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Does Constant Contact integrate with HubSpot?



Does Constant Contact integrate with HubSpot?


HubSpot has over 3 million users who use its marketing software for email campaigns, lead generation, social media management, blogging, website analytics, and more. The company was founded by co-founders Dharmesh Shah (CEO) and Kevin Halpin (CTO), both of whom previously worked at Google Ventures.

The platform now also offers a suite of business apps that allow you to manage your entire digital presence from one location. You can track leads across devices, monitor traffic on websites or blog posts, and manage content using CMSs like WordPress. If all this sounds overwhelming, don't worry! We'll show you how Constant Contacts—one of HubSpot’s most popular third-party applications —can help simplify things even further.

Constant Contact is used primarily as a customer relationship manager (CRM). However, thanks to integration features between the two platforms, we've found that some people have been surprised to discover another hidden feature of the service. So if you're not sure what exactly Constant Contact does, let us explain...

Is Constant Contact a CRM tool?

"I think there are many misconceptions about what Constanit [sic] contact actually does," says Dina Srinivasan, CEO & Co-Founder of ConstantContact. "People often confuse our product with other marketer products out there." In fact, she adds, their customers aren't marketers at all, but rather they include small businesses, entrepreneurs, freelancers, and artists.

So what exactly does Constant Contact offer? According to Srinivasan, the service allows you to build a database of potential clients so that you can keep them updated on new services offered through your brand. This type of information doesn't really belong within your core marketing stack though, which means having a separate app makes sense.

Srinivasan explains that when someone subscribes to a newsletter hosted on Constant Contact, they will receive emails from whatever list you've set up. These messages might be sent out weekly, monthly, or whenever certain criteria are met. For example, perhaps a subscriber signs up for something you're offering online. When they opt into your mailing list, you may send them regular updates regarding the sale item. Or maybe they signed up to get periodic discounts on services. Whatever the case, these types of automated emails allow you to stay connected with subscribers without needing to manually update your lists every time.

If you want to find out more about how Constant Contact works, check out this video below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0pqjy7bZQ4

In addition to keeping subscribers informed, Constant Contact acts as a hub where companies can organize events, share news, post photos, and create promotional materials. Subscribers can then view relevant material based on their interests.

For instance, if you own a boutique clothing store and regularly host trunk shows, you could create a special event specifically for those interested in buying clothes. Then, once a month, you can schedule emails showing off recent sales items during peak shopping hours. Alternatively, if you run a gym, you could send out announcements related to classes being added each week.

Is Constant Contact an app?

As mentioned above, Constant Contact isn't technically an application. Rather than downloading an installable file onto your computer, it's accessible via various mobile apps. As such, it feels less complicated since everything happens directly within the device itself.

You can access Constant Contact straight from your phone's home screen, although if you prefer, you can download individual apps depending on whether you want to interact with your account while traveling. Once downloaded, you simply need to sign in and start sending out notifications.

To ensure proper functionality on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Kindle Fire, Blackberry 10, etc., Constant Contact recommends installing version 4.3 or higher. Although the company has had versions available for years, upgrading to newer ones should improve performance.



What industry is Constant Contact?

Many brands use Constant Contact because it provides a simple way for individuals to subscribe to newsletters, purchase goods, and learn about promotions. While the majority of users probably won't consider themselves marketers, the ability to customize templates and quickly add subscribers keeps the process streamlined.

However, despite its name, Constant Contact is only useful for personal branding purposes. While you can certainly use it to sell yourself, the best value comes from integrating it with other applications designed to handle tasks like creating personalized landing pages and scheduling email blasts.

Since Constant Contact integrates with several different programs, it's worth exploring what else it connects to. Here are just a few examples:

MailChimp - MailChimp lets you easily design professional looking eNewsletter, optimize images and text for better conversion rates, and insert links to external sites. With constant contact, you can automate the whole process. Once you've created a template, click +New Automation Step, select Email Campaign Builder, and choose Create New List Build Script. From here, you can configure any number of triggers. Set up a condition to match whatever criteria you wish, pick the program you'd like to launch, enter variables and parameters, and specify additional steps for customization. A couple of great options include setting a specific date range or filtering according to particular data. Finally, set up your preferred frequency and click Create Trigger. Now whenever your chosen conditions occur, the script will fire and take care of everything else.

