Executives: 30% More Leads with HubSpot Marketing?

The power of executives in shaping the marketing industry cannot be overstated. Their strategic decisions, vision, and resource allocation directly impact campaign success and overall business growth. But how can executives actively transform marketing using modern tools? The answer lies in mastering marketing analytics platforms. Are you ready to see how a CEO can drive a 30% increase in lead generation using just one platform?

Step 1: Accessing the Executive Dashboard

The first step is gaining access to the Executive Dashboard within HubSpot‘s Marketing Hub. This dashboard provides a high-level overview of all your marketing activities, making it easy for executives to monitor performance without getting bogged down in granular details. As a consultant, I’ve seen many executives struggle to understand marketing reports, which is why a clean, consolidated dashboard is so crucial.

Navigating to the Dashboard

1. Log into your HubSpot account.
2. In the main navigation menu on the left, click on “Reports”. In the 2026 interface, the icon is a stylized chart.
3. From the Reports dropdown menu, select “Dashboards”.
4. On the Dashboards page, you’ll see a list of available dashboards. Locate and click on the “Executive Dashboard (Beta)” option. Note: HubSpot still designates this as Beta, but it’s been quite stable since late 2025.

Pro Tip: If you don’t see the Executive Dashboard, your HubSpot subscription might not include it. Contact your HubSpot sales representative or account manager to upgrade your plan. Also, ensure your user permissions grant you access to reporting features.

Common Mistake: Many users mistakenly navigate to “Analytics Tools” under “Reports,” which provides more detailed data but lacks the executive summary view. Always choose “Dashboards” first.

Expected Outcome: After completing these steps, you should be viewing the Executive Dashboard, which displays key performance indicators (KPIs) such as website traffic, lead generation, customer acquisition, and marketing ROI.

Step 2: Customizing the Executive Dashboard

The default Executive Dashboard provides a good starting point, but to truly transform your marketing efforts, you need to customize it to track the KPIs that matter most to your organization. This involves adding, removing, and rearranging widgets to create a personalized view of your marketing performance.

Adding and Removing Widgets

1. On the Executive Dashboard, click the “Edit Dashboard” button in the upper right corner. The button is represented by a pencil icon.
2. A sidebar will appear on the right, listing available widgets. These widgets cover various areas, including website analytics, email marketing, social media, and advertising.
3. To add a widget, simply drag it from the sidebar onto the dashboard. To remove a widget, hover over it and click the “X” icon that appears in the upper right corner.

Configuring Widget Settings

1. Once you’ve added a widget, you can configure its settings to display the specific data you want to track. Hover over the widget and click the gear icon.
2. A configuration panel will appear, allowing you to customize various aspects of the widget, such as the date range, data source, and chart type.
3. For example, if you’re tracking website traffic, you can choose to display data for the past month, quarter, or year. You can also select specific traffic sources, such as organic search, paid advertising, or social media.

Pro Tip: Focus on the metrics that directly impact your business goals. For example, if your goal is to increase lead generation, prioritize widgets that track lead volume, conversion rates, and cost per lead. A IAB report from last quarter emphasized the importance of aligning marketing KPIs with overall business objectives.

Common Mistake: Overloading the dashboard with too many widgets can make it difficult to interpret the data. Stick to a manageable number of KPIs (ideally 5-7) that provide a clear picture of your marketing performance. I’ve seen dashboards with 20+ widgets – total information overload!

Expected Outcome: After customizing the dashboard, you should have a personalized view of your marketing performance that focuses on the KPIs that are most important to your organization. This will enable you to quickly identify areas of strength and weakness and make data-driven decisions.

Step 3: Creating Custom Reports

While the Executive Dashboard provides a high-level overview, sometimes you need to drill down into more specific data to understand the underlying drivers of your marketing performance. This is where custom reports come in. HubSpot’s Marketing Hub allows you to create custom reports that track virtually any metric you can imagine.

Building a Custom Report

1. From the Reports menu, select “Reports,” then click the “Create custom report” button in the upper right corner.
2. You’ll be prompted to choose a report type. Select “Single object report” to start.
3. Next, select the primary data source for your report. This could be “Contacts,” “Companies,” “Deals,” or any other object in HubSpot.
4. Now, you can add filters to narrow down the data included in your report. For example, you can filter contacts by lifecycle stage, lead source, or campaign.
5. Add properties to display in your report. These are the specific data points you want to track, such as “First Name,” “Last Name,” “Email,” “Company,” and “Create Date.”
6. Finally, choose a visualization type for your report, such as a table, chart, or graph.

