HubSpot and Salesforce are two of the most popular and successful customer relationship management (CRM) software companies utilized by businesses today.
Salesforce is known for its robust features and great functionality, with 150,000 companies utilizing its services. HubSpot has an incredibly user-friendly interface and marketing automation capabilities that are currently helping over 167,000 customers use integrations to attract, engage, and delight customers.
HubSpot and Salesforce offer singular integration, enabling them to share data and work together seamlessly. This integration allows businesses to:
- Streamline their lead management processes,
- Allows for consistency between marketing and sales teams, and
- Offers enhancements to the reporting and analytics processes.
In this article, we will define HubSpot and Salesforce integration, explain how to successfully integrate the two, discuss the benefits you will enjoy, and discuss common problems and how to solve them.
How to integrate HubSpot and Salesforce.
Ensuring you properly integrate HubSpot and Salesforce is essential to keep your business automation processes functioning correctly, and your data is correct.
Before integrating HubSpot and Salesforce, businesses must consider a few prerequisites. These include:
- Ensure you have proper access to your HubSpot and Salesforce accounts. Your HubSpot account will require account access permission, while Salesforce will require an edition with API access or Salesforce Professional.
- Check to make sure you have the correct administrative permissions to connect the two accounts. These include ensuring the permissions are as follows:
- API Enabled,
- Modify Metadata permission to view your HubSpot data,
- Download AppExchange Packages permission, and
- Permission to view Salesforce data in HubSpot's Visualforce window.
- Proper research is completed so you understand what data must be shared between the two systems.
- The development of a clear data mapping strategy to properly match the fields between the two databases. Precise mapping will facilitate data migration, integration, and other data management tasks.
These prerequisites are essential to make sure your integration process goes smoothly.
Step 1: Choose a Reliable Integration Tool
There are several tools available that help businesses connect HubSpot and Salesforce. However, HubSpot's Salesforce Integration tool allows the fastest and most reliable integration between your two databases.
Benefits of HubSpot’s integration tool include:
- An easy setup process that doesn't require technical work,
- Seamless data sharing between the two accounts without requiring code, and
- Automated workflows between both accounts by using built-in templates so you can send lead information to sales teams automatically.
Our tool will close the disconnect between marketing and sales teams to allow your company to bring in more revenue with less effort.
Step 2: Set Up HubSpot’s Integration Tool
Before you set up integration, ensure your prerequisites are completed and you have granted proper account access permissions, and you are Salesforce system administrator.
Install the HubSpot-Salesforce integration app by:
- Navigating to the marketplace icon within your HubSpot account,
- Select app marketplace,
- Search Salesforce integration, and Install the app.
It will then ask you to log into your Salesforce account. Once this is complete click Start the Salesforce package installation to begin.
- Select Install for All Users and click Install.
- Ensure you grant access to the third-party web sites within the dialog box before clicking continue.
After this is complete, Salesforce will install the HubSpot integration package and you will receive an email after the installation is complete.
Step 3: Define the Integration Flow
Once the download and linking are complete, you must define the integration flow to ensure smooth and bidirectional data exchange between the two platforms.
To start this process, you must first configure the sync settings by choosing the objects you wish to sync under sync settings. For example, HubSpots primary objectives include Contacts, Companies, and Transactions, while Salesforce is Leads/Contacts, Accounts, and Opportunities. In addition, there are more granular options, such as email.
Because these fields will not match up perfectly, it is essential to create custom field mappings that prevent mapping issues in the future. For example, HubSpot refers to email as 'Email,' while Salesforce uses the term 'Contact Email'. Where there are discrepancies, set up syncing rules to define how data is handled when it runs into differences, ensuring that your data from both platforms will become seamlessly integrated.
Step 4: Test the Integration
Once you have configured your sync, created field mappings, and set up syncing rules, it's time to test it out to ensure data is accurately syncing between the two platforms.
To do this, create a test record, such as a new HubSpot contact. Fill out every field that you have set to sync with Salesforce. Then if your data isn't set to sync, trigger one as a test automatically.
Once it has occurred, go to the Salesforce record and determine whether the two records sync successfully with all the correct information. Then do a two-way sync check by editing some of the data in Salesforce and checking for the changes in the HubSpot platform. If they are correct, your mapping is accurate, and if not, return to your field mappings to check for errors.
Finally, ensure you check any automated workflows triggered by changes in synced data, such as a new Salesforce lead triggering a HubSpot email.
If your integration testing succeeds, you will know your data integrates correctly. However, it's essential to check your default field mappings quarterly or when any new field is added to any platform to ensure it's correct.
Benefits of HubSpot Salesforce Integration
There are many benefits to HubSpot Salesforce integration. These benefits include.
Streamline Lead Management
HubSpot Salesforce integration streamlines lead management by facilitating the flow of information between the two platforms. Data synchronization ensures that information entered into one system is synced to the other, which ensures accuracy, eliminates the need for manual data entry, and reduces the risk of duplicate records. This means adding to your HubSpot contacts will automatically create a Salesforce lead.
Your company will see these benefits throughout the Salesforce and HubSpot workflows. Marketing and sales team will have access to new information in real time to facilitate lead nurturing and sales alignment.
Improve Marketing and Sales Alignment
HubSpot Salesforce integration improves collaboration and alignment between marketing and sales teams by automating communication, data sharing, and collaboration between teams.
