Two-way HubSpot integration with Pendo (beta)

This article provides an overview of functionality offered by the HubSpot integration and how it works.

The new HubSpot integration with Pendo is a two-way integration that provides you with a more holistic view of your product usage and customer engagement in Pendo and HubSpot, respectively. With this integration, you can set up the connection between HubSpot and Pendo to do one or both of the following:

• Pull HubSpot information, such as account history and revenue, into Pendo to provide additional data points for segmentation, analytics, and guide-targeting.
• Push Pendo visitor data, account data, or both into HubSpot to help customer-facing and marketing teams get a more complete view of customers.

Prerequisites

• An active Pendo subscription.
• Access to the beta HubSpot integration.
• An active HubSpot account with read and write access to the HubSpot API. Specifically, you should have the following scopes (permissions):
  • crm.objects.companies.read
  • crm.objects.contacts.read
  • crm.objects.deals.read
  • crm.schemas.companies.read
  • crm.schemas.contacts.read
  • crm.objects.companies.write
  • crm.objects.contacts.write
  • crm.schemas.companies.write
  • crm.schemas.contacts.write

Use cases

By pulling HubSpot data into Pendo, you can use CRM data to:

• Target guides based on your customer segments and marketing campaigns.
• Report on product usage by customer tiers, pricing, or account status.
• Combine product insights in Pendo with trial conversion or upsells in HubSpot.
• Find the features and usage patterns that result in increased revenue.

By pushing Pendo data into HubSpot, you can:

• Build a more complete view of customer interactions and use this insight to improve customer satisfaction and retention.
• Create targeted outreach campaigns, identify sales opportunities, and build customer relationships based on product usage and sentiment data.
• Use behavior data to optimize and automate your marketing strategies through action-based workflows.

How it works

The HubSpot integration involves setting up a connection (mapping) before setting up either or both a push and a pull between Pendo and HubSpot. Both mapping and setting up a push and pull involve selecting fields belonging to the visitor and account objects in Pendo or properties belonging to the contacts and companies objects in HubSpot, but for different purposes.

• For mapping, you select:
  • One HubSpot contact property with values that match one-to-one with Pendo Visitor IDs.
  • One HubSpot company property with values that match one-to-one with Pendo Account IDs. 
• For setting up a pull, you select one or more HubSpot properties to add to Pendo as visitor and account metadata.
• For setting up a push, you select one or more Pendo fields to send to HubSpot, bundled as properties into a "property group".

After mapping objects and setting up a push or pull, you must then enable the integration to start automated daily syncs.

Mapping

Pendo data is grouped into two objects: a visitor object and an account object. These objects provide two possible bidirectional connections with the following HubSpot objects: contacts and companies.

• Visitors in Pendo connect with contacts in HubSpot.
• Accounts in Pendo connect with companies in HubSpot.

Before setting up a push or pull, you must first map Pendo objects to HubSpot objects. The data associated with Pendo objects are called "fields". The data associated with HubSpot objects are called "properties". For each Pendo object you want to connect with HubSpot, you must map the individual property of a HubSpot object to the corresponding Pendo object. This is the "Join Key".

• The Pendo Visitor ID field should map to the matching HubSpot Contacts property. For example, if you've set the Visitor ID in Pendo to be email, choose the "Email" property.
• The Pendo Account ID field should map to the matching HubSpot Companies property. This is typically something like "Company ID".

At this point, you're only setting up the connection between unique identifiers, not a pull or push. The unique identifiers are used for setting up both the pull and push functionalities, but the fields themselves aren't involved in a push or pull. Rather, the values of the fields that belong to the Pendo and HubSpot objects, chosen during the pull and push setup process, are pulled and pushed.

Setting up a "pull"

Pulling HubSpot data into Pendo involves selecting HubSpot properties belonging to one or both of the contacts or companies objects to add as metadata to visitors and accounts (respectively) in Pendo. You can use the resulting visitor and account metadata for segmentation in guides and analytics, and add these to your reports to view your CRM data in Pendo. 

Setting up a "push"

Pushing Pendo data into HubSpot involves selecting one or more Pendo visitor and account fields to send as properties in HubSpot. The fields you can push to HubSpot include:

• First Visit. The date of the visitor or account's first activity in Pendo.
• Last Visit. The date of the visitor or or account's last activity in Pendo.
• Usage Trending. The percentage change in activity between the last 180 days and the 180 days before that.
• Latest NPS Response. Results of the most recent NPS survey.
• Days Active. Number of days within the last 180 days that the visitor or account has been active in the application.
• Time on App. Number of minutes that the visitor or account spent in the application within the last 180 days.
• # of Total Visitors (account push only). Number of visitors belonging to an account.

