Episode 211: Bogus outreach emails, banning TikTok, PieSync tip

Welcome to HubShots Episode 211: Bogus outreach emails, banning TikTok, PieSync tip

This episode we discuss bogus outreach emails, banning TikTok and how to use PieSync to sync HubSpot customers into Xero.

Listen to the episode here: https://soundcloud.com/hubshots/211-bogus-outreach-emails-banning-tiktok-piesync-tip

Welcome to HubShots - APAC's number 1 HubSpot focussed podcast - where we discuss HubSpot tips & tricks, new features, and strategies for growing your marketing results.

HubShots, the podcast for marketing managers and sales professionals who use HubSpot, hosted by Ian Jacob from Search & Be Found and Craig Bailey from XEN Systems.

Recorded: Thursday 16 July 2020 | Published: Friday 24 July 2020

Shot 1: Growth Thought of the Week

Bogus engagement emails

Sadly bogus outreach/engagement emails are picking up again - here’s a recent example:

If purports to be a forwarded on email from the CEO to an assistant, who forwards it on to me.

Apart from the giveaway that it is sent from ActiveCampaign and has a mass email unsubscribe link, and has no timestamp on the supposed initial email, simply checking the original email will show it is a single email - there’s no forwarding chain.

Plus Ian and Craig both received it at the same time (ie obviously automated).

We first mentioned this email outreach ‘hack’ back in Shot 7 of HubShots episode 133 in August 2018. Back then it was a much better example - much harder to confirm since they were actually single emails (ie not mass broadcast campaigns) - but even then we were dubious about it.

The issue is that it is dishonest, and whilst it might have a window of time where it works, ultimately it reflects badly on you as being spammy and disingenuous.

We are all for continually testing new ideas - but don’t let your integrity levels slide.

Shot 2: HubSpot Marketing Feature of the Week

Using PieSync to sync customer contacts in HubSpot over to Xero

This is a perfect use case for PieSync - simply add a contact in HubSpot and then have it automatically synced over to Xero. Here’s how we’ve set it up:

Create a custom contact property so you can mark which contacts to sync - eg we’ve created a few for triggering a number of syncing processes:

Add this to your Contact layout and then tick on for appropriate contacts eg:

Create an Active list based on the custom contact property:

Setup the PieSync connection

Set up a connection between HubSpot and Xero.

Only sync from HubSpot over to Xero (but for those contacts from HubSpot, keep the two-way sync)

The contact will be created as a Contact in Xero:

Note: the Xero record includes a link (right hand side) but we found this didn’t link to the right place - it links through to a contact view that isn’t correct.

Shot 3: HubSpot Sales Feature of the Week

Automatically populate contact properties with HubSpot AI

So it looks like the following is turned on.

However you need to to enable Inbox Automation under Settings > Email Integrations

https://knowledge.hubspot.com/email-tracking/connected-inbox-automation

https://knowledge.hubspot.com/connected-email/automatically-populate-contact-properties-with-hubspot-ai

Shot 4: HubSpot Stumper of the Week

Revisiting the Forms Submissions report from Episode 207

In episode 207 we answered a question around how to display on a dashboard the list of popup form submissions.

We’ve had a follow up question from Martin about the form submissions that are included:

“Hey Guys. Quick question. It's my understanding that the property "form submission" changes each time the contact fills out a new form. Does the report look at the property's historical values or is it just showing the last value?”

Answer: The Form Submissions listing in the report comes from the list of forms (ie not from the Contact record) and thus includes all the form submissions ie there may be multiple form submissions per contact.

Shot 5: HubSpot Gotcha of the Week

HubSpot Non Form Popup Form Stats

A reminder about reporting on non-form popup forms ie popup forms that simply link through, rather than having a form that is submitted.

We first chatted about this in episode 197 in Shot 2 and noted that reporting on ‘submissions’ is only related to form submits ie it doesn’t include clicking buttons on the popups.

At the time we noted that we expected this to come in time. It’s not yet in place, so Tara has created a Community request - please vote it up:

HubSpot Community > Popup Forms: Report on Non-Form Type Popup Forms

Example: the first popup has a form, the second doesn’t:

Shot 6: Marketing Tip of the Week

How to automatically open links in Chrome

Sick of Chrome prompting you with a popup each time you click a zoom link?

Yep, us too - here’s how to fix it.

Shot 7: Insight of the Week

Facebook as a bad butcher

Long time listeners will recall how we compared Facebook to cigarettes back in episode 151 in February 2019 (ie last year).

Kara Swisher has an even better analogy in her New York Times opinion column last week. She compass Facebook to a bad butcher:

“Think about Facebook as a seller of meat products.

Most of the meat is produced by others, and some of the cuts are delicious and uncontaminated. But tainted meat — say, Trump steaks — also gets out the door in ever increasing amounts and without regulatory oversight.

The argument from the head butcher is this: People should be free to eat rotten hamburger, even if it wreaks havoc on their gastrointestinal tract, and the seller of the meat should not be the one to tell them which meat is good and which is bad (even though the butcher can tell in most cases).

Basically, the message is that you should find the truth through vomiting and — so sorry — maybe even death.

In this, Mr. Zuckerberg is serving up a rancid meal that he says he’s not comfortable cooking himself, even as his hands control every aspect of the operation. Which is why I say to him and every executive at Facebook: You cannot hold on to such enormous power and avoid responsibility when things get tough.”

This is a thought provoking comparison. Here’s the reason it is important for marketers: We need to be thoughtful about where we advertise and implement marketing. For many businesses, we have no option but to use Facebook as a channel. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be thoughtful about it.

If you’d asked me (Craig) a month ago about which side I was on, I would have had a strong answer. But after reading both sides I now realise it is a lot more complex and complicated. I can see both sides, but I actually don’t have a strong position anymore - I’m still thinking it through.

Takeaway: be informed, be thoughtful, aim for positive impact

Shot 8: HubShots Hidden Gem of the Week

Integrate Google Tag Manager into HubSpot

Note: this only applies to pages (web pages and landing pages):

Please note: you will still need to have the Google Tag Manager code for the Blog Templates!

Shot 9: Resource of the Week

Ben Thompson has an illuminating Stratechery post on the future of TikTok, indicating there is a good case to be made for it to be banned.

Worth reading, and also reviewing Benedict Evan’s presentation from February called The Shoulders of Giants where he highlights that the Next Big Thing will be: regulation.

We discussed this in detail back in episode 189 in Shot 9.

Shot 10: Quote of the Week

“Tactical sounds like: ‘What could we do to increase sales?’

Strategic sounds like: ‘Why are our sales numbers not twice as big? What is the core obstacle preventing the doubling of our revenue?’”

From chapter 23 of The Road Less Stupid by Keith Cunningham

Takeaway: Start your thinking with strategic questions

Shot 11: Follow Us on the Socials

Connect with HubShots here: HubShots YouTube channel - HubShots Spotify channel - HubShots Facebook group - HubShots Twitter - HubShots Instagram - HubShots LinkedIn

Connect with Ian Jacob on LinkedIn and Craig Bailey on LinkedIn

HubShots is produced by Christopher Mottram from Podcastily.

Please rate and leave us some feedback as this helps us improve and reach more marketers.

Hey there, thanks for listening to this episode of HubShots.

To get the latest show notes, HubSpot tips and marketing resources, sign up at hubshots.com

You can also book time with us to help you grow better with HubSpot.

Full Transcript of the Episode

- Hi, everyone, welcome to "HubShots" Episode 211. In this episode, we discuss bogus outreach emails, banning TikTok, and how to use PieSync to sync customers in to Xero. You'll listen to Asia Pacific's number one HubSpot Focus podcast, where we discuss HubSpot tips, tricks and strategies for growing your sales, marketing and service results. My name is Ian Jacob, from Search & Be Found, and with me is Craig Bailey from XEN systems. How are you Craig?

- I'm really well and we have so much to get through in the show tonight. You know what, I was just wanting to alert our listeners, this will be a longer episode than normal. And it's funny because remember a couple episodes ago, we said oh, we're gonna try and do them in 15 minutes. And of course we failed after about a week or two 'cause I just yabber on too much. But we actually had listeners say to us, "Oh no, we like the longer format we don't like the shorter format." So back to kind of a longer format, but actually this might go over time please let us know whether you actually stick around to the end or whether we should to try and keep it just back to 22 minutes, which is where we usually end up around.

