The Loop Beyond Inbound Marketing

HubSpot built their business on inbound marketing. While other marketing automation platforms were primarily acquired for their email capabilities, HubSpot focused on generating leads through web, social and digital advertising. Over time, Hubspot has also developed a strong email engine too, but it is still intended primarily for nurturing leads collected from other channels.

A New Playbook

The focus on inbound marketing has given HubSpot a privileged position in B2B marketing. Their software platform doesn't scale to enterprise, but their thought leadership content has become a playbook adopted by marketers everywhere. Not even ABM has disrupted the inbound marketing methodology, but a much newer trend has. Hubspot have a strong AI story. They've invested heavily in predictive features for their larger customers, while rolling out a huge variety of agents to automate content creation across the entire GTM engine.

When used correctly, AI allows marketers to create better, more personalised content. Yet, content needs an audience and AI is threatening the web traffic marketers rely on to drive engagement. After years of steady growth, there has been a dramatic reshaping of the sources of web traffic. Google referrals are in decline. ChatGPT referrals are booming. The impact of Generative AI on overall web traffic and conversion rates is still unclear. Undeniably, there has been an impact, and SEOs are struggling to adapt. Everyone recognises that a new inbound playbook is needed.

Enter loop marketing, a new inbound model with extra AI. It adds several different layers to the traditional lead generation model for which HubSpot is best known. The loop playbook places a bigger emphasis on brand at the top of the funnel, and expands the range of content channels that marketers should target in order to attract conversions further down the funnel. AI search is placed squarely alongside social media at the awareness stage. AI driven personalisation is embedded in every touch point.

Personalisation First

With AI, personalisation becomes the key driving force behind marketing success. Naturally, that requires extensive use of HubSpot's new AI features to select audiences and generate content for campaigns. At their recent Inbound conference, HubSpot announced a new 'Data Hub' product that builds upon their existing Operations Hub integration product to automate data cleansing workflows. Once cleansed, HubSpot's AI tools can then be used to generate segments for campaigns, based on a real language description.

The loop playbook also leans heavily into AI based content personalisation. This doesn't just mean customising content to role and industry. Content also needs to be placed in the correct context, at the optimal point in the customer journey. It's equally important to know the right channels for each customer, and the most relevant content for their buying stage. Context is a notable weakness of the traditional HubSpot playbook, one which can no longer be ignored. Good content is no longer enough; good context is needed for conversion. In an AI-first world, the ultimate aim of content marketing is to generate intent signals, which then determine when a particular account is ready to speak to Sales.

Intent-based Conversion

With click-through rates in decline, intent data is now more important than ever. That's because intent data is ultimately how funnel progression is measured. Loop marketing still ultimately aims to generate leads based on content engagement. It just recognises that not all user journeys are linear, and not all engagements will end in a click. AI answer engines will always have lower click rates than traditional marketing channels. No amount of experimentation can overcome that. A culture of testing and learning is still important though. It's the only way to keep pace with the changing technology landscape.

Ultimately, both AI vendors and marketers are struggling to work out a business model for an AI-first world. The Loop playbook is a good first effort. However, the marketplace is evolving rapidly. Loop will need to evolve with it. Witness the increasingly heated debate on conversion rates from ChatGPT. No one can agree on how AI affects lead generation, merely that it does. Expanding the range of channels used and deepening content personalisation are obvious ways to overcome any conversion rate challenges. However, deeper personalisation also requires better content and better targeting. Not all marketers are ready to deliver on that.

Salesforce Simplifies Data Cloud Pricing

Agentforce has become an important part of the Salesforce product pitch, yet people are reluctant to use Agentforce because of its dependency on Data Cloud. Many Salesforce users refuse to touch Data Cloud because of its consumption based pricing model. In order to overcome that initial barrier, Sales Cloud or Marketing Cloud data can now be added to Data Cloud for free. That removes one key risk factor holding back Agentforce adoption.

Webinar: Driving Demand Operations at Scale 

Scalability will be critical to the success of your demand operations as you plan for 2026 and beyond. If you missed CRMT Digital's latest MOps Unlocked webinar then catch the recording, where they were joined by leading marketers Wilhelm Frank from Lenovo and Mark Wheeler from Storyblok to uncover insights for demand operations success.

Marketing Operations Roadmap Matrix

A Marketing Operations Roadmap is an essential strategic tool that aligns marketing priorities with your overall business goals. Any roadmap begins with understanding where your marketing organisation is right now, and then defining where you want to get to. This free Marketing Operations Roadmap Matrix from CRMT Digital allows you to do exactly that.