This guide is here to help new HubSpot users make the most of their accounts. You’ll learn how to customize your account, create reports, and log client communications properly. Following these six steps, you’ll set up your HubSpot account to maximize your business’s potential.
Looking for something specific? Here is a breakdown of the 6 steps to HubSpot success:
1. Understand What You Want to Accomplish
The key to getting the most out of HubSpot is clearly outlining your goals. Ask yourself: What do you want to achieve in the next 3-6 months? Defining your objectives helps you leverage HubSpot’s tools effectively. Here are some questions to guide your planning:
- What insights do you need? For example, do you want to know how many leads were converted last month or how leads from Google Ads perform compared to Facebook Ads?
- What data will you track? Decide if you’ll only store contacts or also log deals, sales, and companies.
- What’s your priority? Focus on three to five goals, such as increasing lead conversions, improving email response times, or streamlining customer data management.
- Will you use HubSpot’s AI features? HubSpot’s Breeze AI tools can score leads automatically, write emails, summarize contact records, and predict which prospects are most likely to close. Deciding upfront which AI features you want to use will shape how you configure your properties and workflows from day one.
When you know what you’re aiming for, it’s easier to use HubSpot’s features strategically. Asking and answering these questions can also help you understand your restrictions with the free version of HubSpot, providing you with a roadmap of future upgrades. To see which features are included with each paid version of HubSpot, you can check out the HubSpot pricing page.
2. Customize Contacts & Properties
HubSpot’s CRM is only as powerful as the data you put into it. To get accurate reporting and insights, you need to customize the available fields to align with your business needs. You can add custom properties to most objects stored in HubSpot – Contacts, Companies, and even Deals.
Here’s what you need to know before you get started:
- Understand contacts vs. companies: Contacts are individual people, while companies represent the organizations you work with. Keep these categories distinct for better organization.
- Define lifecycle stages: Customize lifecycle stages to reflect the journey of your customers, from leads to clients.
- Add relevant properties: Include custom fields like “Preferred Communication Method” or “Lead Source” to capture critical information. As we mentioned before, you can also add properties to Deals, which could allow you to record the reason why the deal was lost.
You can’t report on data you don’t record.
Plato (probably)
Setting up these properties early ensures you’ll have the data needed to answer important questions down the line. It also equips your sales team with the right information to connect with and convert potential leads.
One thing worth setting up early that many businesses overlook: consent and compliance properties. With GDPR and evolving state-level privacy laws, you should be tracking communication opt-ins and consent records from the start, not trying to add them retroactively. HubSpot has built-in tools for this under contact properties. Setting them up now saves a significant headache later.
3. Create Reports
Reports are the backbone of any data-driven strategy. HubSpot’s reporting tools help you measure performance and identify areas for improvement. Here’s what you should know:
- Start simple: Create basic reports to track metrics like new leads, email open rates, or deals closed. HubSpot has a wealth of free reports to get started.
- Drill down: Over time, build more detailed reports to analyze campaign performance or customer retention trends.
- Automate insights: Set up recurring reports to receive updates on key metrics without manual effort.
- Use attribution reporting: Once you have basic reports running, set up multi-touch attribution reporting to see which marketing channels are actually generating revenue, not just leads. This is the data business owners and leadership teams actually need to make smart budget decisions.
By using reports, you’ll gain actionable insights that help guide your marketing and sales strategies.
4. Create Dashboards
Dashboards make it easy to monitor performance at a glance by combining multiple reports in one place. Here’s how to set them up:
- Customize by team: Create dashboards tailored to each team’s needs. For example, your marketing team might track lead generation, while your sales team monitors deal closures.
- Think timeframes: Build dashboards for daily, monthly, and quarterly reviews.
- Keep it visual: Use graphs, charts, and widgets to make data easier to digest.
- Use AI-generated summaries: HubSpot’s Breeze AI can now generate plain-language summaries of your dashboard data automatically. Instead of interpreting charts yourself, you get a written snapshot of what the numbers mean — particularly useful for business owners who want insights without digging into reports manually.
Dashboards simplify decision-making by putting critical information at your fingertips.
5. Link Emails
One of HubSpot’s best features is its ability to automatically log client communications. By linking your email account to HubSpot, you can:
- Sync with Gmail or Outlook: This integration stores every email sent to or received from your contacts.
- Save time: Eliminate manual data entry while ensuring no communication slips through the cracks.
- Keep records centralized: Access email conversations directly from contact records in HubSpot. This eases transition periods between internal teams or sales agents and prevents loss of data in the event a team member changes positions.
This integration ensures your team has complete visibility into client interactions. And it goes beyond just email, HubSpot now natively integrates with Slack, Zoom, and Google Calendar as well, so meetings are automatically logged, Slack messages can create contacts, and your entire communication history lives in one place regardless of which channel it happened on.
6. Install the Mobile App
Business doesn’t stop when you’re away from your desk. Installing HubSpot’s mobile app keeps you connected and organized on the go. Here’s why it’s essential:
- Real-time updates: Access, update, and log information instantly, whether you’re in a meeting or traveling.
- Call logging: Quickly log and track phone calls in HubSpot without needing physical notes.
- Seamless learning: The app mirrors the desktop interface, making it easy to use both interchangeably.
