What comes to mind when you hear the word “vintage”? You might think of old records, black and white photos, or maybe even fantastic clothes, but what you might not think of are all of the old, forgotten items in your HubSpot account.
Forgotten parts of HubSpot can become tumbleweeds if you let them, rolling through your data and leaving debris as they go. How do you combat the tumbleweeds? Perform a HubSpot audit.
What is a HubSpot Audit?
A HubSpot audit is an in-depth review of every tool within your HubSpot portal to identify key efficiencies and areas for improvement so you can get the most out of your platform. The tools audited often include the following hubs: Marketing, Sales, Service, Operations, and CMS.
A comprehensive HubSpot audit allows you to focus on where improvements can be made with recommendations based on your company’s account—it’s not just one size fits all because, like bodies, all HubSpot accounts are different. When performing an audit, there are a few important things to pay attention to, including your dashboards, contact database, apps and integrations, and more.
It’s true, audits can be overwhelming, especially when you don’t know where to start. It can take anywhere from 3 to 8 weeks to perform a comprehensive audit, and it’s recommended that a HubSpot account is audited every 12 months, as a lot can change in the space of a year. That alone is enough to prevent most people from conducting an audit themselves. The interest simply dies there.
How Does A HubSpot Audit Work?
When performing a HubSpot audit, it’s important that you look through every HubSpot tool you are currently using. Go through each piece of the tool, digging into your use habits and other information, before bringing all of the data for that hub together into one place.
Let’s take Marketing Hub, for example. Are you using dashboards to capture the data that is most important to your business? What does your database hygiene look like? Do contact records have missing or incorrect data? How many of your workflows have issues, and are they working for you or against you? What properties are you using, and how are you using them? How are you using lists to streamline the segmentation of your contacts? The list goes on and on. Now, imagine doing that for every hub. Can you feel your fingers cramping?
With an audit, the goal should be to learn more about the ways you are using HubSpot’s tools so you can determine if they are being utilized well or not. Once you have studied the tools, you can then work to make recommendations for optimization and improvements. Your teams will then have to work together to implement any changes to your portal.
I know what you’re probably thinking: “That’s.....a lot.” Was I right?
How Can I Do a HubSpot Audit Myself?
A Hubspot audit can be intimidating, but it’s simple when broken down into basic steps. To break down your audit, you simply need to pick a hub and look at its tools. Now, take a really good look; don’t just glance at the headings and exit HubSpot. Take a look at your Sales Hub - I’ll wait.
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Did you look? Good.
What you may have seen feels overwhelming, but breaking it down into all of its parts will simplify your audit. A basic way to remember what you’re looking at is to ask yourself the following:
“What do I have, what can I get rid of, what can I combine, and what do I need?”
Starting with your Sales Hub, for example, you can see all of the tools in the drop-down - let’s pick one: the deals tool.
When looking at the deals tool, it’s important to look at all users and all deals from all campaigns. An audit isn’t just about your work—it’s about the portal’s health as a whole, so you need a holistic view of what you’re working with.
Once that has been done, take a look at the tool. First, you determine if it’s even being used—and if not, how could you utilize it in your efforts. Next, take a look at the setup of the deals tool. Do things like view your pipelines and remember to ask yourself, “What do you have, what can you get rid of, and what do you need?”
Old pipelines that are no longer used should be assessed to determine if the historical data they hold is relevant and useful, new pipelines should be viewed to determine if they have been set up correctly, and every other deal pipeline in the middle should be given the same love and attention.
Weed through the junk—the closed-lost accounts that haven't been prospected since 2016, the duplicate deals that all have the exact same information, and the deals with empty fields or amounts—and determine what you should export for posterity or delete as it is no longer useful.
Take notes, careful ones. They will help when you put any recommendations you may have together once your audit is finished, which can help you present your audit and recommendations when the time comes.
And that’s it—you’ve just audited your first Sales Hub tool. Doesn’t that feel good? Just keep at it, and you’ll have a finished audit before you know it.
The Truth about HubSpot Audits
To get an honest picture of how you use HubSpot, I recommend you have someone experienced and well-versed in HubSpot to conduct the audit for you. Sometimes, it’s hard to know if you are using the tool to its fullest potential. You only know what you know. This is where having a HubSpot Solutions Partner like us take the reins and dive into your HubSpot portal is the way to go.
We’ve put together a few resources to help educate you in all things HubSpot Audit:
Not Getting A HubSpot Audit is the #1 Mistake Users Make
Problems HubSpot Audits Uncover & How to Fix Them
HubSpot Audit: 4 Ways to Optimize Your CRM
Reach out to us when you are ready to let us do the heavy lifting of a HubSpot audit for you.
