In part one of HubSpot and Integration series, we talked about the preparations. Now, we can get started with the actual integration.
The process of the integration starts in HubSpot, with various steps in Salesforce, and ends again in HubSpot.
HubSpot created a technical guide with pictures and clear steps. You can find the knowledge article here. We will not repeat the steps here. Rather we focus on important decision that that you make during the execution of the technical steps.
Table of Contents
Integration User
The integration between HubSpot and Salesforce requires a Salesforce user license with an admin profile. You don’t want to use an existing user with the standard admin profile.
The issue is that with an existing user all changes are logged under that user but also the usual changes that the user does, hence it can’t be traced back to what the automation changed or the human user. This becomes problematic for error management. And you will certainly have errors. That damage is not worth the extra cost of one user license.
Hence, you should have a dedicated integration user just for Salesforce. It is also not recommended to have an integration user for all your integration. The issue is that when errors happen, and they will, that you can not trace back where the error is coming from.
Further, for security reasons it is better for to have separate license and for stability reasons. Also note that many businesses require their users to update their password every 3 months. That would break the integration every time if using a normal users. This are all reasons not to use an existing admin user.
Finally, make sure to duplicate the standard system admin profile and rename it to “System Admin Salesforce”. This allows you to clearly define which permissions this integration user will require and it allows you to use selective sync.
Selective Sync and Inclusion Lists
Salesforce and HubSpot allow you to limit the flow of data between the platforms. You will need that if you don’t want to send all data from Salesforce to HubSpot or vice versa.
Selective Sync
The selective sync controls the data flow from Salesforce to HubSpot. For example, you can limit that certain objects or even specific fields are not getting synchronised to HubSpot. This might be relevant if you have extremely sensitive data like health or financial data.
The selective sync requires an integration user with a custom permission set. There you would limit what access the profile have and if does not have access to a record or field then it can not be synched. The technical steps are shown here.
The selective sync can be hard to manage and you want to be certain that it is useful for you. Should you need help on this exercise then reach out to us.
Inclusion Lists
Inclusion lists limit the flow of data from HubSpot to Salesforce. For example, you only want to synchronise Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) to Salesforce as those leads are ready for your sales team to engage.
An inclusion list would be an active list in HubSpot. You will create a workflow that adds people to the active list. Then you can follow these steps to activate the inclusion list.
Field Priority
Field priority determines which field has priority. There are use cases.
Prefer Salesforce: HubSpot does only an update if the Salesforce field is empty
Always use Salesforce: HubSpot data will never pass to Salesforce and Salesforce data overwrites HubSpot data
Two-way priority: Each fields update each other equally
No sync: Field will not be synchronised
The field mapping table that we discussed in the preparation article is becoming now handy.
Unsubscribe status
The unsubscribe status is important to be legally compliant with privacy rules. Out of the box the HubSpot unsubscribe field will be sync with the Salesforce opt-out field. This can not manually be modified.
Note that you can not manually remove the opt-out. Even if you attempt to do it from Salesforce by removing the checkbox, the action will not transfer to HubSpot.
To enrol the contact needs to make the enrolment on its own by going to the email preference center.
New Activity Sync
There is a new sync feature from November 2023, that allows you to sync activities like tasks, meeting, sales emails and their click and open rates.
This provides additional visibility of what is happening. The pro and cons will be discussed in next weeks article.
Document your integration settings
Finally, during the integration phase you will have made many decisions to tailor the integration to your business needs. We recommend that you document those decisions. In one or two years it probably will not be clear and especially not for the next person that inherits the integration.
(Optional) Person Accounts Sync
The integration also allows to synch person accounts. First a quick review about why one would use Person accounts.
Person accounts are used in Salesforce for B2C sales motions. The usual model in Salesforce involves an account (a company) and a contact (an employee). That is great to cover the B2B sales motions.
However, for B2C this is not ideal as the buyer is an individual. Salesforce's answer to that is the Person Account. A person account is a special object resembling the account object to represent a person (an individual). Hence, a person account. This on its own sounds already confusing. But in the background there is still a contact for the person account but it is not visible.
This on its own can create a mess, especially in businesses that sell to B2B and B2C and therefore use both person accounts and contacts. This also creates additional difficulties for the integration in terms of duplicates.
The good news is that the synch does support person accounts. HubSpot will also create a contact and an account for personal accounts. If we map that the nit would look like the following:
Salesforce Contact = HubSpot Contact
Salesforce Account = HubSpot Company
Salesforce Person Accounts = HubSpot Contact + HubSpot Company
Note that the default integration can not create a new person account but would create a lead instead and you need to convert it to a person account. There are workarounds to make it happen but that goes beyond the scope of this guide. Feel free to reach out to us if you need help around personal accounts and the integration.
Following all these steps and acknowledging the consideration will set you with a solid integration.
Next, week we will talk about best practices, sync error management and more.
Revenue Wizards is a hands-on Revenue Operations Consultancy for growth companies focusing on efficiencies. We provide GTM & RevOps support with the goal of Revenue growth, GTM cost reduction, and Profitability. You can learn more about Revenue Wizards here.
Zhenya Bankouski is Co-Founder and Revenue Operations Partner. You can follow him on LinkedIn 🔔 where he posts regularly with practical advice on building efficient RevOps teams and truly data-driven organizations.
Haris Odobasic is Co-founder and Revenue Strategy Partner. Enjoys bringing strategy to life with RevOps.