Maximize Conversion Rates with Lifecycle Stage Tracking
Fine-tuning your Lifecycle Stage setup can help you resolve critical bottlenecks in the customer journey, but it requires a consistent, predictable approach. Here are 3 possible Lifecycle Stage setups based on common needs - simple, intermediate, or advanced.
Why Lifecycle Stage is important
A meaningful approach to Lifecycle Stage highlights customer journey blockers, specifically:
It helps you identify and remove bottlenecks in the customer journey - With simple reports on lifecycle conversion rates, you can instantly identify where drop offs occur and work to resolve them.
It powers marketing outreach and automation - When contacts are consistently tagged with the right lifecycle stage, you can build targeted outreach and automation that’s designed to effectively move contacts through the funnel.
Quirks about Lifecycle Stage
It doesn’t go backwards, only forward. This is probably the most important thing to be aware of. Unless you make manual updates or clear out via automation, Lifecycle Stage will only move forward. This is a good thing and prevents initial over-complication of funnel analysis.
For example, if a deal is closed won and the contact’s lifecycle stage becomes “customer”, they will never go back to being a Lead or MQL or SQL. This means a different property is helpful to track former customers.
Another example, say a contact has a deal created at the beginning of the year (i.e. their lifecycle stage is set to “Opportunity”) but was closed lost. If they submit a contact form later in they year, they’ll stay an “opportunity” and won’t automatically go back to a Lead or MQL.
Company lifecycle stage changes can be synced to all associated contacts.
Contact lifecycle stage changes don’t automatically sync to their associated company, though the default sync option can offset the need for this. If you find more control around this is needed, it’s possible to set a up a workflow so the company inherits the last lifecycle stage change.
Contacts can skip lifecycle stages. This can cause issues with conversion rates, so it’s a good practice to ensure that when a contact skips (e.g. moving from Lead to Opportunity), a workflow also moves them through the “missed” stages (e.g. MQL and SQL). This is mentioned in the intermediate setup.
Lifecycle Stage name and order can be edited. This is another more advanced practice, but it’s good to be aware of. I like to start of with the default stages if there aren’t strong feelings for a different setup and make alterations as we go.
1 - A Basic Lifecycle Stage Approach
If your buyers journey isn’t finely tuned yet, simply turning on the standard lifecycle sync in settings > contacts will immediately let you see how many leads are turning into opportunities and customers.
1.1 - Turn on all default Lifecycle Stage automation - In settings, confirm that newly created contacts and companies are marked as Leads. Deals created should mark associated contacts and companies as Opportunities. Closed won deals should mark them as Customers.
1.2 - Create a simple funnel conversion report that answers how many contacts move from Lead to Opportunity to Customer.
Add Lead, Opportunity, and Customer stages. These align with the default lifecycle stage sync.
Try using different date ranges. Start with all data from all time, then look at this year, this quarter, etc. You can also compare from year to year with different reports on a dashboard.
2 - An Intermediate Lifecycle Stage Approach
Learn about “became a [lifecycle stage]” properties. Determine what actions should set lifecycle stages. Ensure skipped stages are accounted for.
2.1 - Learn about “became a [lifecycle stage name]” timestamp data. A given contact’s lifecycle stage value is their current lifecycle stage. Hubspot also captures the date they became a certain lifecylce stage. This allows you to report on how many MQLs or SQLs were created each month or year.
Default Lifecycle Stage timestamps are a good source of historical data
2.2 - Think through which business processes should set specific lifecycle stages. Consider all Lifecycle Stage options and map them to actions. For example, a newsletter subscriber you might want to mark as subscriber, not a lead. But a demo request you might want to say is an SQL.
2.3 - Consider partially removing default automation - Given that you might not want all new contacts to be labeled as Leads, it might be time to remove some of the training wheels set up in the basic approach if you have a more nuanced plan. Still, you might keep the Deal and Customer Lifecycle Stage automation.
2.4 - Ensure skipped stages are accounted for. This can be done via a workflow. For example, if a contact is set to SQL but has never been a lead or MQL, set their Lifecycle Stage to Lead and then MQL. They will still remain an SQL because Lifecycle Stage only goes forward. But you will have data that they went through those other stages as well, so conversion reporting will become more accurate.
3 - An Advanced Lifecycle Stage Approach
This may not be necessary, but once at this point you can consider creating additional (custom) stages and refining company lifecycle stage approach.
3.1 - Consider additional or different stages. The default Hubspot Lifecycle Stages might not be right long term for the business. Their names and order are fully customizable, so it may be worthwhile to tighten these up.
3.2 - Consider approaches to company Lifecycle Stage. While a contact’s Lifecycle Stage is what the system is built around, custom work to fully or semi sync up Companies with their associated Contacts is possible.
Takeaways on Lifecycle Stage
If you’re not sure what it is or how to use it, make sure the default syncs are on. From there you can build simple funnel reports to get a sense of how contacts are moving through a standard customer journey.
Once comfortable with the basics, significant customization can be done to align Lifecycle Stage to your business processes. Certain actions (e.g. form submissions) can create contacts in a specific lifecycle stage. Also, if/when a contact skips a lifecycle stage, a workflow should “backfill” lifecycle stage timestamp data so reporting continues to be accurate.
If needed, more advanced options like custom lifecycle stages and specifics around Company lifecycle stage can be pursued.
