Every September, HubSpot’s INBOUND conference brings thousands of marketing, sales, and tech professionals together for a week of learning and fresh perspectives. This year was no exception, with keynote speakers like Dario Amodei, CEO and co-founder of Anthropic, and SNL alum Amy Poehler, plus sneak peeks of HubSpot’s newest features and tons of data-backed insights into what’s working in marketing right now.
Mojenta sent our leadership team to San Francisco to soak up this year’s event, and we got a front-row seat to where B2B marketing is headed next.
We asked each attendee from our team one question: “What are your 2–3 biggest takeaways from attending INBOUND?”
Here’s what they had to say:
Angela Leavitt, CEO
Something I've spoken about before was validated multiple times at INBOUND. It's the idea that while AI will help to level the playing field in marketing, it will also introduce a wave of “AI slop,” as one speaker called it. If everyone is generating the same generic stuff, it's the brands that are creative, human, and personal that will rise above it. I love the juxtaposition here, that maximizing the use of technology will allow marketers to be more human, more creative, more engaging.
Another theme was data quality and how critical it is for marketing success. As we leverage more technology to do our jobs, the phrase “garbage in, garbage out” has never been more on the nose. I'm happy that HubSpot’s added some data cleansing tools to make this easier, and I'm looking forward to building an offering for our clients that will help them keep their data clean.
Lastly, I was impressed that HubSpot has built a tool to help us monitor, manage, and improve AI-Engine Optimization (AEO) visibility for our clients. This is a brand new discipline under the marketing umbrella, so it's great that HubSpot got ahead of it and built a tool specifically for this purpose. They used themselves as the guinea pigs on the tool and posted some impressive results.
Dan Rooney, COO
One of the biggest shifts I noticed at INBOUND was HubSpot’s move away from the traditional inbound funnel to what they’re calling the Loop Marketing framework. Instead of treating the buyer’s journey as a straight line from awareness to purchase, this new model recognizes that each interaction – whether it’s with a human or AI – feeds back into the loop. The idea is that every touchpoint sharpens the next, creating a self-sustaining cycle of engagement. It’s a smart way to reflect how people actually buy today.
The new Data Studio tool also caught my eye. It’s a spreadsheet-style workspace with AI baked in, designed to unify fragmented customer data across platforms. For companies that struggle with siloed systems or messy CRM data, this could be a game-changer for reporting and decision-making.
And then there’s Marketing Studio – a visual campaign planner that centralizes all your outbound efforts: email, social, SMS, and more. It gives marketing teams a holistic view of campaigns in motion and makes it easier to align messaging across channels. That cohesion is something our clients ask for constantly, and this tool looks like a huge step in the right direction.
Graham Davenport, Marketing Technology Manager
A few big things stood out to me at the conference.
First, channel diversification is still essential. Brands that spread their messaging across multiple channels, not just email or LinkedIn, are better positioned for resilience and growth. HubSpot’s updates make it easier to manage that cross-channel complexity.
Second, HubSpot’s new data quality tools are going to change the game. So many of our clients deal with messy CRM records that have duplicate contacts, inconsistent fields, and other issues. With these new tools, we’ll be able to clean up databases faster – and keep them clean.
Finally, the new Campaign Assistant tool is a major step forward. It’ll let teams spin up complete campaigns with landing pages, emails, CTAs, and tracking in a fraction of the time it’s taken up to now. That’s a big win for efficiency and go-to-market speed.
Krystle Sangillo, Senior Content Manager
I left INBOUND with a suitcase full of email marketing tricks – some I’d never considered before.
There was a huge emphasis on subject lines that mimic “priority” confirmation emails, like “Webinar Confirmed” or “Access Approved.” These are more likely to be flagged as important on Apple Mail and get prime inbox placement. Surprisingly, three-word subject lines with no preheader performed best. Less really is more!
I also learned about the power of reverse psychology – subject lines like “You probably don’t want this…” or “Keep scrolling…” delivered higher open rates than the usual urgency-based ones. And in a twist I didn’t expect, negative emojis (like 🚫 or ❌) actually outperformed positive ones.
On the content side, short wins. Three-line emails generated 21% more clicks than five-line ones, and personalization is evolving. “Hi [First Name]” is out. Instead, “Made for you” style messaging feels more relevant and performs better.
Ashlee Wilson, Content Supervisor
INBOUND really drilled in on how AI is changing everything for SEO, so our content has to serve two very different audiences. Humans understand context and can read between the lines, but AI needs us to be explicit about who we are and what we do. That’ll mean including clear mentions of brand and product names and fully-formed ideas to help AI search engines understand our content and get it in front of the people looking for it.
With that said, nobody has AI search engine optimization completely figured out yet – and that's actually kind of exciting! The companies that’ll win are the ones that stay curious, watch what successful brands are doing, and keep experimenting instead of getting stuck on strategies that will probably (definitely) be outdated next year.
And we’ve known this for a while, but HubSpot reinforced it for us: establishing trust still means giving people credible, fact-backed content and fresh takes. You become the expert people want to hear more from when you can confirm what they already know while showing them something new they hadn't considered.
Stay Ahead of B2B Marketing Trends With Mojenta
INBOUND 2025 confirmed that the future of marketing is equal parts tech, data, and creativity – and we’re here for it.
At Mojenta, we help B2B tech companies stay ahead of the curve. Whether you’re looking to level up your content for AI visibility, clean up your CRM data, or launch multi-channel campaigns that actually convert, we’ve got your back.
Want to make the most of HubSpot’s latest updates? Book a meeting and let’s turn these trends into wins for your marketing.
