Hi @SGA-EST,
It’s a great question and something I’ve been asked before, I’ve included a breakdown of the key differences below but also TLDR: You can use timeline events but will miss out in terms of reporting not to mention having to configure them is much more complicated.
- Available on all tiers
- A little more complex to setup - requires registering an app and going through the oAuth flow
- Cannot be used for reporting within HubSpot
- Can be used for list segmentation and workflow enrollment
- Can only be triggered on the server side
- Exclusive to Marketing Hub Enterprise
- Can be triggered client side using Tracking Code API or server side using Custom Events HTTP API
- Can be used for list segmentation and workflow enrollment
- Can be used for reporting purposes (Attribution Reporting, Custom Event Funnels)
I’d be inclined to think that Custom Behavioural Events would be better suited to your use cases. For instance you could create custom event funnel reports to identify the users which “Setup a Free Trial”, “Completed Onboarding Step X, Y Z” and “Upgraded to a paid plan” or did not upgrade in which case you could reach out to them as needed. Also, Custom Behavioural Events are much easier to implement in my experience and can provide lots of useful insights. Of course it does come at a cost - you have to upgrade to Marketing Hub Enterprise but you also get access to other enterprise features like:
- Adaptive page testing
- Hierarchical teams
- Custom Objects
- Increased limits
- Email Send Frequency Cap
- Multitouch Revenue Attribution