- Alright, so Growth Thought the Week, Craig, is about bogus engagement emails, and-

- Oh, my goodness. And we spoke about this back in Episode 133, wasn't it? It's like someone has rehashed this again, to bring it to light.

- Yeah, almost two years ago, we spoke about this with some bemusement at the time, I listened back to it. And we do have a link in the show note, shot seven of Episode 133. But I got this email and we were sharing it on our WhatsApp group, and just laughing about how... I'm hesitant to say dishonest although it borders on it. But it's disingenuous, and I'll just explain what it is. They've got this obviously an email template, and I think they're using ActiveCampaign to send this out. And by the way, the person that sends this, I actually quite like him and I've actually bought some of his products. I was disappointing to say this. I'm actually a fan, he does really good stuff, but he's purported to have sent on, so a message from the CEO, sent to his assistant and the assistant forwards that to me to say, "Oh, my CEO said, you know, you should check in, book in a time in the calendar." And it's just that, it just looked so bogus. You can tell for starters, it's a messy email. Two, there's not even any timing on the forward, supposedly from the CEO. So it's obviously just a template that they've put in the placeholder tokens and three you and I received the exact same email. I'm just like, does this work on anyone? Maybe it does.

- You know what, Craig, I think it must work. I mean people, obviously, you know, are thinking, "Wow, he actually cares and I need to book a time in." I mean, what's the dead giveaway it says sent to you, it's got the unsubscribe link, it's got the details that looks like email marketing. So you kinda wonder how this happened. But here you go, folks, again, some of these old tactics coming to the surface, again.

- We've got a screenshot in the show notes. Check it out, have a laugh.

- And let us know if you have a laugh and send us a connection.

- Yeah.

- Book a time in Craig's calendar, I say. It's too funny, anyway, onto our HubSpot Marketing Feature of the week Craig, and this is using PieSync to sync customer contacts into HubSpot, from HubSpot to Xero and back again, keeping things in sync again. So now, listeners, if you didn't listen to our previous episode about PieSync, please do. It's got some really great stuff. And one of the things you should know, PieSync is integration platform as a service. So iPaas, and it keeps data in sync between the two. So here's one use case that Craig has implemented. And I'd recommend that people do implement it because I'm sure a lot of listeners actually use HubSpot and Xero and use PieSync to push your contacts in there. So Craig, tell us what you've done.

- All right, well, I've got a few screenshots in the show notes right, I'll just walk through we've just created a custom contact property which is just yes, no, should we sync this contact to Xero? So we want HubSpot to be a source of truth. Anyway, so the custom property... And then I've got a screenshot on a contact, how we just turn that on, yes. And that of course just fades into an active list. Then we go over to PieSync and we sync contacts from that active list over to Xero. Now it's a two-way sync, which means if it changes in Xero it gets synced back to HubSpot, but just to be clear, it's not syncing back all the records from Xero back, it's only the HubSpot ones in this list. So it's really nice, that's one of the things I really like about PieSync. I'm a PieSync convert by the way, thanks to you Ian, you've convinced me although I still i have to say i hate their password, this login thing. Have I winced about that enough? Anyway, it's all right.

- Well Craig, you can use the login with your HubSpot ID or Google?

- Yeah, but not for a clients, managing clients.

- This is the thing with clients, correct.

- It's not scalable. It's not agency friendly, anyway, I used about

- Not yet. that last episode, folks. So if you wanna hear me rant on like an angry old man, you can listen to that, but this is really cool. And we're gonna be using PieSync more and more. I think it's such a wonderful tool.

- Now listeners, I do wanna give Craig some kudos the way he set this up, he has nicely organized it. And he has created some custom properties to do the sync. And you can even have a look in the notes. You'll see he's nicely even placed it on the contact screen in a separate section called PieSync Options. And he's got a few different ones because he's gonna, he's trying to sync this to possibly Teamwork and to Google Contacts. And last episode, I spoke about syncing Office 365 contacts into here. So you've just done it really nicely, Craig and I want to say well done.

- Thank you.

