From 0.3% of records synced to 99.99%.
Australasia’s largest self-storage provider, whose customer data was not reaching HubSpot. Now it arrives every day.
- Client
- Project lead
Trav WhiteFounder and Head of AI Engineering
- Industry
- Self-storage
- Centres
- 230+ across Australia and New Zealand
- Scope
- API integration and email automation
- Location
- Brisbane, Australia
01 The briefBuild a new API integration that maps National Storage's daily data into HubSpot without changing either system, remove the duplicates, and then automate the insurance email to new customers.
Hundreds of records a day, and four or five in HubSpot.
National Storage runs more than 230 self-storage centres across Australia and New Zealand. Its customers are managed in storage management software, and its marketing to them runs from HubSpot.
The link between the two was not keeping up. Hundreds of records should have been syncing into HubSpot every day, and only four or five were arriving.
That mattered more once new government rules said a storage provider must wait six days after a purchase before offering the customer insurance. Offering it on day six needs an accurate purchase date for every new customer, and without the data, reaching people at the right time was close to impossible.
Why it stayed that way. The data the storage software exported did not match the way HubSpot held it, and changing the structure on either side risked disrupting how the business ran day to day. A customer with units at more than one site was also given a different ID number at each location, which created duplicate records. The fix had to sit between the systems, without altering either one.
What National Storage needed
- Accurate customer data. Every new customer in HubSpot, up to date, once.
- An integration they could trust. Between the storage software and HubSpot, and visible enough to check.
- The right email at the right time. An insurance offer to each new customer, inside the rules.
One daily integration, built between the two systems.
An API integration (a small program that moves data from one system to another) runs every day, reads the storage software's export, and maps each customer into HubSpot using their email address as the one identifier.
Email as the identifier. Because each site gave the same customer a different ID, the integration matches people on their email address instead. A customer with units at several centres is now a single contact in HubSpot.
Checks on every run. The integration adds new records and updates existing ones each day, with a set of checks that validate the data on the way through, so errors and inconsistencies are caught before they reach HubSpot.
By hand first, then automated.
Before writing the integration, we did its job manually, importing the daily spreadsheets into HubSpot by hand to learn exactly what the API would need to do.
Scoping and data discovery, The daily CSVs
We compared the structure of the storage software's exports with what HubSpot held, imported the daily files by hand to learn the mapping, and found the duplicate records created by per-site IDs.
A new primary identifier needed
Build the API, Running daily
An integration that runs every day, reads the spreadsheets and maps each customer into HubSpot, with the email address as the primary identifier.
Duplicates stopped at the source
Test and improve, In a sandbox
The integration pushed into a HubSpot sandbox, a private copy of the portal, so every improvement was tested before it touched National Storage's live data.
Connected to the live portal only once proven
Automate the insurance email, Six days after purchase
With the data accurate, a workflow sends each new customer an insurance offer six days after their storage purchase, as early as the regulations allow.
Inside the government rules, every time
Three rules the build ran on
Leave both systems as they are
National Storage did not want the data structure changed in the storage software or in HubSpot, so everything we built sits between them.
Check the data every day
New records added and existing ones updated daily, with validation that stops errors reaching HubSpot.
Let them see it working
The team could see every stage as it was built and give feedback on it, so they could check the integration and troubleshoot it themselves.
The insurance offer goes out on the first day the rules allow.
Customer data not reaching HubSpot?
How the three goals turned out.
What National Storage needed before the project started, and where it stood once it was live.
Goal 01
Accurate, up-to-date customer data
We built a daily API integration that uses the email address as the one identifier, with checks that validate the data on every run.
99.99%
of new data syncing each day, up from 0.3%. Hundreds of records a day used to arrive in HubSpot as four or five. A customer with units at several centres is now one contact, where per-site IDs used to make duplicates.
Goal 02
An integration they can trust
We tested the integration in a HubSpot sandbox before it went live, and the team saw and gave feedback on every stage.
500K+
records updated automatically. Each run checks the data on the way in, so errors are caught before they reach HubSpot.
Goal 03
The right email, to the right customer, at the right time
We set up a workflow that offers each new customer insurance six days after their storage purchase.
314,284
insurance emails sent, with a 53.5% open rate and 42.52% click-through. Each offer goes out on the first day the government rules allow, which needs the accurate purchase dates the integration now brings in.
Put together, National Storage has customer data it can rely on, syncing into HubSpot every day without anyone touching it. That is what lets the insurance offer reach each new customer early, and inside the rules.
With clean data in HubSpot every day, it can run targeted campaigns and use reporting to understand its customer base.
Who ran it
Trav WhiteFounder and Head of AI Engineering
Led the data discovery, the API build and sandbox testing, and the insurance workflow.
HubSpot Certified Trainer, Multi HubSpot Impact Award winner, Founded Neighbourhood in 2015
Two systems that will not stay in sync?
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