How To Use HubSpot CRM (2025 Tutorial for Beginners)

Thinking about using HubSpot as your marketing tool or CRM? Want to know what it can do? You're in the right place. We've put together a tutorial to guide you. If you're watching this, you probably know HubSpot automates marketing, sales, and services processes, bringing all your data together in one place. Today, we'll give you a quick tour of its key features. And if you want more, check out our HubSpot tutorial playlist. What's in this video? We'll start with HubSpot CRM, the core of the platform, and you can use it for free. You'll learn how to manage contacts, companies, and list, plus import or create records manually. We'll also cover deals so you can build your pipeline and track sales like a pro. Finally, we'll explore dashboards and reporting tools to keep you on top of everything. Looking for something specific? Use the timestamps in the description below to jump to what you need. You'll also find links to try HubSpot's free CRM and to get help choosing the right plan. And now I'll pass you over to Danny, who's our HubSpot expert at CyberClick. The first thing you need to know about HubSpot is that everything in here is powered by data. And how does HubSpot organize this data? By objects. Objects are the core data structures that represent businesses, processes, and relationships. They are basically storage containers for your data. So what storage containers do you currently have available by default on Housespot? Contacts that store information about people. Companies that store information about organizations, leads that store information about qualifying activities, deals that store information about transactions, and tickets that store information about support requests. Now, each object stores data through properties. And what are properties? Properties are these tags over here under which HubSpot stores information. Each object has their own set of properties. Now let's dive in into what properties are and how you can use them. So to go to properties, click on the settings icon over here. Then under data management, click on properties. Now as you can see each object has their own set of properties. So just click on the object and the list of properties available will display over here. Now for each object you will be able to find two types of properties. The ones already available for you by default created by HubSpot and custom properties which are the ones that will be created by you or your team to know more about your buyer persona and that you will normally use in forms. Now let's take a look at all the properties that are already available for you by clicking here and selecting HubSpot. Keep in mind that you can also use this filter to see all the properties that have been created by your teammates. So for now, let's click on HubSpot and you'll be able to see all the default properties you have available. So you'll find two types of default properties. First, you'll see those behavioral properties that will help you with your reports and that will also help you to know more about the behavior your contacts are having with your brand or your website or your emails or your communication. On the other hand, you will also find informationational properties. These are properties that you can use on your forms to know more about your buyer persona when you're capturing them. So, for example, you'll see company name or company size. These are properties that you can drag into your forms and use so that that information is stored under this specific tag. Now, even with all these properties, you might find that you need to create your own. So, let's create a custom property. We're going to click here. Let's suppose you need to send out a survey to your clients and you want to find out how they heard about you. So, we're going to name our property, how did you hear about us? And you're going to be able to find this property by this same name. Then, we're going to choose the object type. In this case, it's going to be a contact object type. The brand in case you have multiple brands within your HubSpot. the group in case you have created a group of properties for your survey and a quick description. Once this is ready, you're going to move to the field type for this type of property. The most appropriate would be a drop down. And here we'll be able to map out the options. So, for example, we'll say social media an event. Great. Now that we have our options, we're going to go to rules. These rules will vary depending on the field type you chose. In this case, the only rule that is showing me is if I want to show this property in my forms or not. In this case, I do want to because this is a question I'm going to be asking my clients. And the only way to do that is through a form. So, we're going to leave this like this. And then manage access. So you basically can choose who can access and edit your property. In this case, I'll allow everyone to view and edit. And then you'll see a preview. So this is how your property is going to look on your forms. So how did you hear about us? The label and then the drop-own options. If you like how it looks, just click on create and you'll have that ready. In case we want to add more fields or edit this property or even clone it, we're going to have these options here. Here you'll be able to see all of your contact records and you'll also be able to filter them either by these predetermined fields over here or by advanced filters. So, let's check each one of these. First, we have contact owner. We highly recommend that you assign a contact owner to all of your contacts so that you don't have any communication crossovers with your team. You'll come to find this option here very useful if you manage contacts daily. So, for example, if you filter them only by the contacts that you own, you'll be able to see them here, have a cleaner view of your dashboard, and manage them directly from here. You can also filter your contacts by create date if you want to check what records are getting into your CRM lately. You'll find options like what leads got in today, yesterday, this week so far, this month so far. You'll find plenty of options here that will help you see how your incoming flow of leads is going. You can also filter them by their last activity