An Actual, Practical Guide to Doing a HubSpot Portal Audit [Walkthrough]

 

I'm calling it out: there's a lot of information in HubSpot. This is not something you can learn inside out overnight, and to top it off they're constantly tweaking and re-designing their tools.

 

 HubSpot's improvements are often welcome and make it the up-to-date powerhouse it is, but they can leave you feeling a little on the back foot. HubSpot moves fast.

Before you start panicking, let’s remember the one thing about HubSpot that made us all love it in the first place: the huge amount of data and visibility over what your customers actually care about. If you're hot on personalisation, targeting, and data-driven decision-making (and let's face it, you should be), you're in the right place.

In your HubSpot portal, you'll find all the signals you need to improve your results — you just need to know where to look.

Your 10-Step HubSpot Portal Audit Program

Think of this as a quarterly or bi-annual checkup for your HubSpot portal, similar to a dentist appointment (but hopefully less painful). The more often you do it, the better your portal's health will be.  

This audit focuses on the basics, ensuring your portal is clean, tidy, and easy to manage, regardless of your business objectives, KPIs, or the number of hubs you have.  If you’d like more details, download our guide here.

1. User & Team 

Remember that contractor from 2021 who still has super admin access? Yeah, it's time we fix that. Here's what to do:

Navigate to Settings > Account Defaults > Users & Teams

• Active users: Ensure all users are still active and remove any inactive accounts.
• Super admins: Limit the number of super admins to maintain security and control.

Teams: Organise users into teams for better collaboration and permission management.

2. Tracking Code Check

This is like checking if your fitness tracker is actually on before starting your workout. Because no, you can’t attribute leads to marketing generated if you can’t even see website visits. The good news is, this is a super easy fix!

Go to Settings > Tracking & Analytics > Tracking Code

Copy your HubSpot tracking code and follow the instructions to get it installed on your website. Remember: this is only for externally hosted websites. If your website is hosted through HubSpot then this is automatically done for you!

3. GDPR Compliance

GDPR compliance can be boring to talk about, we understand but if you’re in the UK or EU then it's not optional. Here’s where to go and what to check:

Settings > Tracking & Analytics > Privacy and Consent

Ensure your settings are:

• Clearly defined
• Properly implemented
• Actually working (Test those preference centres!)

4. Security Settings

This one isn't directly related to your campaign's performance but it's an important step you shouldn't overlook.

'There’s been an uptick in security incidents across the software industry', writes HubSpot. 'We’ve seen bad actors target HubSpot accounts with weak security controls in order to make fraudulent purchases, export contacts, and even send malicious email. That’s why using the following security measures to protect your data is more important than ever before.”

Very helpfully, HubSpot provides a security health check that highlights potential issues like too many super admins or inactive two-factor authentication. Address any red flags immediately to protect your portal from data breaches. Things to be on the lookout for are:

• Too many super admins 
• Missing two-factor authentication 
• SSO if you’re enterprise

Head over to Settings > Security.

5. Domain & URL Review

Let's talk about domains—when was the last time you checked if everything was properly connected?

"I've seen clients wonder why their email deliverability is dropping, only to discover their sending domains were never properly authenticated," says our HubSpot onboarding specialist.

Head over to Content > Domains and URLs and check these critical items:

• Is your email sending domain correctly set up? (This is non-negotiable if you want your emails to actually reach inboxes)
• Have all your domains been connected properly?
• DKIM authentication: This cryptographic signature tells receiving servers "Yes, this email really is from us"
• DMARC configuration: Think of this as your email's security guard, preventing spoofing and phishing

6. Data 

Data can be a big problem for your portal, which is why every quarter you should be checking where you’re at. We recommend building out a Data Hygiene Dashboard for ease. We have a whole blog on it here but some options to include are:

• Contacts missing first name
• Deals stuck in time (If it's been "closing next week" since 2022, we need to talk)
• Companies with a missing domain

This step shouldn’t be undervalued, as our Platform Consultant says: "When you clean your data quarterly, you're not just organising—you're literally improving your marketing effectiveness. Every field completed is another personalisation opportunity unlocked."

7. Marketing Contact Limit

Let's talk about a situation many HubSpot users dread: that unexpected bill when you've exceeded your marketing contact limit.

If you're edging closer to your marketing contact limit, you're at risk of automatically being pushed into the next tier and being charged immediately. For some businesses, this is unavoidable—as your company grows, you might genuinely need more marketing contacts. But if you don't, you're essentially throwing money away.

Take control of your contact limits by heading to:

• Account & Billing > Marketing Contacts: This is your dashboard for monitoring usage
• Consider setting up usage alerts (here’s a hack to help you set this up)
• Do a regular cleanup of non-marketing contacts with a workflow (try one like this)
• Archiving inactive contacts 

Remember: HubSpot's definition of a marketing contact is someone you're actively marketing to. If you're not sending them marketing emails or including them in campaigns, they probably shouldn't count against your limit.

8. Workflow Health

So often I come across HubSpot portals where workflows aren’t being used at all, let alone very well. This is the place where you can take a subscriber to a marketing qualified lead, you can guide someone through their buyer’s journey and most importantly, you can build a relationship with them.

Time for a workflow wellness check:

• When was the last time this workflow enrolled anyone? Look for any workflow that hasn't enrolled a contact in 90+ days. 
• Question whether each automation still aligns with your current goals and buyer journey.
• Is this named something more helpful than "Copy of Copy of New Workflow 3"?
• Check if any workflows are sending conflicting messages or creating enrolment loops.

9. Report Renovation 

Reports should inform decisions, not collect dust. Yet many portals are filled with forgotten analytics nobody has looked at in months. Our recommendations are:

• Delete those "Untitled Report 7" abominations
• Archive any report nobody has viewed in the last quarter
• Combine duplicate reports that are measuring essentially the same thing
• Verify that your most important metrics are actually calculating what you think they are

The best reports answer a specific business question so if you can't immediately say what question a report answers, it probably shouldn't exist.

10. Dashboard Declutter

Your dashboards should show you exactly what you need to know, with nothing extra to distract you. If you’re finding this isn’t the case then consider: 

• Archiving dashboards nobody has viewed in 90+ days
• Creating role-specific views (What does the SDR team need to see versus the CMO?)
• Standardising naming conventions so anyone can find what they need
• Ensuring each dashboard tells a complete story without requiring viewers to jump between multiple screens

The ultimate test of a good dashboard is whether a busy executive can glance at it for 30 seconds and understand exactly how things are going. If it requires explanation every time, it's not doing its job.

Still struggling to put your finger on the problem?

Believe me, it happens. Sometimes on the surface it can look like things are going more than well. Your campaigns are performing, your website has a stellar conversion rate. But actually, you can’t really tell what happens to them after that. You have no idea how you’re impacting the final revenue number.

At this point, you need to be considering your internal alignment. We cover this in more detail in the full portal audit guide here.

For now though, you have the steps to open the bonnet on your HubSpot portal and quickly diagnose a few areas for improvement. Get your action points into a list and prioritise, you really don’t have to do it all at once.

Most of us could benefit from a change of perspective, now and then. If you still feel like you want help interpreting the data in your HubSpot portal and finding out what you could be doing to improve your results, we would be more than happy to help.

To benefit from our HubSpot platform consultants' expertise, click the button below and get in touch now.