HubSpot Horror Stories:

Why Clean CRM Data is Critical for Paid Media

Messy HubSpot data can wreck your paid media performance. Leads go missing, reporting is a nightmare, and ad dollars get wasted. Unpack real-life HubSpot horror stories, the costly mistakes companies make, and how to clean up your CRM for better tracking, smarter decisions, and stronger results.

Also check out AG's detailed blog article outlining actionable insights and solutions to transform your HubSpot instance from a data liability into a revenue driver. 

(0:00-1:00) Introduction and Guest Introduction

Host: What's up everybody, welcome back to another episode of Digital Banter. Today, we are talking about data, specifically HubSpot data, and how much it can absolutely screw up your marketing and advertising, especially in the B2B world. Joining us today, we have Alexis Garrison, owner and founder of AG Digital Group. Alexis, how's it going?

Alexis: Hey, how are you guys?

Host: All right, ready to talk about some horror stories about HubSpot and how it can absolutely mess up everybody else's strategies and execution?

Alexis: I am. Are you ready to know the truth about what happens with your data when that is the case?

Host: I think I already know what the truth is, but sure, I'm just excited to actually swap horror stories. This podcast might not actually ever get to the resolution section, but uh maybe we will.

(1:00-3:00) Alexis's Background & Journey to B2B Marketing

Host: But I want to start today's podcast the way that we're going to be starting every podcast moving forward, to learn a little bit more about you, Alexis. So the question that I like to start with is, uh what did you want to be when you grew up and how did you end up in B2B marketing?

Alexis: Yeah, I definitely did not want to be a B2B marketer. My dream was to be a sports broadcaster. I found media agencies in college and liked media planning and buying. My journey with B2B adapted organically. I started with traditional media purchasing before digital. My brain got analytical fast. My first job required a math test. It was one of the most useful jobs I had. I moved into digital and became a strategist. I like figuring out user journeys and buying models. I wanted to expand my skillset and learn all the pieces of the puzzle. I need to know where leads convert, how landing pages work, and how contacts are treated in HubSpot.

(3:00-5:00) Transition from Traditional to Digital Marketing

Host: I think it makes a lot of sense though, as some like you mentioned, you started in traditional, right? So buying print, radio, TV. Like what's the main problem that I think us B2B, we want to measure everything, right? And what is like the back in the traditional days, like the the measurement of that is not very easy to do?

Alexis: Yeah, absolutely. I remember creating third-party tags in Dart for publisher and tracking impressions. Digital buys were an extension of print. Then there was a massive switch to all paid media online. We still call it digital marketing, but it's really just marketing. I can't even tell you the last time I had a client ask me to buy a print ad. The analytical mindset helped me progress. I wanted to find solutions to why things weren't performing well. Is it an issue with performance or data management? That's how I decided to learn HubSpot and marketing operations.

(5:00-7:00) First Experience with HubSpot and Data Disasters

Host: Do you remember the first time you got the keys of the car to like a client's HubSpot account?

Alexis: I do, and I had no idea what I was doing. It was at an agency. The client was a SaaS tech company with the best HubSpot instance I've seen. It taught me how the pieces work together. I rarely log into a HubSpot account and find it fantastic. I usually spend hours fixing things.

Host: All right, what's the worst you've seen?

Alexis: One of the worst instances had 40,000 data-mined contacts from six years prior. They had no structural setup. Leads came in, and they didn't know where they came from. It takes longer to cleanse the data than to start over. I've told clients to delete everything and start from scratch.

(7:00-9:00) Enterprise vs. Startup HubSpot Management

Host: I could definitely see that. It's easier. Unfortunately, the problem that you see is usually more in large enterprise companies.

Alexis: Yeah. I notice lately I've been working on mid-level companies. I find a big issue with sales teams understanding HubSpot. Lack of training and knowledge is a problem. Training resolves many issues. The biggest disaster is the misuse of HubSpot. Treating it as a sales outreach platform is wrong. It's for inbound leads and nurturing warm leads. Using it for cold outreach goes against HubSpot's policies. I see thousands of cold contacts in the system. Would you rather have 5,000 engaged contacts or 50,000 cold contacts?

