HubSpot Review
- Responsive email template builder
- A/B testing to improve email conversions
- Email drip campaigns to nurture leads
- High-quality lead generation forms
- Built on top of Hubspot CRM
Pros & Cons
- Built-in A/B testing
- Intuitive interface that lets you start working quickly
- Integrates with a wide range of tools
- Ability to see how long and how deeply contacts read emails
- Consistently adding features and updating the application
- HubSpot is more expensive than many of its competitors
- Additional onboarding fee
Plans & Pricing
HubSpot has a wide variability in pricing for their product. The email marketing software cannot be purchased separately but is bundled together with the other applications in the marketing hub. There are four pricing tiers but the free tier doesn’t include email marketing. Each of the paid tiers comes with all features but they’re limited based on the plan you purchase.
Starter
The entry-level tier starts at $50/month and comes with popup forms and limited functionality for the native forms. It also provides users with basic email sending functionality and reports. Personalization is included but you’re unable to add RSS feeds or access the design manager. Sending is limited to 5x the contact limit of your account. If your account contact limit is 1,000 then your sending is capped at 5,000 emails a month.
Professional
The professional tier starts at $800/month and comes with everything in starter but with higher limits and more functionality. Native forms can now be used for progressive profiling, contain smart fields, dependent fields, CSS customization, and more. You can unlock workflows and email automation in this plan, as well as A/B testing and smart content features. Detailed reports, design manager, and up to 1,000 lists are available in this plan. The sending limit is increased to 10x your account contact limit.
Enterprise
The enterprise tier starts at $3,200/month and unlocks all the functionality of HubSpot email marketing. It comes with multiple CAN-SPAM footers, marketing automation workflows, A/B testing, custom event triggers, and customer event segmentation. The sending limit is the same as the professional plan.
The HubSpot pricing is difficult to compare to other email marketing tools directly because it does so much more. It’s an all-in-one marketing suite. With that being said, if you only need email marketing then it’s many times more expensive than the closest competitors. Keep that in mind when making your choice.
Overview
HubSpot is one of the largest marketing software companies in the world. Founded by Dharmesh Shah and Brian Halligan in 2006, it has grown to serve 56,000 customers of all sizes while pushing its inbound marketing methodology across the world.
Their products are divided into sections it refers to as hubs. Each hub has a different focus but the email marketing software is an aspect of the larger Marketing Hub. It’s a powerful solution that’s tailored to meet the needs of small and medium-sized businesses for lead nurturing and sales conversions
Rating
"PRICE"
6/10
"EASE OF USE"
9/10
"FEATURES"
9/10
"HELP AND SUPPORT"
9/10
Features and Functionality
HubSpot has many of the standard features you’d expect from an email marketing tool such as built-in templates, open and click-through reports, and contact lists. In addition to those features, it allows you to create automation workflows, pop ups, and dynamic content. These are useful but only touch the tip of the iceberg.
Native Forms
Native forms can be added to almost any webpage you’re tracking with HubSpot. It’s possible to implement progressive profiling, custom CSS, smart fields, dependent fields (appear/disappear depending how they filled previous fields), custom domain blocking, and more.
Visual automation workflows
Email automation can get complicated. HubSpot delivers a visual automation builder that helps you understand how other elements are interacting with each other. You’re able to create anything from simple follow up sequences to complex lifecycle emails that lead prospects through every stage of the buyer journey.
A/B testing
It’s not possible to know what works until you test it. The simple A/B testing system gives you the ability to set up and test hypothesis and improve metrics you find most important.
Test subject lines, calls to action, email content, formatting, and more until you optimize campaigns to the fullest.
True drag and drop editor
Many email marketing tools claim to have a drag and drop editor but fall short of the goal. HubSpot is one of the few that delivers on this promise. Drag content blocks, add them to your email, and customize it until everything is perfect.
Templates
HubSpot comes with a series of templates that are provided throughout the website and can be uploaded to the email marketing platform. Because of the way templates are provided, it’s difficult to know exactly how many are available.
There are templates for newsletters, blogging, PR, comarketing, and sales. The good thing about these templates is that they’re updated all the time and are designed to be customized. The first time you customize them may be a little difficult but once you get the hang of it the process is a breeze.
Ease of Use
HubSpot is considered easy to use by marketers and non-marketers alike. The app itself is intuitive, has clear navigation, and offers many help touchpoints.
One of the things that HubSpot does which makes the tool so easy is make useful suggestions while you’re working. For example, there are suggestions for composing emails and crafting offers for your popups.
Customer support
HubSpot takes its support seriously because it knows this is the way you keep customers over the long term. It offers an insightful blog to help you become a better marketer, video tutorials for every feature, and phone support 24/7.
Online reviews consistently rate the support highly because of responsiveness and expertise.
Phone Support
Phone support is available daily 24/7. It’s only available on paid plans.
Email support is available for all customers in the Starter plan and higher.
Video Tutorials
HubSpot has a wide range of video tutorials for almost every aspect and feature of the application
FAQ
It has a FAQ section that answers basic questions.
Community Forum
There’s a community forum that power users as well as HubSpot staff frequent. You can find answers to most HubSpot specific questions here.
Blog
HubSpot has an award winning blog that focuses on different aspects of marketing, sales, and customer service.
Final Word
HubSpot is a leader in the marketing software space for good reason. It has evolved into a robust tool that makes even novice marketers look like professionals. With the email marketing aspect you’re able to deliver timely personalized messages to your contacts at scale and move them closer to a sale.
It comes with the core features you’d expect such as reporting, dynamic content, segmentation, opt-in forms, and contact lists. In addition to those features, you’re able to access advanced functionality such as automation workflows that tie the entire customer lifecycle together, A/B testing to optimize you campaigns over time, and native forms that give you the ability to capture important information while delivering a unique experience.
Though HubSpot excels in many areas, there’s no getting around the fact that it’s expensive. Taken together, HubSpot is a great tool for email marketing but the price is something that’ll cause many prospective customers to reconsider. If you’d like to step your email marketing up a notch while integrating it with your entire marketing workflow then this is an investment that’s worth it.
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