- All right, Craig, now on to our next show, which is our HubSpot Sales Feature of the Week.

- Oh my goodness, when you showed me this. I'm like, "Yes, turn this on." Talk about, it's got AI, it's all about AI and it must be good. It is actually.

- It's full of goodness, Craig, it's always getting better, isn't it? It's all about growing better? Anyway, so this is an option and you... This is probably turned on by default in your portal. It's under the contact and companies setting and you'll see it says automatically capture contact detail from emails with HubSpot AI. And what it does, it reads people's signatures from their contacts, and will populate fields in the contact record. Now, here's the thing, it's turned on by default. Now what you need to do is you need to enable inbox automation under the settings in email integrations. And what this does is actually tells the system the AI, that it can read your inbox and capture details to populate those records and even create follow up tasks suggestions, which I thought was really interesting. So as it's scanning it, it's probably looking for things that indicate that there is some sort of follow up that's needed and it's gonna obviously give you the option to have a task there. So it's really cool. I had this turned on and I thought, Oh, yeah, this is good. I couldn't see anything happening. And then as I read further, I discovered that you need to have this inbox automation, which is in beta currently. And we've put links to the articles. But well worth the try. And I'm gonna see what's happening.

- I'm really excited about this. When you showed me this, I thought, "Oh, wow, it's totally... I didn't even expect this kind of thing from HubSpot." So I say this, "Oh, wow, that's a great idea. Of course, they should do this." Just be aware, folks, they have access to your inbox. So I know that's not comfortable, for some people. I've given up any any pretense that nothing is privacy in my inbox of Google, I will use G Suite. So look, just be mindful of that. It will, of course, look into your inbox and through your emails, but I'm fine with that. I'm not saying everyone should be fine with it. And it's also I guess, yeah, you trade off that lack of privacy for utility.

- All right, Craig HubSpot Stumper of the Week, and this is revisiting the form submission reports from episode 207 and we answered a question around how to display on the dashboard, a list of pop-up form submissions. And we had a follow-up question from Martin. So thank you for connecting with us, Martin. So I'm gonna read what Martin wrote on the LinkedIn post. And he said, "Hi, guys, quick question. It is my understanding that the property form submission changes each time that contact fills out a new form. Does the report look at the property, historical values? Or is it just showing the last value?" Now, Martin, there is no form submission property in a contact record there is the number of form submissions and the number of unique forms submitted. And if someone's up to that, of email, so it's a-

- You know what, he's probably thinking of last conversion.

- Yes, last conversion.

- Now it'll confuse him.

- But that's a page it's not a form, right? It'll show you the page that they can be added on. So the answer is the form submissions listing in the report that we spoke about comes from a list of forms, not contact records and includes all form submissions and a single customer may have actually submitted multiple forms. And that's why you see that. I hope this is clear, you probably need to take a step back and go and have a look at the show notes just to have a look and understand what's going on. Now, Craig, we've got our HubSpot Gotcha of the Week.

- All right, speaking about HubSpot forms, but in another situation. Remember back in Episode 197... I feel like we were referring to previous episodes a lot this episode. So internal linking for the win there. But remember, we spoke about this in 197 when HubSpot added this new feature, which is great, by the way, where pop up forms don't necessarily have to have a form.

- Correct.

- So you can just have this pop-up where you click and it's just a button, it might go to a page or download for example. So it's actually, it's funny enough they call them, like HubSpot Non-form Pop-up Forms, which is interesting in itself. Anyway, as we noted at the time, when you see a list of those forms the submissions for these non-form pop-up forms will of course be Xero. And that's a bit of a gotcha so just wanted to remind listeners about that. We've got a screenshot so you can see what we're talking about. More importantly though, thanks to Tara she's said, "Look, we've gotta get this fixed." And we kind of expected it to be fixed by now. They would have changed the reporting. Possibly put a few more columns in that layout, but not yet. So Todd has created a community request please go and vote it up. I'm sure it's on the roadmap. I'm sure they've got this in the works but this might just prompt it.

- But Craig, you know, I still love pop-up forms.

- Ah, I love them.

- Just the flexibility to target now is fantastic, and-

- Oh hide your targeting is a kill. Hey, we should link back to an episode we talked about that as well, it's such a good feature.