Google Analytics - By connecting GAnalytics to Constant Contact, you can see detailed statistics about your campaign results including open rate, unsubscribe rate, clicks per action, and more. To begin, head back to the previous step. Instead of selecting Email Campaign Builder, choose Connect Program instead. Select GA Tracking Code, paste it into the box provided, and hit Save. That's all it takes to get started.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud - Salesforce, known mostly for enterprise solutions, recently launched a cloud-based marketing platform called Marketing Cloud. With it, you can seamlessly sync your databases and streamline processes. To get started, first log into your SFMC portal, click Integrations, scroll down until you spot Constant Contact, and select Add Integration. Enter your credentials, accept the terms of service, and follow the rest of the instructions to complete setup. After activating the connection, you'll be able to pull data from your Constant Contact account right into the system.

Sendinblue - Sendinblue functions similarly to Constant Contact in that you can collect names and addresses from visitors. But unlike the competitor, however, Sendinblue focuses entirely on automating your marketing efforts. Its biggest selling point is that you can fully customize landing pages and funnel series to suit the needs of your audience.

Once you've logged in, go to My Dashboard " Landing Pages " Start Building Your Series. Fill out the form, browse through predefined designs, and tweak anything you want before saving. Keep in mind that you can always change your page later on if needed.

When building sequences, you can either choose to build your own or import existing ones that others have made. Either option gives you full control over the look and feel of your landing pages.

With Sendinblue, you can also save money on bulk orders by placing multiple subscriptions together. Just fill out the order creation wizard, choose the subscription plans you want, and review prices for packages. Click Place Order and continue adding items to the cart. At checkout, you'll notice an extra discount field appears next to the plan details. Simply input your preferred price and Continue Shopping.

How do I automatically assign contacts in HubSpot?

Now that you know a little bit more about how Constant Contact fits into your workflow, it's time to figure out how you can incorporate it into your current routine. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to achieve this goal. One possibility involves using Zapier, a powerful yet simple webapp that helps you combine hundreds of different apps, gadgets, and systems.

Here's how to link Constant Contact with HubSpot using Zapier:

Open the Constant Contact dashboard, navigate to Settings " API Access, and grant permission to Zapier.

Select Create Action, and search for Hubspot Email Capture Zaps. Choose whichever suits your needs. In the following window, switch to Triggers tab, and tap +Trigger.

Under What kind of trigger would you like to use?, write Get new member on your team, followed by Next. On the resulting pop-up menu, select HubSpot Email Capture.

Choose to Run immediately. Hit OK.

On the next window, choose How Do You Want To Process Emails? and select Convert Raw Data to JSON.

Input the appropriate fields. Make sure to leave Event Name empty.

Finally, select Publish Events. Check Enable Publish Logging And Debug Mode.

Hit Finish.

After completing these steps, you should see your newly established action appear under Actions section in your main panel. Once activated, it will work in background and notify you whenever a new subscriber joins your Constant Contact list.

Constant Contacts is a wonderful platform for sending out emails or newsletters on your behalf without much effort from you at all. It can also be great if you want to build an email list of subscribers that like what you're offering. The problem comes when you need to move those people over to another service. You may have built a relationship with them through one of their communications, but moving them across means starting anew which feels pretty scary.

HubSpot has been around since 2005 and has become a popular choice among marketers looking to take advantage of marketing automation software offerings. While there isn't any official integration between these two platforms, thanks to some help from Zapier we can set this up ourselves quite easily.

Where are my contacts in HubSpot?

When you sign up for HubSpot (which is totally free), they ask you where you've come from. This lets them know who might already use HubSpot as part of their own workflow. If you'd rather not share this information, don't worry -- you'll still receive the benefits of having more than just your personal Gmail account tied into HubSpot. Just skip step #1 above.

