Top 5 HubSpot Setup Mistakes Directors Make | Unmatched

Mistake 1 - No Clear Lifecycle Stages in HubSpot CRM

With no clear lifecycle stages, your CRM becomes a static database and could be why your HubSpot set-up isn’t working. HubSpot should be a tool that powers marketing and sales initiatives, directing your contacts down a funnel making them customers or evangelists of your brand.

For example, your lifecycle stages might look like this:

Lead -> Engaged -> MQL -> SQL -> Opportunity -> Customer -> Evangelist -> Other

Establishing thresholds or markers for a contact to hit in order to progress through each stage is how to ensure no leads are missed; handoff between marketing and sales becomes seamless and reporting becomes high value.

Mistake 2 - Poor Data Hygiene

Struggling to segment your contacts effectively and create personalised targeting? With poor data hygiene comes a heap of consequences, and could be the reason why your HubSpot setup isn’t working.

Duplicate records, incomplete data or inconsistent tagging can lead to wrongly targeted communications or outreach, poor personalisation, and inability to segment correctly; impacting your email health, sending reputation, and making reporting a nightmare. It’s important to keep your portal in good condition through mandated audits, or automations.

Mistake 3 - Lack of Marketing and Sales Automation

You’ve spent thousands on HubSpot but your leads are slipping through the cracks. Sound familiar? Relying on manual hand-off and spreadsheet chaos is slowing you down - it’s a common HubSpot setup mistake we see.

Without an effective marketing to sales hand-off, leads will be missed (it’s as simple as that!) and conversions will suffer. That's why automating as much of the process as possible is critical to improve HubSpot lead generation - luckily automation in HubSpot is a piece of cake!

Mistake 4 - No Reporting Strategy

Your HubSpot dashboard isn’t showing you what you need - something is wrong but you can’t prove it and your team is flying blind. With no structure to your reporting, you’re not just missing data, you’re missing direction. Generating reports within HubSpot isn’t the issue, you can create 100s of reports that analyse multiple key objects, but with no direction, your dashboards will quickly become obsolete, cluttered and not relevant to business goals.

We’ve seen this happen countless times, when reporting is an afterthought business growth is stagnant.

Mistake 5 - Ignoring AI and New Technologies

HubSpot is evolving quickly and teams that don’t invest in AI are falling behind. AI is no longer “nice to have”, it’s a core part of HubSpot. Whether it’s marketing, sales, or service, HubSpot AI tools are capable of speeding up turnaround times and creating a lasting impact on your business. If you're not exploring the AI features in HubSpot you're missing out on increased customer engagement, insights and efficiency fixes.

Ignoring AI means you're not only working harder but you're also falling behind, as your competitors are more than likely harnessing its power.

Download Our Mistakes & Quick Fixes Checklist

Fixing these mistakes, means your HubSpot becomes a true revenue engine; driving leads that stick while streamlining processes for your team. If you’ve seen even one of these mistakes in your portal, now’s the time to act and optimise your HubSpot CRM.

Start with downloading our checklist - and if you’re ready to optimise your HubSpot, sign up for a free HubSpot audit and we’ll show you exactly where to improve.

Grab your free 2-page checklist of these mistakes + quick fixes below.