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The 9 Best HubSpot Certifications (From Someone Who's Completed Them All!)

The 9 Best HubSpot Certifications (From Someone Who's Completed Them All!)

Gem Rugg-Gunn
Gem Rugg-Gunn

HubSpot Academy is home to a variety of courses to help you advance your skills and grow your business. Which are the best HubSpot certifications to get and where should you start? Let us take you on a tour!

If you're looking for ways to focus your mind, progress your inbound marketing and feel productive, training could be a great answer. On our journey to become an Elite HubSpot solutions partner, we've completed a fair bit of it. In fact, at time of writing, I've completed all of HubSpot Academy's certifications. You can, too.

Read on for the answers to common HubSpot training questions like:

  • Which topics will be useful and where can you study them? 
  • Are HubSpot certifications free?
  • How long does each HubSpot certification take?

Prefer a podcast? Discover the top 42 digital marketing podcasts that will enhance your marketing.

In case we haven’t met…

…I’m Gem and I’ve worked at BabelQuest for over six years now. In my current role, I help clients to scope, build, and maintain a HubSpot portal that works for them and their business goals. In 2019 I had the pleasure of speaking at HubSpot’s annual INBOUND conference in Boston. If you’re interested, you can read more about my exploits here.

What is HubSpot Academy?

Offering free online training for inbound marketing, sales, and service professionals, HubSpot Academy provides certifications, courses and individual lessons for those of us looking to grow our skills and our organisations.

From quick, 30-minute lessons to comprehensive, longer certifications, HubSpot Academy is there to help you market, sell and grow your business using the inbound methodology. If you go for a certification, they can last anywhere from one to six hours depending on the topic. Each one is made up of a series of lessons, videos, exercises, and quizzes, plus a final exam at the end.

HubSpot's globally recognised certifications can help you advance your career and stay up-to-date on the latest digital trends. Most of all, HubSpot Academy can show you new ways to generate leads, close more deals, and delight your customers.

Ready to jump in and evolve your skills? Let’s get to it!

Need help with HubSpot?

9 HubSpot Certifications to complete during lockdown


1. Inbound


If you’re new to the inbound methodology, HubSpot Academy’s core Inbound certification is a great place to start.

This certification offers a series of courses dedicated to teaching you all about the foundations of inbound, applying the inbound methodology and 'flywheel' (a model of how to achieve continued growth) into your own organisation. It also goes into setting business goals, creating personas, and developing the buyer’s journey for your business. [Course length: just under 2 hours.]

Take the Inbound certification

2. Inbound Sales and Marketing


These two courses go deeper into the inbound methodology and approach. They explain how you can "attract, engage, and delight" prospects and customers.

Inbound Sales

If you're looking for the basics of an inbound take on sales, this course is designed to give sales reps actionable tips they can use. If you want to identify which contacts to reach out to and how to connect with them, this course will also help you find out their needs and drive results. [Course length: about 2 hours.]

Take the Inbound Sales certification

Inbound Marketing

What are some inbound marketing techniques you could use? From content creation to converting and nurturing leads, this course develops your understanding of core tactics so you can advance your skills, build your strategy, and improve your inbound marketing. [Length: about 4 hours.]

Take the Inbound Marketing certification

3. Sales and Marketing Software 

These two courses offer up ways to get to know the HubSpot tools and use them effectively.

Sales software

If you're in sales, learn how to carry out an inbound sales process in HubSpot CRM and Sales Hub. Find out how to make the most of the tools on offer, including how to close more sales using CRM deals together with Sales Hub tools. Each class ends with practical exercises for you to complete, which make up part of the certification. [Course length: about 1 hour.]

Take the HubSpot Sales Software certification

Marketing software

This course will give you a steer on how to use HubSpot marketing tools well. You'll get an overview of the Marketing Hub but also be shown ways to improve how you use it, including a case study. As with the sales software course, there is a practical element (which makes you test out your knowledge) as well as the exam. [Course length: 4 hours.]

Note: It helps to be familiar with Marketing Hub before you start this course. Also, you can take the lessons for free, but if you want to gain the certification, some exercises require access to paid features in HubSpot Pro or Enterprise

Take the HubSpot Marketing Software certification

4. Frictionless Sales

Which is easier? Using force or removing friction (i.e. resistance)? When it comes to making a sale, removing friction is the way to help your sales team 'grow better', as HubSpot puts it. 

