5 More Tips for HubSpot Clean Up (That Anyone Can Do!)

If you haven’t already, take a look at the sister blog for this post detailing the first five steps you should take to optimize your HubSpot portal!

Let’s say you’ve created your hygiene strategy, started offloading users, doubled down on lead scoring efforts, customized your lifecycle stages and fixed your email subscriptions…now what?

If you’re hungry for more details on the tips we discussed in our first blog or for the ones you’re about to read, check out The 10 Most Recommended Ways to Clean Up Your Out-of-Control HubSpot Portal! 

Staying Compliant In HubSpot

You have a very powerful tool at your disposal. While you might be pressured to buy contacts or send an email to every contact you have, DON'T. It's that simple. Why? Compliance. Here's what you need to know.

1. Add GDPR Options to Forms

How you email people is important, but compliance actually starts when a contact comes into your database. What is one of the most common ways that happens? Forms. 

And now you get our standard note: We’re not lawyers, just marketers. so consult with your legal team on the right GDPR compliance for your company. 

HubSpot provides built-in options for GDPR compliance on forms. Privacy rules are only getting stricter, and your legal team will be thankful that you are in the habit of including this on forms. (Hey! Another team you can wow with this cleanup!) Make your friends in legal even happier by letting them know that while there are built-in options, you can customize each one, so they can have a say on the language you use. 

2. Review Non-HubSpot Forms

Sometimes there are legacy solutions in place or frankly, just reasons you, your team or department has decided to utilize other platforms like form providers. 

If you’re using Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms or anything else on your website, that’s totally fine and they still can bring contacts into your database. (And that last section on GDPR applies here, too). But you need to make sure the mapped fields in the form platform match the HubSpot properties. That way all information is accurately retained when someone completes a form. 

HubSpot is a great tool, but we need to tell it how to operate (and so we can supercharge our forms). Look at the two systems and do a quick review. 

• Do First Name, Last Name and Email all equal single-line text in both HubSpot and the form program?
• What about the choices you’re giving someone? If you’re asking for their favorite cookie flavors, the options must be exactly the same in both the other form program as in HubSpot...right down to capitalization.

Accurately Track Traffic for Reporting and More

You want numbers, leadership wants numbers, others want numbers…but they want the right numbers! 

What are the right numbers? You need to provide specific instructions to HubSpot to make sure the right information makes its way into reports. You're helping your portal discern what is and isn’t important.

3. Exclude Irrelevant Web Traffic

It’s as simple as copying and pasting, so be sure to exclude known IP addresses. (Find out your IP address here!)

This is less about compliance, but adding these to HubSpot will keep anyone within the company who regularly visits the website out of site visits, page views, etc., so your data isn’t artificially inflated. At a minimum, exclude IP addresses for:

• Your corporate headquarters
• Remote employees who are frequently on the website (Set up a shared spreadsheet with remote employees to make this easy.)
• People who repeatedly submit spam forms
• Known internet bots (a simple HubSpot checkbox)

Making Emails Consistent…And Pretty

4. Jazz Up Your Email Footer

Emails shouldn’t be boring, and that includes the email footer! But, to be CAN-SPAM compliant, you at the bare minimum need:

• Your company name
• Physical address
• Link to manage preferences or unsubscribe

Don’t stop there! Feel free to add graphics, logos, calls to action or social links to your footer for additional marketing options. 

Marketing Hub Pro users get one universal email footer, while Marketing Hub Enterprise users have multiple options. Work with those responsible for designing your emails to find what maximizes this space across all types of emails. If you’re stuck, look at your website footer and see what would fit well. 

5. Set Up Email Signatures

Use the HubSpot email signature generator for inspiration and quick directions. The tool will build a fancy-schmancy signature for you with headshots, icons, meeting links, other links, calls to action and more. Then simply copy the html from the builder into your email client settings for a seamless look. 

This tool is very powerful for sales team members who love to include their meeting links in signatures. It also prevents people from going a little too far; you want to standardize what you offer with HubSpot email signature presets. 

Then set up personalized signatures for conversation inboxes (such as support tickets) so that a customer’s experience is consistent.