Maintaining a high-performing HubSpot account requires regular audits to ensure all tools, data, and processes are optimized for your business goals. A thorough HubSpot audit helps identify areas for improvement, ensures data accuracy, and maximizes the effectiveness of your marketing, sales, and service efforts. Whether you’re aiming to enhance lead nurturing, improve data organization, or refine automation, a HubSpot audit is essential.
This guide outlines a complete HubSpot audit checklist to help you evaluate and optimize your HubSpot account step-by-step.
Why is a HubSpot Audit Important?
A HubSpot audit helps you:
- Maintain Clean Data: Regularly review and remove outdated or duplicate data for accurate reporting and smoother workflows.
- Optimize Workflows and Automation: Fine-tune automations to improve efficiency and avoid errors.
- Improve User Adoption: Ensure all users are using HubSpot effectively and adhering to best practices.
- Align with Business Goals: Periodically reassess configurations to ensure they support your evolving business objectives.
HubSpot Audit Checklist
1. Contact and Company Data Audit
Keeping your contact and company data clean is essential for accurate reporting and effective lead nurturing.
- Remove Duplicate Contacts and Companies: Use HubSpot’s duplicate detection tool to find and merge duplicate entries.
- Verify Data Accuracy: Check that key fields (email, phone, address) are filled in and correct.
- Standardize Data Fields: Ensure uniform data formats (e.g., phone numbers, job titles) for consistency.
- Segment Your Database: Create or update lists based on customer segments, industry, or lifecycle stages to improve personalization.
2. Lead Scoring and Lifecycle Stages
Lead scoring and lifecycle stages help you track where each contact is in the sales funnel, guiding your outreach strategy.
- Review Lifecycle Stage Definitions: Ensure stages (e.g., lead, MQL, SQL, customer) are accurately defined and used.
- Audit Lead Scoring Criteria: Check if your lead scoring model aligns with your target audience and conversion criteria. Adjust scores based on engagement behavior, demographics, and more.
- Analyze Lead Scoring Results: Evaluate the effectiveness of your lead scoring model by checking if high-scoring leads are converting into customers.
3. Deal Pipelines and Sales Processes
An optimized sales pipeline helps your team stay organized and improves deal tracking and reporting.
- Review Deal Pipeline Stages: Ensure your deal stages match your current sales process. Remove unused stages and add any new ones as needed.
- Optimize Deal Properties: Customize properties like “deal source” or “close probability” to capture relevant data for each deal.
- Check for Consistency in Deal Creation: Ensure deals are created and updated consistently. Missing data or errors in the deal pipeline can impact reporting accuracy.
- Analyze Pipeline Performance: Identify any bottlenecks by reviewing stage-to-stage conversion rates and make adjustments to improve deal velocity.
4. Marketing Automation and Workflows
Automation is a key feature of HubSpot, but workflows can become outdated or overly complex, affecting efficiency and performance.
- List All Active Workflows: Review all active workflows, including lead nurturing, follow-ups, and internal notifications.
- Optimize Workflow Conditions: Check each workflow’s triggers and conditions to ensure accuracy. Make sure workflows aren’t overlapping or conflicting.
- Update Email Sequences: Review the content and timing of automated emails to align with current marketing goals.
- Audit Workflow Effectiveness: Analyze open rates, click-through rates, and conversions to identify underperforming workflows and make necessary adjustments.
5. Content and SEO Audit
Ensure that your content strategy and SEO efforts align with your marketing goals and drive organic traffic.
- Review Blog Content: Audit blog posts for SEO optimization, including keywords, meta descriptions, headers, and alt text. Update old content to reflect current trends.
- Check Landing Pages: Review landing pages for clear CTAs, optimized keywords, and conversion rate performance. Make sure all forms work properly and capture relevant data.
- Update Calls-to-Action (CTAs): Evaluate CTAs across your website and blog to ensure they’re compelling, accurate, and align with your offers and target audience.
- SEO Performance: Use HubSpot’s SEO tools to identify any issues with your website’s technical SEO, such as broken links or missing meta tags.
6. Reporting and Analytics
HubSpot’s reporting tools provide insights into your marketing and sales performance. Regularly auditing these reports helps ensure accuracy and relevance.
