HubSpot Marketing Automation: Our Favorite Features (+ How To Use Them)

Did you know that 51% of businesses use marketing automation? For B2B companies that don’t use the technology, over half plan to implement it. It’s easy to see why with 75% of email revenue generated from triggered emails.

The power of marketing automation is its ability to create customized experiences. Sending out a specific email when a customer asks for it puts them in the driver’s seat of that experience. And that’s just the beginning of what it can do for your customer. What about for your team?

In this article, you’ll see the big-picture effect that marketing automation can have on your organization from the inside out. It could be just the thing to take your company to the next level.

 Understanding HubSpot Marketing Automation Basics

Companies have been using automation to boost productivity and revenue for decades. Since marketing automation can lower fixed and variable costs, margins widen and profits grow. 

And it’s not just for large-scale operations— creating a marketing and sales productivity system (MSP) impacts the bottom line for brands of all sizes. 

Marketing automation isn’t just about sending emails on autopilot — it’s about scaling personalized, data-driven interactions across your entire customer journey.

HubSpot’s marketing automation tools help businesses streamline repetitive tasks, nurture leads more effectively, and drive higher ROI without requiring manual effort at every step. When done right, automation turns your marketing from reactive to proactive, ensuring the right message reaches the right person at the right time.

Related Read: The 5-Step Startup Marketing Strategy Fueling Massive Growth

One of the biggest advantages of automation is its ability to improve ROI across multiple channels. By leveraging workflows that guide prospects through tailored email sequences, targeted ad retargeting, and behavioral-triggered content, businesses can move leads down the funnel with precision. 

Beyond ROI, automation increases team productivity by eliminating manual, repetitive tasks. Marketers often waste hours segmenting email lists, scheduling follow-ups, or logging lead interactions. HubSpot’s automation takes care of these processes, so your team can focus on strategy, content creation, and campaign optimization rather than getting stuck in admin work. 

The key is understanding the difference between repetitive tasks and strategic work. Repetitive tasks — like sending confirmation emails, updating CRM records, or qualifying leads — should be automated. But strategic work — like crafting compelling messaging, analyzing campaign data, and refining customer personas — requires human insight.

Like marketing AI, HubSpot’s marketing automation doesn’t replace marketers; it frees them up to focus on high-value initiatives that drive real growth.

HubSpot Marketing Automation: Sequences and Workflows

HubSpot offers two types of automation: sequences and workflows. Both will help you create a robust sales and marketing process that will save your team time, letting them focus on growth rather than repetitive tasks.   

HubSpot Sequences

You’ll need a Sales or Service Hub Professional to use sequences. This tool is geared toward sales professionals who regularly follow up with prospective clients. 

If your brand has reps who are on the phone and deal with clients regularly, implementing sequence automation can help them gauge client interest, making sure they invest time in the right folks. 

How Sequences Work:  

• Follow-Up Emails: With sequences, you can send automatic follow-up emails triggered after certain events occur. This could be a series of emails sent to move a prospect through the sales process. 
• Follow-Up Tasks: Following up is time-consuming. In addition to sending automatic emails, sequences allow you to cue up tasks for your team, like make a call at a specific time or other to-do list items. An example is a reschedule request if a customer missed a meeting or updating a spreadsheet.   
• Pre-Made Sequences: HubSpot gives you a range of pre-made templates, making it easy to compose a thoughtful email cue. A few examples are product demo requests, conference follow-ups, and appointments. They’re also customizable, allowing you to modify each message, number of emails, and delivery duration. 

• Unenrolling from a Sequence: HubSpot allows you to set the case, or set of variables, that will end the sequence. If a prospect books a follow-up call, the sequence will stop. The system won’t barrage the prospect and leaves them in control of the next interaction. 

HubSpot Workflows

To use workflows, you’ll need Marketing Hub Professional. There are many ways to create email automation using workflows. Let’s explore examples for each hub. 

How Workflows Work:

• Enrollment trigger: Refine the audience for a trigger, like high-engagement leads visiting a pricing page. 
• Create follow-up action: Choose how the workflow will respond to an action. HubSpot gives you flexible options like sending an email, creating deals, tasks, or tickets. 
• Branching: Use conditional logic—if/then statements to map out what happens when a prospect engages or does not engage. 
• Life Cycle Update: When a lead engages, the workflow automatically changes the lead's life cycle stage within HubSpot. It can also generate a task for the sales team to follow up with that lead.    
• Follow-Up Flow: When a lead doesn’t engage, you can craft a follow-up email that will be sent out 48 hours later.
• Workflow Activity: HubSpot keeps track of workflow history within every lead contact page. This allows your team to review the engagement from email automation and follow-up activities.
• Automated Email Campaigns: Unlike sequences, workflows send an entire email series over a given time. This makes them useful for building buzz around product launches or automating an on-going webinar campaign.
• Service Tickets: Workflows allow you to create support tickets that are automatically sent to the right team member. 

