Marketing and sales have changed radically over the past decade. While organizations used to work with disparate tools and CRM systems, today's digital world is much smarter and more connected. During that time, HubSpot has become the platform for growth. From modest beginnings in the early 2010s to a global standard for inbound marketing and connected CRM. The figures reveal an impressive growth story. In this blog post, we'll take you through that journey: from the first users to today's explosive adoption, and what that means for companies in the Netherlands.
If you look at the chart below from BuiltWith, you'll see HubSpot grow like a rocket, an upward trend that has skyrocketed in recent years. According to BuiltWith data, HubSpot is currently used on over 466,000 live websites (source). That's a staggering number, especially considering that 15 years ago, there were virtually none. The chart shows how the platform has risen from nothing to a dominant position in the online marketing world.
Explosive growth of an inbound marketing tool
In the early years, HubSpot usage grew steadily. HubSpot introduced a free CRM around 2014, and that boosted adoption. Suddenly, smaller companies could also get in low cost. Starting in the mid-2010s, the growth curve became steeper. Inbound marketing became mainstream, and HubSpot, once an underdog among established CRM giants, surfed that wave perfectly.
HubSpot's market share in marketing automation software is now over 23% (source). By comparison, one in four companies deploying marketing-automation does so with HubSpot. The chart clearly shows that the last five to 10 years in particular have been a period of explosive growth. Where HubSpot once began as a niche tool for a handful of pioneers, it is now a global standard. In fact, the platform currently ranks No. 1 in growth within the CRM/Analytics category, according to Builtwith.
That rapid rise did not come out of the blue. HubSpot managed to embrace the trend of inbound marketing early, offering a user-friendly all-in-one platform. Companies saw results: more website visitors, more leads and more efficient sales. That flywheel effect, in HubSpot terms, caused more and more organizations to deploy the platform. Moreover, HubSpot operates a freemium model: you can start for free and scale up as you grow. That has lowered the barrier for thousands of startups, SMEs and also larger companies to just try it out. The result is visible in the data: global adoption that has grown from a few dozen users to hundreds of thousands of websites around the world.
The Netherlands also embraces HubSpot en masse
HubSpot has long since ceased to be exclusively an American phenomenon. In the Netherlands, too, we see the line in the graph going up year after year. In recent years, HubSpot's popularity in the Netherlands has increased dramatically. From SMEs to corporates, everyone is getting in. European companies, especially organizations in the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands, now make up about 16% of HubSpot's customer base. That means that thousands of Dutch websites and companies use HubSpot for their marketing, sales or customer service.
What types of companies are they? Especially sectors such as software and IT services, marketing and communications agencies and other tech-savvy organizations are big users. HubSpot once began as a marketing tool, but now companies of all kinds rely on the platform: from small startups to established names. Similarly, well-known names like KPMG (global accounting firm), Accenture (a consulting giant) and Mollie (Dutch fintech unicorn) use HubSpot for their inbound marketing. Even consumer brands and scale-ups, think Electroworld and Swisssense, are using HubSpot to generate leads and grow their customer base. The fact that such reputable companies are choosing HubSpot shows how mature the platform has become. Whereas ten years ago HubSpot may have been associated mainly with newsletters and blog posts, it is now a full-fledged suite that is on the tech stack of both SMEs and multinationals.
Dutch users especially praise HubSpot's user-friendliness and "all-in-one" nature. Instead of having to link separate tools for e-mail, CMS, CRM and analytics, in HubSpot you have one central hub. Especially for Dutch SMEs with limited marketing departments, this is a godsend: you start easily with the free CRM and a few forms, and then expand step by step with advanced features such as marketing automation, sales funnels and customer service. That flexibility explains why you increasingly encounter HubSpot in the Netherlands, from web shops and agencies to educational institutions and even non-profits. The platform is in line with the trend that Dutch companies also want to be more data-driven and customer-centric, something HubSpot facilitates with its dashboards and personalization capabilities.