- Use Breeze Copilot on mobile: HubSpot’s AI assistant is available on the mobile app, letting you pull full contact summaries and log call notes using your voice. For anyone in the field, sales reps, contractors, service businesses, this means your CRM stays updated in real time without typing a single word.
Having the app ensures you’ll always stay on top of your business’s activities.
7. (BONUS) Set up your first workflow
You’ve customized your CRM, built your dashboards, linked your email, and downloaded the app. But if you stop here, HubSpot is still just a database. The real power kicks in when you set up automation, and the easiest place to start is a simple lead follow-up workflow.
Here’s a basic workflow every business should have running from day one: when a contact fills out a form on your website, HubSpot automatically sends them a confirmation email, creates a task for your sales team to follow up within one hour, and adds them to the appropriate lifecycle stage in your pipeline. No manual work. No leads falling through the cracks.
To set this up, go to Automation > Workflows, click Create workflow, choose Contact-based, and set your enrollment trigger to “Form submission.” The whole setup takes about 20 minutes and will save you hours every week.
Get The Help Of A HubSpot Expert
Setting up your HubSpot account correctly from the start lays the foundation for success. By defining your goals, customizing properties, creating reports and dashboards, linking emails, and using the mobile app, you’ll unlock the full potential of HubSpot’s CRM. Take the time to implement these steps, and you’ll be well-equipped to track performance, optimize efforts, and grow your business.
If you need help with any of these steps or want to unlock even more features in HubSpot, TheeDigital is here to help. We’ve helped hundreds of businesses establish and grow their online presence with HubSpot, and we understand the daunting task of trying to learn a new platform.
Set Up Your HubSpot Account Correctly
We provide HubSpot training as well as team and departmental training sessions to make sure you are utilizing everything the platform has to offer. Fill out the form below to connect with one of our HubSpot experts today!
Frequently Asked Questions
A basic setup — importing contacts, linking your email, and creating your first pipeline, can be done in a few hours. A complete setup with custom properties, automated workflows, dashboards, and email sequences typically takes one to two weeks depending on the complexity of your business processes. Following the seven steps in this guide gives you a clear path to getting fully operational without missing anything critical.
Yes. HubSpot allows you to import contacts via CSV file from virtually any existing CRM, spreadsheet, or database. During the import process you can map your existing fields to HubSpot properties, create new custom properties on the fly, and assign lifecycle stages to imported contacts. Before importing, make sure you have the necessary consent from your contacts to store and communicate with them, this ties directly to the compliance properties covered in Step 2.
Basic workflow automation requires HubSpot’s Starter plan or higher. The free CRM does not include the full Workflows tool, though it does include simple form follow-up emails and sequences. If workflow automation is a priority for your business, and it should be, the Starter plan is a relatively small investment that unlocks the single most valuable feature HubSpot offers for lead generation and follow-up.
Breeze AI is HubSpot’s built-in artificial intelligence suite, available across the platform. For setup specifically, Breeze Copilot can help you create workflows, write email templates, summarize contact records, and generate plain-language dashboard reports without navigating complex menus. For businesses setting up HubSpot for the first time, Breeze AI significantly reduces the learning curve by letting you describe what you want in plain language and having HubSpot build it for you.
HubSpot has built-in tools to help your business stay compliant with GDPR, CAN-SPAM, CASL, and evolving US state privacy laws. These include communication consent properties, subscription management, cookie consent banners, and data privacy settings for contact records. The key is setting these up proactively during your initial configuration — as covered in Step 2, rather than trying to retrofit compliance after your database has grown. HubSpot compliance tools do not replace legal advice, so consult your legal team on specific requirements for your industry and region.
HubSpot integrates with over 1,500 tools through its App Marketplace. The most commonly used integrations include Gmail and Outlook for email logging, Google Calendar and Zoom for meeting tracking, Slack for team communication, Salesforce for enterprise CRM syncing, Shopify and WooCommerce for ecommerce, QuickBooks and Xero for accounting, and WordPress for website lead capture. All integrations are available through Settings > Integrations inside your HubSpot account.
Your first workflow should handle new lead follow-up automatically. The setup is straightforward: when a contact submits a form on your website, the workflow sends an immediate confirmation email, creates a follow-up task for your sales team, and moves the contact into the correct lifecycle stage in your pipeline. This single workflow ensures no new lead ever goes uncontacted and gives your team a consistent process from day one. From there, you can build more advanced workflows for nurture sequences, deal stage triggers, and re-engagement campaigns.
You don’t need a partner to get started, HubSpot’s interface is designed to be accessible for non-technical users, and this guide covers the essential steps. However, working with a certified HubSpot partner like TheeDigital significantly shortens your setup time, ensures your properties and workflows are built correctly from day one, and gives you access to strategic guidance on how to use the platform to grow your specific business. Most businesses that try to set up HubSpot without help end up using a fraction of what it can do, a certified partner closes that gap quickly.
Tags: Content Marketing • HubSpot
Matt Hook
Matt Hook is an SEO and digital marketing strategist who helps small and medium-sized businesses compete online. At TheeDigital, he is a HubSpot specialist, enhancing operational systems, improving overall efficiency, and tracking KPIs for businesses.
