The December 2023 HubSpot updates offer a unique combination of innovation and practicality, giving your team the opportunity to deploy tools and solutions that are redefining the landscape of marketing, sales and customer engagement.
Features like AI-driven report generation, enhanced CRM capabilities and streamlined ecommerce integrations will empower HubSpot admins and their teams. Not only will these tools enhance operational efficiency, but they are designed to help you reach your business goals with less hassle or uncertainty.
Here are some of the December 2023 updates we’ll explore in this article:
- Enhanced Personalization with Customized Reminder Emails.
- Simplified Reporting with AI Assistance.
- Deeper Insights with New Custom Funnel Report Builder.
- More Effective Engagement with Sent-From-Owner Automated Sequences.
- Quick Record Summaries with ChatSpot AI.
- Keep Tabs on Your Brand Engagement with LinkedIn @mention Monitoring.
- Streamline Ecommerce with New Shopify Integration.
- Get Quick Insights with AI Assistant Call Summaries.
- Increase Compliant Website Behavior Analytics with New Opt-Out Cookie Consent Banner.
- Support Ending for HubSpot’s VSTO Sales Add-In.
Enhanced personalization with customized reminder emails
What’s new: HubSpot now allows users to customize automated reminder emails for meetings scheduled through its platform, providing a more tailored and personal approach.
How it helps you
This update significantly boosts meeting preparedness and efficiency. Customized reminders ensure attendees receive all necessary information beforehand, reducing the need for manual follow-ups.
Imagine sending reminders that genuinely sound like they’re from you, adding a personal touch to important meetings like discussions with referral partners or investors. This feature not only streamlines communication, but also strengthens professional relationships by making interactions more engaging and personable. Learn more about reminder email customization.
Status: Public Beta
Applicable HubSpot Hubs: Sales and Service Hubs
Applicable HubSpot Tiers: Starter, Professional, Enterprise
Simplified reporting with AI assistance
What’s new: HubSpot has introduced AI-driven report generation, enabling quick and easy creation of reports with simple prompts.
How it helps you
This feature will be welcomed by managers seeking swift, efficient answers to key business queries. With AI assistance, the complexity and time traditionally associated with report creation are significantly reduced.
Managers can now quickly generate single object reports, gaining insights without needing deep knowledge of the reporting tool. While this AI feature is still in beta and best used for simple insights, it accelerates the reporting process. For accuracy and complex reports, collaboration with an admin is recommended, but even this collaboration becomes more efficient with AI’s foundational work.
Status: Public Beta
Applicable HubSpot Hubs: All Hubs
Applicable HubSpot Tiers: Professional and Enterprise
Deeper insights with new custom funnel report builder
What’s new: HubSpot has introduced an advanced custom funnel report builder, featuring optional stages and company lifecycle stage support, enhancing data analysis flexibility.
How it helps you
An especially great update for account-based marketing (ABM) strategies, you can now track how contacts and companies progress through the funnel, even if they skip certain stages. This flexibility provides a more accurate and comprehensive view of your sales and marketing efforts.
Previously, contacts that bypassed a stage were omitted from these reports and the conversion rates they included, leading to gaps in data. The addition of company lifecycle stages is particularly useful, offering deeper insights into company-level interactions and conversions.
Overall, this feature simplifies the process of monitoring and analyzing funnel performance, making it easier for managers to identify trends, pinpoint bottlenecks and make informed decisions. Learn how to create custom funnel reports.
Status: Public Beta
Applicable HubSpot Hubs: All Hubs
Applicable HubSpot Tiers: Professional and Enterprise
More effective engagement with sent-from-owner automated sequences
What’s new: HubSpot now enables users to automatically select the contact owner as the email sender and user responsible for tasks in automatically-enrolled sequences.
How it helps you
This update will help sales and service teams more effectively engage leads and customers through sequences with less effort. Sequences that are automatically started via workflows. The sequence’s automation settings can now easily send emails from and assign tasks to the user that owns the contact record, ensuring that leads and prospects are hearing from people that have or are building a relationship with them.
