Simple HubSpot Revenue Attribution

In today’s data-driven world, understanding how your marketing efforts translate into revenue is crucial for making informed business decisions. However, for many small to medium businesses using HubSpot, the advanced revenue attribution tools available to marketing pro and enterprise tiers can feel just out of reach. But does this mean you need to miss out on these valuable insights? Absolutely not.

Recently, we faced this challenge with a client who needed to attribute revenue to specific events attended by contacts but wasn’t ready to invest in HubSpot’s marketing hub pro. By thinking creatively, we were able to develop a workaround that delivered the insights they needed without the extra cost. In this post, I’ll share how we did it and how you can too.

The Challenge: Event Revenue Attribution for Marketing Starter Subscriptions

Our client, a mid-sized business, was looking for a way to link revenue directly to the most recent event a contact attended. This is considered "last touch" attribution. However, this feature is reserved for HubSpot’s marketing hub pro and enterprise users through native revenue attribution reports. The need was clear: they wanted to understand which events were driving the most value in their sales pipeline to allocate their marketing budget more effectively.

The Solution: Leveraging HubSpot’s Capabilities

We knew we had to find a way to make this work without the advanced tools. Here’s the step-by-step process we implemented:

Step 1: Tracking Event Attendance

The first step was to ensure that each contact’s participation in an event was accurately recorded. We did this by utilizing an 'event attended' property within HubSpot. This property tracks the most recent event a contact has participated in, whether it’s an in-person or virtual event.

To ensure accuracy in revenue attribution, we managed this property by always overwriting it with the most recent event attended. For example, whenever the client imported a new list of event attendees, the 'event attended' property was updated accordingly. This allowed us to maintain a clear and current record of which events should be attributed to new deals.

If you'd like to keep a record of all events a contact attended, you could have another property that would append any new value from an import.

Step 2: Bridging Contacts and Deals

To link event participation to revenue, we created a custom deal property that mirrored the 'event attended' property of the contacts. This meant that when a contact who attended an event was associated with a new deal, the event information was automatically copied to the deal record.

This setup ensured that even if a contact attended multiple events over time, the revenue attribution for a specific deal was tied to the most recent event. It also allowed us to maintain clean and accurate data across the board.

Step 3: Custom Reporting

With these properties in place, we moved on to reporting. By leveraging HubSpot’s reporting tools, we were able to create custom deal reports that highlighted the direct impact of attended events on closed-won deals. This report provided our client with a clear view of which events were generating the most revenue, allowing them to optimize their future marketing efforts accordingly.

The Impact: Data-Driven Decision Making

This approach delivered significant value to our client. They gained deep insights into how individual events influenced their sales pipeline and overall revenue. Armed with this information, they were able to make data-driven decisions about where to allocate their marketing budget, ensuring a higher return on investment for future events.

Our Client’s Response: A Success Story

The client was thrilled with the results. This feedback not only reinforced the effectiveness of the solution but also highlighted the importance of creatively leveraging HubSpot’s capabilities, even without the enterprise-tier tools.

Why This Matters: Maximizing HubSpot’s Potential

For many businesses, accessing advanced features like revenue attribution often means considering a significant investment in higher-tier subscriptions. However, as we’ve shown, it’s possible to unlock valuable insights with a bit of creativity and a deep understanding of HubSpot’s existing features.

By maximizing the potential of your current tools, you can achieve similar outcomes to those offered by more expensive tiers, all while staying within your budget. This approach empowers small to medium businesses to compete on a level playing field with larger enterprises, making data-driven decisions that drive growth and success.

Conclusion: Unlocking Insights Without Breaking the Bank

Revenue attribution is critical for understanding the impact of your marketing efforts, but you don’t need to break the bank to access these insights. With the right strategy and a creative approach, you can leverage HubSpot’s capabilities to their fullest, even without enterprise-level features.

If you’re facing a similar challenge or want to explore how you can get more from your HubSpot CRM, don’t hesitate to reach out.