Once you sign up, open up the HubSpot dashboard and click "Contacts" under your profile icon. Here you will see several options for importing data from various sources including Facebook, Google Apps, and LinkedIn. At the bottom right corner under "Import Data", select "CSV". From here, you should choose whether you want to pull only new leads (new customers) or both new and existing ones.

This screen will then pop up asking you how many records you would like to import. Set the number however large you want and hit continue. In our example, we imported 100 contacts so we could test this entire process later. Once complete, HubSpot will send a confirmation email letting you know that your imports were successful.

Can you bulk upload contacts to HubSpot?

If you signed up without sharing your contact info with HubSpot, you'll find yourself stuck trying to figure out exactly how to add your contacts manually. Luckily, using Zapier allows us to create rules based on specific criteria that allow us to bulk upload contacts directly to HubSpot.

To begin creating your rule, head back to your Zapier Dashboard and scroll down until you reach "Choose Trigger". Choose "Webhooks" and then select "Create New Web Hook." Now search for "hubspot/contacts" and once selected, change it to "New Leads Added". Then, fill in everything else except specify the URL field. Leave it blank because you won't need it yet. After choosing Save & Continue, you'll be taken to your Zaps page. Click "+Add Another Action" and again leave the fields empty. Do this for each action listed after clicking Add Another Action.

Now switch over to your Zapier interface. Under Actions, look for "Send Email" and then select "Gmail SMTP Settings". Fill in everything correctly and remember to toggle "Use SSL Encryption" if available. Finally, go ahead and name your zap something memorable. Feel free to customize the subject line and message body however you wish. Hit Create Zap! and within seconds, your first zap should run.

While running, you'll notice that the status column switches from Running to Completed. This indicates that the script ran successfully and now you can proceed onto setting up your next Zap. Repeat steps 1-3 above for every web hook provided by Zapier so that all of your actions fire off consecutively. As long as you follow the instructions perfectly, you shouldn't encounter any errors along the way.

After completing this initial setup, you'll likely spend most of your time waiting for each individual zap to finish before proceeding to the next one. To speed things up, you can modify your code slightly to include a delay function. Open up your Zap file and locate the section labeled "Wait Time":

Replace /usr/bin/sleep 60 with whatever command you prefer to execute during a certain amount of time. For instance, if you wanted to wait five minutes, you could put in sleep 120.

For additional tips, check out this post about writing custom scripts with NodeJS. Don't forget to save changes whenever you make any modifications!

How do I import CSV contacts into HubSpot?

With the completion of each zap, you'll immediately gain access to your newly added contacts. However, you must now decide how you want to transfer them to other services such as Slack, Mailchimp, etc. This depends entirely upon your preferences, goals, and current processes. We recommend taking a moment to think about why you want to move your contacts to HubSpot and consider what you currently use.

In our case, we decided that we needed a better system for managing our email newsletter distribution. Our goal was to consolidate our efforts and provide consistency across multiple channels while making sure that our campaigns weren't being sent out incorrectly. Thus, we chose to migrate our mailing lists from AWeber to HubSpot.

The easiest way to accomplish this is through the Import tool located in your HubSpot settings menu. When you arrive at this area, simply browse past the header navigation and expand the left sidebar. Select "Migrations" and then click on "Email Marketing Migration Tool". On the following screen, you can either import an Excel spreadsheet containing contacts, or enter your own CSV file. Either option works fine and takes only a few moments. Next, accept the license agreement and review the summary details.

Finally, click Submit to start migrating your contacts. Make note of the date shown to you on the final screen, as you'll need it shortly. Within just a couple hours, you'll discover a brand new tab titled "Leads" in your HubSpot admin panel. Your migrated contacts appear within this window. Simply filter by Status = Accepted and export them to whichever channel you desire. You'll probably end up exporting them to a variety of places depending on your needs.

Note that you cannot delete migrated leads within HubSpot. Instead, you must navigate to https://appcenter.google.com/dashboard#!/migration_history to remove them.

