[Updated May 2019]

The HubSpot Academy is comprised of 12 separate certification courses, each designed to specifically elevate your inbound marketing strategy to help grow your business.

No matter where you are in your company, there’s a track for you. Content marketing, graphic design and social media are just some of the topics covered in the HubSpot Academy. Each certification has several training videos, quizzes and resource sections and ends with a 34-70 question test. You’ll have 3 hours to pass each test with 60% and in the unfortunate event that you don’t pass on your first try, you can try again in 12 hours.

What I Learned

My background stems from a bit of marketing, but I didn’t have anything nearly as extensive as what HubSpot offers. The videos were interesting, with different ‘professors’ to keep variety and attention.

They outsourced to some experts in their field and some were interesting enough to keep the viewer’s attention. There were a couple that were hard to hear or not quite clear on what they should be talking about, but overall, the quality of the presentations were above average.

HubSpot is a robust platform that can elevate your various business goals, if you know how to use it. That is where the video lessons come in, which can be long and tedious at times because of the amount of material covered. I was able to get through the lessons in about 2 weeks.

Disclaimer: There are still some certifications that I haven’t earned and tracks I haven’t done, but that is because they don’t apply to my position, like CMS developers.

I do not recommend speeding through the HubSpot certifications’ video lessons. There are some that can be passed with minimal attention given to the videos, but other certifications require multiple attempts at passing the test, in addition to watching the movies.

According to HubSpot, most tests will take about an hour, but I took most of them in about 20 mins, which could explain some of the failures.

However, that’s just my style when it comes to tests. I probably could have done some digging to find the answers to the questions and passed them completely, but that didn’t seem to be in the spirit of the tests.

Failure

Seeing the giant red circle with your fraction is never friendly. However, HubSpot has several helpful resources to help get the friendly green circle in no time.

The first resource? A downloadable study guide. While it’s a bit of a misnomer, the study guide offers some insights to how to pass the test and things to focus on while re-watching the videos. I didn’t see where the study guide helped me through some of the questions that I missed, as the questions usually seemed to be from lessons in other tracks I hadn’t yet watched.

The second resource is a breakdown of the questions you got right and wrong. This is the best tool you can use if you fail the test. They email it to you as well as providing an easy click button to download your rights and wrongs.

For my next attempt, I looked over my incorrect questions and watched the videos that seemed to pertain to the subjects. I jotted what I thought were the correct answers and tried again. From there, it’s rinse and repeat for all of the other certifications.

Tips

• Choose the answer HubSpot believes is the best answer is, not what you believe is the best answer. While you may not agree, these are their certification tests, not yours. Check your ego and tendency to argue and think about the HubSpot approach.
• Minimize distractions. You have a million other things going on, so sitting down and spending several hours on learning this material might not be a priority. Distractions will only make this process take longer.
• Watch the videos in order. It can be extremely tempting to just skip and skim through the lessons, but watching the videos in order can save you time in the long run.  
• Reach out to the HubSpot support email with specific questions that you can’t seem to find on your own. They promptly responded to my email with helpful links to HubSpot articles outlining my specific problems.
• It's highly recommended that you also complete all "next steps" associated with each class. Doing so will ensure you're prepared to both pass the test and successfully use the platform. Some of the exercises are as simple as creating an email template. Others are more involved. Make sure you complete them as you won’t receive your certification unless you do.
• Write your answers down as you go. This can help avoid making the same mistakes and also help you eliminate possible answers to difficult questions. Since HubSpot sends you a breakdown of the questions you got wrong, you should be able to deduce where you went wrong.

The ADTACK Difference

Reviewing the material multiple times made me a better HubSpot inbound marketer. All ADTACK staff members are trained on the HubSpot platform. We would love to help you or your company with inbound marketing. If you have any questions about the test, contact us by clicking the link below or calling 702-270-8772. We would be happy to obtain your HubSpot certification!