your page will come up on the next screen. Use the shortcut Ctrl+F or Cmd+F to pull up a search box. Search for your HubSpot ID to see if your tracking code has been installed on that page.

Why You Should Still Use Google Analytics

Although HubSpot provides excellent analytics, especially for creating and tracking landing pages, you should still make use of Google Analytics as well. Google Analytics can be integrated with HubSpot and will provide you with website performance data on a more granular level. Not only does Google Analytics track website activity, that activity can be further segregated into more specific categories, labels, and actions. For example, Google Analytics can provide you with data on when a video was played on your site as well as how much of that video was watched, which HubSpot can’t do. One other perk: Google Analytics is free to use.

Setting Up Your Subdomains/Landing Page Made Easy

HubSpot allows you to host content on more than one subdomain, depending on what version you have. If you have the free version, you’ll only be able to host your content tools, including landing pages, on one subdomain. If you have the professional version, you can host content on one subdomain per content tool for one brand domain.

If you have an enterprise account, you can host content on unlimited subdomains for the same brand domain. If you want to publish content on a different subdomain, you will need to go to the Settings in HubSpot’s content editor and use the Alternative Domain Dropdown option.

HubSpot makes it simple to set up landing pages. HubSpot has a built-in library of mobile-optimized landing page templates available to choose from. You can also use an on-page editor to build your own custom landing pages. HubSpot even allows you to dynamically show different content on your landing pages based on the location, device, source, buying stage, or other contact details of the visitor.

Importing Your Contacts

Since HubSpot acts as a centralized hub for all of your marketing and sales efforts, you can import all of your customer, prospect, and lead contacts so that they can be organized and segmented in one location, making it easier to reach and engage your contacts in a personalized way.

HubSpot provides multiple ways to import contacts, including through Gmail as well as the HubSpot mobile app. You can import files containing single or multiple object types through the Contacts, Companies, Deals, Tickets, or Products section in your HubSpot account. There, you can click on Import, then simply follow the directions to choose what files you want to import. The contact information will then be mapped to a spreadsheet on the following Map Properties screen.

Associate Companies with Contacts

HubSpot lets you use a setting that automatically creates and associates companies with contacts based on the email address and company domain of the contact. HubSpot will match the email addresses of your contacts to the corresponding company domain name and then associate the two records.

If the company doesn’t exist in your account yet, HubSpot will create a company record using information that they will pull from their database. You can turn this setting on by going to the Settings from your main account page and selecting Contacts & Companies. From there, click on Companies and turn on the ‘Automatically Create and Associate Companies with Contacts’ option.

Installing The Salesforce Integration

Once you’ve set up your HubSpot account, integrating your other sales and marketing tools is relatively easy. The following is a brief guide to installing Salesforce integration into your HubSpot account.

What You Would Need To Set Up

Integrating your Salesforce tool with your HubSpot account has a few requirements to meet, including the following:

Enterprise Account

You won’t be able to integrate Salesforce if you are using the Free or Basic versions of HubSpot. You need to have either the Professional or Enterprise version of HubSpot Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, or Service Hub editions for access to the Salesforce integration capability.

Salesforce

Salesforce comes in numerous editions. You will need to have a Salesforce edition with API (application programming interface) access, such as the Enterprise, Unlimited, Developer, or Performance editions. Salesforce’s editions that do not come with API access include the Contact, Group, Professional, and Spark editions.

Admin Access

In order to integrate Salesforce with HubSpot, you will need to have admin access to both HubSpot and Salesforce. It’s worth noting that you can set more granular permissions and restrictions for admin access under the Admin tab of your HubSpot account. There, you can grant users admin access and edit their administrative rights.

What To Expect With The Salesforce Integration

Knowing what to expect when you begin integrating Salesforce will help to make the process go a lot smoother. Be ready to switch between HubSpot and Salesforce throughout the integration set up and installation process. Once integrated, you’ll have a limited number of API calls that can be used by the integration. One contact sync can usually take upwards of four API calls a day, although this can vary.

