Can you track user activity in HubSpot?

I have been using HubSpot for about 7 months and there are many features that we would like to use but aren't available yet such as tracking the number of leads per day or even who opened their email last week. So how can I get this information from HubSpot? Can I create custom reports so I know exactly what's going on with our sales team? If not, why not? We want to find out!

Here's some background info on HubSpot - http://www.hubspotcom/blog/what-is-a-marketing-automation-system-and-how-does-it-work

HubSpot was founded by Jay Baer (CEO) and Brad McFarland (CTO), two guys with extensive experience working at Salesforce. They were looking for a startup platform where they could focus entirely on building software rather than managing infrastructure. After finding success with Demandbase, a lead generation tool, they turned their attention towards marketing automation systems. In 2004, they launched HubSpot Marketing Suite which includes HubSpot CRM, HubSpot Content Management System, and HubSpot eNewsletter Solution. The product grew rapidly until 2011 when it became part of Insightly after being acquired by them for $300 million dollars. Now, Insightly is owned by Google, while HubSpot continues to operate independently under its own leadership.

Since then, HubSpot's continued growth has made it the leading provider of online customer engagement solutions used by over 500,000 customers worldwide. It provides both enterprise level solutions and consumer focused products aimed at small businesses and individuals alike. Their mission statement says "We connect your entire business – employees, teams, data, technology, partners, and customers – into a single social ecosystem." That sounds great, but does it work? How do I track user activity in HubSpot? What kind of metrics are available? And finally...can I track user activity in a period of time? For example, to see in a "time line" if one of my users has clicked through to another site during checkout, etc.? Let me explain further below.

How do I pull an activity report on HubSpot?

To be honest, I don't really understand all of the terminology here. There seems to be a lot of different terms thrown around, such as Leads, Accounts, Contacts, Campaigns, Clients, etc., each with multiple levels of subcategories within them. Here's the breakdown of each term above, along with examples of usage in context.

Leads = A person interested enough to contact you. Someone who fills out a form or creates a landing page.

Example 1: This might be someone filling out a webform, clicking on a link or downloading an eBook.

Example 2: This may also include people who sign up for your free newsletter. Or maybe someone who calls your phone number because they saw something advertised on Facebook.

Account= An account created specifically just for your company. You will need to assign access permissions to other members of staff via a separate admin panel.

Example 1: Your Account Manager should be able to log into the system and add new accounts. He / she needs to be able to see everything that happens on these accounts, including the ability to set up auto responders and send emails.

Contact= Any individual who interacts with your website. Example: Someone clicks on a button on one of your pages.

Campaign= All interactions related to any specific offer, promotion, advertisement, etc. Examples: Clickthrough Rates, Impressions, Spent Budget, Conversions.

Client= Anyone who uses your services. Example: People who buy things from your shop.

Examples 2-4: These four categories of activity seem to be very generic. When I looked at the help section, I didn't see anything specifically geared toward reporting. So let me ask again...if I wanted to make a report showing the conversion rate of a certain campaign, how would I go about doing that? Perhaps I'm missing something obvious, but nothing jumped out at me.

What counts as activity in HubSpot?

In order to answer this question, we'll first need to break down the types of activities HubSpot tracks. According to the Help Center, there are three main kinds of activities tracked by HubSpot.

Activity Types

Event Activity

This type of activity consists of events triggered by actions taken by visitors to your Website(s). Some common event triggers include Page Viewed, Form Submission, Email Open, Social Media Post Share, Search Engine Indexing, Time Zone Conversion, Site Access, etc.

Actionable Data

Data entered directly into HubSpot forms and popups. Actionable data is either submitted automatically or manually. Common actionable data fields include Contact Information, Lead Preferences, Demographics, Interests, Questions, Coupon Codes, Gift Cards, Check Boxes, Dropdown Lists, Number Fields, Date Fields, etc.

Logical Flow Activities

These consist of logical flow charts based upon incoming requests from clients or end users. Logical flow chart activities include Automated Emails Sent, Workflows Created, Process Models Built, Queries Run, Reports Generated, Scheduled Events Triggered, Web Forms Submitted, Manual Sign Ups, etc.

