Pros and cons of the HubSpot Salesforce integration

Let’s say team A does their email marketing with Mailchimp. They use Facebook Creator Studio for IG & FB posts. Their sales team created a really cool CRM in Notion. And their customer service team uses Zendesk for customer support.

That’s four tools for managing four platforms. Not to mention logging into the actual platforms. Not the most effective use of resources, if you consider the subscriptions and the learning curve for each. Plus, your teams would need to learn how to navigate four different platforms vs. just one ecosystem.

In this blog, we’re breaking down our favorite benefits of the HubSpot Salesforce integration — plus, the top three downsides you may encounter, and how to combat them for a smooth-sailing CRM.

3 benefits of the HubSpot Salesforce integration

A full-picture view of your prospects' & customers’ journey

The main benefit of using the HubSpot Salesforce integration is that it provides end-to-end functionalities. You can manage content marketing, sales functions, and customer service all through the integration, which effectively breaks down the silos most B2B teams struggle with.

In fact, many teams choose the HubSpot Salesforce integration when launching a RevOps strategy because of this full suite of features. Approaching your integration with RevOps in mind also enables you to make better use of the integration from the start — because you’ll come to the table with a clearer idea of how you want workflows and other elements to work in order to serve the greater purpose.

Better sales-marketing alignment for a seamless CX

Piggy-backing off of the previous point, an integrated approach to your marketing, sales, and customer service makes your users’ experience much more positive. 

On its own, Salesforce is a powerful sales tool — but it’s lacking in the marketing and customer service departments. HubSpot’s Marketing Hub and Services Hub fill these gaps for full client-facing functionality.

At a glance, your teams can easily access your prospects’ entire journey, from the first website visit to customer support tickets, without ever having to leave the platform. This helps them work more efficiently and provide a better experience, so your users won’t bounce around looking for an answer or getting useless “solutions” whenever they need help.

More accurate reporting

Aligning your marketing, sales and customer service also allows you to better evaluate performance and prioritize the resources and initiatives that are actually impactful. 

Plus, HubSpot’s comprehensive reporting means you can automate data collection, so your teams have everything they need on easy-to-use dashboards instead of having to fish around for specific metrics. This means smarter business decisions, better results, and a better way to grow your business based on your objectives.

The downsides of the HubSpot Salesforce integration

A steep learning curve

The HubSpot Salesforce integration is no-code. But still, it is marketing technology. There are many steps and factors to keep in mind, like admin roles, data backups, workflows and sequences, etc. And a faulty setup may result in sync errors and other, more complicated problems down the line.

Plus, not every team has the time or resources to devote to learning the ins and outs of the integration. This creates dependency in many cases, with companies relying on third-party vendors to keep their systems running, which limits what they can achieve internally.

There are also different naming conventions between the platforms. Ie, a contact in HubSpot is anyone who’s engaged with you (HubSpot creates a contact form the first engagement, like filling out a form), but in Salesforce, there are both contacts and leads, with contacts being the prospect, and leads being the qualified contact. Another example is the campaign — which in HubSpot, means a collection of assets related to a specific marketing effort, whereas, in Salesforce, it means a group of leads or contacts who get a specific marketing communication. So anyone running your integration needs to remember both systems’ terminology.

HubSpot has a comprehensive academy, resources library and knowledge base to help you manage your CRM and integrate both platforms. And Salesforce has Trailhead, a community and learning center with plenty of resources for DIY admins. 

Increased costs

HubSpot and Salesforce, and thus, the integration, come with a significant investment depending on the size of your organization. In general, the more contacts you have and the higher level of sophistication you want, the more you can expect to pay.

One way to keep your costs efficient is by prioritizing the features your team needs, the ones that’d be nice to have, and the ones you can do without, as you choose which plan to sign up for. 

Another way to cut costs is by cleaning up your data and reducing the number of irrelevant contacts and accounts before you set up. Reducing the record volume in your CRM also leads to increased engagement and more effective marketing and sales analytics, so it’s a win-win all around.

Sync limitations

When you use HubSpot alone, emails are listed as timeline events in your deals. This isn’t the case when you use Salesforce. Similarly, file attachments from Salesforce opportunities don’t make their way to HubSpot via native integrations, so you’d have to use a custom integration or a one-time migration via API to achieve this. And Salesforce cases are another sync limitation, as they won’t sync with HubSpot tickets.

While none of these would necessarily be a deal breaker, they’re worth considering depending on how you use data in your organization.

At Coastal, we believe that companies shouldn’t rely on external providers to fulfill their CRM needs, so we created the first HubSpot Salesforce integration course to empower your team to manage your integration. Enroll now.