How do I get my contacts into HubSpot?

As mentioned earlier, you'll soon realize that getting your contacts into HubSpot requires a bit of patience. Depending on how many you plan on adding, you may experience periods of downtime between completed zaps. That said, the process will work best when executed one at a time.

Once finished, though, your HubSpot lead management center will be well populated with fresh names ready for you to distribute accordingly. Note that you can even assign labels to different categories of contacts to further organize them into groups. These labels serve no real purpose besides helping you keep track of what type of content you intend to deliver to whom.

Have you tried integrating Constant Contact with HubSpot? What did you find worked best for you? Let us know in the comments below!

HubSpot provides an easy way for businesses to manage their marketing campaigns by creating automated emails that follow your customers around the web. But what if you need more than just email management capabilities from HubSpot? What about customer relationship management (CRM) features such as lead capture forms or event tracking?

The good news is there are ways to add those extra functions to HubSpot without having to move everything over into another system like Mailchimp. One of these options involves integrating HubSpot with third-party services like Constant Contacts. Now we're going to take a look at how this works so you can start using both systems together.

Does HubSpot do CRM?

When people think "CRM" they often picture Microsoft Outlook, but CRM also means Customer Relationship Management -- basically any kind of software designed specifically to track interactions between business partners. And while HubSpot does have some basic contact management abilities built-in, its primary focus is on building effective online marketing strategies rather than managing contacts within the company itself. This makes it difficult to use alone when working with multiple clients or companies who all require different types of data.

One solution is to use hubspot.com instead of hubspot.org. The.com domain name has been available since 2010, but was previously reserved for developers before being opened up in 2013. Because.org domains are associated exclusively with non-profit organizations, anyone wanting to buy one had first dibs on them until recently. However, now even individuals may purchase.com domains and open them up to general registration. So keep this tip in mind next time you see someone type "hubspot."com!

In addition to offering several paid plans, HubSpot allows users to sign up as independent contractors. This lets small teams work together seamlessly without paying monthly fees for each person. You could easily set up a separate account for every client you want to deal with individually, then assign specific roles to members based upon their needs.

If you already own a domain name through GoDaddy, you should be able to transfer ownership directly to HubSpot. If not, you'll need to go through a verification process where HubSpot will send you instructions on setting up your new domain once you've signed up with them. Once done, you can log in to your HubSpot dashboard and begin adding other accounts.

You won't find many native CRM functionalities here because HubSpot is primarily focused on helping marketers build better content and increase leads. For example, you can use HubSpot's templates to design professional looking newsletters which get sent out via email after meeting certain criteria. These include sending a message only to people visiting particular pages, whether they were logged in, whether they visited the website during specified hours, etc.

But let's say you want to offer something else besides newsletter subscriptions. Maybe you'd prefer to provide visitors with a form they can fill out to request information about products/services. Or maybe you'd like to give away coupons. How would you accomplish either of these things using HubSpot alone?

With integration plugins, you can pretty much achieve anything you can imagine. Let's consider two popular CRM applications - Salesforce and Zoho - which both allow you to add additional functionality to your site thanks to extensions called Chatter Connectors. In most cases, you don't actually need to install these yourself. Instead, any developer registered as a partner with Chatter can access and modify the code whenever necessary. As long as you register as a Partner Developer (a $20 per month fee), you can edit the source files used by these connectors.

This gives you complete control over what happens on your website when a user submits a form, fills out a coupon, or signs up for a service. Not only can you change behavior in response to various events, but you can completely replace the default code provided by the connector.

For instance, the official Salesforce integration uses the standard VF page component, meaning that whatever fields you choose are included in the resulting object created by the plugin. With alternative components, however, you can customize the data captured by the form. A typical implementation might ask for recipient address details, then insert those values directly into an Event Object. By doing so, you can avoid including unnecessary fields in case you decide later on to remove them from the final result.