(9:00-11:00) Impact of Cold Contacts on Measurement

Host: Yeah. So to your point, it like it kills measurement, right? When you dump cold contacts, it hurts your overall metrics.

Alexis: Yeah. And I see people uploading lists and marking them as SQLs. They think because they got a list from a trade show, they're qualified. But that doesn't show good data. I utilize those lists on the paid media side. How can I leverage them within targeting capabilities? There are other tactics and sales platforms for those lists.

(11:00-13:00) CRM vs. Marketing Automation and Data Cleanup

Host: Yeah, I mean, I think you're both touching on this is the fact of like how are you using it, right? Is it a CRM or is it a marketing automation and reporting tool?

Alexis: Yeah, it's a good question. I don't think one project has been the same. I become an extension of the client. I need to know every detail of how they operate. We map out the customer journey. Some use HubSpot and Salesforce, some just HubSpot. HubSpot has expanded. If you use HubSpot and Salesforce, you use HubSpot for marketing.

(13:00-15:00) HubSpot to Marketo Migration and System Integrations

Host: All right, so I'm going to ask a triggering question then. Who, let me find, I got a better triggering question, I think, while we're talking about transition and tools working together, something that we see all the time is that clients want to migrate from HubSpot to Marketo because they feel like they've grown out of HubSpot. I want to get your opinion on that.

Alexis: Yeah, that is a triggering question. I manage transitions from Marketo or Zoho to HubSpot. I haven't had an account that moved from HubSpot to Marketo. I've dealt with Marketo and Zoho and found their data and segmentation capabilities less robust. It's also a matter of user experience. HubSpot and Salesforce work well together. Custom integrations are sometimes needed. Systems that speak well together are best.

(15:00-17:00) Ownership of HubSpot and Form Management

Host: All right, so my triggering question was based off of all of the different capabilities that exist within HubSpot these days, who should own it? Who in the organization should own it?

Alexis: Yeah, I think marketing should own HubSpot fully 100%. Sales should manage assigned contacts. Marketing should set up automations. I think it's important to set permission levels. Not everyone should edit properties. Forms are a common mistake. Processes and documentation are important.

(17:00-19:00) Thank You Pages and Data Definitions

Host: Are you a thank you page person or are you a modal frame or modal form submission tracking person?

Alexis: I am a thank you page person. I don't believe in one data set to be the source of truth. I double-check everything. I track form submissions and thank you page views. I ban the word conversions in our agency. I use definitions in reporting.

(19:00-21:00) Conversion Tracking and Data Gaps

Host: Well, they are important though, right? But you you talk about them by what they are, right?

Alexis: Exactly. And that's why when I do reporting, I always, always, always have definitions. I'm like, these are, you got 50 Google conversions, right? And conversions can be whatever we discuss they want to make sure that their ads are they're doing and then but you also generated 20 net new contacts in HubSpot. So your cost per new contact is this and your cost per conversion is this and I keep them so separate.

Host: Yeah, because they're both still important. That's like, you know, so even with like the conversions at this point too, like was it going to get super technical?

Alexis: Well, now Analytics calls them events.

(21:00-23:00) Data Tracking Challenges and Future of Tracking

Alexis: Data tracking is huge right now. I don't think everyone is aware of how difficult it is with new cookie and privacy policies. I think from the client perspective, we're trying to find accurate data. Implementing best practices like tracking

(23:00-25:00) Data Mismatch and Single Source of Truth

Host: And I think another thing question that you get all the time of like, why doesn't HubSpot match Google Ads? Why doesn't HubSpot match this? Why doesn't Hub everybody's like looking for like this perfect data set. So my question is is like what should they expect as far as like mismatching data like variance between different channels?

Alexis: Yeah, I think I mean, I'm used to that question between even if if a client has their website connected to HubSpot even the traffic shows differently between the two, right? It's because they track different things. There can be so many reasons why the data is off. It's important to have the conversation of what do you want your truth to be? Are we only going to look at HubSpot or are we only going to look at GA? There needs to be one source of truth.

