Optimize 3.0 Inbound Marketing Blog

We’ve helped hundreds of companies, from small startups to national brands, negotiate SaaS contracts. After seeing everything from “mystery fees” to sneaky renewals, we can tell you this: most teams are paying way more than they should.

SaaS vendors aren’t evil; they’re just really good at protecting their margins and trying to meet quota. Once you understand their methods and what they care about, you can get a better deal.

I’ve worked with hundreds of small and mid-sized businesses, from sustainable clothing manufacturers to fast-growing SaaS startups, and their HubSpot journey is almost always the same.

It typically starts with excitement and optimism. The CEO decides it’s time to get serious about a CRM and HubSpot seems like the perfect choice:  It’s marketed as user-friendly and positioned as the all-in-one growth platform that will “turbocharge” the business.

However, eventually reality sets in: HubSpot is far more complex than anyone expected. Especially now more than ever with AI.  Now the platform feels overwhelming, adoption lags, and frustration builds.

Inbound Marketing Alone Isn't Enough Anymore

For more than ten years, inbound has been the best way to go. Make blog posts, optimize them for search engines, and write content that draws people to your site. That worked well when people mostly used Google to look for answers.

But things are different now. People can get answers right away with AI-powered tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's Search Generative Experience. They don't always have to go to your website anymore.

The answer is simple. Your content may still show up in search results, but traffic drops, form fills slow down, and inbound alone stops sending you the leads you need.

How HubSpot Paid Contacts Work

Marketing vs Non-marketing contacts explained

HubSpot lets you classify each record as marketing or non-marketing. Marketing contacts are the only ones eligible for marketing emails and count toward your paid tier. Non-marketing contacts can still be worked by sales, tracked in the CRM, and used in reporting without increasing your marketing contact bill.

Why Data Quality Is the Hidden CRM Problem

“Our data is a mess.”

Practically every CRM we see that’s been in use for two or more years (sometimes less) suffers from the same problem: incomplete, outdated, or inconsistent records.

When that happens, frustration sets in. Sales reps stop entering information, managers stop trusting reports, and leadership loses confidence in the system. Over time, the CRM collapses into noise instead of clarity.

That’s why one of the first things we do for our clients is set up a Data Audit Dashboard inside HubSpot.

Amidst all of the fever dream around AI assistants and agents, sometimes the most basic features of HubSpot can be ignored.  We see this is just about every portal we encounter.   HubSpot’s data back up and restore is one of the most glaring examples.  Data back up is critical.  Here’s a quick guide to do that in HubSpot.

In this post, we’ll walk you through the step-by-step process to back up your HubSpot data, ensure continuity across your teams, and provide peace of mind for stakeholders.

You bought HubSpot, turned it on, maybe clicked around the menus, and now your sales team is grumbling that nothing makes sense. I’ve seen this movie many times before—different cast, same ending. The problem isn’t HubSpot. It’s the way it’s set up, right out of the gate. And that setup, what I call “technical onboarding,” is boring, unglamorous, and absolutely mission-critical.  If it didn’t get recorded in HubSpot it didn’t happen.

Ignoring search traffic can be extremely costly to your business.

Back in May 2018 HubSpot decided to do away with their keyword tool.  They did this for several reasons, some of them quite valid.  But by de-emphasizing such a core principle of SEO they managed to send the message to their clients that it’s no longer important.  Instead of doubling down on SEO tools they mostly ceded this side of their business to the likes of SEM Rush and Moz among others.

HubSpot's removing  their keyword as of May 1st, 2018.  What does that mean for your keyword tracking and overall SEO initiatives? (see point #3 below especially).  We've spent some time looking at some alternatives and have concluded that SEMRush is the best replacement for the HubSpot KW tool.  

Hubspot offers an array of inbound marketing tools that integrate blogging, SEO, email, lead nurturing and lead scoring to name just a few.  As long time users of Hubspot, we've developed some ways to get even more from the platform.  One of our favorite tools inside Hubspot is the keyword tool.  The following is a little hack we've developed to find those very best keywords to leverage for SEO and blog posts: