HubSpot Custom Objects: Ultimate Guide

How to create and manage Custom Objects inside HubSpot.

Intro to Custom Objects in HubSpot

With a recent update, you can create custom objects inside HubSpot, no third party tools required anymore (so our Custom Objects App that was available on this page is now discontinued and replaced by HubSpot native functionality).

HubSpot provides a wealth of features that enable users to efficiently manage customer data and automate tasks. One of the most powerful features of Hubspot is the ability to create custom objects. Custom objects are a way to store and manage custom data within the Hubspot platform.

With Custom Objects, you can capture data that's unique to your business.
Based on your Custom Objects you can create new segments and build customized reports, campaigns, and workflows that leverage both CRM property and contact data in HubSpot - plus custom data unique to your business like product usage or inventory data.

HubSpot Data Model: Standard and Custom Objects

Out of the box HubSpot has set of standard objects and custom objects.
Standard objects in HubSpot: 

  • Contacts,
  • Companies,
  • Deals, 
  • Tickets.

standard objects

 

While Custom objects are supposed to be created by a user, HubSpot has introduced some of the custom objects that are used for integration purposes:

  • Payments (used when HubSpot Payments is activated)
  • Invoices (for integration with QuickBooks or other accounting systems)
  • Marketing Events (integration with Zoom, GoToWebinar)

Though technically these objects are custom, they are not showed in the menu as custom objects.

How To Create a Custom Object

With the recent release you can create new Custom Object by going into Settings / Objects / Custom objects and enter Object name and primary property. Be careful on this step as you won't be able to rename your object after it is created. 

Custom Objects for Developers

Here's a workshop on how you can work with Custom Objects if you are a developer: 

 

What you can do with custom objects?

After creating a custom object you can do most of the things you do with standard objects like Deals or Tickets and few other things: 

  • Pipelines and stages: if your object is something like Project or Claim or anything else that might require stages of processing, you can setup Pipelines and Stages (like you do for Deals) 
  • Workflows: you may set Custom Object Workflows or use associated Custom Object as a trigger for standard object workflows
  • Reports: Using Custom Report Builder you can create reports and Data Sets based on Custom object data
  • Connecting custom objects with each other: when you have multiple custom objects you can set custom associations between those
  • Website: you can use Custom objects as a database for your Website (a good example is a Property Agency having all their properties as custom objects in Hubspot and website that shows only properties that are marked as available)
  • Programmatic emails: you can use dynamic email data inside HubSpot with emails that capture data from Custom object associated with Contact

Examples of Custom objects

Sales

  • Payments
  • Subscriptions
  • Invoices
  • Leads
  • Partners

 

Marketing

  • Webinar Registration: a custom object that allows storing individual links for Zoom/GoTowebinar
  • Conversion (ex. Create conversion object for every important interaction with prospect - form submissions, CTA clicks etc)

 

Service:
  • Project
  • Issue
HR:
  • candidates
  • open positions

 

Insurance:
  • Policy
  • Beneficiary
  • Claim

 

FinTech:
  • Balances
  • Transactions (deposit/withdrawals)

 

Logistics and transportation
  • Lanes
  • Transport Lines

Overall, Hubspot custom objects are an incredibly powerful tool that can help businesses improve their customer relationships and gain valuable insights into their customer base. With the ability to store more data than ever before, easily link related data points, and keep your data secure, custom objects are an invaluable asset for any business that needs to track customer data.

With the right implementation, custom objects can help you maximize your customer relationships and gain valuable insights into your data and processes.