How to Create HubSpot Custom Reports (Beginners Overview)

Any marketer will tell you: data is the key to a successful campaign. 

But how do you keep up with it all?

HubSpot’s new Custom Reporting tool allows you to filter through the data that you deem important, so you can make well-informed marketing choices and optimize your HubSpot campaigns.

Custom Reporting was launched in November 2018 and allows you to build custom reports that visualize the actionable and valuable data for your company and team. The HubSpot Report Builder allows you to report across data sets, a single data set, funnels or pipelines, and attributions.

Why Should You Create Custom HubSpot Reports?

HubSpot has a variety of great default, or embedded reports you can access. Reviewing metrics on email, social, or landing page performance, for example, is easy with these embedded reports. But if you are looking to further analyze your data, comparing items against one another or reviewing activities in more detail, a custom report may be required.

You can build custom reports on:

Marketing effectiveness, which includes:

• Contacts
• Companies

Sales effectiveness, which includes:

• Deals
• Activities
• Products
• Service Effectiveness

Service effectiveness, which includes:

• Ticketing

To create the most insightful reports, be sure to build combinations of the data above based on areas where your business would like to see improved visibility.

Who Can Use HubSpot Custom Reporting?

Prerequisites for Custom Reporting - Subscription:

Marketing Hub:

• Marketing Professional Subscription - 20 Custom Marketing Reports
• Marketing Enterprise Subscription - 200 Custom Marketing Reports

Sales Hub:

• Sales Professional Subscription - 1 Custom Sales Reporting Dashboard
• Sales Enterprise Subscription - 25 Custom Sales Reporting Dashboards

• Service Professional Subscription - 20 Custom Customer Service Reports
• Service Enterprise Subscription - 500 Custom Customer Service Reports

Reporting Add-On:

• Reporting Add-On - 2,000 Custom Reports (Marketing Hub, Sales Hub & Service Hub)

Dashboards

• When you start on HubSpot you have access to three standard dashboards. These are limiting in terms of how many reports you can build at one time as you may only do one report per dashboard.

Prerequisites for Custom Reporting - Dashboards:

Standard (No Add-Ons):

• 1 Marketing Dashboard, 1 Sales Dashboard, 1 Service Dashboard

Sales Hub:

• 1 Custom Dashboard with Sales Professional
• 25 Custom Dashboards with Sales Enterprise

Service Hub:

• 1 Custom Dashboard with Service Professional
• 25 Custom Dashboards with Service Enterprise

Reporting Add-On:

• 200 Custom Dashboards with the Reporting Add-On

If you’re interested in learning more about what’s available with each product and service, click here to go to HubSpot’s Product & Services Catalog to get full details.

What Should You Consider As You Build A HubSpot Custom Report?

Before you start building any report, consider these four things:

1. Your Data Set

This is the first step required to build a custom report, your data set will be the base of what the report is built around. You may report on a single data set such as:

• Contacts
• Companies
• Deals
• Activities
• Ticketing
• Products

2. Your Properties

Your properties are anything you can pull from a contact record. These properties will become the chosen data set your report is built around (X & Y axes). Examples would be contact properties (lifecycle stage) or deal properties (deal stage).

3. Filters

Filters allow you to take a deeper look at a report you are building. For example, you may filter by the owner of a deal or a contact. Your report can be filtered by any property within the realm of contacts, companies, deals, or tickets.

4. Visualization

Before building your report, you need to ask yourself “What is the most valuable way to visualize this report?” In the Custom Report builder you will be given the option to present your data visually using the following:

• Bar graph
• Line graph
• Columns
• Area graph
• Doughnut graph
• Pie chart
• Summary
• Table

With these elements, you’ll find it easy to build out a full and insightful report.

How Do You Compile Your Data?

To create an accurate report, you need clean data. This means you must have a consistent process for entering data.

If you do not have a consistent process for logging your data, you will run into problems later as you attempt to build custom reports. You may be required to manually update your data to ensure that your custom reports pull in accurately.

What is a Single Data Set Report and How Do I Build One?

These are the reports you likely already have access to. Taking one data set, like contacts, deals, blogs, etc., and building a report around it.

In the new reporting tool, you can see what you are working on as you go, and you can visually see what your report looks like as you build. This will allow you to make adjustments and be sure your report is pulling in the information you need. For example, if you build out a report based on a lifecycle stage, you can see if a contact is missing in the data set, before building the report.

Single Data Set Examples

Single Data Set Reports are your most common, straightforward reports - they report on a single data set based on a given time frame.

Examples of Single Data Set Reports include:

Contacts:

• Lifecycle Stage x Count of Contacts
• Lifecycle Stage x Count of Companies
• Lifecycle Stage + Industry x Count of Companies

Deals:

• Deal Stage x Deal Amount (Currency)
• Deal Stage x Count of Deals
• Product x Count of Deals

How to Build a Single Data Set Report In HubSpot

You can report on a single data set by following these four steps.

1. Choose your single data set, you will be given the option between:
   
   • Contacts
   • Companies
   • Deals
   • Activities
   • Tickets
   • Products
     
     
2. Once you have chosen your dataset, you will be able to add properties to build this report with the data you want. Data you select here can be visualized in the next step. (Ex. lifecycle stage, close date, etc.)
   