date if you want to see their engagement or their date status if you want to filter by the stage they currently are in the marketing and salesunnel. Now, let's check the advanced filters. when you click on the advanced filters, you'll see all of the available contact properties listed in there. So, let's say you want to filter them by the property you just created and you want to see all of the contacts who have filled out that field in your form. So, we'll type that here. We're going to select our property. So you can filter them by people who have filled out specific options can be one, two or many or simply by people who have filled out this field in a form. We won't get any answers now because the property is new and of course nobody has filled it yet. But just so you can see that you you're going to have all of your properties available here to filter. Now, let's create a custom view. This way, every time you access your dashboard, you'll have quick access to it and you will be able to work more effectively. So, we're going to click here, add view. Here you'll see the views that are already provided by HubSpot, the admin promoted views, and also the views created by other people from your teams. But this time, we're going to create our own. So, we're going to click create a new view. We're going to name it. So let's say we always want to see the contacts that are based in the country I'm based. So country based view. And let's say I want to share this with everyone. Or I can also create views that are private and can only be accessed by me. But this time we'll choose everyone. We click on confirm. Your new view is going to appear right over here. Now you just need to select the filters you want to have there every time. So now I'm going to look for IP country. I'm going to select the option and I'm going to write down Spain. So now the system has filtered all contacts by their country IP. All of those who match Spain and we only have 134 records. So, if I go ahead and close this, every time I go into my contacts dashboard, I'll be able to see this contact base view. I can go back to all contacts and I can jump right back to my custom view. Another cool thing about this dashboard is that now that you have your custom views and your filters chosen, you can also customize what columns you're seeing in here. So, let's say I don't need to see the phone number and I don't need to see the contact owner because I know all of these contacts are going to be owned by me. So, I'm going to get rid of this and I'm going to add those columns that really matter to me. So, I'm going to go to edit columns. Now, I can get rid of the columns that don't matter to me. So, I'm going to get rid of phone number and I'm also going to get rid of lead status and I am also going to get rid of create date. Now let's add the property we created. So I want to see their answers on this one. I'm going to click on it. So now I'm going to have these three columns on my custom view. And you can edit these as many times as you want. Now let's take a quick look into the actual contact records that we have stored. So, if you place your mouse over the name or the email, you'll be able to see this little tab over here that says preview. If you click on it, this tab over here will appear and you'll have a small summary of all we know about this contact. But if you want to have a closer look, you can click on the name and you will see an advanced window with all of the customers data. Here from the left toolbar, you can either take notes if you recently had contact with them or get in touch directly with them via email or call. You can also create tasks for yourself or schedule meetings. At the top, you will see these tabs. So, if you click on the activity tab, you will be able to see all of the activity and engagement this contact has had with your system over time. You can also expand each activity. You can also see if there are any notes left on this contact either by your teammates or your sales representatives. If there are any emails that have been sent out, calls, tasks or meetings. So everything will be logged into this tab. On the right hand toolbar, you'll be able to see all of these information. So you'll be able to see, for example, any companies that you have on your CRM and that are currently associated to this contact. You can also see if this contact has any deals open or transactions that are currently open. Tickets, if this contact has opened any tickets recently, attachments, you'll be also be able to see all of the documents you or your teammates have attached to their emails or communications with this contact. You'll see playbooks, invoices, if he has been enrolled in any workflows, workflows or is currently enrolled in any workflow, if he has attended any events, festival, concerts, leads, or if any feedback has been left on this contact. Another very useful tool on this contact view is this section over here, the about this contact. This section allows you to see information or predetermined information on your contact. So right now we can see the contact owner, the first name, last name, email, phone number, country, and region. But let's say that I need to see some other information for me to be able to work with this contact. So we can click here, customize properties, and add the properties that I need. So I would just click here and select the properties that I want to see. So let's say I want to see their website because I want to know and understand more about the company they work at. So I'm just going to add this. Let's say I also want to see and understand their job title so I can know whether they are decision makers or not. And also we want to know where they're based. So, we're also going to add the IP country over here because the country field wasn't wasn't filled by them. So, we're going to use a property that can track their IP country automatically in this case. So, we're going to add the IP country. And once this is settled, you can also rearrange these fields in the order that you want to see them and get rid of the ones you don't need. So, that's pretty much how you can customize this. You go ahead and save it. And now you're going to be able to see all this information every time you click on a contact. You can also create property