Discover how CallRail transformed its partnership with HubSpot, achieving a 167% increase in integration adoption and tripling HubSpot-sourced opportunities.
CallRail, the award-winning AI-powered lead intelligence platform, wanted to enhance their strategic partnership with HubSpot to drive growth and customer satisfaction. Jenn Keepes, who joined CallRail in April 2022 as their Strategic Partner Marketing Manager, spearheaded efforts to evolve their integration from a basic data-sharing partnership to a robust, two-way data collaboration.
From Q1 2023 to Q1 2024, Jenn and her team were able to:
- Increase adoption of their HubSpot integration by 167%
- Drive 3x HubSpot-sourced opportunities YoY
- Increase the free trial-to-customer conversion rate by 42% for customers who activate the HubSpot integration
Read on to learn more about CallRail’s journey, including their strategic initiatives, challenges, and the significant role played by Reveal.
Rapid read: CallRail’s 8 strategies for success
**Note: This rapid read is a quick snapshot of the tactical takeaways from CallRail’s success. If you want to get the most out of this story and understand the context behind these tactics, keep scrolling to read the full story.
Two-way data sharing opens up a world of possibilities for HubSpot App Partners like CallRail. But data for data’s sake isn’t going to do anything but add some zest to your CRM unless it’s leveraged.
Jenn Keepes knew she needed to work shoulder-to-shoulder with her VP of Partnerships, her HubSpot App Partner Manager, and her other GTM stakeholders to develop a solid strategy for the HubSpot ecosystem that drove significant impact for CallRail.
CallRail’s story is multi-layered, with many initiatives happening simultaneously. However, there are 8 key decisions that she and her team made that drove their ultimate success.
Let’s dive in:
1. Strategic hiring: In 2023, CallRail decided to make a significant investment in their partnerships function by hiring a VP of Partnerships. This new leader brought an increased focus on partner data, with the goal of driving increased partner engagement and ultimately partner-sourced revenue.
2. Demonstrating value to HubSpot: CallRail focused on showcasing the value of their partnership by releasing significant improvements to the integration and running strategic co-marketing campaigns like the "3 lessons from 3,000 Users," which marked the milestone of 3,000 CallRail users in HubSpot and garnered attention and credibility within HubSpot.
3. Leveraging two-way data sharing: After gaining access to HubSpot customer data, CallRail ran several iterations of campaigns to maximize its value, including informing mutual customers of app updates, targeting mutual customers without CallRail's integration, and launching co-sell and co-service programs.
4. Internal enablement and sales training: CallRail created a host of internal and external enablement and training assets to meet customers and sales reps where they are. The turnkey materials allow sales reps on both teams to seamlessly speak to the benefits of the partnership between CallRail and HubSpot without interrupting key workflows.
5. Finding internal Sales Champions: They prioritized getting those early wins for Sales to demonstrate value and make those sellers champions so others buy-in on the value of partner data.
6. Running nearbound in Reveal: By leveraging HubSpot's two-way data sharing and a nearbound strategy in Reveal, CallRail saw significant results including a 167% increase in integration adoption, reduced churn, and increased customer satisfaction.
7. Integrating Reveal into Product-led Growth strategies: CallRail not only integrated Reveal data with the Salesforce integration, but they also pushed the data into tools like Marketo and Pendo—their main drivers for marketing and PLG. This allows them to target specific audiences in-app and onboarding email campaigns to drive integration adoption.
8. Continuous evangelism: CallRail constantly evangelizes their and HubSpot’s products together, sharing their "better together" story and values, generating momentum, and pushing success further.
These strategies have enabled CallRail to enhance its strategic partnerships, drive growth, and improve customer satisfaction within the HubSpot ecosystem.
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How CallRail is winning in the HubSpot ecosystem
The one-way to two-way data sharing journey
To focus on Partnerships, CallRail hired a VP of Partnerships, Mike Stocker, who was experienced with HubSpot’s ecosystem, having previous experience as a HubSpot App partner at RollWorks and managing the global Facebook/Meta-HubSpot partnership. Mike brought with him an increased focus on utilizing partner data, and how to leverage the data within CallRail’s various GTM systems.
CallRail has had a legacy integration with HubSpot since 2018, which was maintained minimally and needed revitalization to leverage the potential customer overlap and drive new opportunities. Jenn identified the need for a deeper partnership and began advocating for more substantial engagement with HubSpot.
“I came on in 2022 and started knocking at our App Partner Manager's door saying, ‘Hey, we see the integration adoption on our end, which leads us to believe we have a very robust ICP overlap. We should explore that.’ Then when Mike came on a year later, he really brought an increased focus on digging into that overlap and leveraging our customer data to drive more integrations.”
But with an ecosystem as large as HubSpot, it was going to take more than overlap data to get the keys to the castle.
“What makes HubSpot great is also the challenge, in that they have so many good app partners, and so many apps in their marketplace that all want to be supported by HubSpot, so making enough noise to be recognized as a key app partner was challenging.”
They initiated monthly meetings with their HubSpot App Partner Manager, leveraging customer data to showcase mutual benefits.
"We started having monthly meetings with our app partner manager and were able to say, listen, we know there's this adoption. Is there any way we can look at the customer data?"
Getting HubSpot’s attention
CallRail also focused on demonstrating the value of their partnership by first releasing significant improvements to the integration. CallRail has continued to update their integration bi-annually based on customer requests and feedback from the HubSpot team.