The fields you push are bundled together into a Pendo “property group” in HubSpot, allowing HubSpot users to see what properties were created from Pendo fields.

Set up the integration

Setting up the HubSpot integration involves the following steps:

1. Create a Pendo integration key with write access
2. Start the HubSpot integration
3. Authenticate
4. Map objects
5. Configure the "pull" sync
6. Configure the "push" sync
7. Enable the integration

Step 1. Create a Pendo integration key with write access

To complete the integration, you must first create and save a Pendo integration key with write access.

1. Navigate to Settings > Integrations > Integration Keys.
2. Select + Add Integration Key.
3. Enter a meaningful description for your integration key.
4. Select the Allow Write Access box.
5. Select Create.
6. Securely capture and store your new key outside of Pendo at the time of creation because we can't retrieve lost or deleted integration keys for you.

Step 2. Start the integration

Mapping HubSpot Contacts and Companies with Pendo Visitor IDs and Account IDs must be done separately. After setting up one object (accounts or visitors), repeat the instructions from this step onwards to set up the other object.

1. In Pendo, navigate to Settings > Integrations.
2. Open the Beta Integrations tab. You only see this tab if you belong to the beta testing group for this new integration.
3. Of the two HubSpot tiles, choose either Accounts or Visitors. 
   
   
   
   
4. In the panel on the right side of the page, open the Setup tab.

Step 3. Authenticate

Setting up the two-way connection between Pendo and HubSpot involves authenticating to both and then creating a mapping between Pendo and HubSpot objects. 

Authenticate to Pendo

We use Tray.io for Pendo authentication, which means that you can leave some fields blank, as instructed below.

1. In the Setup tab, select the first New authentication option. This option includes the pink Pendo logo.
   
   
   
   
2. Enter your Pendo integration key.
3. Leave the Track event secret key and Pendo Adopt URL blank. 
4. Select Create. 
   
   
   

Authenticate to HubSpot

1. In the Setup tab, select New authentication under Connect your HubSpot account. This opens a login window for your HubSpot account.
   
   
   
   
2. Sign in to your HubSpot account. The login window automatically closes after you've authenticated.
3. After you've authenticated, select Next in the integration panel in Pendo.

Step 4. Map objects

To connect Pendo with HubSpot, the unique identifiers for visitors and accounts (Visitor IDs and Account IDs) must match exactly with the properties for Hubspot contacts and companies.

Mapping objects between Pendo and HubSpot involves choosing a Join Key from the dropdown menu. The Join Key is the HubSpot object property that contains the unique identifier shared across Pendo and HubSpot. By choosing a Join Key, you're telling Pendo which contact or company property in HubSpot you send to Pendo for the Visitor ID or Account ID, respectively.

• For visitors, select a HubSpot contact property to map to Pendo visitors. The HubSpot property is typically "Email".
• For accounts, select a HubSpot company property to map to Pendo accounts. The HubSpot Company property could be something like "Company ID" or "Company Name".

Step 5. Configure the "pull"

This step involves choosing what additional information (HubSpot properties) you want to pull from HubSpot into Pendo metadata. This is useful for segmentation and guide targeting. If you don’t want to pull any properties from HubSpot into Pendo, skip this step.

1. Select a HubSpot property from the dropdown menu to pull in from the HubSpot contact or company objects.
2. Select Add Property to add more than one property. 
3. Select Next when finished.

Step 6. Configure the "push"

This step involves choosing what Pendo usage data and NPS survey data you want to push into HubSpot. This creates a Pendo "property group" in HubSpot containing all the Pendo fields that you choose to send to HubSpot as properties. You can then see what properties were created from Pendo directly in HubSpot.

You can select zero or more fields in the Usage Data category and the NPS Survey Results category. If you don’t want to push any fields from Pendo into Hubspot, skip this step.

1. Select a field from the Add usage data dropdown menu.
2. Select Add Field to add more than one field.
3. Select a field from the Add NPS survey data dropdown menu.
4. Select Add Field to add more than one field.
5. Select Next and then Finish to complete the setup.

Step 7. Enable the integration

To start the daily syncs, enable the integration using the toggle in the Setup tab. A push and pull sync occurs immediately after the integration is enabled. This can take up to 20 minutes to run. After the initial run, the integration runs once a day to keep your data in sync.

View data pulled into Pendo

To verify and view both the visitor and account metadata pulled in from HubSpot, look for the orange HubSpot metadata fields in Settings > Data Mappings. The metadata appears in rows labeled HubSpot Integration under the Group column of the Metadata table.