cards. Property cards will allow you to have a set of similar properties grouped in one place so you can manage the information in a more more organized way. And you'll also be able to see here the communication subscriptions to see how you can contact this specific record and the website activity. So you can see their engagement with your website over the last few weeks. Now let's take a look on how to set a company on your CRM. So we're going to go here and we're going to click on companies. Here you'll see a very similar interface to the one we just saw for contacts and you'll see all your company's records listed here. You can also filter them by the same filters, company owner, create date, last activity date, lead status, and the advanced filters which will show the properties for companies and you can filter them by them. Also remember that all of this information will be available to anyone on your team. Whether they're from the marketing or sales or service team, HubSpot centralizes all this information, making it available to all of them. You also have the preview available. And if you click on the company, you'll go to the specific view for this company in particular. So as you can see, the company view is exactly the same as the one we have for contacts. You'll be able to take action from here. Take notes, send emails, arrange calls, set tasks for yourself or your teammates, and also arrange meetings. On this left bar, you'll see everything you need to know about this company. And if you want to customize the properties that you're seeing, you'll be able to do so as well. And then on the right hand side, you'll be able to see the contacts associated to this company, the deals, the playbooks that have been used or the recommended playbooks that you can use to contact this company. tickets, time logs, the account overview, quotes that have been made, services, and some other information if you have um other connected apps in here. And you'll also be able to see the activities, the overview, and all the notes and emails that your teammates have crossed with this company. So now you might be wondering how you can create your own contact records and companies in Hopspot and we're going to take a look on how to do that. So let's go to contacts. You're going to find these two options at the top right corner. So you're going to find import and create contacts. The first one you can use to import databases that you already have in Excel sheets. And the second one create contact allows you to create contacts manually. So we're going to show you step by step how to do both. So first we're going to click on import and you're going to find these three options. So you have either import from files that this is what we're going to try right now. And then you have sync from apps if you have HubSpot connected to other CRM and migrating data in case you want to do this. This is more technical in case you want to do this also with another CRM that you have. So, let's do the first one, and we're going to click on import a file. We're going to select start import. And HubSpot's going to ask us which kind of data is in our files. In this case, we're just going to click on contacts and click on next. Then, we need to choose a file. So, I'm going to choose the file from my computer. We're going to choose the file. And after that, you can choose here if you want to create new contacts and update contacts in case you already have contacts in your Excel sheet that exist in your database, if you just want to create new contacts or if you just want to update existing contacts. In this case, we're going to click on the first one. Also once you import this Excel sheet, you can also create contact associations which is highly recommended so that you um don't have duplicates. So we're going to click on this as well. And then depending on the language you have uh the name of your columns in your Excel sheet, you're going to need to select one of these. In this case, my Excel sheet has the name of its columns in English, so I'm going to keep English. So now HubSpot is going to show me um how it's going to map the data into the CRM. In this case the contacts are good and ready to import. In this case HubSpot cannot make any contact association because all these contacts are new. It has found zero errors and four rows. And the cool thing about HubSpot is that it's going to automatically map your column of your Excel sheet with the most appropriate already existing property. So in this case, name matches with name, last name matches with the property last name, email with email, city with city, and then we have favorite beverage, which is a new property um that I'm going to need in HubSpot. And this column cannot be associated with a already existing property. So HubSpot is going to give you the option to create a property for this one which we will in fact need. So we're going to create the property. Create new property. Favorite beverage. HubSpot is already giving you like a default name for it. And it's a single line text that is going to be filled out with information we have. So review property details. We're going to keep the label favorite beverage. The object type is going to be contact. The brand is going to be the same we've been using. And the group is going to be contact information. Then we click on create. And all this information should be now stored within this property. Great. So now we should be good to go. So we're going to click on next. The import name database should be fine. We're not going to use this very much. And then it's going to ask us to select the legal basis for processing a contact data. So we're going to choose in this case legitimate interest because the people that are found in my Excel sheet have already given me explicit consent. And now we're going to go and finish this import. So now we have four new records and we can see them here in context. So now we have here our four contacts filtered by this import in particular. And if we want to see for example the new property we just created for favorite beverage and we want to see that in our view we can select that property so that it shows on our view. So so we have favorite beverage. We're going to add this and we want to see that right next to email. And we're going to also add