An Essential Guide to HubSpot Audit in 2024

HubSpot audit helps you to gain a clear understanding of your current HubSpot setup and gain ways to maximise your return on investment from the platform.

But like any other tool, HubSpot also needs periodic care and evaluation to maintain efficiency at every marketing, sales, or customer success stage.

Join us to learn how to conduct a thorough HubSpot Audit to derive maximum benefits.

Importance of HubSpot Audit

A HubSpot audit evaluates the effectiveness of your website’s marketing funnel, lead nurturing, sales process, content, and user experience. It is crucial for any customer looking to maximize their investment in a HubSpot subscription. 

A comprehensive HubSpot audit helps to-

• Optimize lead generation, lead nurturing, and sales process efficiency.
• Get clean and organized data for analysis, resulting in better accuracy and improved insights.
• Improve campaign performance by having access to accurate insights and campaign performance metrics. 
• Track Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for enhanced understanding of customer behavior.
• Streamline segmentation and workflow, helping you target the right customers with specific messaging.
• Help you perform better with easier data analysis, improved targeting capabilities, and faster response times.

Additionally, a HubSpot Audit ensures the platform is clean and well-organized, which is essential for preventing issues like-

• Exceeding contact limits.
• Sending messages to contacts that opted out.
• Risking a decreased email-sending reputation.

While HubSpot audit is an elaborate process, HubSpot audit templates make it easier to keep the process structured and seamless.

Setting Goals and Objectives of HubSpot Audit 

To ensure a comprehensive and successful HubSpot Audit, setting specific goals and objectives, gathering pertinent data, and organizing all the resources smartly is essential. 

Here is how you can do it-

Set goals and objectives

For ensuring a purposeful outcome, the key is to lay out clear objectives before conducting a HubSpot audit. Focus on identifying the key efficiencies and areas where you lack primary goals, such as optimizing existing processes, guaranteeing platform utilization, and accomplishing growth objectives. Setting clear and realistic goals will get you aligned with the overall business objectives strategy and make the most of HubSpot Portal benefits.

Collect information

For a comprehensive and accurate evaluation, start gathering information associated with your HubSpot account, such as 

• Contacts
• Deals and leads
• Properties 
• Website traffic
• Landing pages
• Blog posts
• Lead scoring model
• Workflow automation
• Pipline automation
• Deal pipeline
• Sales pipeline reporting
• Forecasting accuracy
• Conversion rate
• Sales team performance

When you have all the relevant data at hand, you can identify areas that require immediate attention and make informed decisions leading to greater results.

Organize resources

Proper organization of resources is essential to the efficient and effective review of your HubSpot account. Start by creating a checklist full of items to review, create folders, assign tasks to team members, create workflows, and set deadlines for completion. Streamlining the audit process contributes to maximizing the benefits of your HubSpot audit and paves the way for a more organized, efficient, and successful portal.

Setting up your HubSpot Account

Your HubSpot account settings hold critical features to make your marketing successful. Use this guide below to audit your account settings-

Account Defaults

Open Menu -> Settings -> Account Defaults

• Review and update the General Info tab
• Turn on EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) settings.

*The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is an EU Regulation that enhances the personal data protection for European citizens and increases the obligations of organizations collecting or processing personal data. It applies to businesses that a) market their products to people in the EU or b) monitor consumer behavior in the EU. In simpler words, even if you’re based outside of the EU but control or process EU citizens' data, the GDPR will apply to you.

• Turn on the HubSpot Employee Access.

*Enabling this feature will allow HubSpot Support team members to access your portal to help you if any issue arises.

• Review and update the Branding tab

*This should be done if you have recently rebranded your company.

Contacts & Companies

Open Menu -> Settings -> Contact Companies

• Go to Contacts, turn on Assign company owner to contact by default, and automatically fill in contact properties found with Hubspot AI.

*This may not be necessary for B2C/eCommerce companies.

• Go to Companies and turn on Lifecycle stage sync. Automatically create and associate companies with contacts and automatically fill company properties with HubSpot insights.

*This may not be necessary for B2C/ eCommerce companies.