Now, back to the original questions of whether or not anyone knows how to run custom reports in HubSpot. To see if this feature exists, I went straight to the Source Code Editor tab located right next to the Dashboard menu item. However, once inside the source code editor, I couldn't figure out where to look for logging information. There doesn't appear to be anywhere near a console or debug window. Maybe I missed it somewhere else, but I searched everywhere and still came up short. Where is the best place to check logs in HubSpot? Will I need to learn PHP coding to accomplish this task myself?

If no one answers this question, perhaps I'll try asking it differently...where can I find documentation describing the process required to build custom reports in HubSpot? Do I need to hire a developer to handle this project for us? Would I need to pay extra money for support? Is there a way to extract raw data without needing to write custom scripts? Does anyone know how to get started creating a basic report in HubSpot?

All of the activity listed above appears to fit into one of the following categories listed below: Event, Actionable, or Logical Flow. But what about those pesky timespans?

Is HubSpot an open API?

I've never heard of an API before, so I did some more digging. From what I found, HubSpot offers a RESTful API that allows developers to integrate third party applications and tools with HubSpot. Yes, it looks like they DO provide an open API for others to leverage.

The problem now becomes...do I need a developer to implement this functionality for me? Who would develop this application for me? Should I start learning Python programming today? Perhaps I'd be better off hiring a contractor instead?

Perhaps I am wrong about this whole thing and HubSpot isn't actually offering an open API. It turns out that they do NOT currently offer an open API. Instead, they encourage customers to purchase professional development training packages offered by various vendors. One vendor in particular called SmartBear makes several courses designed to teach students how to program against HubSpot APIs themselves.

My guess is that most companies won't care about writing their own programs unless they're planning on selling lots of copies. Otherwise, wouldn't it make sense to just purchase professional training?

Anyways, I think this article already gets too long and rambling. Hopefully it helped clear up some confusion over the topic at hand. Happy hunting everyone!

Hello, Can anyone tell me how can i track users activity in hubspot? for ex : If someone is reading my content and then click another link, How will i know that person read my article or not. This question might sound silly but its important to us as we are trying to improve our product by giving valuable content which people like and want more from us... Thanks...

If you have any idea about this problem please reply.. thanks :)

Well, there's no way to keep track of every single action your visitors take within HubSpot itself (but maybe using Google Analytics). However, what you could try doing is setting up an email campaign with a "Thank You" page where they can enter their name so you'll be able to send them a follow-up message later saying thank you for visiting - that way at least you've got something tangible to work with!

I think that when you use HubSpot, you're given a unique code to put into all your articles so you'll get tracked that way. It also allows you to set up campaigns so that certain links appear only once per day etc., so again, those actions would show up in your reports too. As far as tracking individual users goes though, I'm afraid I don't really understand exactly what you mean -- perhaps you'd better clarify what kind of data you need to look out for? Perhaps you just want to find out who clicked through each link / ad? In either case, here's some general info on how HubSpot works: http://www.hubspotblog.com/how-does-the-web-marketing-software-work/.

To answer the actual question, yes you can track user activity within HubSpot, however it depends heavily upon how much functionality you require from your analytics solution. To start off with, HubSpot provides a lot of basic metrics including visits (unique views), pages viewed, bounce rate, top referring sites, top landing pages, exit rates, average duration spent on site, most popular topics etc. These stats provide great insight into traffic trends over time and allow you to gauge whether particular marketing tactics are working or not. The reporting interface is very intuitive and easy to navigate, and you should definitely give it a go yourself before considering another tool!

In terms of logging specific user actions, you can easily add these to various report types. Reports such as Top Referring Sites or Bounce Rate, for instance, simply ask for the relevant date range and source IP address/user ID, and include additional parameters depending on your needs. Other useful options you may wish to consider include Visitor Type, Page Viewed, Exit Pages etc.

As far as keeping tabs on individual users is concerned, I assume you refer to things like clicking through from a banner advertisement, or filling out forms? Well unfortunately, unless you've taken steps to capture these details beforehand, you won't be able to track them. What happens after someone reads your blog post / fills out your form isn't recorded anywhere, so even if you knew everything else they did during that visit, you wouldn't know which piece of content was responsible for driving the visitor to make that purchase. So although having access to lots of detailed statistics certainly helps you along the way, it doesn't actually help you pinpoint anything in particular.