If you’re connecting more than one HubSpot account to a single Salesforce instance, you will have to perform the Salesforce integration set up and installation for each account. Lastly, HubSpot will only work with a single Salesforce instance.

Installing The Integration

The following is a step-by-step guide to installing the Salesforce integration:

  • Go to your Account Name at the top right corner of your HubSpot’s main account page.
  • Click on Integrations and then choose Browse and Connect.
  • Use the search bar to find the Salesforce Integration option. If you hover over it, the View Integration should come up. Click on it to open the connector wizard. Then click on Log in to Salesforce.
  • You’ll need to input your Salesforce ID in the popup window that shows up so that you can Log In. You’ll then be redirected back to the connector wizard.
  • Click on Start the Salesforce Package Installation to Begin.
  • You will be redirected back to Salesforce, where you will need to choose Install for All Users and then click on Install.
  • A dialog box will pop up. Choose Yes, grant access to these third-party websites and then click Continue. At this point, the integration will begin and should take no longer than ten minutes to complete. If it’s taking a while, you can choose the option to receive an email that will notify you when the integration finishes.
  • Once it’s done, go back to the connector wizard in HubSpot and choose Next. Finally, select Add HubSpot to Salesforce to complete the process.

The last step of the installation process is to decide how you want your data to sync between the two platforms. There are two options available: through the Recommended setup and through the Advanced setup.

The recommended setup is the easiest one to choose and will set up your integration using recommended default settings. You can always choose the recommended setup and come back and change the settings later.

Choosing The Advanced Setup

If you choose the Advanced Setup, you’ll be guided through each setting, where you’ll be able to choose your contact sync settings, your activity, and task sync settings, and your object and property sync settings. You’ll have several options to choose from, including the recommended default settings.

HubSpot Salesforce Integration Complications You May Run Into

Although Salesforce integration is extremely beneficial, there are still a few complications that you could potentially run into once it’s been integrated. Here are some of the possible issues that you may face:

Primary Contacts Are Not Recorded

Your contact records have to be marked as primary contacts for HubSpot to be able to attribute and update the lifecycle stage (and deal size) of a specific contact to an opportunity in Salesforce. If the contact isn’t marked as a primary contact, then they won’t be marked as a customer in HubSpot once the opportunity is closed.

Your Contact Properties Are Misaligned

Contact property types have to be the same or information won’t be properly passed between HubSpot and Salesforce. For instance, if a field is a single-line field, it won’t sync correctly to a drop-down menu.

This can be problematic because HubSpot and Salesforce use different terms for their property types (for example, HubSpot uses single-line text fields, which Salesforce also uses but calls text areas instead). When creating properties, make sure that the values are the same in both programs.

Mismatched Default Properties

If you’re overlaying HubSpot CRM on to Salesforce, it can result in property duplication that could affect integration. Make sure that you’re aware of existing default properties that can be duplicated. If you do have duplicate properties, make sure everyone knows which one to use and delete the other one.

Incorrect Sync-List

An incorrect sync-list can cause contacts to be mistakenly sent to Salesforce and can prevent contacts that should be sent to Salesforce from syncing correctly. Take a look at your sync list to make sure that the right criteria are in place. If you’re using lead scoring to sync your list, check your lead score properties to see if there’s a discrepancy that’s causing the issue.

Your Update Rules Have Been Set Up Incorrectly

If you don’t set your update rules correctly, it will cause issues with the information that’s passing between HubSpot and Salesforce. You’ll need to go to your HubSpot integration settings. Here, you can select when HubSpot data should be updated to corresponding Salesforce fields.

HubSpot & Salesforce Work Excellent Together

The HubSpot Salesforce integration works flawlessly, it just requires a little patience and know-how to get all of the details integrated correctly and then a few decisions to be made as to how and when you will use each system for your sales and marketing processes.

Need more help on setting up your HubSpot Salesforce integration?
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