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HubSpot is sold as the all-in-one solution to your marketing, sales, and customer service problems. Automate your workflows. Track every lead. Align your teams. Close more deals.
You’ve bought the license, migrated your data, maybe even gone through onboarding. Yet months later, things still feel clunky. Leads aren’t converting. Your sales team isn’t using the CRM properly. Marketing automations are half-built. And now you’re wondering, Is HubSpot the problem—or are we just doing it wrong?
If that’s where you’re at, you’re not alone.
Plenty of businesses jump into HubSpot full of hope and end up feeling underwhelmed—or worse, burnt out. But most of the time, the issue isn’t the tool. It’s how it’s being used (or not used).
In this article, you’ll learn why some businesses fail to get results with HubSpot, what high-performing teams are doing differently, and the practical steps you can take to start seeing ROI—without blowing up your current setup.
The Most Common Reasons HubSpot Underperforms
If HubSpot isn’t working for your business, it’s not because it’s a bad tool. It’s because somewhere along the line, the setup, strategy, or usage broke down. Below are the most common reasons businesses fail to get results from HubSpot—and how to spot if any of these are happening to you.
1. You rushed the implementation
HubSpot’s powerful, but it’s not plug-and-play. If your team skipped the strategic planning, didn’t map out workflows, or didn’t fully configure things like lifecycle stages, lead scoring, or CRM properties, you’re likely operating at 30% capacity (at best).
Fix it: Revisit your setup. Do a systems audit. Make sure each HubSpot tool is actually connected to your wider business goals—not just sitting there unused.
2. No inbound strategy backing the tech
HubSpot isn’t magic. Without a proper inbound strategy—content, SEO, lead magnets, nurturing—you’re just pushing leads into a system with no real engine behind it.
Fix it: Build or refine your inbound plan. Your blog, landing pages, email nurture tracks—everything needs to work in sync to turn HubSpot into a growth machine. As a first step, you could build a working Learning Centre on your website.
3. Sales and marketing aren’t aligned
This is a silent killer. If marketing is generating leads that sales ignores—or sales is chasing leads that aren’t qualified—you’ll never see full ROI. HubSpot only works when both marketing and sales teams are working together.
Fix it: You may want to look at setting up a Revenue Team, which combines marketing and sales teams to help you produce more aligned results.
4. You’re underusing automation
Workflows, lead scoring, nurture sequences—these are where HubSpot saves you time and boosts conversions. But if you’re still doing everything manually, you’re leaving value on the table.
Fix it: Identify your most repetitive tasks and build automations around them. Start small but build consistently. Here is a guide on how to get started with HubSpot workflows.
5. Reporting is an afterthought
If you’re not tracking performance through dashboards, custom reports, and attribution models, you won’t know what’s working. Or what isn’t.
Fix it: Build reports that show what matters: traffic-to-lead ratios, lead-to-customer rates, sales velocity. HubSpot’s reporting tools are powerful if you use them. Here are some of the key reports you may want to consider including in your reports.
These aren’t minor oversights—they’re often the reason a six-figure tool feels like dead weight. The good news? Every one of these issues is fixable.
What Results-Driven Teams Do Differently
They tailor the system to their actual workflows
The default setup might get you started, but it won’t get you results. High-performing teams rebuild their deal stages to match how their sales process actually works. They create custom properties that track the data they care about, not just what came preloaded. And they don’t wait until they’re knee-deep in problems to start optimising. They build it right from day one or rebuild it when they realise it’s holding them back.
We would recommend mapping out how your sales process really flows. Then go into your HubSpot pipeline and see if it reflects that. If not, change it.
They don’t just train—they embed HubSpot into team culture
You can’t rely on a 60-minute onboarding video and hope your team runs with it. Teams that see results treat HubSpot training like part of their operations.
Sales teams learn how to manage deals. Marketers know how to build and analyse workflows. Support teams log tickets and track issues. Everyone knows where things live—and how to use them.
One way to embed HubSpot into team culture is to create role-based training plans. Assign internal “HubSpot champions” in each department. Review usage data monthly and address gaps before they become adoption problems.
They campaign strategically, not randomly
Successful teams don’t just publish content and hope for the best. They build full-funnel campaigns with clear outcomes. One offer, one landing page, one email sequence, one sales follow-up track. Every asset serves a purpose and every lead knows where they’re headed.
You might consider applying this: Choose one key offer and build a campaign around it. Create the landing page, lead magnet, nurture emails, and handoff process. Run it for 30 days, measure it, then optimise.
They treat reporting as a non-negotiable
Gut feelings don’t scale. High-performing teams build dashboards that give them real-time visibility into what’s working and what’s not. They review them regularly, share them across departments, and use them to drive decisions, not just justify them.
If you don’t have a reporting rhythm, start with a basic monthly review. Track your traffic-to-lead rate, lead-to-customer rate, and campaign-specific performance. Make decisions based on numbers, not noise.
They simplify—and stay consistent
These teams don’t try to use every tool inside HubSpot. They figure out which 20% of the platform drives 80% of the value, and they double down on that.
They don’t jump from one feature to another every month—they stay consistent, optimise, and scale once something works.
For you: Take stock of what features you’re actually using. Are you spreading yourself too thin? Focus on getting a few things right before layering in complexity.
How to Turn Things Around
If you’re knee-deep in HubSpot and not seeing results, this isn’t the moment to scrap everything and start again. It’s the moment to course-correct.
Here’s where to start dependant on the problem area you’re facing:
| Problem Area | What to Do | Action Step |
| Your setup feels messy or misaligned | Audit your current configuration | Review pipelines, deal stages, and properties. Remove anything unused or irrelevant. Make sure data fields match your sales and marketing process. |
| Nothing’s converting or you’re doing too much at once | Focus on one campaign and optimise it fully | Pick one offer. Map out the journey: traffic source → landing page → follow-up → handoff. Build it end-to-end in HubSpot and test it from the user’s perspective. |
| Your team isn’t using HubSpot properly | Align your people to the platform | Create simple playbooks for each team. Explain the daily/weekly actions they need to take in HubSpot. Train for real-life usage—not theory. |
| You’re not measuring what matters | Build a performance dashboard you’ll actually use | Set up a HubSpot dashboard tracking: website traffic, lead conversions, email performance, and deal velocity. Check it weekly. Optimise based on what it tells you. |
HubSpot Isn’t the Problem—But Something Probably Is
If you’re not seeing results with HubSpot, you’re not alone. The platform is powerful, but without the right setup, strategy, and team buy-in, it can just feel like expensive software that slows you down.
The businesses that get real value out of HubSpot aren’t necessarily bigger or better—they’re just more focused. They take the time to align the tool to their process, train their team properly, and build campaigns that are actually designed to convert. And they keep it simple.
So, if you’re stuck, don’t panic, and definitely don’t ditch the platform just yet. Go back through the key action areas, pick one, and fix it this week. Then move on to the next. Small adjustments compound fast when you’re focused on the right things.
As a HubSpot Partner, we help businesses successfully implement and optimise their HubSpot Portal. If you require further assistance, you can get in touch with us here.
