Migrating from Marketo to HubSpot - Step by Step Guide

Migrating from Marketo to HubSpot - Step by Step Guide

Ranya Barakat

June 15, 2021
2 MIN READ

Marketo is a great marketing automation tool for enterprise marketing teams who have multiple resources to work on marketing automation, including developers, strategists, and tech marketing to execute the campaigns. However, many small to medium-sized companies struggle to find the budget, expertise, and resources, and they are left feeling feel like they're not making the most out of their Marketo license investment. 

For this reason, many have considered switching to a powerful yet easy-to-use marketing automation platform like HubSpot.

Working on tens of Marketo migrations, I know that it is hard to change to a new marketing automation system. But if you plan carefully, the process can be easy. 

Here are the 10 step process to follow for a successful Marketo to HubSpot migration

How to migrate your data from Marketo to HubSpot

  1. Marketo Audit
  2. Property creation
  3. Perform a full Marketo data export
  4. Setup Forms & Smart Lists
  5. Set up emails
  6. Set up workflows
  7. Set up lead scoring
  8. Set up landing pages
  9. Import data to HubSpot
  10. Review and turn on workflows

Step 1: Marketo Audit

The first step is auditing your Marketo system. The audit includes 

  • Contact properties
  • Integrations
  • Lists
  • Lead scoring
  • Campaigns
  • Emails
  • Landing Pages
  • Forms

Now is an excellent time to consider cleaning up your database from spam emails, invalid or inactive contacts, bounced emails, outdated properties, etc.

Step 2: Property creation

In this step, you will create the new custom properties in HubSpot or use the existing HubSpot standard properties so that when you import the data from Marketo, you can easily map it to properties to HubSpot.

Step 3: Perform a full Marketo data export

In step three, you will perform a full Marketo data export on multiple stages. First, you will export all contacts, then s separate export for each of the Marketo lists to be imported to Hubspot in step 9

HubSpot does not allow importing Web analytics data or email performance data from other systems. Therefore, if you have smart lists that depend on web analytics data or email performance like email opens or clicks, you need to import the contacts in these lists as static lists into HubSpot.

Step 4: Setup Forms & Smart Lists

In this step, you will need to recreate all the forms and smart lists in HubSpot.

Step 5: Set up emails

In this step, you will recreate all email templates and emails in HubSpot. HubSpot has an easy drag & drop email editor to create beautiful emails.

If you plan to use these emails in HubSpot workflows, you will need to save them automated emails.

Step 6: Set up workflows

To migrate Marketo campaigns to HubSpot, you will recreate campaigns as HubSpot workflows. 

HubSpot and Marketo have different logic in building automation, so this is an excellent time to document and review your Marketo campaigns before migrating.

Step 7: Set up lead scoring

There are some differences between Marketo and HubSpot when it comes to lead scoring; for example, HubSpot lacks product-based lead scoring and time-based degradation of lead scores, which are available through Marketo.

In addition to re-creating scoring rules in HubSpot, it is essential to import old Marketo scores in new custom properties, so you have a record of historical scores.

Step 8: Set up landing pages

Using Marketo landing pages, you will create new landing page templates in HubSpot CMS and build your landing pages in HubSpot.

If you are not using Marketo landing pages and using Unbounce or any other tool for your landing pages with Marketo forms, you can swap the landing page forms with HubSpot forms.

Step 9: Import data to HubSpot

Before importing your CSV exports from Marketo, it's essential to upload the unsubscribe lists, validate emails to remove SPAM and bounce email addresses before adding them to HubSpot to avoid any negative impact on your email deliverability score.

Step: 10: Review and turn on workflows

Test each of your workflows, verify exclusion lists and re-enrollment options before activating your automation workflows

The best way to plan for a successful Marketo to HubSpot migration is with the help of an experienced team. We have been helping companies migrate successfully from one marketing automation platform to another since 2015. We can guide you to make this transition as smooth as possible. Contact us today for more information on how we can assist in migrating all of your data without downtime or disruption!

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Ranya Barakat

Ranya is a serial entrepreneur with over 11 years of experience working on the HubSpot CRM. She is a tech geek with a passion for solving problems for customers. She loves pushing her sleeves up , and getting s*** done. When she is not running her Global services team, you can find her upside down on her yoga mat.

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