HubSpot’s New Report Builder

Any successful business knows that reporting is absolutely critical to growth. With it, you can monitor what’s working, course correct what’s not, and build your brand. Without it, you’ll wind up lost and sacrifice enormous amounts of time and effort.

We have spoken about why HubSpot is a fantastic reporting tool already. That being said, HubSpot continues to innovate, making the reporting process easier and more efficient. The newly-launched Custom Report Builder, available to Pro and Enterprise customers, groups all your data in one convenient place.

This new tool gathers all your information together, making it easier than ever to strategize and make intelligent decisions about your marketing. You can manipulate and visualize data in ways that are clear and meaningful. This means your reports will be easy to share and your team will always understand what’s working.

In light of this new development, we want to share which reports we find most useful for our clients in the cybersecurity industry and explain how you can use them to optimize your strategy.

What Are Your Reporting Goals?

Before we get started, let’s explain the best way to utilize a report builder like this. The vital first step is to identify your business goals. Data needs to be organized towards a goal. Ask yourself: Are your company goals strategic, tactical, or operational?

Strategic goals involve tracking your progress towards high KPI values. This allows you to understand your progress on a broad level. For instance, a strategic goal-driven report might show you the general increase in sales or click-thru rates.

By contrast, organizing the data towards tactical goals shows you how the specific tactics used to execute the strategy perform. This type of report builder might show how your Facebook and Google ads are performing in the context of your overall strategy.

Operational goals focus on your teams. Reports of this nature show the efficiency and output of each component of the people executing your tactics. For instance, an operational report might show the output of your content marketing branch in relation to your tactical content marketing goals.

Using HubSpot’s Report Builder

Once you understand your goals, you need to understand what data requires monitoring and where that data is gathered. HubSpot automatically collects standard objects. This includes information like contacts, companies, deals, and activities. This information is widely useful, regardless of goals.

Even with those data points, it can sometimes be necessary to gather additional information. HubSpot allows you to create custom objects to track any additional metrics relevant to your goals.

If you find that HubSpot doesn’t have all the data you need, it may be necessary to import from additional sources. HubSpot will quickly and easily assimilate this data into your reports, allowing you a full understanding of your company goals.

After all of the data is in place, your focus should be on the report itself. HubSpot allows you to select up to five data sources to incorporate into any single report. From there, add the fields you want incorporated and configure the report.

The first step in configuration is assigning data to the x and y axis. HubSpot’s breakdown selection shows categories that will help with the grouping and visualization of your data in this respect. As a general rule, the X axis is typically written information and corresponds to the independent variable, while the Y shows numeric values.

If everything is configured, all that’s left is to choose a format for the visualization and save the report. Pro customers can save up to 100 reports. Enterprise customers can save a staggering 500.

The Four Basic Report Builder Options

While each company will have unique goals—and therefore need unique reports—the following four are great starting points for companies in the cybersecurity field and any related SaaS businesses. These reports deliver information on lead sourcing, how engaged new leads are, and your strongest MQL channels, ensuring optimized, high-quality lead generation.

Type 1: Leads by First Conversion / Original Source

This type of report is ideal for understanding where new leads are coming from and what sources are providing the highest return on investment. Here’s how to create it step by step:

1. Create a Single Object custom report and choose one object: Contacts
2. Under Properties select First Conversion, Original Source, Became a Lead Date and Lifecycle Stage.
3. Under Filters, set Became a Lead Date to This Year and under Other Filters, set First Conversion to Is Known.
4. In the Visualization section, select Bar. Drag First Conversion and Original Source up to the display area. Measure properties by Count of Contacts
5. Save to add to your reports.

And just like that, you’ve got a report that will inform you about where your new leads are coming from.

 

Type 2: Most Engaged Companies

While the prior report explains where your leads are coming from, this next one focuses on businesses. If you want to know what companies are interacting with your brand based on metrics like page views, email opens, and form submissions, this will prove extremely useful. Follow these steps:

1. Create a custom report and choose Cross-object. Select two objects: Contacts and Companies.
2. Under Properties, add the following Company properties: Name and Create Date. Add the following Contact properties: Number of Page views, Number of Form Submissions, and Marketing email opened.
3. Under Filters, add a Company filter for Create date to is less than: 31 days ago.
4. In the Visualization section, select Table. In the Configure table menu, select the Summarized data table. In the Displaying area, drag Name (Company), and measure the property by Number of Pageviews (Contact), Number of Form Submissions (Contact), and Marketing email opened (Contact). Make sure each of these properties is set to total.
5. Click Save to add to your reports.

This report helps you focus your B2B strategy.

Type 3: MQLs by Source

MQLs can come from several different channels, but which is more effective at generating qualified leads? To create this type of report:

1. Create a custom report and choose Single object: Contacts.
2. Select the Became a Marketing Qualified Lead Date and Original Source properties.
3. On the Visualization tab, display Became a Marketing Qualified Lead Date and Original Source measured by Count of Contacts.
4. Choose the Area chart type.
5. Under Display options, select Stacked, Cumulative, and Hide Data Labels.
6. Click Save to add to your reports.

Type 4: Which Activities Contributed to Closed Revenue in the Last Year?

This report shows which activities contributed to closed revenue.

1. Create a Custom Report Builder report
2. Select Deals as the Primary Data Source, in the CRM section make sure Deals and Contacts are selected, then in the Sales section, check Sales activities.
3. Select the following fields: Activity type, Close date – Monthly, and Amount.
4. Select Close date – Monthly for the X-axis, Sum (amount) for Y-axis 1, Close-date Monthly for Y-axis 2, and break down by Activity Type
5. Use the Combination chart visualization
6. Click Save to add to your reports.

How VSSL Uses HubSpot’s Report Builder

Here at VSSL, we have a great deal of experience working with clients in the cybersecurity field. We’ve supported clients like Ensilo, BehavioSec, ForgePoint, Concourse Labs, Invotas, GroupSense, Nisos, FireEye, and Verizon Cybersecurity and have extensive knowledge of CISCO.

We also know that cybersecurity companies require certain types of reporting in order to optimize their marketing and growth. HubSpot provides the tools needed for you to excel in an efficient and convenient package.

Still curious about HubSpot reporting and how to use it? Reach out to us. Our team of experts would be happy to help you take your reporting to the next level.