city which was one of the properties that was imported. And we're also going to drag this up here. We're going to click on apply. So now we have that information available. We have their city and we have their favorite beverage over here. And you can also create a list. And we can also add this view. so we can have access to this customized view. So now let's take a look on how to create a contact manually. So we're going to click here and create contact and we're going to start by adding their email. So the first thing it's going to ask us is for the contacts email. So let's make this one up. I'm going to be the contact owner for this for this contact in particular. And you can also edit the fields you want to have here when you're creating contacts manually. In this case, we have some predetermined properties, but I don't need to fill all of them out. I don't know the job title or phone number or any of these. That's okay. Let's say the company name is Nike. And then the legal basis for processing this contacts data. Hubspot is always going to ask you this. So, we're just going to choose the same, but you can choose whichever is more appropriate for you. And the brands, well, we keep the same. So, we're going to click on create and you should be good to go. So, HubSpot is going to take you directly into the contact view, and you can see anything related to this contact. All the previous information, we don't have much because we didn't fill out much, but here we'll see the same options. we we have already explored in this type of view. Now, let me show you how you can create some lists. So, we're going to go to CRM and we're going to hop over to lists. So lists are extremely useful when you want to have your contacts in segments, whether in segments that you'll be using constantly or working with to use the segments for automation or to simply gather data or insights. Let's learn how to make some lists. So now that we're here, we're just going to click on create list. And now HubSpot's going to ask you if you want to create a list of contacts, deals, tickets, companies, or any other object. So this time we're going to use contacts. We're going to click on next. And you'll find that it's pretty similar to what we did with the advanced filters in the contact dashboard. So, except this time, Hospot's going to create lists and it's going to save them for you. So, let's say we want to filter out my contacts by those who live in the cities I'm nearby or the cities I I work with normally. So, we're going to choose contact properties in the filters. and we're going to go do the city property. We're going to select city and then we're going to say or tell HubSpot that we want only contacts who are based in Los Angeles and San Diego because I'm on the south of California. So, here we go. It's going to show you a preview of your list. And I can see here all the contacts that meet this criteria. Keep in mind that for this property in particular, the city has been filled out manually by these contacts or in an import. I already had this information. But if we want to see if there are any more people based in the city who haven't filled out this property, then we can do that with the IP city that it's a predetermined property that HubSpot already offers and that already has by default. So let's try that as well. So we're going to add another filter group. We're going to choose contact properties again and we're going to type in IP city and we're going to type Los Angeles and San Diego. So now we're going to have both. If we want to add any more filters, we can do that. So if we want to say okay I want all people who have already filled out their city as Los Angeles and San Diego and I also want them to be filtered by their last activity or their last engagement with my website. I can do that. Or if I want to filter them by their their favorite beverage. I want to see all people who's in Los Angeles and whose favorite be beverage is a latte for example. I would be able to do that if those properties exist. And I can create as many refined filter groups as I'd like. And as a final step, I'm just going to name my list. Now, it's going to ask you if you want to make this list active or static. The difference is very simple. The active list will keep on growing as long as contacts keep on getting into your CRM and meet this criteria. If we make it static, then the list will close with this amount of people and the amount of data it already gathered, but it won't take into account any f any future people or contacts or records that meet this criteria. So in this case, I want to always have my contacts from these cities tracked and active. So I'm going to choose this option. And then I'm going to go ahead and save and process. And now you're good to go. You should be able to create list now and create as many as you want. You'll see that once you enter your lists, you'll see a dashboard as well that you can arrange and edit. So, you can have like your mini dashboards already like filtered out for your lists. We have successfully explored contacts, companies, we know how to make some lists, and now we're going to explore the deals tool. So, we're going deals and we're going to land on what HubSpot calls pipelines. So, pipelines basically map out your sales process and your funnel in stages. And you can have a clear view of how many records are in each stage and how your pipeline is progressing over time. You can also see the total deal amount for all the deals you have open, the weighted deal amount, the open deal amount right now, and the closed deal amount for a certain period of time. This way, you can have predictions in real time of how your sales are flowing. This tool is going to be super useful for your sales team because this way they're going to be able to give proper follow-ups to your leads depending on the stage they're on. They will also be able to share this pipeline and they can see if each one of the deals are given proper attention. So if they want to open one of the deal cards, they can do so just by clicking on them and then the information on this deal will appear on the right hand side. So for this deal for instance, we can see the name of the company. We would be able to see the amount if it had been typed in. We can see the close date or