Looking at our customers we’ve seen that there are 3 potential ways to manage your partners within HubSpot:
via custom properties
via company association
via custom object association.
In this article we’re going to focus on revenue attribution so we’re looking at the object “Deal” in HubSpot.
If you also want to attribute contacts, leads, companies,… you can use the same approach.
Via custom properties
How does it work?
To use custom properties you need to follow the next steps:
Create a custom property (on deal level)
Step 1: Go to settings —> data management —> properties
Step 2: Create a new property and fill in following info
Object type: Deal
Group: Deal information
Label: This is up to you to decide, we’ve gone for “Partner” click next
Field type: If you’re sometimes working with multiple partners on a deal we advise to go for “Multiple checkboxes”. If there is always maximum one partner per deal go for “Dropdown select
Add your custom property to your view or your teams view
This will allow you to easily select the right partners from the left side panel
Attribute the right partner(s) to the right deals
What are the pro’s?
✅ Easy and fast set-up
✅ Possible with all HubSpot plans
What are the cons?
❌ Not very scalable
Via company association (with association label)
How does it work?
To use company association you need to follow the next steps:
Create a custom label (on deal level)
Step 1: Go to settings —> data management —> objects —> deals —> associations
Step 2: Create association label
Objects you’re associating: Deals-to-companies
How many labels do you need? A single label
Create one called: partner sourced (for deals that partners have sourced)
💡 Optional: You can create another label called: partner influenced (for deals that partners have influenced)
Associate the partner company to a deal and select the label “partner sourced” (or partner influenced)
You can do this by associating an (additional) company to the deal: + Add company
What are the pro’s?
✅ Easy and fast set-up
✅ Scalable
What are the cons?
❌ Not possible with all HubSpot plans
❌ Not easy (not possible) to report on in HubSpot
Via. custom object association
How does it work?
To use custom object association you need to follow the next steps:
Create a custom object
Step 1: Go to settings —> data management —> objects —> custom objects
Step 2: Create custom object
Object name - singular: “Partner”
Object name - plural: “Partner”
Primary display property: “Partner Name”
Property type: Single-line text
Associate the company to the partner object
Associate the right company object to the partner object in order to have all the right data connected
Associate the partner object to a deal
💡 Optional: Create association labels on this custom object to differentiate between for example partner influenced and partner sourced
What are the pro’s?
✅ Good for organisations with larger amounts of partners
✅ Scalable
What are the cons?
❌ Not possible with all HubSpot plans
❌ Not so easy