- Alright, folks onto our Marketing Tip of the Week. And I know everybody and most people that listen to us would probably use Zoom. And you've probably seen every time you click on a Zoom meeting link, and it opens in Chrome, you get this pop up that says, "Do you wanna open Zoom?" And after a while, it gets really annoying. Anyway, thanks to Craig, he's discovered a way to stop that from happening, if you've got a Mac. So follow the link and you can fix it.

- Yeah, there is a similar fix for Windows as well, just by the way to set some context around this. This changed in Chrome, I think 77 or 76, up until 75 and before you had this little option where you could tick to not be prompted each time they took that away for some reason. This is a way to get that back and fix it so you don't get this annoying prompts. And it's amazing how annoying these little pieces of friction are. And I remember when I showed you today I said, "Oh you know what I can fix that." Yeah, it's like the best news we've heard all day was from me when I found out as well, it's the little things, I mean, isn't it?

- That's right, Craig. Now, listeners our Insight of the Week, and this is a cracker, let me give some context. We've called at Facebook as a "Bad Butcher". And longtime listeners would actually recall we compared Facebook to cigarettes back in Episode 151 and that was in February of 2019. One of the podcasts we liked listening to which is called Craig?

- "Pivot."

- That's right, with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway. And she's used in her New York Times Opinion Column. She's used a great analogy as Facebook as a "Bad Butcher." Now, Craig, I'm gonna get you to read this because I think people have to hear this because one thing I really enjoyed was when you kinda picture or imagine what this is, and she's hooked it really well to something that we would all potentially experience in our lives. It just makes it so real.

- She's a storyteller. But by the way, I'll set the context. This is around how Facebook is attempting to absolve themselves of any responsibility in looking after the content and potentially hate speech, et cetera, that is on their platform. And they or Mark Zuckerberg attempts to say, "Look, it's not his responsibility." Here's what Kara Swisher says she says, "Think about Facebook as a seller of meat products. Most of the meat is produced by others and some of the cuts are delicious and uncontaminated, but tainted meat say, Trump steaks," and I stick there, "also gets out the door in ever increasing amounts and without regulatory oversight. The argument from the head butcher i.e. Mark Zuckerberg is, 'People should be free to eat rotten hamburger even if it wreaks havoc on their gastrointestinal tract, and the seller of the meat should not be the one to tell them which meat is good and which is bad. Even though the butcher can tell in most cases.' Basically the message is," she says, "That you should find the truth through vomiting and maybe even death." "In this, Mr. Zuckerberg," and I'm still quoting from her article, "is serving up a rancid meal. That he says he's not comfortable cooking himself, even as his hands control every aspect of the operation. Which is why I say to him and every executive at Facebook, you cannot hold on to such enormous power and avoid responsibility, when things get tough." End of quote. Your silence speaks volumes there Ian. It's such a compelling analogy, isn't it? And so simplistic in a way, overly simplistic. I wanted to make a comment about this because if you'd asked my view about this, say a month or two ago, I would have had a strong answer. However, I guess what I've realized and I won't actually say what my view is now. 'Cause that's not the point. But the point is, my view is different and also it's almost like I don't have a view because I realize how complex the situation is. And so my takeaway, or my, I guess what I'm hoping and what the reason we've included in the show notes, in the show today, is because we need to be informed, but fought for and aiming for positive impact. And it's very easy with this article of hers, which I think is fantastic representation. To be over simplistic and say, "Well, it's obviously wrong." And it's okay to say that. But make sure you've thought it through fully. And I am actually at the point where I can see both sides. I won't say which side I'm leaning on now. But I do hope listeners actually take this and think it through. It actually should be in, I guess, part of our decision. Should we be advertising on Facebook, for many businesses, you have no choice but to, but some have boycotted as we'd be aware of recently, but at least be thoughtful, that's my request. And I guess, hopefully, we're leading by example, be thoughtful marketers.

- All right onto our HubSpot Hidden Gem of the Week, Craig and this is my little discovery for this week is that you can now integrate Google Tag Manager into HubSpot. And it's an option on the integrations tab within the settings and website. Now, here's the caveat, you will still need to have Google Tag Manager Code for your blog templates like you did before. This applies to page and landing templates. So if you're using HubSpot CMS, and you using MarketingPro, for example, that has landing pages in it, actually even starter, this is how you would do this.

