When you hear the term "events," you may think that we are talking about event registration or another way to project management tools for your next event. However in HubSpot, Events have a completely different meaning.
An Event in HubSpot is an interaction someone has with your website or app. Think of it as some sort of electronic interaction a website visitor can have with your company. For example, track the number of contacts and customers that have clicked on a call-to-action on your website. Then take it a step further and send specific communications to that group of people. This is segmenting based on actions taken on your website.
In this blog post we will walk through how to get started using the Events app.
Note that this is an Enterprise feature only. However, if you are interested in trying out this feature, sign up for free 30-day Enterprise trial.
How to Get Started with the Events App
To get started, install the Events Bookmarklet. This will make it easy for you to create new events quickly and easily for clicked elements.
Go to any page on your website. Click on "Create new event" in your bookmarks bar. Your screen should look like the following screenshot once your Events Bookmarklet is activated. Click on an element of the page. In this case, I clicked on Customize Price under the PRO column. By tracking this link, I will be able to have a list of contacts who have clicked on it.
A module will pop up allowing you to name your event. When you are finished, click Create Event.
When you are done, you will be able to click on View all Enterprise events to see your results.
Once you are in the Events app, you will see a running list of all the Events you have created.
After awhile, you will start to gather data with your event and be able to see how many visitors completed your event and how many contacts and customers completed the event. Here is an example of an event that was set up for when someone visited blog.biglytics.com.
You can also create Events for when someone visits a URL, submits a form, or any custom element. To get started with these Events, go to Reports > Events. Select "Create new event" on the right side. You will be brought to the following screen. To create an Event for a visited URL, simply type in the URL next to Page URL. You can also tag it with keywords.
From this screen, you can also select "Clicked Element" from the dropdown to create your event from scratch. I would recommend using the Event Bookmarklet, but this is another option. You can choose a tag for this as well.
You can also select "Submitted Form" from the dropdown. Then select the form you want to track. You can also add the Page URL if you only want to track form submissions on a specific page and can tag it if you would like.
Finally, you can also use JavaScript to create your own custom event.
For more details on setting up each of these examples, see the Events User Guide.
Examples of When to Use the Events App
After you set up your Events, there are so many other things you can do to incorporate them into your marketing in addition to the report that is created every time you create an event.
Create a list from your Event to Use in Workflows, Emails, or Reporting
After you have created your event, you can create a list of contacts who completed that event. This list can then be used in different areas of your marketing such as email marketing.
To create your list, go to Contacts > Lists in the top navigation. Select "Create new list". You will then be brought to the page where you can set the criteria for your list.
Select Event from the first dropdown. The second dropdown will be grayed out. In the third dropdown you can select "has had event" or "has not had event". You can refine this dropdown based on a rolling date range, on or before a certain date, on or after a certain date, or the number of times someone completed the event. You also don't have to refine the criteria. In the final dropdown, select the Event from the dropdown that you want to create the list off from. When you are done setting the list criteria, select "Save list" at the bottom right.
You will then have a list based off your Event criteria. You can use this list in your email marketing efforts, in a workflow, or to create an advanced report. Having this list handy is extremely useful to segment your marketing efforts based on actions in addition to the information you have gathered about your audience.
Notify Sales Reps when a Prospect Views the Pricing Page
In addition to using Events for your email marketing and reporting purposes, you can also use Events for internal communication purposes. Let's say you set up an Event on the pricing page as you did earlier. By using workflows, you can then notify specific sales reps when their prospect views the pricing page. This simple notification can be extremely helpful for sales reps in closing deals after they know the prospect is interested in buying.
How else do you think you would use the Events app in your marketing?