(25:00-27:00) Best Practices and UTM Tracking

Alexis: I think right now with the way that all of these new regulations have been put into place as we're kind of almost in the future of data tracking because it's a pain in the butt. It's implementing best practices we used years ago. We had this really nice marketing is so easy because everything automatically tracks everything for us and then it went back to oh no we're getting rid of cookies so now we can't track everybody and you have to figure out how to do that. It's going back to those best practices like tracking URLs, thank you pages. I 100% anytime I'm running marketing programs I set up a campaign in HubSpot. I use that campaign ID in all of my tracking URLs.

(27:00-29:00) Lead Scoring and MQL Definition

Host: So we talk about lax. I don't want to use that as a jump button off point to lead scoring and to get your opinion on what the best practices around an ideal lead scoring program looks like.

Alexis: But I run I don't know if you guys run into this but I run into a lot of clients that don't have a lot of mid funnel initiatives and by that I mean most of their ctas and their conversion points are contact sales request a demo and mostly just bottom funnel objectives like no warming no initial contact creation so I run into this a lot where we're trying to set up lead management and like life cycle stages and lead statuses but they have no true mql right so how do you move a contact through the funnel if we don't even have an an initiation point so if they're not they're just all sales qualified at that point right so what's the point

(29:00-31:00) HubSpot's New Lead Scoring System and Data Misalignment

Alexis: HubSpot I don't know if you guys know HubSpot recently just released a new lead scoring system so under marketing now is where lead scoring lives and it's a whole new lead scoring platform um and it's actually done by events or contact parameters so you can say their first name is known their last name is known their email. I don't think any lead should be an SQL or an mql if they don't have an email address that that bothers me so much I'll see these contacts that are marked as like even opportunities sometimes that have no phone number and no emails like how do you know this person's an opportunity have you talked to them funny we meant and what we were talking about before too like when something's an opportunity it should have a revenue value associated with it I think there should always there has to be a deal if there's an opportunity and that's I see that all the time I one of the first things I do when I go into a HubSpot instance is create active lists of misalignment.

(31:00-33:00) Lead Scoring and Client Collaboration

Alexis: But back to lead scoring in terms of that I think if you really don't have any true like midf funnel objectives the only real lead scoring would be to go off engagement right but I don't think that I think engagement has to be weighed so and that's comes from like upper management at a company saying okay we think somebody that has you know clicked on two of our ads engaged with us on LinkedIn seven times and been to 10 pages of our website including two of our guides they're are going to be you know considered qualified enough for sales to say hey we've noticed that you've been on our site checked out a few things how can I help you right um but lead scoring is I found is kind of almost a sensitive topic with with clients and you really have to work together with them to to see how valuable certain aspects of their business are.

(33:00-35:00) Marketing Ownership and RevOps

Alexis: That comes back to ownership right if to your point if marketing is owning it the question is is it a shared responsibility across the marketing team is it a single person that owns it and this is rhetorical this isn't like necessarily need to be answered but it's like you know if it's owned by a single person okay is that person given the resources they need to succeed do they have the skill set to be successful are they collaborating with the various stakeholders sales in particular here and do they have the empowerment to slap wrists if somebody starts uploading event lists and attendees and things like that like how empowered are they how skilled are they and are they also like valued in the organization or they just seen as anth because money is being invested elsewhere and you've got a junior level person managing a key piece of infrastructure that's got to power your entire strategy yep and this is why that initial conversation is so important is that documentation that process outline that you know getting like a database of these are our business policies this is how we operate our system and making that your Holy Bible of this is how our company works so then marketing team can just take that and and use that right and then and this is the biggest struggle I have when I work with new clients is they don't understand the lift it is tough like revops is like was I saw a post last year like the fastest growing job title in marketing or something like that and I think it makes a lot of sense because like what we see all the time is like someone's just kind of like thrown into it oh yeah like this person they made a marketing report in HubSpot one time and now like they're the HubSpot person and I think that that's like it's just like a huge flaw because it's a completely even on the paid media side like it's a completely different skill set to be able to set up reporting in HubSpot than it is a data Studio dashboard with LinkedIn and Google ads metrics like it's a it's just way different it's a lot harder a l harder I was talking to somebody about revops the other day actually about the growth in that position and that that position truly understands marketing strategy and what the sales team needs and is kind of that in between person of how to really expand business operations and how to leverage you know both departments to work together but make them cohesive at the same time right

