We periodically use sales sequences where we share content like market reports with prospects and clients, typically with outreach of 50-100 contacts.
We’ve been using Documents to share a PDF document (because it isn’t possible to send attachments in a sequence), which appears to work most of the time. But we also get responses back occasionally from the recipients saying they couldn’t use the link to download or hit another error - often pretty vague. I’m assuming this is probably because of cybersecurity measures at their end, but it is very hard to diagnose.
Does anyone have any experience or practical examples of what we might do to investigate the failures and ultimately any tips for what we can do to maximise the chances our content can be received and opened? (I’ve read some generic articles but maybe there’s some specific HubSpot tips?)
@PBaxter do you have GDPR tools turned on? Some of your Documents may have “require email address to view document” turned on and that could be throwing them a perceived error. That’s my first thought.
Secondly, I agree that if it’s vague, it may be some issue on their end.
Have you considered using Files instead of Sales Documents? You can still create a link in the emails, but it’s in your file folder (marketing) instead of documents (sales).
We turned off the “require email” checkbox on documents some time ago, as our team thought it made interactions too frictional.
I’ll take a look at using the ‘files’ route, in case that helps. I guess we just need to test some things out - the issue is it’s hard to close the loop - we only even know we have an issue because a few people emailed us to say they couldn’t follow a link, but of course we can’t repeat the error inhouse.
@PBaxter I would try to find one contact of those that reported it that will work with you on a test, ask if you can do a zoom meeting where you send them a sales document and watch what happens in real time.
Even if the same thing isn’t happening for all those who report it, just gaining insight from one could create an ah-ha moment for you to find the right alternate solution.
We have a form, you put your email / institution. You receive an email with downloading link. If I try to get the document in my phone it just show me a page that says “downloading”, “pending download” (url ended in hubspotlinks.com). If I try the same link in the computer it works.
We send this to around 80 people, I know of at least 5 reporting the same problem (a significative statistic, since not all the people having the problem will report it).
Hi @JuanReyes – Were you ever able to identify what the bug was with this? We had complete success for about 3 months, and now we’re seeing the same thing; seems to work on desktop but a lot of “Downloading… - Download pending…” on mobile devices. Thanks, Matt
This may be a long shot, but I am curious if you were able to resolve this, @MRugg! We are getting the same reports back. One client reported that it finally worked for them when they accessed the link in incognito mode.
Hey, @SNP34 – I know this isn’t terribly helpful, but in our case they simply eventually started working. We tried testing them right after we had eveything set up; and my best guess is that the files/links took some time to completely process in the HubSpot system, and after about half a day they worked on desktops and phones. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Sorry I don’t have more of an idea of how/why they started working.
Hi @PBaxter ,
Nice to meet you!
Totally get the frustration when recipients can’t download documents. One alternative you might consider is using Portant with HubSpot.
It allows you to create and share documents directly from Google Docs or Slides, which can sometimes bypass those pesky download issues.
With Portant, you can:
- Customize documents using data from your HubSpot deals, including custom properties.
- Save PDF details and links as custom properties, which can help automate workflows.
- Use Portant as an action within a HubSpot workflow, so no switching apps.
And that’s just the tip of the ice-berg. (Shameful self-plug - haha!)
If you want to dive deeper into how Portant integrates with HubSpot, check out our documentation here: HubSpot | Portant Docs
And if you need any help or just want to chat about how Portant can help (or if you’d like a demo), feel free to reach out to me at tom@portant.co.