What Goes Into a HubSpot Audit

Having accurate, high-quality customer data is crucial for providing a next-level experience. As HubSpot reports, 

“85% of organizations globally experienced more timely and personalized customer communications as a result of improving their data quality. At the same time, 75% of organizations believe that inaccurate data is undermining their ability to provide a good customer experience.”

If you don’t have accurate, usable data, you can’t provide the level of service that keeps customers coming back. However, the longer you’ve been using your HubSpot account, it can be challenging to get a handle on everything you have going on in the platform. You may have years of contacts, out-of-date apps, or automations that no longer serve your needs. 

At Vaulted, when a client comes to us for help with their HubSpot account, we typically start with an audit to get a sense of what’s working and what isn’t. Like your regular physical at the doctor, an audit is a checkup of all of your systems to determine if anything is wrong. 

We can understand what needs improvements and adjustments by looking at all of the Hubs and accounts you use. Then, we can write you a prescription to help your HubSpot system get a clean bill of health. 

Because we do HubSpot audits regularly with our systems and with our clients, we wanted to put together a guide on what to expect and what to look for throughout the process. Read on to learn more about auditing your account!

What is a HubSpot Portal Audit? 

A HubSpot audit is a comprehensive checkup of your marketing campaigns. It involves evaluating the performance of your content, SEO, email marketing, social media, landing pages, CTAs, and more. 

By taking a data-driven deep dive, we can reveal areas where your strategy is flourishing and those that need improvement. In addition, in 2023, HubSpot audits have leaped forward technologically, so you can learn more. Portal audits now integrate AI technologies for more insightful analytics, trend prediction, and automation efficiency tracking.

Using a combination of AI tools and our existing reporting processes, at Vaulted, we can provide a checkup of your account to identify what is working and what isn’t. This audit gives you the tools needed to make improvements and determine what type of support you need to make the most of your account. 

Why Get an Audit?

The question is: how do you know if you need an audit of your HubSpot account?

If you find you’re having consistent difficulties with HubSpot across your business, it’s time for an audit. However, looking for expert advice is the best way to find out if you need an audit.

Here are some of the reasons why we have recommended audits for our clients: 

1. Incorrect Implementations. Not all HubSpot Partners are as up-to-date on best practices as we are. We've seen accounts incorrectly configured from the start. If we see that you’re having problems with conversion tracking, external integrations, custom integrations, custom properties, and configuration changes, we typically recommend an audit. This helps us find issues with the implementation that might be harder to find without a thorough checkup.
2. Data Overwhelm. Over time, HubSpot accounts just get bigger. Whenever possible, Vaulted pushes for accounts to use the existing and default fields in HubSpot before diving into custom fields. There are something like 300+ fields for Contacts alone — leverage those to start with and later look into laying on more fields. With an audit, we can look at your current fields and evaluate what needs to be cleaned up. 
3. Issues with Automation. Anyone with a Professional level or above HubSpot account has automation built in. Automation is tricky for some companies to tackle, and we've seen hundreds of single accounts that no one has any internal knowledge about. An audit lets us look at the audits in place and how they’re currently working for your organization. 
4. Inaccurate Reporting. Reporting is a massive area of concern for everyone, from the VP of Sales to the Marketing Manager. Reporting is difficult to tackle if the data is spotty or incorrect, but sometimes the data is fine, and the reporting itself is the issue. We frequently help organizations to understand their data within HubSpot. In the audit process, we look at existing reporting and how it works so we can make improvements. 

Of course, these are just a few reasons we’ve recommended audits. In general, it’s good to push for an audit to help you understand what’s happening in your portal. Regularly taking stock of your data and processes will allow you to do better work. 

You can focus on delighting your clients when you have a platform with well-organized data, automation that works for you, and accurate reporting. That’s what getting an audit is all about. 

The Auditing Process

If you decide to get an audit with Vaulted, our process goes through various steps, starting with a kickoff meeting. Here’s a snapshot of our HubSpot audit process:

Discovery and Strategy Session:

We start with this session to understand your business, the challenges you're facing, and the goals you're aiming to achieve. By knowing who you are and your unique business needs, we can build out the objectives of the audit. 

This session lets us understand your current processes and how to improve them to help you meet your goals. We also like to hear about some of the pain points of different parts of your team. This is an important step of the collaboration process we never skip at Vaulted, because it allows us to set clear expectations and understand what needs to go into the audit. 

If we know what you’re currently experiencing in your HubSpot portal, we can build a plan to ensure the audit addresses each of your pain points. From here, we can set clear expectations from the audit so you know what’s happening at every stage.

Deep Dive into Data

Once we have our goals and start auditing, we dive into the data. The Vaulted team scrutinizes your HubSpot account, examining every aspect, from email open rates to SEO performance. 

Part of that deep dive into the data includes using AI tools within HubSpot, like ChatSpot. Because it is a chatbot that utilizes your CRM, we can find data insights, get competitive analysis, and use unique CRM prompts to help us find insights we might miss in a traditional audit. 

Using experts to look through your data and utilizing leading-edge technology, we aim to identify gaps in your marketing strategy and overall processes. This process includes looking at all the objects, files, and everything your team uses daily. We closely examine the Hubs you’re using and which workflows you have in place. 

When we look into the data, we can take a look into different crucial parts of your HubSpot account, like: 

• Duplicate Records- With the default functionality within HubSpot, duplicate contacts and companies are easily found. However, some can slip through the cracks. By taking a closer look at the objects in your CRM, we can find where duplicate records are within your platform and how much cleaning up you need. 

• • File Management- In a HubSpot portal audit, we look closely at your file manager to determine how many files you have, what is in use, and what is potentially outdated. From there, we can determine if the amount of files within your account is leading to issues with the process. 

