Marketing Automation Without a CRM? How Yeo & Yeo Is Building Smarter Campaigns with HubSpot

For many accounting firms, adopting marketing automation feels premature without fully integrated CRM systems, but if your firm is eager to grow its marketing efforts anyway, it’s possible.

That’s the scenario Yeo & Yeo, a Michigan-based CPA and advisory firm, faced and overcame, even though the approach could be considered “backwards.”

In Season 7, Episode 2 of the Amplify podcast, Meg Hoevener from McGuire Sponsel sat down with James Kuch, Yeo & Yeo’s Digital Marketing Specialist, to share his experience using HubSpot’s marketing automation across multiple business lines – even without a unified CRM.

Challenges of Using HubSpot Without CRM

Until 2020, Yeo & Yeo’s marketing team was using Constant Contact, which has many limitations, Kuch says. Implementing HubSpot gave Yeo & Yeo access to powerful marketing tools, but he said they are “feeling the pain” of no CRM. Challenges include managing contact data manually across five different companies under their umbrella.  “We have databases all over the place,” Kuch said. “We’ve got different companies using different things, and it doesn’t just flow into HubSpot.”

Without a connected CRM, the team is still successful; the team manually exports, cleans, and uploads segmented contact lists for targeted campaigns. They’ve built detailed subscription lists aligned with practice areas and client types, which has required rethinking how to organize campaigns, subscription preferences, and backend data structures.

Learning from Data and Pivoting Strategy

Yeo & Yeo ran an aggressive digital advertising campaign targeting specific industries in 2024. Kuch explained that their ads unintentionally competed against each other, diluting impact and actually taking away from the target audience. “That was a big learning point for us last year.”

With better analytics and a strong marketing partner, in 2025 they focused more broadly on core services, reaching wider audiences with fewer competing ads. This shift maximizes budget effectiveness – a lesson that many firms can apply when scaling their digital marketing.

Practical Features Driving Efficiency

Kuch and Hoevener highlighted several HubSpot critical features:

• Managing multiple social media accounts efficiently with a shared calendar.
• Using graphic templates to quickly produce on-brand, timely communications.
• Creating dynamic website pop-ups (CTAs) tied to specific pages, like announcing office moves or promoting webinars.
• Tracking campaign history, goals, budgets, and engagements in one place, enabling smooth handoffs when team members are out.

Automations and Lead Management

Yeo & Yeo uses forms and workflows to automate lead notifications and scoring. For example, when someone downloads an ebook or registers for a webinar, designated team members get alerted immediately to follow up, either automatically or personally. Though they don’t yet have a fully integrated CRM, they plan to implement one soon, which will unlock even more automation.

“I think we understand as a firm, when you have a CRM in place and you can track specific actions a little bit better, we can definitely target at a higher level,” Kuch said. “And that’s where we’re getting to, kind of baby-stepping our way there, but we see the opportunity and that’s an exciting thing to think about.”

Advice for Firms Considering Marketing Automation

Kuch’s top recommendation: Map out your campaign workflows as clearly as possible before launching, and build a team with strong content and design skills to bring it to life. Hoevener added that starting with a platform that’s easy to use – like HubSpot’s drag-and-drop email builder – makes a huge difference in adoption and agility.

Their combined experience shows it’s OK to start imperfectly and refine as you go. Automation is layered and complex, but the payoff in efficiency, better targeting, and improved communication is worth the effort.

Want to Learn More?

Listen to the full conversation with James Kuck in AAMplify’s Season 7, Episode 2: “Marketing Automation Without A CRM? Building Smarter Campaigns with Limited Infrastructure” wherever you get your podcasts.