- I think this is really good. I was so pleased when you showed me this today. And yeah, just to reiterate your point there. When you're adding Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager in HubSpot, you've gotta do it in two places. If you're using the blog as well put it in the blog template and in this case, put it on the pages. So it is a gotcha and we were going through portals today and there's even some clients who got missed. So it could be a Gotcha of the Week but I'm really kinda seeing this... I'd love to see this just integrated straight through the blogs as well. I don't see why we have to put it in two spots. Maybe that's legacy, why do you think that is? Do you think that they'll actually update that in time, Ian?

- I think they will Craig, as everything merges together. All right, so let's talk about our Resource of the Week, Craig? And this is from Ben Thompson, who we speak about quite a bit. And he's got a really interesting post about the future of TikTok and this is on Stratechery, indicating there's a good case that can be made for it to be banned. And I was fascinated when you put this in the notes. And I was reading it and I was like, "Wow!"

- This is mandatory reading, I think for anyone in marketing and thinking about TikTok as we are, as you know, I've been addicted to TikTok lately. You'd be proud of me Ian, I actually deleted TikTok from my phone last week, but not because of security issues, which is what Ben's article is referring to. I just deleted it 'cause I was wasting so much time. It's such a good app, it's so addictive, it's so well done. It's so addictive, the algorithm is so good, I just had to delete it because as you know, I'm not up, I'm hardly ever on Facebook or any of the other social networks, Instagram very rarely on LinkedIn sorry listeners for how long it takes for me to reply, but oh, TikTok just had me hooked. But his post is around the security aspects of TikTok. He actually looks into the China relationship. He actually has a really good point about China versus the West in terms of ideology, and where both are headed. I think it's really compelling reading, you should read that. What's also flows on from this and in fact, 'cause you know, there has been moments about America, the US might ban it and they might not and then Amazon did, and then they rolled it back. And of course, Walmart said, "No, it's banned on Walmart, business devices." And things like that, follow on phone. Remember, we talked about Benedict Evans back in 189,

- Yes.

- And his presentation on the next big thing, and the next big thing, Regulation, and this is what we're heading to, and I think combine those two articles, read them and view them. And you get a sense of how technology is moving. And the future is gonna be very interesting place.

- You know what was funny, Craig, when you put that into the show notes, and I was, I got a message from a friend earlier today. And what was really interesting on Mumbrella, there was an ad... A write up about this, about TikTok running ads. I'm just looking at it while I'm talking to you listeners. And it says, "Don't make TikTok a political football." And it gives you the reasons why people need to trust them. And so here we are, listeners, them, you know, protecting their position. So I think it's really important for us as business owners as marketers, to understand what's going on with the tools and the platforms that we use and the impact it has on different people and nations essentially. So I would encourage you all if you're driving or riding on the beach, and listening to us, when you get back to your desk, go back and check out the show notes and actually have a read of this article. All right, Craig, onto our Quote of the Week.

- This is advice from a book called "The Road Less Stupid". I think we've mentioned this a few times on the show before by Keith Cunningham, wonderful business advice. He's talking about strategy, and why you should start your thinking with strategic questions. He says, "Tactical sounds like, 'What could we do to increase sales?' Whereas strategic sounds like, 'Why are our sales numbers not twice as big? What is the core obstacle preventing the doubling of our revenue?'" End of quote. Hopefully, that's thought provoking. It's just a change of perspective on how you start your thinking.

- Listeners, thank you for listening to this episode. Please follow us on the socials. Connect with us on LinkedIn. Please tell us that you listen to this show and thank you to those who have connected with us over the last week. It has been a great pleasure to connect with you guys. And again, if you need help with anything, please don't feel afraid to reach out to us. Go to the website, complete a form. Or you can reach out via LinkedIn to Craig and myself. Craig Until next week?

- Catch you later Ian.

- Hey there thanks for listening to this episode of HubShots. To get the latest show notes, HubSpot tips and resources sign up at hubshots.com. You can also book time with us to help you grow better with HubSpot.