The contact lifecycle between HS and SFDC and syncing

[VK78]

As HS has only contact object where as sfdc has both a lead and a contact so i am a bit confused on how i should design my process.  My use case is that i want to track a lead that is created in the HS to track it all the way it becomes a customer in SFDC.  For this purpose i am thinking to use Lead Lifecycle property of HS which does not exist in the SFDC.  I can am thinking to create a custom property on the lead object and same on the contact object in the SFDC.  Also i can map this property in the lead to contact so that during the lead conversion the value can be carried over.

Question/requirement: 

1. when i map lifecycle stage property via integration app then does it gets mapped with contact or lead in SFDC? I see the tab says "contact". Ideally I would like it to be mapped to lead.  so how do i do this?

2. Once the lead is conveted in SFDC to a contact, I would be updating the value of this lifecycle property in the contact object within salesforce. I would like these values to bi-directionaly sync back to HS lifecyle property. How would this work?  do i have to first copy those values from SFDC contact to SFDC lead as that is what i am mapping to hs lifecyle property?

[LaurenRyan]

Hi @VK78 - HubSpot only has one Contact object whereas Salesforce separates contacts into Contacts and Leads. Leads become Contacts after they've been converted. HubSpot Contact sync to both Salesforce Leads and Contacts.

I'd recommend taking our free HubSpot Salesforce Integration course. It walks you through the full integration and explains the ins and outs, so you feel fully in control of how to manage this!

For this question, create a custom picklist in Salesforce on the Contact and Lead with the same API name for Lifecycle Stage & sync that property to HubSpot.

[jolle]

Hey @VK78, thanks for reaching out! These are really good questions, and the HubSpot-Salesforce integration can be a little tricky.

You're right — HubSpot contacts sync to either Salesforce leads or contacts, whichever record was updated most recently. Everything is dependent on the email address as well (HubSpot's unique identifier), so if the lead and contact in Salesforce have the same email address, and the contact has been updated most recently, the contact is the record that will sync with HubSpot.

I have questions to your answers below, but I also strongly encourage you to check out this HubSpot Knowledge Base article on syncing Lifecycle stage with Salesforce and this HubSpot Knowledge Base article on how leads and contacts sync with HubSpot. If you haven't yet taken the Salesforce Integration HubSpot Academy course, I definitely recommend checking it out! It covers a bunch of the nuance and fine print of the integration.

1. The tab says "Contact" because that's the applicable record within HubSpot. HubSpot will sync with both leads and contacts (whichever was updated most recently) all based on email address. In general, leads tend to be handled more in HubSpot and are then nurtured into becoming contacts, at which point they typically go into Salesforce for follow-up.

2. I would honestly update the "Lifecycle value" in HubSpot if you need to make a note when a lead becomes a contact. The best way to tell is by looking at the "Salesforce account ID" contact property in HubSpot. If there's a known value there, that means that the contact is associated with an account in Salesforce (only possible if they're a contact in Salesforce). You could build a workflow that updates the "Lifecycle stage" value appropriately once the "Salesforce account ID" becomes known. As long as you have "Lifecycle stage" in HubSpot syncing with a custom field in Salesforce and the contacts are in your inclusion sync list, you should be able to pass the updated value from HubSpot into Salesforce.

Definitely make sure what you're tracking is actionable and segmentable, though. I'll be honest — I haven't seen very great insight from "Lifecycle stage" in general, and the Salesforce integration doesn't make it that much better. 

I recommend tracking "Type" (Prospect, Current Client, Former Client, etc.) and "Status" (New, Connected, Not Interested, Unqualified, etc.). Your values will vary depending on your company and what you need to track, but those custom properties have never let me down. You get to track exactly who someone is and where they currently stand. These properties, especially "Status," are especially helpful in the Salesforce integration. If you're generating leads in HubSpot and nurturing them into Salesforce contacts, you can use the "Status" property to see what the sales team thinks. If a lead is marked as "Unqualified" or "Not Ready" or something like that, you'll know to track where they came from, see if any changes need to be made there, remove the contact (if applicable), or enroll them in additional nurturing. I know this is way more than you asked for, but I wanted to share it in case it's helpful since I see clients struggling to get what they need out of just "Lifecycle stage."

Hope this helps!!

[VK78]

Thanks for the details. Do you have any source for this comment? 

"You're right — HubSpot contacts sync to either Salesforce leads or contacts, whichever record was updated most recently"

The closest i find is 

"If a lead field and a contact field share an internal name in Salesforce, HubSpot will sync data to both leads and contacts in Salesforce."

Which is not really same as what you said. It talks about having a field internal name same to let HS sync to both objects same field. 

Coming back to my situation. The business not really does everything in HS about lead and opty in SFDC. They do lead qualification in HS as well as SFDC.  In HS they do campaign management and then very minor stuff on a lead and mark it a MQL. But in SFDC then they follow it further and ultimately convert to an opty. Where the lead is considered as SQL. Evenutally opty is closed won or lost. 

So, now in HS i need to create a report such as how a lead progressed from lead to mql to sql to customer. So, I need a single field that can be synced. I am seeing "Lifecycle stage" as a good candidate as until MQL it is updated within HS. Now, once the lead is in SFDC, and accepted or assigned it will become SQL. At this point the "lifecycle" can be updated as SQL and synced back to HS. now when the lead is conveted at this point it becomes a contact in SFDC and also at the same time the "lifecycle" field in contact can be updated to "Opportunity". Finally once the opty is closed won the integration has a default setting to update this value to "lifecycle field" in HS. hence i can easily track the lead's journey into various stages. does it make sense? or do you see a flaw that your solution will fix?

[ABalistreri]

Hi, I'm curious if you ever got this sorted out. This is my exact use case as well and we're having issues with data syncing correctly.