Why Custom Reports in HubSpot Actually Matter
Standard dashboards won’t tell you what’s really working. They show clicks, impressions, and pageviews, but they rarely explain why things succeed or fail. Custom reports in HubSpot give your team the power to cut through the noise and make decisions that actually move the business forward.
If your marketing or sales team is stuck toggling between half-baked reports and disconnected spreadsheets, this is how you build visibility that leads to action.
Understanding Custom Reports
Generic dashboards can make performance look flat, even when results are strong, or worse, look impressive when campaigns are underdelivering. Custom reports help you build focused views that track what really matters.
Why this matters:
When you track the right metrics, your team starts solving the right problems. Strategy becomes proactive, not reactive. And leadership gets answers without asking twice.
Examples:
A B2B marketing team wants to track how webinars contribute to SQL growth. An eComm brand cares about abandoned cart recovery. Two totally different use cases—one platform. Custom reporting lets each team build dashboards that reflect their goals, not someone else’s template.
Step 1: Identify the Metrics That Actually Matter
Before you even open HubSpot’s reporting tool, get clear on what you need to know. Good reporting starts with good questions.
How to frame it:
- What are the top goals this quarter?
- Which numbers directly measure those goals?
- What’s missing from your current reports?
Pro tip: Loop in stakeholders early. It’s easier to build the right dashboard from the start than rebuild it after someone says, “That’s not what we needed.”
Step 2: Build Dashboards That Tell the Right Story
Custom dashboards aren’t about cramming every chart into one screen. They’re about making data useful, readable, and specific to the people using it.
How to make it work:
- Keep dashboards focused—5 to 10 key metrics, max.
- Build views for specific roles. Sales doesn’t need blog traffic.
- Use clean visualizations. Bar charts and line graphs beat flashy pie charts every time.
Example
A SaaS company sets up three dashboards:
- Marketing: Website traffic, MQLs, campaign ROI
- Sales: Pipeline stages, win rates, deal velocity
- Leadership: CAC, CLTV, and overall ROIEach team sees only what they need—no clutter, no confusion.
Step 3: Use HubSpot’s Advanced Tools to Go Deeper
Once you’ve nailed the basics, start tapping into HubSpot’s advanced features to diagnose what’s really happening behind the scenes.
Key Tools:
- Calculated properties: Build metrics like revenue per lead or ROI by channel.
- Funnel reports: Pinpoint where leads fall off and where they convert.
- Filtered views: Segment by persona, industry, or deal stage to get clearer insight.
Example
A campaign team sees strong webinar signups but weak demo conversions. A funnel report shows a major drop-off after the first follow-up email. They rebuild the email series and boost demo bookings by 18%.
Step 4: Audit and Adjust Reports Often
Custom reports lose value if they go stale. Metrics shift. Goals change. Teams evolve. Don’t let dashboards turn into static wallpaper.
How to keep reports sharp:
- Review dashboards quarterly
- Validate KPIs still tie to active business goals
- Get feedback from the people actually using them
Action Step: Run a quick audit every quarter and ask, 'What’s helping us make decisions? What’s just noise?'
Hypothetical: What Smart Reporting Looks Like in Use
What would a real-life use case look like? Well, here’s a quick scenario:
The Situation
An online retailer is launching its biggest seasonal campaign of the year. The team has traffic data, email stats, and ad performance, just not in one place. Worse, they can’t track which campaigns are actually driving purchases.
The Shift
They use HubSpot custom reporting to:
- Build a unified dashboard tracking revenue by channel
- Layer in attribution reports to connect specific emails to specific purchases
- Set up alerts for underperforming ads
The Outcome
The team pivots spend mid-campaign, stops wasting budget on weak channels, and increases overall ROI by 30% over last year’s results. Planning for next quarter? Already halfway done.
Last Thoughts on Building Smart Custom Reports in HubSpot
Custom reports are how you stop guessing and start acting. They don’t just show what happened. They help you understand why.
Done right, here’s what you unlock:
- Reports that map directly to strategy
- Teams that know what to act on (and what to ignore)
- Faster answers, clearer decisions, better results
If your dashboards aren’t sparking change, they aren’t doing their job.
Ready to Make Your HubSpot Reporting Actually Work?
FMK helps marketing teams clean up, customize, and scale HubSpot reports that fuel smarter campaigns. Whether you need executive dashboards, multi-channel attribution, or better sales insights, we’ll help you turn your data into a decision-making engine.
Let’s make your numbers mean something. Talk to FMK.
Continue the conversation: Cracking the Code with Multi-Touch Attribution in HubSpot