Example: Tracking Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Let’s say you want to track your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). Here’s how you could build a custom report:

1. Start a new “Single object report” with “Deals” as the primary data source.
2. Add a filter for “Close Date” within the desired time period (e.g., past quarter).
3. Add a filter for “Deal Stage” equal to “Closed Won.”
4. Add properties: “Amount” (total revenue) and “Campaign” (associated marketing campaign).
5. Create a calculated property (HubSpot allows this in the 2026 version) to divide total marketing spend (which you’ll need to input manually or integrate from your accounting system) by the number of closed-won deals. This gives you CAC.
6. Visualize the data as a line chart showing CAC over time, broken down by campaign.

Pro Tip: Leverage HubSpot’s calculated properties feature to create custom metrics that aren’t available out-of-the-box. This allows you to track virtually any KPI you can imagine. We had a client last year who used calculated properties to track the lifetime value of customers acquired through different marketing channels. The results were eye-opening!

Common Mistake: Forgetting to save your custom report! HubSpot will periodically auto-save, but always double-check before navigating away. Also, be careful with filters; too many can result in a report with no data.

Expected Outcome: You should now have a custom report that tracks your CAC over time, broken down by campaign. This will allow you to identify the most cost-effective marketing channels and allocate your budget accordingly. Remember that Nielsen data consistently shows the value of tracking campaign-specific ROI.

Step 4: Using AI-Powered Insights

HubSpot’s Marketing Hub incorporates artificial intelligence (AI) to provide insights and recommendations that can help you improve your marketing performance. These AI-powered features can identify underperforming campaigns, suggest optimizations, and even predict future results.

Accessing AI Insights

1. Navigate to the “AI Insights” section of the Marketing Hub. In the 2026 interface, this is located under “Marketing” > “Planning & Strategy” > “AI Insights”.
2. Here, you’ll find a variety of AI-powered recommendations and insights, tailored to your specific marketing activities.
3. For example, the AI might identify a landing page with a low conversion rate and suggest improvements to the headline, copy, or call-to-action.
4. Or, it might identify a segment of your email list that is particularly engaged and recommend sending them a special offer.

Implementing AI Recommendations

1. Review the AI recommendations carefully and consider whether they align with your marketing goals and strategies.
2. If you agree with a recommendation, implement it by making the suggested changes to your marketing campaigns.
3. For example, if the AI suggests improving the headline of a landing page, update the headline in HubSpot’s landing page editor.
4. Monitor the results of your changes to see if they have a positive impact on your marketing ROI.

Pro Tip: Don’t blindly follow every AI recommendation. Use your own judgment and experience to evaluate whether a suggestion makes sense for your business. AI is a powerful tool, but it’s not a substitute for human intelligence. Here’s what nobody tells you: AI is trained on data, and if your data is flawed, the AI’s recommendations will be flawed too.

Common Mistake: Ignoring AI insights altogether. Many executives are skeptical of AI and prefer to rely on their own intuition. While intuition is valuable, AI can provide data-driven insights that you might otherwise miss.

Expected Outcome: By leveraging AI-powered insights, you can identify areas for improvement in your marketing campaigns and make data-driven decisions that lead to better results. I’ve seen companies increase their lead generation by as much as 20% by implementing AI recommendations.

Step 5: Sharing and Collaborating on the Dashboard

The final step is to share the Executive Dashboard with your team and collaborate on improving your marketing performance. HubSpot’s Marketing Hub makes it easy to share dashboards with other users and discuss the data.

Sharing the Dashboard

1. On the Executive Dashboard, click the “Share” button in the upper right corner. The button is represented by an arrow icon.
2. You’ll be prompted to enter the email addresses of the users you want to share the dashboard with.
3. You can also choose whether to grant users “View” or “Edit” access. “View” access allows users to see the dashboard but not make any changes. “Edit” access allows users to customize the dashboard and add or remove widgets.

Collaborating on the Dashboard

1. Use HubSpot’s built-in commenting feature to discuss the data displayed on the dashboard with your team.
2. To add a comment, hover over a widget and click the comment icon.
3. Type your comment and click “Post.”
4. Other users can reply to your comment and participate in the discussion.

Pro Tip: Schedule regular meetings to review the Executive Dashboard with your team and discuss any trends or issues that you identify. This will help you to stay on top of your marketing performance and make data-driven decisions collaboratively.

Common Mistake: Failing to communicate the insights from the dashboard to the wider organization. The Executive Dashboard is a valuable tool, but it’s only effective if the data is used to inform decision-making across the company.

Expected Outcome: By sharing the Executive Dashboard and collaborating with your team, you can create a culture of data-driven decision-making and improve your marketing performance. A eMarketer study found that companies with a strong data-driven culture are more likely to achieve their marketing goals.

For example, if you want to supercharge leads for your business, understanding these analytics is key.

By mastering the Executive Dashboard in HubSpot Marketing Hub, executives can truly transform their marketing strategies. The key is not just access to the data, but using it to make informed decisions and drive tangible results. So, start customizing your dashboard today and watch your marketing ROI soar. In my experience, active engagement and a willingness to experiment with the platform is the best way to see real results. Need help? Let’s define your niche and win clients.