Let the HubSpot Data Agent answer the questions your CRM can't
Standard data tells you a company's size and industry. It won't tell you if a company has its own in-house team for what you sell, or which tools it already uses. HubSpot's Data Agent, one of its Breeze AI agents, researches each company and writes the answer into a field you can sort, score and report on.
Free, 30 minutes, and you'll leave with at least one clear next step.
- Hub
- Marketing, Sales, Service, Data or Content Hub, or Smart CRM
- Plan needed
- Starter or higher (Smart CRM: Professional or higher)
- Status
- Generally available
Uses HubSpot credits for each question on each record
What is the HubSpot Data Agent?
The Data Agent is AI that researches each record in your CRM. You write a question, like "Does this company have its own marketing team?" The agent looks it up and saves the answer in a field on the company record. HubSpot calls these fields smart properties. (A property is HubSpot's word for a field.)
You can also add it as a step in your automated workflows, so research happens when something else does, like a new company being added. And if you use Data Studio, HubSpot's tool for building reporting tables, it can fill a column there.
The questions your best rep asks on every first call can be answered for every account before anyone picks up the phone.
Where does the Data Agent look, and where do answers go?
You choose which sources each question can use. The answer lands on the record, where the rest of HubSpot can use it.
Sources it reads
- Web research
- The company's own website
- Data already on the record
- Call transcripts
What moves
- Your question, per record ERP to CRM
- A short answer saved to a field CRM to ERP
Where answers land in HubSpot
- Fields on companies and contacts
- Workflow steps that research, then act
- Columns in Data Studio tables
- Lists, lead scores and reports
What questions should your team ask it?
The best smart properties are yes or no, or a short pick list. Here's a short mix from different kinds of companies.
- Software or services firm: Does this company list open roles for the team we'd support?
- Manufacturer: Does this account sell through dealers, direct or both?
- Online brand selling wholesale: Does this shop sell online, in a store or both?
- Professional services firm: How many offices does this company have?
- Any team: After a sales call, did the buyer name a start date? (read from the call transcript)
Data enrichment or the Data Agent?
HubSpot has two ways to fill in records. They work best together.
Data enrichment
- Fills standard fields like company size, industry and revenue
- Uses HubSpot's dataset and outside providers
- Does not use HubSpot Credits
- Off by default, can update monthly once turned on
- Good for the basics on every record
Data Agent
- Answers your own questions in your own fields
- Researches the web, the company site, record data and calls
- Uses credits for each question on each record
- Runs when you choose, by hand or as a workflow step
- Good for the details that decide who your reps call
We test every question before you pay to run it everywhere
You bring the questions your best salespeople ask. We turn them into fields worth paying for.
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Turn on enrichment first
Standard enrichment uses no credits, so we fill the basics there before spending credits on anything it can already answer.
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Write the questions
We pick two to four questions that would change who your team calls or how they pitch, and write them so the answers are short and consistent.
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Test on a small batch
We run each question on a small set of accounts your team knows well. We check the answers by hand and rewrite any question that comes back vague.
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Price it before scaling
We count the records and questions, multiply by HubSpot's current credit rate, and show you the cost before running it across the whole database.
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Put the answers to work
We use the new fields in lists, lead scores, workflows and reports, so the research changes what your team does.
When is a smart property worth paying for?
When the thing that makes an account a good fit is hard to find in standard data but easy to find with a little research. Most companies that sell to other businesses have at least one question like that.
Skip it for fields that enrichment already fills for free, and for questions with no public answer, like a private company's exact revenue. It also costs more than it should on a messy database full of duplicates, because you pay to research the same company twice. You need Starter or higher of Marketing, Sales, Service, Data or Content Hub, or Professional or higher of Smart CRM. HubSpot's help pages say Revenue Hub doesn't support smart properties, so ask us if that's your only hub. An admin must turn on HubSpot's AI settings and give each user Data Agent access.
You may also run into the Data Agent through deal progression. That feature suggests deal updates based on calls and emails. Updates to fields HubSpot ships with are free. Updates to fields you created run on the Data Agent and use credits.
When the answer lives in another system
The Data Agent researches what's public or already in HubSpot. If the answer is in your accounting, billing or order system, like a customer's last purchase date, that's a sync job. Photon Brothers saves about 10 hours a week because data now moves between HubSpot and its other systems by itself. For research that needs your own files or rules, we build custom AI workflows. For the sync side, see Data Hub.
Data Agent questions
What does it cost to run one question across our whole database?
Multiply the number of records by the number of questions, then by the credits HubSpot charges for each question on each record. Three questions use three times the credits of one. Your plan includes a monthly credit allowance, and you can buy more. HubSpot's credit rate sheet and pricing page show the current rate and what extra credits cost.
What's the difference between a smart property and a normal field?
A normal field waits for someone to fill it in. A smart property has a question attached, and the Data Agent researches the answer and fills it in for you.
Should we turn on data enrichment first?
Yes. Standard enrichment fills basics like industry and company size without using credits. Smart properties do use credits. So we turn on enrichment first and save the Data Agent for questions enrichment can't answer.
Can it read our sales calls?
Yes. Call transcripts are one of the sources a smart property can use, so it can pull things like a start date or a competitor name into a field after the call.
Does the Data Agent work if we only have Revenue Hub?
Check before you plan on it. HubSpot's help pages say Revenue Hub doesn't support smart properties. Starter or higher of Marketing, Sales, Service, Data or Content Hub works, as does Professional or higher of Smart CRM.
How accurate are the answers?
It depends on the question and how easy the answer is to find. Yes or no questions about things a company shows on its own website tend to come back well. That's why we test every question on accounts your team already knows before running it everywhere.
What can we do with the answers once they're in HubSpot?
Treat them like any other field. Lists, lead scores, workflows and reports can all use them. Workflows can also run the Data Agent as a step, so research can run when a new company comes in.
Related
Find the one question worth asking every account
On a call we'll look at your company records and help you pick the question that would most change who your team calls first, and what it would cost to answer it across your database.