(35:00-37:00) Client Concerns and Data Mismatch

Host: But from your guys perspective when it comes to clients and you're running paid programs and they're in HubSpot what are some of the biggest you know concerns or questions you get when they're looking at their HubSpot instance from and wondering you know about their marketing programs and how they're doing is it that they can't see the data or they don't know how successful they are

Alexis: There's a lot of things the the mismatch is always like a big just like we talked about that a little bit before of like why doesn't this match this why doesn't and then um what is the single source of Truth is also like a common argument or discussion because on the paid media side like I'll be I I lean more on some of the paid mediab based metrics because attribution gets lost like you're in HubSpot setting an attribution window or whatever last click first click whatever it may be and you know as we that works for like lead gen activities it doesn't work for Branding activities it doesn't show anything in the journey that's for like those longer attribution windows are better in the ad platforms but it ends up having a Mitch Match so that's like that's the common thing and then I feel like we've gone through them all lead scoring huge issue uh and then just the data being an absolute mess yeah the data the data being a mess then translates into we always we want to ideally try to merge the data on the HubSpot side with the ad platform side we can do it if it's in a clean State and there's actual rules and parameters that allow us to roll it up but if it's a bunch of junk you can't do anything consistently our goal is always to track somebody from form submission to close one deal and attribute it to paid media like that's our goal and it's about 10% of the time that the client has the infrastructure to actually do that yeah that's yeah and it's have all these form submissions from paid and then it just starts to fall off because you have no idea where it ended up but to that point too attribution and that could be a whole other discussion in an of itself is how a client attributes success some clients look at all touch points some look

(37:00-39:00) Attribution and Client Understanding

Alexis: ...at first touch Point as a Holy Grail some look at last it's just and you have to from the agency side be aware of okay they like to see data this way and they attribute success to this part of the the touch right or they give a little bit of success to each one um and that's also a whole other ball game and something that you know we as marketers have to be aware as and have that discussion with the client too because sometimes a rep can be like well I talked to that client at an event but you're saying that it came from Paid media and that's how we got their contact information in there okay so it's a little bit of both then right 50% here 50% there I don't know and that is the answer though that's just like not the answer that the board likes to see like in all of these sit like the right way to do it would be look at every single contact and then look at all the touch every single close one deal and then map it back to all the different touch points that they had and then you can see and map out common customer Journeys to see like okay where's the areas where we should be investing money now that sounds simple when I say it that way but you're talking about hundreds if not thousands of close one deals and then trying to that's where like a lot of the new attribution Tech is very cool because it can identify commonalities but nobody wants to pay for that they just they just want to look at last click attribution or first click wrong with it because they what do they say the Articles say that it takes seven touches to get somebody to convert or something seven I think I think the number 83 yeah there's some weird stat out there about how many touches it needs to get somebody to convert but it could have been this person had five touches with our LinkedIn campaign and one touch from an event in a conference and it's like okay so yeah all of those are marketing objectives right those are all marketing tactics so I'm going to attribute that to marketing so that's another you know way to do it too I it just so much of this depends on business's structure and that's why I think it's very important when you are an outside source and you're coming in and working with a client to become a member of their company right and just fully adapt to what their needs are their goals are and it's so different between everybody and there's not a perfect solution or answer for for anyone which kind of crappy to say because I know we all want just to what's the answer how do we fix it but it really depends is is the answer I wish I could give this person credit but I saw something on LinkedIn like a couple days ago and they asked a question of like how to something about like how much of Revenue should be attributed to marketing and this person they were like all of it and I think that's true at the end like because and I think that that's like the piece that like people Miss it's like well somebody heard of you before they reached out to sales cold Outreach is marketing like and there's like all of these all of those components to it I just thought it was like it made a lot of sense like the better your marketing is the more Revenue you're going to make like every you could say that about a lawn care business you could say that about a B2B SAS company like that's where revenue and business comes from right I mean unless a rep brings a client directly to you and like oh they're converting we closed a deal and they never touched anything to do with yeah but where did that come from how they meet them did they meet them at an event that's marketing did they them did they and this is like part of the argument would be that like uh sdrs are marketing like that's just an email marketing program that's what that is yeah about this earlier actually about how even with HubSpot stuff is to understand even HubSpot or to get you know marketing operations Revenue operations you have to be a strategist you have to be a marketing strategist and understand Marketing in its entirety you have to know technical implementations as well so you're already a marketer now you're understanding the technical aspects you understand the website and the user journey and you also understand your entire business process I think marketing is one of the only teams that has to fully fully understand the entire business model the sales process the business process and come up with your marketing strategy Implement that strategy manage the website manage your organic and your SEO like they are they touch everything at any time Alex did you study Marketing in college by any chance yeah yeah so everybody knows what the four piece are yeah pricing like everyone thinks of promotion but there's pricing distribution product it's placement actually not distribution but yes but it's place but Place yeah remember distribution is a d not a p I'm just being I feel like there's way more than four now though we have I feel like there's so many different areas analytics are op website and back in my day they were all four Ps um anyway so as we kind of come to a close Alexis I think I have like I think it's a twofold question but for people that have tuned in today um if we think about like having HubSpot in a solid place for them to operate their business but through the lens of let's say like a maturity model like what what would that look like like somebody listen today like oh I got lead scoring down pat like it's nailed you know does that put him like middle of the road map you know what would that look like for somebody that's got a huge [expletive] Show versus somebody that's like in a really solid place and they can make actionable decisions

