Today, Gautam Bawa, one of our customer success managers asked, “What integrations does Optimizely have with Hubspot?” Well, it depends on whether we are talking about a CMS, a CRM, or a CDP! There’s quite a few use cases, so I’ve decided to compile a list that customers can unlock by integrating Optimizely and Hubspot.
#1 Send CMS form submissions to Hubspot via a connector
If you are using Optimizely’s forms solution available in the CMS, then you can leverage the paid connector, “Connect for Hubspot” in Optimizely’s App Marketplace that enables you, as a marketer/content author, to map an Optimizely Form directly into a Hubspot table (i.e. Hubspot Contact) for an expedited integration.
To get access to the connector, submit this form: https://www.optimizely.com/apps/connect-for-hubspot/#marketplace-form-block
To install the connector, your engineers can install the following NuGet package (details from the NuGet Feed is available here):
PM> Install-Package EPiServer.MarketingAutomationIntegration.HubSpotOnce you have access and installed the connector, you can find the instructions on how to set it up here. Lastly, to check out which other CRM/Marketing automation systems Optimizely connects with, see the list here.
Is the form integration between Optimizely CMS and Hubspot bi-directional?
Absolutely! Let’s say a website visitor has filled out one of your forms. Her user form data would then be available in Hubspot. Since then, a customer service representative was able to gather the visitor’s address via a phone call. This rep would then update Hubspot CRM with these details. The next time the visitor goes back to the website, her address would also be pre-populated in a website form, if you have pre-mapped this form field in the CMS.
If you want to test the bi-directional integration, make sure to find out what the caching configuration is. It may take 5-10 mins for the form data to be updated/reflected when Hubspot data is updated.
What if I need to also send other data outside of forms to Hubspot?
The connector only supports sending of form data to Hubspot. If you need to send other data, such as pageviews, downloads of brochures, etc, you might want to consider a custom integration (i.e. data tracking into Hubspot), or a CDP for a better and long-term solution. If interested in the latter, check out use case #3 below.
#2 Personalize your website using Optimizely CMS based on Hubspot profiles
There are at least two ways to deliver personalized content in the context of using Optimizely CMS forms and Hubspot profiles. The first one doesn’t require the connector, the second one does.
2.1 Personalize using forms data captured in the CMS
As a minimum, you can start personalizing content based on form submissions in the CMS, which doesn’t require the Hubspot connector I’ve mentioned above. This is done through the Visitor Groups capability that is native within the Optimizely CMS.
There are two types of forms criteria available. The first one is about being able to create a segment of users who have submitted a specific form:
Alternatively, you can also create a visitor group based on specific form values:
Once you have created the visitor group, you can then start creating personalized content for them:
2. Personalize website content using Hubspot profile data
If you do want to deliver personalized content based on Hubspot profiles, then you will need the connector I mentioned in use case #1. Follow the steps above first.
Once you have the connector set up, then you will notice a new group of visitor group criteria available. To set this up or find more details about this visitor group criteria, go to Optimizely’s documentation here.
#3 Sync Optimizely CDP segments to Hubspot for personalized Marketing automation
Using website engagement data to drive personalized messaging is important. However, customers these days no longer just visit the website to browse or buy. They also engage with other digital channels, such as social media, mobile apps, search, advertisements, in-store, etc. How can you make use of all the data to drive personalised messaging via Hubspot?
Optimizely CDP to the rescue
Instead of manually tracking data into Hubspot, you can use Optimizely’s CDP, called Optimizely Data Platform (ODP) to capture customer data from any or all channels, including Optimizely’s CMS. This enables organisations to have a 360 degree view of their customer. Once harmonised, organisations can create segments from these information.
These CDP segments can then be passed to an Email/Marketing Automation system, like Hubspot, or a Demand-Side Platform (DSP) for advertising, or back to the CMS for personalisation, or to Optimizely’s Experimentation solution for A/B testing.
Optimizely CDP and Hubspot Marketing Automation
Optimizely Data Platform (ODP) integrates with Hubspot by enabling organisations to create segments in ODP and pass those segments to Hubspot for email/workflow targeting.
You can find more about this segment sync capability here.
Do I really need a CDP if I have Hubspot’s CRM?
It’s true both systems capture customer data but they have fundamental differences and purposes. A CRM doesn’t capture anonymous profiles and is primarily used for nurturing leads for sales and managing customer relationships. A CDP, however, captures data for both anonymous and identified profiles and is not solely used for sales. It ingests customer data engagement from any channel, such as advertising, social media, mobile apps, websites. If you capture all this information, your CRM will be bloated.
In addition, while not all CDPs do this, Optimizely’s CDP prepares the data for real-time activation. CRMs cannot do real-time activation because this is not the main purpose of a CRM. So if you have a need for delivering real-time personalisation using CDP segments, or running experiments targeting CDP segments, (essentially any use case that requires real-time membership evaluation), then your Hubspot CRM, or any CRM for that matter, can’t achieve this use case.
What if I already have a CDP?
Great. So you have a place to ingest data, harmonise it to have a single view of the customer and create segments. The question is, what do you want to do with those segments? If all you need to do is push them out to 3rd party channels for a batched activation (as opposed to real-time activation), such as segment sync for advertising and marketing automation, then you don’t need Optimizely’s CDP and you can continue using your preferred CDP to manage segments.
However, if you need to deliver real-time activation, such as running experiments against CDP segments, or deliver real-time personalization, then check if your CDP has this capability. If not, Optimizely can help you through their “audience pass through” capability, which enables other CDPs to also be able to deliver real-time activation.
#4 Import Hubspot contacts to Optimizely CDP for personalization outside of email
Let’s say you have customers that are super engaged with your emails that are delivered via Hubspot and you want to target this group by delivering personalized content when they engage with your other channels, such as social, mobile app, or website. How do you achieve this?
Ensure that you sync Hubspot contacts back to the Optimizely CDP, which includes user engagement, such as sends, opens, clicks, bounces, and spam reports. When you have this user engagement information readily available in the Optimizely Data Platform (ODP), then you can use these data to drive personalized experiences within the Optimizely CMS, or run experiments using Optimizely Experimentation, or drive personalized advertisements and social media campaigns through 3rd party integrations with ODP. The possibilities are endless!
Conclusion
As much as I hate saying, “It depends”, the answer to this question really depends on what use cases you want to achieve through the power of combining Optimizely and Hubspot. As described above, you can:
- Send forms data from Optimizely CMS to Hubspot CRM (i.e. Contacts)
- Personalize the Optimizely CMS using Hubspot Profiles
- Send customer data from Optimizely CDP to Hubspot Marketing Automation
- Import contacts from Hubspot into Optimizely CDP, including user engagement
If you have any questions, or comments about this topic, feel free to drop them below.