With HubSpot you benefit from incredible marketing automation features that enable email marketing, personalized content for individual businesses and companies, and workflows that improve effectiveness of marketing campaigns. Data synchronization from integration allows information from these processes to be transferred to Salesforce automatically to increase transparency for your sales team and help them engage your company’s leads more effectively.
For example, when one of your leads reaches a key milestone in HubSpot’s workflow, it will automatically trigger actions in your Salesforce account, such as creating a task for your sales team to follow on. This automation ensures your leads are handed off at the right time, preventing delays and missed opportunities.
Integration also provides insights into the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, lead quality, and sales performance to utilize to improve future marketing efforts.
Enhance Reporting and Analytics
Consolidating data from both platforms through HubSpot Salesforce integration provides a comprehensive view of the lead management process and improves visibility between the two platforms, which results in more accurate data.
Combining data also allows your company to create comprehensive metrics to utilize in the analysis of marketing efforts and guide changes to your lead nurturing workflows, and review sales activities to see how they are performing.
Data synchronization allows you to track the customer journey from their initial touch points in HubSpot to their final conversions and revenue data in Salesforce, then utilize visualization tools to create representations of data that enable stakeholders to easily interpret metrics, and participate in data driven decision-making.
Improve Customer Data Management
HubSpot Salesforce integration allows for customer data to remain uniform on both platforms. Whether it’s contact details, lead status, or interactions, the information will remain consistent and update to date, eliminating the need for manual data entry, which increases the risk of duplicate data and conflicting information.
This synchronization improves data integrity and quality to ensure marketing and sales teams have consistency which helps them to better understand the customer’s trends, and patterns to enable informed decision-making and personalized interaction with customers.
Increase Productivity
HubSpot Salesforce integration increases productivity in many ways, which include:
- Automating manual tasks to reduce the time and effort required for data entry and synchronization,
- Improving collaboration between employees through valuable immediate valuable insights shared between teams for a consistent customer experience, and
- It streamlines workflows between your HubSpot and Salesforce accounts.
Automation and collaboration mean your sales team will focus their time and energy on high-value activities, such as chasing leads and closing deals, rather than administrative tasks.
Some Things to Consider
Integration has a learning curve, even when there is no code involved. Ensure you consider the administrative roles, data backups, and workflows needed. In addition, make sure your setup is correct, as mistakes will result in sync errors and other problems later on.
Also, keep in mind that HubSpot Salesforce integration is an investment. The more Salesforce and HubSpot contacts you have, the more you will pay. However, to ensure it is worth the investment and gives the most benefit, prioritize the features that will benefit your company the most.
Common Problems and Solutions
With any integration, issues will arise, especially at the beginning. Knowing the common issues and how to resolve them is essential. Four common problems seen with HubSpot Salesforce integration include:
Data Synchronization Issues
Data synchronization issues between your HubSpot and Salesforce account are usually due to the data structure, field mappings, or data formatting differences.
To resolve this issue, check your field mapping and configuration first to ensure the fields within the two platforms are properly mapped and aligned.
If this is not the problem, ensure your data formatting and standardization are not the problems and that you enforce standardization across both accounts.
Regular data audits and monitoring are the best way to catch these data errors before they become a significant problem.
Data Mapping Issues
Data mapping issues between HubSpot and Salesforce arise when your field mapping or the data structures between the two systems do not correctly align during the integration process. These discrepancies result in data inconsistencies, missing information, or failed synchronization.
To resolve this problem:
- Review your field mapping and ensure the corresponding fields are correctly mapped.
- Make sure you check both standard and custom mapping fields.
- Check your data to ensure your team uses standardized naming conventions across both platforms.
Again, regular data audits and audits when adding new fields will help quickly resolve this issue.
Duplicate Records
Duplicate records occur in several ways. For example, when an individual has multiple email addresses, which are entered as separate contact instead of put under the same person. It also happens if syncing rules are not the same for both HubSpot and Salesforce or if a user manually creates a new contact that already exists.
There are several ways to prevent and resolve duplicate records. To prevent them, ensure there is a consistent unique identifier for each contact, such as an email, ensure you have consistent syncing rules, and regularly review your data within both systems so you can catch issues early on. Once duplicates have occurred, HubSpot and Salesforce offer deduplication tools to help identify, merge, and prevent future duplicate records.
Integration Failure
Integration failure occurs for several reasons, such as:
- API version mismatch,
- Authentication, permission issues, and sharing settings,
- Data mapping conflicts,
- Network connectivity problems, and
- Outdated software versions.
To resolve integration issues, review error messages and logs related to the failure. Depending on your error messages resolution will include the following:
- Updating the API versions,
- Verifying and updating authentication credentials,
- Revising data mapping,
- Checking connectivity,
- Checking security settings,
- Updating sharing settings and permissions.
Integrate your HubSpot and Salesforce platforms to help your company grow today!
HubSpot Salesforce integration has many benefits for businesses that will enhance sales and marketing efforts, streamline processes, and increase your company's success.
HubSpot is known for its renowned inbound marketing capabilities and robust tools for content creation, lead generation, email marketing, and CRM. At the same time, Salesforce offers a suite of sales and customer management tools such as lead tracking, opportunity management, sales forecasting, and customer support.
Integrating these platforms will bridge the gap between marketing and sales teams and streamline processes to ensure your employees can spend their time focusing on revenue-driving activities. Request a demo today to see how we can help you grow your business!