(39:00-41:00) HubSpot Maturity Model and Baseline Requirements

Alexis: I think Baseline basic okay you kind of know what you're doing HubSpot um instance would be you have life cycle stages fully robust you know what your stages are everybody in your business knows what their stages are you have statuses that Define where they are within that life cycle stage and you have the lead scoring that pushes them or flows them some people don't like the word pushes but um flows them from initial contact to sales Outreach I don't think you need lead scoring through the entire process I think just the like from initial contact creation till you hand it off to sales that area of lead scoring is super important especially if you don't have any mid funnel initiatives that are currently live that are like generating those warmer leads right um that to me would be like Baseline um as well as form follow-ups I think there always needs to be like some kind of automatic engagement because I've seen so many times where a a form doesn't go anywhere so why is somebody's filling this out and there's no process to follow up or get in touch or something like that and that to me is Baseline um then you just get into more robust build outs like Marketing nurtures sales sequences re engagement programs like then you just start to build it out but you need those foundations or you're never going to have insights to your business conversion rates at all you're not going to know anything about how you're doing in terms of the overall business plan right

(41:00-43:00) Three Actions to Improve HubSpot

Host: So what are three things that somebody that listened today can go do right the second to up their game when it comes to their CRM or marketing automation whatever they're using HubSpot for

Alexis: The first thing I would do is check your how clean your data is and to see your data hygiene so I would pull activ less and say okay we have this many contacts that are in this life cycle stage but have no contact owner or they are you know this life cycle stage and they have no deal for example or whatever we want to do so see where your data is at how is there misconnection between your lead status and life cycle stages or you know get a sense of how accurate your information is first and foremost and that that to me is priority one and then check on your properties um there are so many times I get into an instance and somebody has like hundreds and hundreds of properties that are unused and just clean them up same with workflows so a lot of times workflows will have warnings and and um clean up instances so like things like that is Baseline I think that is the first thing anybody needs to do is clean up their instance and see where they're at and that's to get a reality check of what you need to do next cool

(43:00-44:00) Contact Information and Outro

Host: All right well Alexis thank you so much for joining us today how can people learn more about AG digital group and reach out to you

Alexis: Yeah um so you can email me or LinkedIn probably is the best I would just go to AG digital group um LinkedIn page um or Alexis Garrison just right on LinkedIn um and you can message me there awesome well thank you so much for joining us today until next time guys we'll see you on the next episode of digital banter catch you later