HubSpot does offer a feature called Site Links which basically lets you assign URLs to individual posts so that when someone hovers over them, they open up a new window showing a preview of said article. Unfortunately, this feature only works for blogs. Still, it gives you an idea of which pieces of content were deemed interesting enough to share via social media channels, which ones weren't, and which topics seemed to resonate best with readership. That's pretty invaluable feedback right there!

Regarding your second point, whenever a visitor lands on your website, HubSpot automatically records their IP Address and User Agent string. From there, you can determine which country they came from, roughly approximate their location based upon their physical proximity to hubs around the world, and other assorted demographic info. All of this gets logged directly into your dashboard. Your next step should be to familiarize yourself with your own Analytics section, which includes various built-in reports and visualizations covering different aspects of web traffic. Here's a brief overview of available tools: https://support.google.com/analytics/?hl=en#topic=3534962.

You could potentially implement something similar to SiteLinks if you wanted to build a custom CMS platform. Just create separate static HTML files for each post, load them onto your server, and attach them to whichever page you want to display them on. When a user browses to that URL, they'll end up seeing whatever content you've assigned them. There are plenty of ways to accomplish this sort of thing without needing specialized software.

The easiest way to monitor user interactions would probably be to install Google Chrome extensions that record mouse movements. Some examples include Hotjar and Mouseflow. Then, whenever a user moves their cursor towards an element on your webpage, you'll receive notification. Not ideal since we're talking about real-world usage here, but if you're looking for a quick fix, it could suffice.

Another option would be to integrate Clicky with HubSpot. With Clicky installed on your website, whenever a user interacts with an interactive element (such as a button) on your page, they'll trigger a request to HubSpot. Since HubSpot already tracks pageviews, you'll be able to identify which buttons led to which conversions. The downside being that Clicky only supports interaction monitoring between browsers, meaning mobile devices aren't supported. Also, because it uses AJAX calls instead of regular HTTP requests, your CPU usage increases significantly and performance suffers. Finally, it requires special permissions to run on shared hosting plans.

For reference, Clicky offers two levels of service for $19.99 USD per month ($9.99 if billed annually) plus 15% transaction fee. Another alternative worth mentioning is Piwik, which integrates seamlessly with WordPress and is completely free to host. It also supports both mouse and touch events. On the downside, it doesn't support multi-device testing nor does it let you customize event tracking templates to suit your exact requirements.

Thanks for reply :) But still I am confused why we cant track users activity inside HubSpot.... And why we dont need to install chrome extension for this purpose? :(

Yes we can track user activity inside HubSpot but the main reason is that we have limited resources and budget to spend on paid services and sometimes spending money on expensive platforms is not feasible... We want to analyze our current situation and learn which part of our strategy is effective and which part is not... Of course we always have intention to upgrade in future and move forward with the rest of our business development plan...

We want to learn more than just numbers... Like if someone visited our site and didn't come back... Why he left... Which content was good enough to attract him... etc.

So now we decided to choose Google analytic sisitfy because it has many features and functions that we desire.. Even though HubSpot provides many basic metrics and insights into our websites performance but we want more advanced analysis that tells us which parts of the whole process worked well and which parts failed...

And lastly regarding hotkey for mouse movement detection... After watching few videos online and tried few times myself but didnt work properly... Maybe I made mistake while installing or configuring plugin...

But we found another solution for this issue and its working perfect... Its very simple and fast to setup... No coding required... Simply copy paste few lines of codes and you are done! ;)

Here's a list of tools recommended above :

1. Use Google Analytics (free version)

2. Install Clicky extension for Chrome (recommended)

3. Try Piwik (paid)

4. Check out KISSmetrics (also paid)

5. Or try Integromat (also paid)

6. Look into Crazyegg (also paid)

7. Or try Webtrends (free trial, then pay monthly)

8. Mixpanel (formerly known as Segment)(free trials, then pay monthly)

There are several companies offering solutions that claim to enable you to track your visitors' behavior. One company named QuantCast claims to be able to detect the language used by visitors, the browser used, and the operating system used. They call this technology 'Behavioral Auditing'.