• Go to Privacy and Consent and select Explicit or Implicit Consent.

*This may not be necessary for B2C/eCommerce companies.

Domains and URLs

Open Menu -> Settings -> Domains & URLs

• Connect your Primary Domains

*This is useful for gathering data and for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

• Connect email-sending domains ( DKIM)

*Turning this on will allow your contacts to check that your emails were authorized by the domain owner.

• Go to language settings, enable Language-Specific Redirects, and choose the Primary Language for each domain.

*This is essential for businesses functioning globally.

Marketing

Go to Menu -> Settings -> Marketing -> Email

• Review and update the Configuration tab
• Go to Subscriptions, turn on Don’t send to unengaged contacts, Resubscription email, and Double Opt-in

*You don’t have to turn on Double opt-in if you don’t have your GDPR settings on.

• Review and update Subscription Types and customize your content

*This will help you to decrease the rate of unsubscribes from all marketing emails by allowing contacts to customize their subscription (e.g. monthly newsletters, weekly emails).

• Go to track, and turn on Track email opens, Track clicks, and Identify tracking.

Go to Menu -> Settings -> Marketing -> Social

• Go to accounts and reauthorize any expired social media accounts

*Your social accounts will automatically expire by default for security reasons. Ensure to reconnect expired accounts.

• Create a custom Publishing schedule

Review your social media reports to identify the best publishing days and times. Go to the publishing tab and add these days and times to your schedule.

• Determine Email Notifications preferences

*This emails you a roundup of all new social interactions, conversions, and followers.

Reports

Go to Menu -> Settings -> Reports -> Tracking Code

• Embed Tracking code into every page not hosted on HubSpot

*This step will help you capture data for non-HubSpot pages and include it within your reports in the platform

• Go to Advanced Tracking, Exclude Traffic coming from your team’s IP addresses.

*If you are working with remote team members, this will ensure your traffic analytics are accurate and not tracking traffic from your team.

Sales

Go to Menu -> Settings -> Sales -> Deals

• Turn on Sync lifecycle stages to associated contacts and companies

*This will help you save time from updating contacts/companies and keep your database updated with accurate information.

• Update deal Stage Names as per your company’s sales pipeline.

Users & Teams

Go to Menu -> Settings -> Users & Teams

• Remove users or team members who do not work with you anymore
• Create Teams to organize users in your account

Website

Go to Menu -> Settings-> Websites -> Blog

• Review and update the General tab

*This will help optimize your blogs for search engines by including your pillar topic keywords in your Page Title and Meta Description.

• Select a team member to receive notification for comments

*This will help your team to respond to comments quickly (It is not necessary if you disable commenting)

• Go to Social Sharing and add your company’s Twitter account and enable social sharing buttons for all social accounts
• Go to Google AMP and Enable Google AMP formatted pages

HubSpot CRM audit

By reviewing key aspects of your CRM marketing portal, you ensure it is working in alignment with your marketing, sales, and service departments.

Check out the HubSpot CRM audit checklist -

Managing Contacts

To have a structured and segmented contact database, regularly clean up contacts and companies by merging duplicate contacts, clearing the system of unwanted or tag contacts, and sunset contact properties. A clean and up-to-date contact list can help avoid potential issues and ensure accurate reporting.

Reviewing Deals

Reviewing deals includes examining deal stages, properties, sales reps, and deal pipelines to ensure they align with your sales process and accurately reflect your business operations to drive better results.

Optimizing Properties

Review and update company and contact properties, as well as custom properties. To prevent property sprawl such as using ‘choosing options’ property types ‘text input’ wherever possible. This will help to ensure property data is standardized and consistent. 

Hubspot Marketing Hub audit

The HubSpot Marketing Hub audit looks into various aspects of your marketing operations that help you to identify key challenges and spot opportunities for better marketing results. You can do this by carefully assessing these crucial components- 

Website Traffic

Examining website traffic includes-

• Analyzing traffic sources
• Reviewing website analytics 
• Monitor traffic numbers
• Assess overall website traffic performance to learn the effectiveness of your online presence.