expected close date, the stage this deal is in, and the pipeline it's linked to. We can also take action directly from this toolbar over here and write some notes, send an email, or simply just set tasks for myself. But you'll also be able to personalize or choose a specific properties that you want to see on each one of your deals. You can also see the contacts associated to this deal. And let's say that I have successfully contacted this deal and they have made progress. It is as simple as just dragging this deal box to the next stage. So that way you can really see how they're progressing in a very simple way. You'll also be able to create as many pipelines as you'd like in case you sell multiple services or products or you have different sales processes for different types of leads by market or by product etc. So let's explore how you can create pipelines. As you can see, HubSpot has sent me to the settings page. So, you'll also be able to access this by going to or clicking on this settings icon over here where down here on the deals tab and on the pipelines tab. So, to edit a pipeline and add stages, we simply need to select the pipeline over here that we want to edit. Or if we want to create a new pipeline, we'll be able to do so by clicking here. You'll be able to draw out the stages that you need, the probability of closing as they advance. And once you have these settled, it'll be reflected on your deals pipeline and you'll be able to access your pipeline. Now, let's take a look at dashboards and how this tool can help you keep track of your records, your performance, and gather insights from your data. So, we're going to click on reporting and then we're going to go to dashboards. Dashboards in HubSpot are collections of reports that provide insights and performance indicators across your businesses from marketing and sales to customer service, helping you identify what's working and where there is room for improvement. Hopspot already offers pre-built dashboards that focus on a specific areas of your businesses. So now let's take a look at how you can access them and keep them readily available for quick access. So we're going to click on create dashboard over here. Here you'll be able to find all the templates available for you or you can create a new dashboard and customize it yourself choosing each report that you want to include in there. But this time we're going to choose one predetermined dashboard. In this case, let's say we want to see some key performance metrics on our sales performance. So, we want to click on this one. So, here you're going to see a brief summary of what this dashboard mainly shows you and who would be most helpful to. And then it's going to show you a list of the reports that are going to be included within this dashboard. And you can either select or keep them all in there. So, we're going to click next. We're going to give our dashboard a name. I'm going to keep sales for this case. And then we're going to select how private we want this dashboard to be. In this case, I'll let everyone view and edit. So, we're going to click on create dashboard. So, now that it's created, we can exit this and it should be available on our dashboard main page. So now if we go back to reporting dashboards, it should be listed here. As you can see, it's already here. We're going to click there and we should be able to see our set of reports. So now, as you can see, you have the team activities by activity date. So you can check on your sales team's activities, the contacts created, and work totals with deals. So we have 15 contacts created, seven contacts assigned, eight contacts worked, 32 new deals created, and three closed one. It will also show you a comparison to the previous period based on the data range that you have selected. Another cool thing about these dashboards is that you can drag them and place them wherever you want them to be and also arrange the dashboard visually in whichever ways you feel most comfortable with or you feel like the information is most useful to you. So let's say I want to make this bigger or you can even add specific reports to your dashboards that are not included within the template. So if you click here in add report and choose from saved reports or create report you can use both. You can add specific reports to this dashboard. So let's click here. So we will be able to see a list of all the reports we have already used and created and filter them by the suits marketing sales or service and add them to our dashboard. So, let's say I want to add a marketing dashboard to my sales to my sales dashboard. So, I'm going to go to the CRM insights and choose contacts. So, now I can have a preview of this report. And if I like it, in this case, I can see the count of contacts and their source, where they came from. And if I like it, I can save this report, give it a name, a description. HubSpot usually already gives you one. And then here you can choose whether you want to add this report to a dashboard. In this case, I do want to add it to a dashboard. So I'm going to click here and then I'm going to search my dashboard. In this case is my sales dashboard. So I'm just going to click on save and add and we should be good to go. If we want to check it, we can click here or you can simply add from your own reports. So let's say we want to add this one one by owner. I'm going to go here to actions and then just simply add to my dashboard. So with this tool, you'll be able to have your set of dashboards clearly organized by area of your business and use them wisely. So from now on, accessing your analytics will be simple and organized, making it easier for you to understand your performance at a glance. So that's it. Thank you so much for watching. I hope you found this HubSpot tutorial helpful. You are now ready to get started with your new CRM. Centralize your operations and take your business to the next level with clear, actionable insights. If you want to keep learning, check out our HubSpot playlist. It's packed with useful videos to help you get the most out of the platform. And if you're still comparing options, don't miss our video on the best CRM on the market. It'll help you figure out which one fits your business the best. Thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next