   If you have custom properties, you can build reports on these as well.
   
   
3. You may now choose your filter to map and measure your single data set. You can drag available properties to display along with the type of visual chart you would like the data to be displayed in. You will have the options of:
   
   • Bar
   • Column
   • Line
   • Area
   • Donut
   • Pie
   • Summary
   • Table
     
     
4. Then you can name your report and save it to your dashboard.

What is Reporting Across Data Sets and How Can I Do it?

With reports across data sets, you can analyze relationships between two different data types.

Whereas Single Data Set Reports allow us to measure on one property (contacts or deals), Across Data Sets now allows you to measure contact properties and deal properties together.

Across Data Set Reporting Examples:

Contacts & Companies:

• Lifecycle stage (Contact Property) x Industry (Company Property)

Deals & Contacts:

• Deal Amounts (Deal Property) x State or Region (Contact Property)

Contacts & Activities:

• Lifecycle Stage (Contact Property) x Last Activity (Activity Property)

How to Report Across Data Sets In HubSpot

To report across two different data sets, follow these steps:

1. Choose two data sets to report on, you will be given the option between:
   
   • Contacts
   • Companies
   • Deals
   • Activities
   • Tickets
   • Products
   
   Take the two data sets and watch as HubSpot begins to fill in the data visually, you can add and remove these data sets at any time.
   
   
2. Add in your specific contact properties. Once you’ve settled on the properties you’re looking for, it’s time to filter. If you are familiar with building lists, this is the same functionality, you can build in ‘and /or's’ and other filter options.
   
   Try and limit the data you’re looking at, the more you can hone in on specific data, the better.
   
   Once you’ve chosen your filters, wait until the data populates. Once complete, the report will allow you to select the visualization.
   
   
3. As you build the visual report, you can drag available properties to display and the type of visual chart you would like this data to be displayed in. You will have the options of:
   
   • Bar
   • Column
   • Line
   • Area
   • Donut
   • Pie
   • Summary
   • Table
     
     
4. Then you can name your report and save it to your dashboard.

What are Funnel and Pipeline Custom Reports and How Can I Build One?

Funnel & Pipeline Reports are used to quickly see the progress your marketing and sales teams are making. These reporting options are very valuable, but you may find you don’t use them as often as cross-dataset reports.

Funnel and Pipeline Reports show how your contacts, deals or events have moved through your selected stages. But keep in mind, it’s not going to give you a current count of examples in each stage. Instead, it is a count of examples that have entered into each stage at some point in your date range.

If you’re a business owner and want to understand why performance is lower in a singularly quarter, you can look at the holes in your pipeline process to see where customers or prospects are dropping off in the pipeline.

What is a Funnel Report?

Funnel Reports how your contacts, deals, or events have moved through your selected states. Again, keep in mind that it’s not going to give you a current count of examples in each stage. Instead, it is a count of examples that have entered into each stage at some point in your date range.

Event Funnel Reports (Enterprise Only)

With an Events Funnel Report, you can see which contacts engaged with events you've created in HubSpot. Use up to five events to define your events funnel. The report tracks how visitors are moving through these touch points on your website over time.

What is a Pipeline Report?

To create a Pipeline Report, you would instruct the report to build and look at ‘any stage’ and it would show the count of deals that have entered into each state on the report in the filtered date ranges, whether they’ve entered the previous stage or not.

If you are a business owner and want to learn what might be causing fissures in your process, or if you want to reposition resources or correct alignment in your processes, these reports can help.

How to Report on Funnels or Pipelines In HubSpot

To report on funnels or pipelines to show progress through contact or deal stages, follow these steps:

1. Choose a data set for your funnel or pipeline, you will be given three options:
   
   • Contacts
   • Deals
   • Events
2. Choose filters to narrow down your data. You may choose between date ranges or more specific filters based on registration or contact information.
   
   
3. You may now move onto the visualization stage where you will choose a chart type. You can still add and remove filters at this stage.
   
   
4. Name your report and save it to your dashboard.

What is an Attribution Report and How Do I Build One?

An Attribution Report is based on the interactions on your website. Basically, this report analyzes the interactions that lead to conversions on your website or within your marketing efforts. This report takes into account your sources report and reviews your contacts and leads. The report even understands where your contacts and leads are coming from, how they got to your site and more.

Attribution Reports can only report on contacts data. Once you’ve selected “contacts”, you can select the date range of information you would like. Once you have your dates selected, move onto “Visualization”.

How to Report on Attribution In HubSpot

To report on attribution, follow these steps:

1. Choose one of three different visual chart types.
   
   
2. Move down to your metrics, where you can choose between:
   
   • Contacts assisted
   • % of contacts
   • Score / 100
     
     
3. Choose your attribution object:
   
   • URL
   • Referrer
   • Source
     
     
4. Choose your attribution model:
   
   • All interactions
   • First touch
   • Last touch
   • First and last touch
   • Last interaction
   • Simple decay

You may now run your report.

You may need to wait a few minutes while your report loads, but this will help you understand who came to your website from specific sources and through various marketing efforts. You can review the first touchpoint, how visitors found you, and learn to better align your marketing efforts and budget to support grown in first touchpoint landing pages, blogs posts, and website pages.

Congratulations! You now know how to build your own custom report in HubSpot. Happy data hunting!