HubSpot (HUBS) just rolled out a series of product announcements at its annual Inbound conference. It’s the first Inbound for the Cambridge-based marketing software firm since its IPO in last fall. The inbound marketing pioneer is now valued by the market at nearly $1.6 billion.
Here’s what CEO Brian Halligan and CTO Dharmesh Shah announced Wednesday:
HubSpot Connect
The biggest new product to debut at Inbound, HubSpot Connect, aims to bring together customer data located in different apps together in a central system. The goal is to help companies that use multiple different apps to solve problems for customers more quickly and effectively. HubSpot gives the example of billing data, website activity, customer service tickets and event participation as elements that are brought together by HubSpot Connect, as a way to provide a timeline of all interactions you’ve had with your customer. The product “extends the power of the HubSpot platform by integrating with top-performing tools used across departments to attract, engage and delight customers,” Halligan said.
One key integration is customer service platform Zendesk, while other integrations include Eventbrite, Freshbooks (billing), Teamwork (online project management) and UberConference (conferencing).
On the face of it, HubSpot Connect sounds like Bedrock Data, a Boston startup that was dreamt up within HubSpot and announced a $3.1 million Series A round in April. Three of the company’s founders were formerly at HubSpot, and HubSpot was named as a customer of Bedrock as of April. But Bedrock describes its product as syncing data from different cloud applications to keep it accurate and up-to-date, while HubSpot connect appears to be about keeping data organized by customer.
When asked whether HubSpot Connect and Bedrock Data will be competitors, a HubSpot spokesperson said in an email that "We've always provided native integrations with other tools and platforms in addition to working with trusted integrations partners like Bedrock Data."
Leadin
HubSpot announced the debut of Leadin, a tool that lets users capture more information about website visitors and learn more about their contacts—such as what pages they’ve visited and what social networks they’re on—with the goal of generating more leads. The tool was developed within the company’s experimental division, HubSpot Labs. I’d previously noted that two early employees working on Leadin were product manager Andy Cook (formerly of Rentabilities) and product designer Nelson Joyce.
Enhancements to Sidekick for Business and CRM
Last year, HubSpot announced its foray into CRM along with Sidekick, a software tool for salespeople. Today the company said it has added:
- Sidekick Connections, described as "a new way for sales teams to find relevant connections within their companies"
- Prospects, which helps sales teams "uncover useful details about companies expressing early interest by visiting your website"
- And also Sequences, a "fresh approach for sales teams to keep in touch with their prospects in a relevant way over time."
Reporting Add-on
For HubSpot’s marketing and sales products, the company is debuting a new way to provide custom reporting. The Reporting Add-on takes essential reports and consolidates them, so they can be viewed on “one easily accessible and customizable screen where both marketing and sales can see all of the metrics they are accountable for in one place.”