This will mean they can spend more time actually selling. Find out more about how to align your sales team with your target buyer and why a culture of learning will help sales. [Course length: at just over 1 hour, it looks like a quick win to us!]

Take the Frictionless Sales certification

5. Content Marketing

If content marketing is your thing, skill up with around six hours of valuable, expert tips. They cover ways to make your content production scalable and consistent, as well as SEO- and human-friendly. They also go into how to promote your content and what results to measure/analyse. [Course length: about 6 hours.]

Take the Content Marketing certification

6. Email Marketing

Want to learn how to build an email marketing strategy? Want to do things the inbound way, building trust and offering something that's actually helpful to your contacts? You can build in-demand skills with this certification, which runs through the practicalities of contact management, segmentation, email deliverability and analysis. [Course length: about 3.5 hours.]

Take the Email Marketing certification

If you don't have time for the certification right now (or you'd like to top up on expert guidance!) check out two articles from the BabelQuest team:

7. Social Media Strategy

What could social media do for you? Let's start with attracting new customers (and partners) and building brand awareness and loyalty.

Having a defined, effective strategy will also help you expand all of your other marketing efforts. This course teaches you about strategy, social listening, moderation, content creation, digital advertising, how to calculate ROI, and how to extend your reach. It's a great place to get a solid grounding in social media fundamentals. [Course length: 4 hours.]

Take the Social Media Strategy certification

8. Contextual Marketing

One of the great things about contextual marketing and smart content is being able to target the right people, at the right time, with the right content, whether that’s with smart CTAs, forms or text. You’re tailoring the content based on who the visitor is and what they’re looking for, leaving a lasting impression on their user experience. 

This course explains contextual marketing and personalisation, how to segment visitors on your website, and how to build a contextual marketing strategy and create smart content in HubSpot. [Course length: the videos add up to just over 1 hour, but the practical exercises will take you longer. It's worth the effort as this course is really one to take your marketing to the next level! You'll also have some useful smart content in place by the end.] 

Note: To complete the practical exercises that are part of the exam and earn this certification, you’ll need HubSpot Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise.

There are also several background requirements you should check out before you start. HubSpot suggests you have at least 500 contacts in your CRM and be using personas and content tailored to the buyer's journey. You should also understand lead segmentation.

Take the Contextual Marketing certification

9. PieSync Fundamentals

If you have an integration project coming up, these courses will teach you all about PieSync. Find out the difference between native integrations, custom integrations and iPaaS solutions. You’ll discover how PieSync is different from Zapier, as well as how to access it in HubSpot and how to get started with syncing data from other apps.

Although this certification is only available to HubSpot Solutions Partners, the same courses and lessons can be taken for free. The only difference is you’re missing out on the final exam and certificate. [Course length: 1 hour]

Take the PieSync course 

Next steps: how to stay up-to-date

Got the kids under your feet? Meaning to tackle the garden and the DIY as well? Don't forget that if it's an effort to carve out some study time, you can maximise it by downloading and reading the transcript and slides (or even speeding up course videos). That way, you can learn in the way that suits you.

Once you've got your certifications, what should you do with them next?

First, make sure you share them on LinkedIn and social media. Let your network (colleagues, employers, recruiters etc) know you're keeping up-to-date with best practice, trends, and tutorials from one of the leading platforms for inbound marketing. You might even recommend your favourites to your colleagues, or send your feedback to certification course leaders so they can continue to develop the material.

Next, think about how to apply what you've learnt to the real world. It's common for attendees to feel they've really benefited from training, then fail to follow up afterwards. You can't develop 'muscle memory' without ever using those muscles, so make a plan to use your new skills. SMART targets could feature as a way to set down when you're going to review what you've learnt and when/where you're going to use it. 

Finally, plan your next lessons and certifications! HubSpot Academy features lessons on a huge range of topics, as well as the certifications themselves. 

Staying on top of sales and marketing trends and keeping your strategies current means committing to your personal development (quick plug: it's part of our ethos at BabelQuest). The COVID-19 lockdown has been a pretty unique and challenging experience, so this is one way you can come out on top.

Looking for an expert?

Want help to implement HubSpot more effectively or to grow with an inbound mindset? Get in touch with us!

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Gem Rugg-Gunn
Author Bio
Gem Rugg-Gunn

Gem is an inbound enthusiast and HubSpot Platform Consultant at BabelQuest, an Elite-tier HubSpot Solutions Partner based in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.

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