HubSpot is considered one of the biggest marketing automation platforms. Here we look at what it is, and how easy it is to integrate it with WordPress.
What is HubSpot?
HubSpot’s Marketing Hub is a marketing automation platform that is based on an inbound marketing strategy. It’s aimed at small and medium-sized businesses and is ideal for organisations with fewer than 1,000 employees or those with a turnover of less than $100 million.
As you’d expect with a focus on inbound marketing, HubSpot has robust CRM and content management functionality. The platform integrates with the major CRM packages, but HubSpot also has its own CRM application. Therefore, the two HubSpot platforms – CRM and marketing automation – work seamlessly together.
Content management features allow brands to create web pages, blog posts, forms, landing pages, and email templates – all using “drag and drop” technology.
HubSpot also provides users with suggestions for SEO and enables content sharing via social media. Landing pages can be enhanced with the implementation of call-to-actions, and based on the visitor’s location, traffic source, device and persona intelligence, personalisation can be used to further improve the user experience.
Lead management tools are available to help generate, nurture, score, segment and track inbound leads. And with analytics data, businesses can measure and analyse both traffic and interactions, meaning they can make informed marketing decisions.
HubSpot Marketing Hub has free and low-cost plans for solopreneurs and micro businesses. However, for larger businesses, the price ranges from $7,500 per month with 2,000 contacts to $67,000 a month for half a million contacts. This excludes additional one-off costs for installation.
How easy is it to integrate HubSpot with WordPress?
When it comes to integrating HubSpot with WordPress, a tracking code must be added to each page. This can be done manually, but the easiest way to do it is to use the official plugin from HubSpot. It is a free plugin and is installed in the same way as any other plugin in WordPress.
After installing and activating the plugin, log in to your HubSpot account on the plugin settings page (you must be a HubSpot Super Admin to connect your site with HubSpot), your site can then be tracked in HubSpot’s analytics system.
What functionality does a HubSpot/WordPress integration provide?
With the plugin installed, the integration allows WordPress users to embed forms and CTAs directly into both pages and posts in WordPress. These are embedded by copying and pasting the shortcode. You can also enable HubSpot’s Live Chat on your website with just a few clicks.
Visitor information is captured via forms, but HubSpot also pulls in additional data about people from around the web, including – where available – information like their job title and social profile, to build a more complete profile of website visitors.
The captured visitor data is stored in HubSpot so that marketing activities can be measured and reports created.
On top of this, there are also extended integration options with lots of other extensions, such as WooCommerce, Ninja Forms, Stripe, and many others.
How does the support work?
At the time of writing, the plugin was last updated seven months ago. The support forum on the official WordPress site doesn’t appear to be staffed by a HubSpot representative, but there are resources and other help available through HubSpot’s Knowledge Forum and Academy. Phone and email support is also available. In practice, however, larger companies will have an IT department or digital partner to help with problems.
Conclusion
HubSpot integration with WordPress is a simple affair. The support is not very extensive in the free sphere, but good in HubSpot’s own resources. Overall, however, it’s easy to incorporate information about leads and HubSpot analytics into your WordPress site.