- Audit Custom Reports: Review all custom reports to ensure they are up-to-date and relevant. Remove outdated or unused reports.
- Check Dashboard Accuracy: Make sure all data points on dashboards are accurate and helpful for your team. Adjust filters or data ranges if needed.
- Evaluate KPIs: Ensure your KPIs are aligned with your business objectives. Adjust them as needed to focus on relevant metrics.
- Use Attribution Reports: If using HubSpot’s attribution reporting, review these reports to understand which channels are driving the most conversions.
7. Integrations and Connected Apps
HubSpot integrates with a variety of tools to centralize your data and streamline workflows. Reviewing your integrations ensures they are working correctly and providing value.
- List All Connected Apps: Identify all third-party integrations connected to HubSpot, including email tools, CRM systems, and marketing platforms.
- Check Data Sync: Ensure data is syncing accurately between HubSpot and connected tools. Resolve any syncing errors or discrepancies.
- Evaluate Integration Usage: Identify any integrations that are no longer useful and disconnect them if they’re not adding value.
- Explore New Integrations: Consider new integrations that could improve efficiency or add new capabilities to your HubSpot account.
8. User Management and Permissions
Regularly reviewing user permissions ensures data security and efficient access management.
- Review User Roles: Check each user’s role and access permissions. Ensure that sensitive information is accessible only to those who need it.
- Deactivate Inactive Users: Remove access for users who are no longer with the company to maintain account security.
- Provide Role-Specific Training: Ensure each user understands how to use the HubSpot tools relevant to their role, improving overall adoption and usage.
9. Compliance and Privacy
Ensuring your HubSpot account complies with data protection regulations (such as GDPR) is crucial for legal compliance and customer trust.
- Check GDPR Compliance Settings: Enable GDPR settings if applicable, and review consent processes for capturing and storing data.
- Audit Data Retention Policies: Regularly delete or anonymize data for contacts that are no longer active or have withdrawn consent.
- Review Cookie Settings: Ensure your cookie consent banners are set up correctly on your website to comply with privacy regulations.
- Document Data Processes: Keep a record of how data is collected, stored, and managed within HubSpot to support compliance efforts.
Common HubSpot Audit Challenges and Solutions
Challenge 1: Data Overload and Inconsistencies
Solution: Create a data management plan to standardize data entry and routinely clean up duplicate or outdated information.
Challenge 2: Underused Features
Solution: Regularly assess your use of HubSpot features to ensure you’re making the most of the platform. HubSpot’s tools and resources can help you uncover and implement underused features.
Challenge 3: Overlapping Automations
Solution: Review and document workflows to identify any redundancies or conflicts. Consolidate or refine workflows to avoid duplicated efforts and potential errors.
FAQs
Q1: How often should I conduct a HubSpot audit?
A: Conducting a comprehensive HubSpot audit at least twice a year is recommended. However, high-growth businesses may benefit from quarterly audits due to rapid changes in goals and processes.
Q2: Do I need a HubSpot Solutions Partner to perform an audit?
A: While a HubSpot Solutions Partner can provide expert insights and a fresh perspective, many businesses can successfully complete an audit using HubSpot’s internal tools and resources.
Q3: Can an audit improve my team’s use of HubSpot?
A: Yes, an audit can uncover unused or misused features and areas for improvement, which, when addressed, can increase efficiency and user adoption.
Q4: What’s the difference between a HubSpot audit and HubSpot onboarding?
A: Onboarding focuses on setting up and configuring your HubSpot account initially. An audit, on the other hand, is a periodic review to ensure your account continues to meet your goals and is fully optimized.
Q5: How can I track the ROI of my HubSpot implementation?
A: Use HubSpot’s reporting tools and custom reports to track KPIs related to lead generation, sales conversions, and customer satisfaction. Regular audits help ensure you’re maximizing ROI by improving data quality, automations, and user adoption.
Conducting a regular HubSpot audit ensures your CRM and marketing efforts remain effective and aligned with your business goals. By following this comprehensive checklist, you’ll gain insights into your current setup, identify opportunities for improvement, and ultimately drive better results from HubSpot.