They then ran strategic co-marketing campaigns, including a celebration of their 3,000 active HubSpot user milestone, a large presence at HubSpot’s INBOUND conference, and joint webinars including HubSpot Solutions Partners.
“The 3,000 user campaign got us a lot of attention and was really successful from brand partnership perspective. We caught the attention of some of the top people at HubSpot, and they were like, ‘Oh, this company's really leaning in. They're a top partner in the calling category. There's value here.’”
Getting the most of two-way data sharing with HubSpot
When the CallRail team came home from INBOUND, it was time to shift gears. After all their hard work, they finally had access to HubSpot customer data. Now, it was time to get the most out of it.
CallRail ran several iterations of different campaigns to find the sweet spot. Three use cases stood out:
- Utilize the customer overlap data to inform their mutual customer base who have the integration of updates. They also targeted this group for case studies and utilization in co-marketing with HubSpot.
- Run campaigns that target mutual customers who did not use CallRail’s free integration, both programmatically in-app and through targeted outreach.
- Impact the co-sell and co-servicing programs. CallRail developed CRM reports and set up Slack notifications through Reveal as the primary pillars of their strategy. Jenn can find opportunities, get granular information, and share them with HubSpot, all in one place.
Co-sell program prep
CallRail began co-selling motions with HubSpot in Q1 2024, and Jenn set out to make sure their teams could seamlessly leverage and benefit from the program holistically, without interrupting key workflows.
Here’s how she did it:
- She created a host of enablement and training assets, priming her teams internally.
- CallRail aligned sales compensation with the goal of integration adoption to drive customer satisfaction and retention.
- She partnered with RevOps behind the scenes to import and create the integration between Reveal and their CRM, as well Reveal, Pendo, Marketo, and Zendesk. This allows them to see nearbound data on customer calls the moment they come in, empowering their sellers to direct the conversation based on their status with HubSpot.
A process of trial, error, and success
CallRail’s success didn’t come overnight. It was a trial and error process that eventually opened up their understanding of the importance of internal collaboration and how other teams were using CRM data.
As a partner marketer, Jenn had an idea about how the data would best serve her Sales team and how to deliver it. However, two months after implementing the reports from Reveal and her CRM, she saw no activity.
“I asked myself, why is no one using this? So we had to iterate. Then I iterated again. I brought in RevOps, I brought in sales leadership, and I brought in our support team from Reveal. I have to make sure we are putting the Reveal data where the sales reps are. I don't want them to have to look anywhere else. It should be turnkey.”
This was a key strategy for CallRail to get Sales team buy-in. Jenn ensured that the right data was getting to the right people at the right time and in the places their sellers were already working.
“Interrupting workflows and saying, “This will help you,” doesn’t work. It’s one thing to say it, it’s another thing to get inside their workflows and prove value.”
To do this, Jenn has taken the time to offer one-on-one support to her sellers. In these meetings, she identifies mutual opportunities, stalled deals, and offers to reach out to HubSpot for intel, influence, and introductions. This has resulted in more wins for her Sales team, which in turn, allows her to have more internal buy-in.
“As I have more and more of those wins now, I'm happy to report that our reps are really starting to form those relationships with HubSpotters to the extent that I'm not in the conversation.”
The results
By leveraging HubSpot’s two-way data sharing, their co-sell and co-service programs, and a nearbound strategy in Reveal, Jenn and her team have seen:
- Increased adoption of their HubSpot integration by 167%
“CallRail set a companywide annual OKR goal for HubSpot integrations. I have aligned with my App Partner Manager at HubSpot on this goal; he and I are in lockstep. The entire CallRail is rallied behind driving adoption, and utilizing the Reveal data to get us there.
- 3x HubSpot-sourced opportunities YoY
“We’re now seeing more HubSpot-sourced customers than ever before. Our dedication to the HubSpot ecosystem, and better visibility into what customers we already have, has driven real impact.”
- 42% higher free trial-to-customer conversion rate for customers who activate the HubSpot integration
“I think the real success and value of this co-sell and co-service program in utilizing Reveal data is in customer satisfaction and customer-added value. Our HubSpot integration is free for CallRail users at any plan level. We can proactively reach out to a customer who we know is having a challenge and say, ‘I've got CallRail and HubSpot right here. Let's jump on a call and let's problem-solve together.’ We've seen a lot of happy customers and reduced churn, which is a pillar KPI for us this year.”
And lastly, Jenn feels the increased momentum in the HubSpot ecosystem, a momentum CallRail will continue capitalizing on in both their product and GTM strategy.
“We are improving our HubSpot integration again based on what we’ve learned. The updates will be ready in August, so we will be doing another campaign leading up to INBOUND this year. We’re excited because it'll be obviously a lot more strategic in that we can target the right customers to share the updates that will improve their experience inside of HubSpot. We’ve built the Reveal integration into our tech stack to streamline the demand and customer campaign processes.”
Final thoughts
CallRail’s strategic partnership with HubSpot and the utilization of Reveal have proven to be pivotal in driving their growth and enhancing customer satisfaction.
By focusing on data-driven strategies and continuous improvement, CallRail has positioned itself as a key player in the HubSpot ecosystem, ready and willing to replicate their success in future initiatives.
"My strategy is to constantly evangelize our products together, sharing our better together story and our values. And so all these groups are finally generating momentum and we're finally pushing that success further off the hill."
Learn more about how to execute nearbound in Reveal? Book a call with our team.