HubSpot vs. Salesforce: the underdog is gaining ground
An interesting comparison is with Salesforce, the veteran and global leader in CRM. Looking purely at the number of websites these two use, HubSpot comes out surprisingly strong. Whereas HubSpot runs on nearly half a million Web sites, Salesforce is deployed on some 131,000 live sites. So in numbers of Web deployments, HubSpot has far surpassed its older competitor. That's not to say Salesforce is losing ground. It still has a huge customer base, especially among large enterprises. But it does show how different the strategies and audiences of the two are.
How is it that HubSpot appears on so many more sites?
For one thing, HubSpot also targets mid-market and even small businesses, which massively put the free tools and HubSpot tracking code on their Web sites. Salesforce, on the other hand, is more often used internally as business software without always having a public script on the site. Moreover, Salesforce is fundamentally a pure CRM system, while HubSpot is originally marketing software that actually becomes visible on websites (think HubSpot forms, chat widgets, analytics scripts). Because of this, BuiltWith counts for HubSpot much more "web footprint. In other words: HubSpot has a broader base of small- and medium-sized users online, while Salesforce runs mostly in the background at large organizations.
Still, HubSpot's rise against the establishment is striking. For years, Salesforce was considered the standard for CRM, but the numbers suggest that HubSpot has taken a big bite out of the market, especially among companies looking for ease of use and integration of marketing as well as sales. That doesn't mean the choice is always either/or; sometimes it's also and/and, as we see below.
Stronger together: when companies use both HubSpot and Salesforce
Remarkably, there are also large companies that use both Salesforce and HubSpot. If you look in the lists of users, names pop up of organizations that have embraced both platforms. What exactly is the situation? There are a couple of conceivable scenarios.
First, a company might use Salesforce as the core CRM for its sales and account management teams, while the marketing department runs on HubSpot. Salesforce excels at extensive CRM functionality for complex sales processes, but HubSpot is known for its friendly interface for marketing automation, email campaigns and content management. In this scenario, Salesforce does the heavy lifting in the background (e.g., contact management, opportunity management), while HubSpot acts as the front-end for lead generation: landing pages, blogs, forms and newsletters that attract new leads. Through integrations (which HubSpot and Salesforce happily provide), those leads are automatically routed to Salesforce. Thus, the company benefits from the best of both worlds. Salesforce as a robust database for customers, HubSpot as a creative engine for marketing.
Another scenario is that companies use HubSpot as a CMS for their website and as a marketing hub, but still retain Salesforce for their international sales organization or customer support, for example. Imagine a large multinational with a headquarters that has used Salesforce for years; meanwhile, the local marketing teams choose HubSpot for its simplicity and local support. Both systems can co-exist: HubSpot manages website content, blogs and campaigns, while Salesforce manages global customer data and deals. You see this, for example, with companies that do e-commerce or physical sales through Salesforce CRM, but run their content marketing through HubSpot.
The fact that some Dutch organizations use both systems shows that it does not have to be a strict choice. Integration between HubSpot and Salesforce is technically quite possible (there is even a standard connector available), so data doesn't have to remain stuck in silos. Ultimately, it's all about which tool best suits which task: Salesforce excels in comprehensive CRM workflows and reporting, HubSpot excels in ease-of-use and inbound marketing tools. By cleverly combining them, an organization can leverage both the power of Salesforce's in-depth CRM and HubSpot's agility.
Conclusion: HubSpot's rise is unstoppable
The numbers and trends speak for themselves: HubSpot has gone from a newcomer to a dominant player in MarTech in about a decade and a half. The BuiltWith trend chart illustrates that journey beautifully, with an almost vertical rise in recent years. HubSpot has also become a household name in the Netherlands, and we see all kinds of companies embracing it - from startups to the top of the corporate world. In the process, HubSpot has long since outgrown the label of "marketing tool"; it is a full-fledged platform that can match (and sometimes surpass in use) renowned systems like Salesforce.
Ready to really leverage HubSpot?
Would you like to experience the power of HubSpot for yourself and use the platform to its full potential for your marketing and sales? Bright Digital will help you every step of the way: from strategy and implementation to training and growth. Schedule a no-obligation meeting and find out how we can help your organization get the most out of HubSpot.
