With the announcement of three major behavioral tracking updates at INBOUND 2025, HubSpot has taken significant steps to empower users with more detailed and actionable insights. These updates include the transition of App Events to full platform access, the introduction of website click behavior auto-capture, and the addition of object property snapshots for contextual event data.
Chris Carolan and Casey Hawkins sat down with Maggie Philbin, Senior Product Manager at HubSpot, to unbox these new updates and chat through what they mean for your business. This guide will walk you through these innovative changes, helping you understand their benefits and how to implement them effectively.
App Events, formerly known as timeline events, have now been fully integrated across the HubSpot platform. Historically, timeline events were confined to the timeline view, limiting their utility. Now, they can be used in segments, workflows, branching logic, and reporting, making them significantly more powerful.
Why This Matters: For users, this means that data from third-party apps like Zoom, Mailchimp, and PandaDoc can be seamlessly integrated and analyzed within HubSpot. For instance, if you want to track how many people who attended a Zoom webinar went on to request a demo, this is now possible without manual data handling. This transition not only enhances data visibility but also streamlines operations by embedding third-party data deeply within HubSpot's ecosystem.
The new auto-capture feature for website click behavior is another groundbreaking update. Previously, HubSpot's tracking code only captured page views automatically. With this update, all clickable elements on your website are tracked, providing a richer dataset for analysis.
Practical Example: During the unboxing session, Casey demonstrated how this feature could simplify tracking user interactions, such as a Vidyard-to-form-submission journey. By auto-capturing every click, you can now analyze which elements on your site are driving user engagement and conversions. This is crucial for optimizing your website's design and content strategy.
Object property snapshots are a new feature that adds contextual data to events. When an event occurs, HubSpot now captures the lifecycle stage and primary associative company of the contact at that moment. This provides a richer context for each event, enhancing the accuracy of your reports and analytics.
Technical Insight: Maggie from HubSpot explained that this feature addresses a common issue where reports often reflect the current state of an object rather than its state at the time of the event. For example, if you're analyzing email opens by lifecycle stage, the report will now show the lifecycle stage at the time the email was opened, not the current lifecycle stage. This adds a valuable layer of accuracy to your data analysis.
To illustrate these updates, let's revisit the practical example from the unboxing session. Casey built a journey to track how many people who watched a Vidyard video went on to request a sales demo. By leveraging the new auto-capture feature, this process was streamlined, eliminating the need for manual tracking and data entry.
Another example is using object property snapshots in Customer Journey Analytics (CJA). This allows you to track how different lifecycle stages interact with your content and how these interactions influence their journey through the sales funnel. This level of detail was previously unattainable and can significantly enhance your marketing and sales strategies.
Enable App Events: Navigate to your HubSpot settings and ensure that your third-party app integrations are set up to send data as App Events. This will allow you to utilize this data across segments, workflows, and reports.
Set Up Auto-Capture: If you haven't already, ensure that the HubSpot tracking code is installed on your website. Then, access the auto-capture settings in your HubSpot portal to start tracking all clickable elements on your site. Verify and name these events to make them usable across HubSpot's tools.
Use Object Property Snapshots: Leverage the new object property snapshots in your reporting and analytics tools. This will provide a more accurate view of how different lifecycle stages and other properties interact with your content and influence conversions.
Explore Customer Journey Analytics: Utilize the Customer Journey Analytics tool to build detailed reports and visualizations. This will help you understand the impact of different events and interactions on your customers' journeys.
Stay Informed: Keep an eye on HubSpot's updates and resources to continuously learn about new features and best practices. Join webinars, participate in the HubSpot community, and leverage HubSpot Academy courses to stay ahead.
By integrating these new features into your HubSpot portal, you'll gain deeper insights into your customers' behaviors, optimize your marketing strategies, and drive more effective business outcomes.