HubSpot dashboards your leadership team will actually open
Most HubSpot accounts have dozens of reports and no answers. We build a few dashboards around the questions your owners and managers ask every week, and set up attribution that shows which marketing turned into revenue.
Free, 30 minutes, and you'll leave with at least one clear next step.
- Hub
- All hubs; revenue attribution in Marketing Hub
- Plan needed
- Revenue attribution needs Marketing Hub Enterprise
- Status
- Generally available
Contact attribution needs Marketing or Content Hub Professional
Why do HubSpot dashboards go unused?
It's rarely the software. Usually the data going in is incomplete, and the dashboards were never planned around the questions people ask.
Managers don't trust the reports
Open deals that died months ago are still in the pipeline. Deal amounts are blank or rounded. The total looks bigger than it really is, so leaders keep their own spreadsheet.
Too many reports, no story
Every past project added a few charts. Now there are forty, and none of them answer "Are we on track this month?"
Key fields are optional
If reps can skip territory, product or service line, or lead source, you can't report on them later.
Offline marketing is invisible
Events, referrals and phone calls never get logged, so marketing that works looks like it does nothing.
Dashboards owners and managers open every week
- This month's sales against target, by rep and territory
- Open quotes by age, so stale ones get a call
- New leads by source, and how many became deals
- Won and lost deals by product or service line, with loss reasons
- Rep activity, such as calls, meetings and quotes sent
- Service tickets by type and response time, if you run service in HubSpot
We start with your questions and work back to the data
A dashboard is only as good as the fields behind it. We agree on the questions first, fix the data second and build charts last.
Stage 1: List the questions leaders ask
We sit with your owner, sales lead and marketing lead and write down what they need to know each week.
We ask each leader what they check on Monday morning, what they ask their team for, and what they wish they knew. Most lists come down to ten or fifteen questions. That list becomes the plan, and anything that doesn't answer a question on it stays off the dashboard.
You get A short list of the questions your dashboards must answer.
Stage 2: Check the data behind each question
For each question, we find the fields it depends on and check how often they're filled in and correct.
If you want sales by territory, every deal needs a territory. If you want revenue by lead source, every closed deal needs a contact with a source. We measure the gaps, close out dead deals, and make key fields required where it makes sense. This is usually most of the work.
You get A data cleanup list, with the fixes made.
Stage 3: Build a few focused dashboards
One dashboard per audience, such as leadership, sales managers and marketing, each with only the charts they need.
We build each dashboard around its audience's questions and in the order they'd ask them. Unused old reports get archived so people can find the ones that matter. Where a question needs data from your accounting system, store or ad accounts, we bring that data into HubSpot first.
You get Dashboards for each audience, with unused reports cleared out.
Stage 4: Connect marketing to revenue
We set up attribution reports and make sure offline sources like events and referrals get logged.
We pick an attribution model with you, set up tracking for ads and email, and create a simple way for reps to log event and referral sources. We check the reports against deals your team remembers, so the numbers make sense to them.
You get Attribution reports your team believes.
Stage 5: Make the dashboards part of the week
We set up scheduled emails and walk each leader through their dashboard.
Dashboards get used when they show up on their own. We schedule the right one to land in each leader's inbox before their weekly meeting, and train managers to run the meeting from it. A month later we check what's being opened and adjust.
You get Dashboards delivered on a schedule, and a team that uses them.
Step 4 in practice: which attribution model to pick
Attribution means deciding which marketing gets credit for a sale. HubSpot offers several ways to split that credit across everything a buyer touched. Here's how we explain the common ones to owners.
HubSpot attribution models in plain words
- First touch gives all the credit to how the buyer first found you.
- Last touch gives all the credit to the last thing they did before converting.
- Linear splits credit evenly across every touch.
- U-shaped gives the most credit to the first touch and the touch that created the lead.
- W-shaped adds heavy credit for the touch that created the deal. It's available for deal and revenue reports.
- Time decay gives more credit to recent touches, with credit halving every 7 days back.
- J-shaped and inverse J lean credit toward the last or first touch, without giving it all away.
- Full path spreads credit across the whole path to a closed deal. It's available for revenue reports.
Which attribution reports does your plan include?
Marketing Hub or Content Hub Professional
- Contact create attribution
- Shows which channels and pages brought in new contacts
- Good for knowing where leads come from
Marketing Hub Enterprise
- Deal create attribution
- Revenue attribution
- Shows which marketing led to deals and closed revenue
- Needs won deals with an amount, a close date and a contact attached
What does revenue attribution need to work?
Revenue attribution only counts won deals that have a contact attached, an amount, a create date and a close date. Many accounts fail this test. Deals get created without a contact, or the amount stays blank until the order or invoice is entered in another system. We fix that first.
Offline touches are the other gap. A conversation at an event, a referral from a partner or a phone call lands in a catch-all bucket unless it's tracked. For many businesses, that can hide your best source. We set up simple ways to log those touches so they show up in the report. For deeper ad tracking across platforms, see our ad tracking and reporting service.
Can HubSpot report on margins and repeat purchases?
Only once that data is in HubSpot. If your margins, deliveries or repeat purchases live in your accounting, store or back-office system, a dashboard can't show them until the data comes over. We bring it in through integrations like NetSuite or Data Hub. Some data needs reading or judgment first, such as turning call notes into fields or predicting who will buy again. For that we build custom AI workflows that write the results into HubSpot so you can report on them.
Two client examples. One client can now report by territory, rep and product, because deals carry the details managers need. Another got deal and rep activity dashboards for managers after moving off Salesforce.
Reporting work in practice
A commercial oven maker put its forgotten leads back in front of sales in just over 45 days
Read the case studyA power systems manufacturer left Salesforce and now sells from one system tied to its ERP
Read the case studyCharlie Hustle grew its Missouri customer list by more than 2,600%
Read itReporting and dashboards questions
Do I need Marketing Hub Enterprise for attribution?
For revenue and deal create attribution, yes. Contact create attribution works on Marketing Hub or Content Hub Professional, which tells you where new contacts came from.
Which attribution model should we use?
For longer sales with many touches, U-shaped or W-shaped is often a sensible start, because they credit both how a buyer found you and what turned them into a deal. We pick one with you and compare it with a second model so you see the range.
Why don't events and referrals show up in our HubSpot reports?
Offline touches land in a catch-all bucket unless they're tracked. We set up a simple way for your team to log event, referral and phone sources on the contact or deal.
Can a dashboard show what customers bought in our other systems?
Only once the order data is in HubSpot. HubSpot's NetSuite connector can bring in orders and invoices, and Data Hub adds more sync and cleanup options for other systems.
Why is our pipeline total so much higher than closed sales?
Usually because old deals were never closed out, and amounts are missing or guessed. At one client, the sales leader guessed open deals looked about four times bigger than they really were. Cleaning that up comes before any new dashboard.
How many dashboards should we have?
Fewer than you think. One per audience is a good rule, such as leadership, sales managers and marketing. Each should answer a short list of agreed questions.
Can HubSpot send dashboards by email?
Yes. We schedule dashboards to arrive in each leader's inbox before their weekly meeting, which is the simplest way to get them used.
Related
Show us the dashboard your team stopped opening
On the call, share your current HubSpot dashboards. We'll tell you what's missing, what to cut and what data you'd need to fix it.