Lists, Lead Scoring & Workflows

DonnaR
Participant

Using lists and workflows to assign life cycle

SOLVE

Hi,

 

I'm interested in best practices for using lists or workflows to assign life cycle stages. 

 

Specifically, do you create lists based on certain criteria (clicked a link in an email) and then send that list to the workflow (make customer life cycle MQL) or vice versa, or some combination of the 2?

 

I'm also confused about adding new criteria in the future. For example, when I send another email with a link, and anyone who clicks that link would become an MQL, do I make another workflow, or list, or add to the existing workflow / list? Seems like if you just keep adding criteria, it would get pretty complex.

 

Thanks in advance.

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1 Accepted solution
bradmin
Solution
Key Advisor

Using lists and workflows to assign life cycle

SOLVE

Hi, @DonnaR. This is a good question, and the short answer is, "They're both the same, more or less," with some caveats. 

 

The standard workflow enrollment criteria options are exactly the same as the list-building options, so there's no difference there. [If you were to create a fixed-date or property-based workflow, you'd have much different options. For the use case you described, those wouldn't apply. You'll want to use a standard workflow for this.]

 

So when might you want to build a list, then use that list's enrollment, versus building the criteria instead? 

 

Building a list: 

- The logic is complex, or tough to read/navigate in the Workflows UI. While this is primarily an aesthetic criteria, you and your organization's users will be responsible for reading and/or maintaining the workflows. So, if you have to scroll and scroll and scroll just to get past the initial workflow criteria, it may be easier for everyone to build the list, then have the workflow criteria reflect that.

- You're referring to lots of other lists. It may be easier to navigate to other lists' criteria from within the lists tool, then to have to go back and forth between workflows and lists. This is similar to the above, where readability/ease of understanding takes the primary criteria. 

- Your workflow has lots of branches, with differing criteria at each branch. Again, this is a readability issue. If you have to parse all the criteria at every branch, that may make it difficult to maintain over time. If, instead, a workflow criteria is replaced by a well-defined, well-named list, that may ultimately be more readable. 

 

If none of the above apply, then it's probably simplest to use the workflow criteria to build and maintain your workflow. 

 

From someone who's built a lot of automation (and gone back to fix his work almost every time), you want something that's easy to make sense of. As I'm building my automation, I ask myself, "If I came back to this in six months, and I'd forgotten what this thing does, would I be able to easily figure it out?" [In practice, I'm capable of forgetting what goes into automation within six hours, not months.]

 

It's that sort of ease of use you want to design for in all workflows. The only real exception is doing something quick 'n dirty - for one-time use workflows, whatever gets the job done is fine. You don't need to be flawless with something you'll discard after it's done.

 

As for your specific workflow, check out this help article on setting lifecycle stage backwards. It's an important safeguard to build into any workflow which sets lifecycle stage. Even if you're only moving lifecycle stages forward, building in the best practice of "clear first, set second" is required for this special property, as it behaves differently from other HubSpot contact properties. 


Brad Mampe, Salesforce Analyst, Fidelity
I'm probably wrong. I may not be right about that.

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2 Replies 2
bradmin
Solution
Key Advisor

Using lists and workflows to assign life cycle

SOLVE

Hi, @DonnaR. This is a good question, and the short answer is, "They're both the same, more or less," with some caveats. 

 

The standard workflow enrollment criteria options are exactly the same as the list-building options, so there's no difference there. [If you were to create a fixed-date or property-based workflow, you'd have much different options. For the use case you described, those wouldn't apply. You'll want to use a standard workflow for this.]

 

So when might you want to build a list, then use that list's enrollment, versus building the criteria instead? 

 

Building a list: 

- The logic is complex, or tough to read/navigate in the Workflows UI. While this is primarily an aesthetic criteria, you and your organization's users will be responsible for reading and/or maintaining the workflows. So, if you have to scroll and scroll and scroll just to get past the initial workflow criteria, it may be easier for everyone to build the list, then have the workflow criteria reflect that.

- You're referring to lots of other lists. It may be easier to navigate to other lists' criteria from within the lists tool, then to have to go back and forth between workflows and lists. This is similar to the above, where readability/ease of understanding takes the primary criteria. 

- Your workflow has lots of branches, with differing criteria at each branch. Again, this is a readability issue. If you have to parse all the criteria at every branch, that may make it difficult to maintain over time. If, instead, a workflow criteria is replaced by a well-defined, well-named list, that may ultimately be more readable. 

 

If none of the above apply, then it's probably simplest to use the workflow criteria to build and maintain your workflow. 

 

From someone who's built a lot of automation (and gone back to fix his work almost every time), you want something that's easy to make sense of. As I'm building my automation, I ask myself, "If I came back to this in six months, and I'd forgotten what this thing does, would I be able to easily figure it out?" [In practice, I'm capable of forgetting what goes into automation within six hours, not months.]

 

It's that sort of ease of use you want to design for in all workflows. The only real exception is doing something quick 'n dirty - for one-time use workflows, whatever gets the job done is fine. You don't need to be flawless with something you'll discard after it's done.

 

As for your specific workflow, check out this help article on setting lifecycle stage backwards. It's an important safeguard to build into any workflow which sets lifecycle stage. Even if you're only moving lifecycle stages forward, building in the best practice of "clear first, set second" is required for this special property, as it behaves differently from other HubSpot contact properties. 


Brad Mampe, Salesforce Analyst, Fidelity
I'm probably wrong. I may not be right about that.
DonnaR
Participant

Using lists and workflows to assign life cycle

SOLVE

Hi @bradmin,

 

That was a very nice answer, and thanks for taking the time to be so thorough. 😃

 

You've mentioned some good scenarios when it's best to use lists.

 

I'm trying to be proactive, and teach myself the best way to do things, rather than just doing what works for the moment, as I know that can be problematic.

 

I think what I've decided is to simply create simple workflows based on each campaign. For example, if I send a new email and clicking a CTA in it would make the lead a MQL, I will just make a very simple WF for that campaign. That will mitigate the need for me to go back to old Workflows, because, as you say, it's hard to remember what we were thinking back then.

 

Thanks again for your insight.