The overall website traffic be boosted by implementing strategies such as-

• Using website pages
• Enhancing blog activities and posts
• Optimizing social media presence and promotions
• Optimizing pertinent long-tailed keywords.

Landing Pages

Start by evaluating the design, messaging, and call-to-action (CTA) of an individual page of your landing pages to make sure they align with your marketing goals. Focus on optimizing your landing pages for mobile devices, use clear and concise forms, and check your site speed for an effortless user experience. 

Blog Posts

Evaluating your blog posts is essential to assess the quality and performance of your website pages. You can do this by evaluating the follow:

• Accuracy of information 
• Readability of content
• The use of visuals in your content to effectively engage and inform your audience.

Also, don’t forget to examine engagement metrics such as page views, comments, and shares to identify key trends.

Lead Scoring Model

The leads scoring model is a great way to prioritize and nurture leads in HubSpot. Make sure to revise lead scoring attributes as your business evolves. Analyze engagement metrics and start assigning different weights to web pages based on the intent they convey.

Workflow Automation

To ensure a clean and well-organized HubSpot account, review existing workflows, identify any redundant or outdated ones, and delete them. You can also start verifying all workflows to see if they are correctly configured and if all tasks are assigned to the appropriate staff. 

Marketing Channel Performance

Start by comparing data against goals to identify successful channels and those requiring improvement. Use the data to identify areas of development, set ambitions and objectives, and monitor progress. 

HubSpot Sales Hub Audit

Conducting a HubSpot Sales Hub Audit will help you assess the tools and packages within the Sales Hub, contributing to enhanced sales process efficiency, increased customer satisfaction, and improved productivity.

Here is how you can conduct a HubSpot Sales Hub Audit-

Review Deal Pipelines

Start by examining deal stages, properties, and pipelines to ensure they align with your sales process, accurately reflecting your business operations.

Evaluate Pipeline Automation

Review the efficiency of your pipeline automation to determine accuracy and identify areas that require improvement. An evaluation can lead to more revenue and drive better revenue results.

Audit Sales Pipeline Reporting

You can audit sales pipeline reporting by-

• Evaluating sales team utilization of the Sales Hub
• Validating accuracy in data entry
• Assessing key performance indicators to gain valuable insights into your sales teams’ operations

Audit Forecasting Accuracy

To assess the accuracy of your forecasts and for more accurate sales predictions, review your sales forecasting process by calculating the Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE).

Monitoring Sales Team Performance

Monitor key performance indicators by setting clear goals and objectives and leverage the data to make better decisions.

HubSpot Service Hub Audit

A detailed HubSpot Service Hub audit helps evaluate the tools and packages within the Service Hub. Here is how you can do it-

Review Ticket Pipelines

Reviewing ticket pipelines can ensure your customers get efficient service and customer success teams keep up with the influx of support requests.

Check if the status and stages of your ticket are set up correctly and are being used consistently. Also, review your ticket routing and automation rules to ensure that the tickets are being assigned to the right teams at the right time.

Assess Knowledge Base Engagement

To understand how well your knowledge base is in assisting customers, start assessing the content, confirm its relevancy, and evaluate the effectiveness of the knowledge base in providing customer support. Check if your knowledge base is organized in a logical and easy-to-use manner, and assess your search functionality to determine if customers can easily find the information they look for.

Audit Surveys

Conducting regular and thorough audits of your surveys can help you better understand your customers and their satisfaction level. You can do this by reviewing the effectiveness of your surveys and implementing changes to optimize their performance.

Conclusion

Need a Helping Hand with your HubSpot onboarding and HubSpot migration?

Reach out to us to manage your HubSpot activities. We can handle all your HubSpot technicalities efficiently. 

Here’s what we can do for you ⬇️

☑️ We’ll set up your HubSpot account and take care of all the technicalities that come with it.

☑️ Within a short time, we’ll get your HubSpot portal ready.

☑️ We’ll assist you through the entire HubSpot audit process and get insights contributing to your growth.

☑️ And we offer all of the above support services at affordable prices. 

Book a quick call to learn more about our HubSpot services