A Case Study with HNM Systems Marketing leaders talk a lot about ROI, but proving it? That’s where things often break. Spreadsheets, scattered tools, and unclear attribution can make it impossible to show where marketing spend actually turns into revenue. At Shanty Town, we start every Growth Marketing client with a comprehensive Growth Strategy Workshop. This workshop is designed to map the customer journey and identify the data points that matter most. For HNM Systems, that process revealed just how critical HubSpot dashboards would be to scaling their marketing and proving their ROI. Here’s how we used HubSpot to help HNM Systems transition from relying on 'gut feelings' to achieving measurable marketing clarity.
Setting the Stage
When HNM Systems, a leader in technology staffing, first came to us, their ability to track marketing performance was almost nonexistent. They excelled in sales and nurturing existing clients, but their marketing data was scattered and incomplete. They used a combination of Bullhorn and Klaviyo, which provided some insights, but there was no centralized view of their overall marketing performance. Most traction was coming from their founder, Heather’s, LinkedIn presence, not from the company’s marketing machine. And while referrals and cold outreach were working well, they wanted something more scalable. The turning point came with their Elevate initiative for 2025. As they expanded offerings into managed services and launched a new product, RecruitCode, leadership knew they needed to prove whether inbound marketing could really attract qualified leads. Inspired by Kara Smith Brown’s The Revenue Engine, they wanted to measure not just value, but volume, velocity, and qualification across the funnel.
The Challenges
The reality was messy:
- KPIs were undefined or inconsistent.
- Sales and marketing operated in silos.
- Lead attribution was unclear, especially for organic sources.
- They jumped from trade show contacts straight into sales without nurturing.
For leadership, marketing ROI was fuzzy at best. They were skeptical: sales were working, so why invest in marketing? But the team knew they needed a stronger foundation to grow.
The Solution: Building HubSpot Dashboards That Mattered
We started with a KPIs Dashboard in HubSpot. High-level, executive-friendly, but with the ability to drill down into detail. Some highlights:
- Marketing Journey Report (custom build): Original Traffic Source (Organic, Paid, Email, Social, Direct, etc.), segmented by qualified vs. unqualified contacts. We tied this to website sessions, forms, meetings booked, deals, deal value, and closed revenue.
- Email & Campaign Reports: Tracked the complete welcome series, form submissions by source, campaign associations, and meeting bookings.
- SEO & Social Dashboards: Standard metrics like traffic, bounce rate, engagement, and interactions.
- Pipeline Attribution: Clear line of sight from channel > lead > meeting > deal > revenue.
Everything was integrated. HubSpot connected to their WordPress site, social media, paid media, and eventually Bullhorn (for existing client and candidate data).
The Implementation Process
We didn’t just “turn on” HubSpot. It was a 6–12 month process:
- Month 1: Basic dashboards live.
- Months 2–6: Iteration, sales team training, cleaning bad data, refining lifecycle stages.
- Ongoing: Adding new properties, simplifying for sales, automating where possible.
Crucially, we worked hand-in-hand with HNM’s marketing manager, Caroline. Caroline was instrumental in understanding the company's marketing needs and goals, and she played a key role in the successful implementation of HubSpot. Shanty Town wasn’t just reporting numbers. We were also building content, SEO, graphics, and strategy so that the dashboards reflected real, evolving campaigns.
The Results
The payoff was immediate and visible, instilling confidence in the leadership.
- Leadership could finally see where money was coming from by channel.
- The RecruitCode launch was smoother and faster than it would have been without HubSpot. Marketing handled the rollout, freeing leadership to focus on messaging, PR, and winning a Top Tech nomination.
- Data revealed that organic search and organic social users were more likely to engage with emails and had lower bounce rates than paid or referral leads.
- The welcome series proved its worth: the first 4 emails (out of 11) delivered the highest engagement.
- CTR on the monthly newsletter jumped 5.7% YoY.
- 67% of site traffic came from desktop (a key insight for optimizing campaigns).
Lessons Learned
- Leaders want one thing: Channel → Money. Marketers may live in the weeds, but executives need clear ROI.
- The first dashboard to build? A prospect/client journey. Where they start, the steps in between, and where drop-offs happen. This initial step is crucial and guides the entire process.
- Most overlooked metric? Qualified vs. Unqualified leads. Without it, you can’t tell if a channel is failing, those leads have a longer sales cycle, or if you’re just attracting the wrong people.
- Dashboards are living documents. As new channels (like paid media) come online, the dashboards evolve. The goal is always clarity without overloading the sales team.
Key Takeaway for Marketers
If you want to prove ROI, HubSpot dashboards should do one thing: connect traffic channels to revenue. Everything else (engagement, bounce rate, email opens) is context. But the story that wins over leadership is simple: “This channel made us this much money.” HNM Systems is still early in its journey, but the dashboards we built inside their Growth Marketing Plan have already transformed how they view marketing’s role in revenue. What once felt like a “nice-to-have” is now a key driver in product launches, sales enablement, and leadership’s confidence in marketing. If your team is struggling to connect marketing activity to business outcomes, it’s not a technology problem; it’s a strategy problem. That’s why we built our Growth Strategy Workshop: to help companies untangle the data, align marketing and sales, and create dashboards that actually prove ROI. Ready to see how HubSpot can connect your channels directly to revenue? Get in touch with us to learn more about our Growth Marketing Plans.