With this in mind, let's jump into our list of top automations and how we use them.

Our Favorite HubSpot Marketing Automations

Workflows to Trigger Sales Activity

Sales teams thrive on timely follow-ups, and HubSpot’s Workflows can help you achieve it. Available in Professional and Enterprise plans, workflows can automatically notify sales reps when prospects take key actions, such as visiting a pricing page or filling out a contact form.

To set up a workflow, navigate to Automation > Workflows, choose an event-based trigger, and set an action to send an internal notification to the appropriate contact owner.

For example, if a prospect downloads a high-intent resource, you can create a workflow that immediately alerts their assigned rep via email or Slack. 

Smart Lists for Audience Segmentation

Smart Lists, available in all paid HubSpot plans, allow marketers to segment audiences dynamically based on behavior, demographics, and engagement.

By leveraging Smart Lists, you can group contacts based on criteria like lead score, email engagement, or lifecycle stage, ensuring that your marketing is hyper-targeted.

Beyond segmentation, Smart Lists also provide real-time tracking of campaign effectiveness, helping you keep an eye on which audiences are converting.

For example, create a Smart List of high-intent leads. Use this list to trigger email nurtures, sales alerts, or even ad retargeting campaigns.

Automated Email Campaigns and Follow-Ups

Email automation is a core feature in Marketing Hub Professional and Enterprise, allowing businesses to trigger drip sequences and follow-ups without manual intervention. Setting up an automated campaign starts with defining a trigger, such as form submissions, website visits, or email interactions.

Well-timed, contextual follow-ups significantly improve engagement, ensuring leads stay nurtured without sales teams having to track every interaction manually.

For example, schedule follow-ups based on user behavior, like sending an educational email 24 hours after a demo request or a special offer 48 hours after cart abandonment. 

Smart Content and Personalization

Available in Marketing Hub Professional and Enterprise, Smart Content customizes website experiences based on visitor attributes, making every interaction feel tailored. This allows you to modify headlines, CTAs, and entire sections of a page based on factors like industry, lifecycle stage, or past engagement.

Personalization can extend beyond the homepage—email footers, landing pages, and even blog content can dynamically shift based on the visitor’s profile. Implementation is simple: within any rich text module, enable Smart Rules and define the audience criteria for customized content variations.

For example, first-time visitors might see an introductory message, while returning leads see a free consultation offer. 

Integration with External Applications

HubSpot’s native and API-based integrations (available in Professional and Enterprise plans) allow seamless data syncing with tools like Salesforce, Zoom, Slack, and Google Ads.

Whether you need to push leads to a CRM, sync webinar registrations, or trigger external automations, HubSpot’s ecosystem ensures your tech stack works together.

To connect an app, go to Settings > Integrations > Connected Apps and follow the connection prompts. For two-way sync (like mirroring updates between HubSpot and Salesforce), data mapping rules ensure fields align correctly.

For example, syncing webinar attendees from Zoom to HubSpot Smart Lists for automated follow-ups.

Sequences for Sales Teams

Sales teams using Sales Hub Professional and Enterprise can automate one-to-one follow-up emails with Sequences. Unlike marketing emails, Sequences allow reps to send personalized outreach while automating follow-up tasks.

One best practice is to set enrollment conditions carefully—if a prospect replies, HubSpot can automatically unenroll them, ensuring follow-ups don’t feel robotic.

For example, reps can enroll contacts into a pre-built sequence that includes timed email follow-ups and task reminders (like a call prompt after an unanswered email). 

Custom Code Actions

For advanced automation, HubSpot Operations Hub Enterprise allows users to create Custom Code Actions using JavaScript, enabling workflows to perform complex tasks like weighted lead routing, API calls, and data transformations.

HubSpot’s developer docs provide pre-built code snippets, and workflows allow you to test execution before full deployment. This feature is ideal for companies needing deep workflow customization beyond standard automation logic.

For example, you can use custom code to assign leads to reps based on round-robin rules weighted by past performance. 

Related Read: The Ultimate HubSpot Implementation Checklist

Making Marketing Automation a Priority

Using marketing automation can increase productivity by saving time from routine tasks. That allows your team to focus on opportunities that drive results, like getting new customers and keeping old ones happy.

It’s the small improvements that add up to the big wins. If you improve the process across your organization, revenue will inevitably go up. 

Ready to make marketing automation a priority in your business? You might need a helping hand. Check out our free resource, the HubSpot Success Kit, or schedule a chat with one of our HubSpot experts today to see how we can get the most bang for your HubSpot buck.