In this tutorial, we explore how you can publicly share PDFs and other documents stored in any cloud storage across various marketing channels such as social media, landing pages, banners, ads etc. through HubSpot - CloudFiles integration. Additionally, the integration also collects anonymous analytics and reports on it using HubSpot dashboards.

By the end of this tutorial, you can expect to -

The GIF below shows the expected output. If you have a basic grasp of these concepts, you can expect to finish the tutorial in 5 to 10 minutes.

Refer to the quick video if you would like to have a visual guide for this tutorial. Read on if you prefer textual content.

CloudFiles is available on the app marketplace and can be installed using the standard app installation process. Check out Installation guide for CloudFiles HubSpot Integration.

CloudFiles links are secure publicly shareable links that can be used to share your PDFs and other documents. You can create the link using the CloudFiles Dashboard.

To go to the CloudFiles Dashboard from HubSpot, go to any Contact record, locate the CloudFiles widget and click on the CloudFiles hyperlink. This is shown in the GIF below. Once you are on the dashboard, you can locate the file and create the link.

Once you are on the CloudFiles Dashboard, click on the ‘Libraries’ tab on the top. Then, on the left sidebar, click on the HubSpot Storage option. This will show you all of your HubSpot files. In case you want to use another storage platform, you can do so. Simply login with your respective account and you should see all of your files.

Locate the file that you want to share and then click on the “Create Link” button and name the link for your reference. Once the link is created, copy it for the next step. The process of link creation is shown in the GIF below.

While not mandatory for this use case, explore configuration settings during the link creation process if you want to customize any aspects. You can also enable custom branding & domain for this link. Read Custom Branding & Domain to know more.

Open the link that was created and spend a few seconds on your asset for the analytics to build up. Scroll through so you can get richer analytics. Refresh the page so you collect multiple views. Once you feel enough analytics has been collected, go back to your HubSpot.

Come back to the link settings page in the CloudFiles dashboard from where you had copied the link. Check the Analytics section to view the analytics outside HubSpot. You will get detailed drilled down analytics for each view. From the analytics dialog, you can get details such as view count, downloads, location, time spent, pagewise analytics etc.

CloudFiles can create File view custom object records in HubSpot for each view that happens in the file. There is various information available in this record including view date, time spent, scroll depth and more... You can create a variety of charts & reports using this data.

In order to create document analytics dashboard, you need access to HubSpot Custom Objects. To see if you have access to this feature, look for a 'Custom Objects' option in the Contacts dropdown menu as shown below.

You also need to enable the Custom Object feature in CloudFiles so we can automatically start creating these in your HubSpot account. This setting can be found on the CloudFiles app dashboard in Settings > Integrations > HubSpot > Enable Custom Object toggle. If you face issues enabling this feature, reach out to us through chat on the bottom right.

Once the feature is enabled, you should see the 'CloudFiles Views' custom object created in the Contacts menu of HubSpot. You would also see some records pre-created for the views that you have already collected on files. You can view more information on any record by clicking on it.

To create your first report, go to your HubSpot and follow the steps below -

You can use these help articles from HubSpot to learn about the type of reports you can create with HubSpot. The GIF below shows the basic process in a nutshell.

You can now use the report(s) in dashboard and graphically see the data in a collated format. To create a file engagement dashboard, simply go to Reporting > Dashboard > New dashboards and start adding the report(s) you created in previous section. There are various visualization settings that HubSpot provides that can be used to plot insightful charts.

Using these, we have plotted the following charts.

In this tutorial, we covered a very specific way of sharing a file publicly through website banners, social media sites, ads, one-on-one sales sharing etc. CloudFiles can, in one way or the other, collect personalized analytics for each of these unique scenarios and create reports dashboards as illustrated above.

For marketers, collateral sharing through e-mail and checking analytics is also an important use-case. To know how you can share files in E-mails , check out our tutorial on E-mail Attachment Tracking Dashboard For Marketers. To know more about what CloudFiles can do and how you can fit the app as per your unique use-case, book a call with us.