As mentioned earlier, HubSpot isn't really geared towards handling individual sales conversations. But if you know you plan on providing your current clients with coupons for discounts off future purchases, why not integrate HubSpot with CouponCabinet?

Once installed, this extension creates a custom tab on your site that displays coupons submitted by others. Visitors simply click on the tab and select whichever ones apply to them. When they submit the form, HubSpot captures the coupon codes automatically. Afterward, any relevant coupons appear under Your Account " Promos & Discounts.

Can HubSpot be integrated with Salesforce?

Salesforce is probably the best known CRM application currently offered by cloud computing giant Oracle. Its flagship product is a sophisticated platform for automating repetitive tasks throughout the entire workflow cycle. Using triggers, actions, variables, and lists along with Apex programming language, you can essentially write programs that perform complex operations without needing to manually input commands.

Unfortunately, it doesn't have very many integrations compared to competitors like HubSpot. That said, you can still hook up with Salesforce using Chatter. Just head to Chatter Preferences " Integrations, scroll down to Find More Services, and search for HubSpot. Click Enable Integration and grant permission to access your account. Then, switch back to the previous screen and enable Send Invites. Next, enter the username and password required to authorize remote connections. Finally, hit Save Changes and wait for the sync to finish.

While this solves our original problem of not finding a way to integrate HubSpot with Salesforce, it comes with some serious limitations. First, it requires a fairly robust knowledge of Java Scripting Runtime Environment (JSRTE). Second, you must specify exactly what you wish to receive in order to ensure correct synchronization. Third, it limits the number of recipients allowed to join the group chat to 100. To overcome this last point, you can skip JSRTE altogether and just use the API, as described below.

Now let's talk about how to connect HubSpot and Dynamics 365. Like HubSpot, Dynamics offers a variety of solutions aimed at increasing effectiveness in digital marketing. Some of them focus solely on email communications, while others handle lead nurturing, social media engagement, scheduling meetings, and similar activities. Regardless of your area of interest, Dynamics' Marketing Cloud Platform handles them all.

Dynamics integration with HubSpot takes advantage of its REST API interface. Unlike the aforementioned Salesforce integration, the Dynamics integration relies entirely on HTTP requests and responses. This means you don't need to learn any special syntax or coding skills to access the results produced by HubSpot. All you need is the URL of the action you intend to automate.

To demonstrate, let's assume you want to display a list of recent blog posts on your home page. Here's the URL for opening up that post: https://app.dynamicdesk.io/api/v1/posts/recent_post.html. From here you'll notice a JSON string containing a collection of objects representing each item listed above. Each of these contains metadata related to the post, but no actual text. Fortunately, that's where dynamic desk comes in handy.

The key difference between Dynamic Desk and DynoTactic is that DYNO acts as a middleman between your app and external APIs. While DynoTactic focuses mainly on connecting HubSpot and Dynamics, they both share common goals. Both aim to simplify the creation of serverless apps and improve security by limiting direct access to sensitive parts of the network.

Dynamic Desk also integrates with a variety of platforms aside from HubSpot and Dynamics. They include Google Sheets, Slack, QuickBooks Online, Office 365, Box, and Amazon Web Service (AWS).



How do I create a CRM in HubSpot?

We briefly touched upon the idea of signing up as an Independent Contractor with HubSpot. Doing so opens up the possibility for users to establish relationships with other companies outside of HubSpot. If this interests you, check out HubSpot's Business Development Center. There, you'll discover a range of resources intended to help you grow your business beyond HubSpot's boundaries.

On the same topic, remember that you don't necessarily need to host your own database in order to interact with CRM providers. Many of today's major players rely heavily on shared databases. Although this approach carries its fair share of risks, you can minimize them by accessing a provider's internal API.

For example, if you wanted to create a landing page targeted at potential investors, you wouldn't want to store any sensitive personal info locally. Since HubSpot stores this information externally, you can safely retrieve it using an API token generated by your project team. Other examples of this technique exist elsewhere in the tech world. Take Github, for instance. The public repository hosted there utilizes tokens to prevent unauthorized changes to private repos.


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