• • List Management- A well-managed list is crucial to a healthy HubSpot ecosystem. We look at your lists, whether the lists are currently in use, and the status of all the lists in your account. This gives us a picture of the state of your lists and how it contributes to any of the pain points you outline in the discovery process. 

• Properties- The amount of properties can build up over time in HubSpot. In an audit, we examine how many properties are connected to different contacts and companies. We then examine how effective this is for managing your campaigns and other processes in your account. 
• Workflows- We examine the existing workflows on your account with your goals for the audit in mind. We check what is currently in use and its effectiveness for your processes. This information allows us to analyze how your workflows work for or against you. 

• • Forms- Forms are often how contacts find their way into your HubSpot ecosystem. We analyze your current forms, data received from forms, and if there are still any unused forms within your account. 

• • Integrations- HubSpot has the capability for many different integrations across its Hubs. We look at your current integrations, how they are being used, and if there are any extra or unused apps within your portal. We look at the data created and used with these integrations to see how they support your goals. 

• Account Users and Access- We also check the users and level of access to different parts of your HubSpot account to check if any individuals no longer need access or have access to areas that don’t make sense for your goals. This helps information security in the long run and ensures you don’t have out-of-date users on your account. 

• • Effectiveness of Campaigns- Because HubSpot is such a robust marketing platform, checking how well your campaigns work is essential. We check analytics on email, social engagement, and website performance to get a sense of what’s working and what isn’t. 
  • Documentation- Across your HubSpot account, it’s crucial to have documentation of your processes. In our audit, we check existing documentation to determine more about your process and identify gaps where you could improve your documentation. 

By inventorying all of the data in your HubSpot portal across your different Hubs, we can get the complete picture of what you’re working with. Using the broader strategy we developed in the discovery phase, we can be sure we bring all the information needed to understand how you can reach your goals. 

Insightful Reporting

Once we have the raw data, we can turn it into actionable insights. We use our experience reporting and working with HubSpot to determine what's working, what's not, and why. 

When we deliver and present the report, we review some of the data that leads us to these findings and what you need to know about the current state of your portal. The report is built upon the strategy we developed in our initial meeting, so we explain what is meeting your current goals and what isn’t. 

By taking a deep dive into your data with our reports, we can understand how your team could be navigating the platform better and why you’re experiencing issues. Because our team works with HubSpot daily, we can build insightful reports that take a deep look into each of the most pressing issues with your portal.

Actionable Recommendations

As a part of the audit and after identifying the gaps, we propose a set of tailored, actionable recommendations to enhance your marketing efficiency and lead generation. These recommendations could include a process to clean up custom fields, adding or removing automations, and building in more accurate reporting. 

As a part of these recommendations, we provide explanations about what these recommendations would entail and what the potential scope of work could look like. In addition, as HubSpot Partners, some of these recommendations could involve upgrades or utilization of different HubSpot services. 

When we provide these recommendations, the client we are working with may decide to continue to work with us to provide these upgrades to their account. We then provide a scope of work on the next steps and our timeline for getting their HubSpot portal to the level it needs to be. 

What Comes After a Portal Audit

If you decide to take our recommendations after getting the audit and continue working with us, there’s more that we continue to do to ensure your HubSpot portal remains healthy and up to date. Here is how we help you continue improving and growing after the audit:

Continuous Monitoring

The audit isn't a one-time activity for us. Vaulted offers continuous monitoring and reporting, ensuring your strategies evolve with changing trends and user behaviors. That way, your HubSpot portal can stay healthy, and we can find issues as they arise. 

With regular meetings with our team, we build reporting into our process. We can update you on your sales, marketing, administration, and customer service growth. We can help you scale your HubSpot to accommodate the growing pains as you grow. 

As HubSpot receives updates and you succeed, we can ensure you work with the best possible tools. This allows you to focus on running your business while we focus on telling your story and bringing more people into your community. 

Transparency and Collaboration

Throughout our relationship, we believe in a collaborative approach, keeping you involved and informed every step of the way. The process is completely transparent, ensuring you understand the 'why' behind each action.

As we’ve done with each of our clients, we’ll put our heads together to ensure your brand shines across inbound marketing, graphic design, user experience, and administration. It’s not just about ensuring you have the best possible HubSpot account but about ensuring that your brand reflects everything you are. 

As we continue to work together, we’ll keep checking in on how you can meet your next goal. We’ll also inform you about what we see on the platform and what steps to take to improve. 

The Vaulted Difference

At Vaulted, we’re known for our meticulous, tailored approach. Because every business is unique, we know your marketing needs are also custom. Looking at your specific needs and your HubSpot account, we provide an informed take on what’s working and what isn’t. 

Because we have a full understanding of the HubSpot CRM and its capabilities, we can make critical suggestions on how to fully optimize your account. As a HubSpot-partnered, full-service digital agency in Raleigh, North Carolina, we can provide key insights on marketing, branding, and web design.

We focus uniquely on aligning business goals and design while leveraging data-driven strategies, so we can give you the no-nonsense advice needed to take your HubSpot account to the next level. Often starting with the auditing process for each of our clients, we’re ready to give actionable recommendations that can drive genuine growth. 

Ready For a HubSpot Audit?

Of course, every HubSpot is different, and this is just a broad overview of what an audit covers. Once you understand what’s working and what isn’t in your account, you’re ready to start making the changes needed to grow. 

If you’re ready for HubSpot services and an audit, we’re always happy to discuss the process and any further questions. As a HubSpot-focused full-service digital agency in Raleigh, North Carolina, we help you tell your story to the right people. 

Our team is dedicated to creating tangible results with an integrated marketing, branding, and web design approach. We believe in the unlimited potential of our clients and collaborate with them to transform vision into reality.