With behavioral auditing, you will be able to discover what percentage of viewers watch your video versus your written word, where they pause the video, and what device they are viewing from. Behavioral auditing is beneficial because it enables you to adjust your writing style according to what type of visitor you want to reach.

When using behavioral auditing, you must remember that the results are not 100 percent accurate. A viewer could change his settings to prevent cookies from being stored locally. Therefore, if you want to guarantee accuracy, you will need to use third party verification methods such as checking DNS names against IP addresses or using external websites.

Quantcast states that its behavioral auditing technology is currently capable of identifying 95% of English speakers worldwide. According to the company, it takes approximately six months to train its algorithm and begin gaining quality results.

Hello, is there any way for me to check which activities are being done on my website by particular people using Hubspot?

I am looking to do something like this - where I can create a custom dashboard and keep an eye on who's doing what on my site. But when i looked through their documentation, they only refer to "users" as opposed to "activities".

Thanks!

HubSpot doesn't provide tools or functionality that will allow you to monitor your visitors' actions on your websites. This would require extensive customization and integration with other systems such as Google Analytics (which is not available yet). You could try creating your own tracking system using Google Webmaster Tools instead. If nothing else, you may want to consider adding some sort of contact form to your website so that users can send you feedback via email.

If you need further help, feel free to reach out directly at support@hubspot.com.

Thank you very much for your reply. What about implementing Google analytics? Can we link these two together? And how can I implement web master tool?

We don't recommend linking HubSpot and Google Analytics because both companies operate different platforms. The best thing you can do here is to log into Google Webmasters, select 'Crawl', then click on 'Site information'. Copy down all Site URLs from the table below the box labeled 'URLs.' Then paste them into the corresponding fields in HubSpot. Once those sites crawl, you'll be able to get detailed data within HubSpot.

There is no direct integration between Google Webmasters and HubSpot, but the process described above should enable you to extract useful metrics. It works well enough for most purposes, though it might take a little while before each page gets crawled. Also note that the number of pages indexed varies depending on your traffic levels.

So far all the answers seem to suggest that HubSpot provides limited access to its customers. Does anyone know whether this limitation applies specifically to internal employees or also to external clients? In other words, is it true that even if an employee wants to share his/her personal account details with another person working for the same company he/she cannot do so unless said employee first obtains permission from his/her manager?

That depends entirely upon the permissions set up for individual accounts. By default, everyone can read everything. To change this behavior, go to Account Settings -> Permissions and remove yourself from certain groups. Or just make sure to assign someone else to manage your profile settings.

It sounds like you're asking us to build your business around HubSpot rather than letting HubSpot serve your needs. While HubSpot offers great marketing features, you wouldn't necessarily need a full-fledged CRM system if you were already using a good CMS platform.

If you're new to WordPress, head over to our guide on choosing a hosting provider and start building your blog right away. When you've got more questions, post them on Stack Exchange -- the Q&A network built around expert knowledge sharing.

To answer your question directly: No, HubSpot won’t show you visitor activity or usage statistics without additional development effort. However, you may find interesting ideas and inspiration for future enhancements by reading HubSpot Blog posts on topics related to customer service software trends, product reviews, etc., or by visiting various communities online and reviewing comments posted by others. There are many blogs written by members of our team throughout the Internet. Clicking on links inside these articles may lead you to additional resources that will give you insight into customer experience management practices. Please visit our official community forums to discover news stories, opinions, and tips coming straight from our experts. We encourage you to participate and ask questions. Our goal is to offer our readers content that helps inspire innovation and improve overall performance.

You can easily integrate HubSpot with social media services such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., to stay connected with current customers and potential partners. Another popular feature is automatic campaign creation based on keywords entered by users. You can also choose to receive emails automatically whenever there is a new comment, message, or update made on a specific topic. These messages appear in the Members tab under Messages.

Regarding your concern regarding security, HubSpot uses SSL encryption technology. All communication between servers takes place over secure HTTPS connections. Additionally, HubSpot uses 128 bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) cryptography to encrypt sensitive data stored in databases. AES is used by government agencies worldwide, including U.S. National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Interpol, British Government Communications Headquarters, Australian Signals Directorate, Canada Information Commissioner, European Union law enforcement agency Europol, among others.