Status: Live
Applicable HubSpot Hubs: Sales and Service Hubs
Applicable HubSpot Tiers: Professional and Enterprise
Quick record summaries with ChatSpot AI
What’s new: HubSpot introduces CRM record summaries for contacts, companies, deals and tickets, using ChatSpot AI to highlight top properties and activities.
How it helps you
Ever wished for a snapshot view of a customer or prospect? Now you’ve got it! Instead of sifting through heaps of data on each record, you get a concise summary. It’s like having a cheat sheet for every interaction — see the key details at a glance, from recent emails to upcoming tasks. Learn more about this update.
Status: Live
Applicable HubSpot Hubs: All Hubs
Applicable HubSpot Tiers: All Tiers
Track brand engagement with LinkedIn @mention monitoring
What’s new: HubSpot introduces monitoring of LinkedIn @mentions for company pages, enabling easy tracking and engagement with audience comments and posts.
How it helps you
You can now quickly spot any LinkedIn mentions of your company, giving you a snapshot of public perception and audience interaction. This update is perfect for fostering deeper relationships with followers and promptly addressing any negative feedback. Plus, your team can engage more effectively with these mentions, helping to win new customers and grow revenue. It’s all about staying connected and responsive in the fast-paced world of social media.
Status: Public Beta
Applicable HubSpot Hubs: Marketing Hub
Applicable HubSpot Tiers: Professional and Enterprise
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Streamline ecommerce with new Shopify integration
What’s new: HubSpot introduces a new Shopify integration in its App Marketplace, featuring two-way sync for contacts and products and one-way sync for orders and carts.
How it helps you
If you’re overseeing ecommerce operations, this update simplifies the process of utilizing Shopify data within HubSpot. Now, creating targeted marketing campaigns and insightful reports based on order and cart data is more straightforward and efficient. The integration allows for timely and effective communication strategies, like abandoned cart emails, directly within HubSpot. This means more insights, streamlined workflows and potentially increased sales, all from a single tool. Learn more about connecting HubSpot and Shopify.
Status: Live
Available to any HubSpot user, but if you already have the existing Shopify integration, it is recommended that you wait until HubSpot announces a migration solution to avoid creating large amounts of duplicate data.
Quick insights with AI assistant call summaries
What’s new: HubSpot’s new feature generates concise summaries of transcribed calls, making it easier to grasp key points quickly.
How it helps you
No more slogging through lengthy transcripts or listening to entire recordings — get the gist of a call in just a few moments. Sales managers can quickly see call outcomes without the hassle, and reps can focus more on selling. It also cuts down reliance on external AI tools, keeping everything streamlined within HubSpot.
Status: Live
Applicable HubSpot Hubs: Sales and Service Hubs
Applicable HubSpot Tiers: Professional and Enterprise
Increase compliant website behavior analytics with new opt-out cookie consent banner
What’s new: HubSpot introduces an opt-out cookie consent banner editor, offering a new way for visitors to manage their privacy while providing you with website behavior data for more visitors.
How it helps you
This new feature lets you gather more insights on website interactions in regions with less stringent data privacy laws than GDPR, without compromising on user consent. Think of it as a win-win: You get valuable data and your visitors still have an easy opt-out option. Just a heads-up, though, it’s wise to discuss with your legal team or lawyer to make sure you’re maintaining compliance in various countries. Learn how to set up a consent banner.
Status: Live
Applicable HubSpot Hubs: All Hubs
Applicable HubSpot Tiers: All Tiers
Support ending for HubSpot’s VSTO sales add-in
What’s new: HubSpot is phasing out its VSTO Sales Add-In in response to Microsoft Outlook’s move away from supporting VSTO add-ins in its latest version.
Why it matters to you
If your organization uses Microsoft Outlook, discuss this change with your IT team and/or HubSpot administrator to ensure you’re set up with HubSpot’s web add-in for Outlook rather than the VSTO version. Otherwise, team members may begin to encounter issues as they update their Outlook versions. The web add-in works in both the browser and desktop versions of Outlook and provides virtually the same functionality as the VSTO version, so there are no downsides to making the change.
Read the full announcement from Microsoft.
Learn more about the HubSpot Sales Office 365 add-in.
The post HubSpot’s December 2023 Releases: The Manager’s Guide appeared first on MarTech.