As mentioned earlier, HubSpot doesn't currently offer tools or functionalities for monitoring your visitors. This would require extensive customization and integration with other systems such as Google Analytics (which is not available yet), or third party applications (such as GetResponse, MailChimp, Constant Contact, etc.).

If you want to learn more about HubSpot's capabilities and features, please review the following documents:

1. How to Start Using HubSpot Marketing Today

2. Getting Started With HubSpot Marketing

3. HubSpot Pricing Guide

4. Introducing Your Business to HubSpot Marketing

5. HubSpot Online Training Library

6. Understanding SEO Metrics in HubSpot

7. Integrating Third Party Applications Into HubSpot

8. Learning More About Email Integration in HubSpot

9. Reviewing Basic Features of HubSpot Insight

10. Creating Automated Campaigns in HubSpot Insights

11. Managing Personalization Data in HubSpot Insights

12. Adding Users to Groups in HubSpot Insights

13. Exporting Lists in HubSpot Insights

14. Importing Customers in HubSpot Insights

15. Viewing Custom Reports Created in Excel in HubSpot Insights

16. Accessing Customer Activity Logging Directly From Browser

17. Monitoring User Actions Within Specific Pages in HubSpot Insights

18. Setting Up Goals in HubSpot Insights

19. Analyzing Goal Progress in HubSpot Insights

20. Sharing Dashboards in HubSpot Insights

21. Building Forms in HubSpot Insights

22. Tracking Form Responses in HubSpot Insights

23. Scheduling Follow Ups in HubSpot Insights

24. Sending Reminders in HubSpot Insights

25. Adding Comments to Documents in HubSpot Insights

26. Posting Discussions in HubSpot Insights

27. Assigning Leads in HubSpot Insights

28. Viewing Lead Details in HubSpot Insights

29. Connecting Social Media Accounts in HubSpot Insights

30. Finding Support Communities in HubSpot Insights

31. Linking Activities Between Projects in HubSpot Insights

32. Mapping Segments in HubSpot Insights

33. Filtering Opportunities in HubSpot Insights

34. Searching Jobs in HubSpot Insights

35. Checking Job Descriptions in HubSpot Insights

36. Creating Workflows in HubSpot Insights

37. Editing Workflow Templates in HubSpot Insights

38. Changing Subscription Options in HubSpot Insights

39. Uploading Images in HubSpot Insights

40. Previewing Presentations in HubSpot Insights

41. Attaching Files in HubSpot Insights

42. Deleting Records in HubSpot Insights

43. Modifying Record Fields in HubSpot Insights

44. Moving Items Around in HubSpot Insights

45. Saving Searches in HubSpot Insights

46. Merging Search Results in HubSpot Insights

47. Publishing Posts in HubSpot Insights

48. Selecting Content Types in HubSpot Insights

49. Sorting List Views in HubSpot Insights

50. Adding Notes to Entries in HubSpot Insights

51. Switching Roles in HubSpot Insights

52. Setting Time Zones in HubSpot Insights

53. Synchronizing Calendars in HubSpot Insights

54. Reverting Changes Made in HubSpot Insights

55. Configuring Notifications in HubSpot Insights

56. Working Offline Using Cloud Apps in HubSpot Insights

57. Making Use Of Quick Links in HubSpot Insights

58. Taking Advantage of Mobile Device Optimized Sites in HubSpot Insights

59. Enabling Auto Responders in HubSpot Insights

60. Adjusting Document Properties in HubSpot Insights

61. Applying Styles in HubSpot Insights

62. Inserting Quotes in HubSpot Insights

63. Converting HTML Markup Text Blocks to Plaintext in HubSpot Insights

64. Pasting Code Snippets in HubSpot Insights

65. Printing Documents in HubSpot Insights

66. Transcribing Recorded Calls in HubSpot Insights

67. Capturing Screen Shots in HubSpot Insights

68. Recording Audio in HubSpot Insights

69. Storing Voice Memos in HubSpot Insights

70. Reading PDF Tables in HubSpot Insights

71. Identifying Duplicate Contacts in HubSpot Insights

72. Extracting Spreadsheet Contents in HubSpot Insights

73. Copying Selected Data in HubSpot Insights

74. Opening Multiple Emails in HubSpot Insights