How Marketing Teams Can Use ChatGPT Deep Research to Fix What's Not Working

Your 2026 marketing plan needs answers you don't have time to find.

Which job titles actually close deals? What industries convert fastest? Which lead sources look good on paper but waste budget?

HubSpot's ChatGPT Deep Research connector answers these questions. But it's not another dashboard to check daily. It's a strategic tool for the big questions that shape your year.

When to Use Deep Research vs. Regular Reports

Don't use ChatGPT for simple metrics.

If you can run a HubSpot report in five minutes, do that instead. "How many contacts did we create last month?" is a waste of the tool.

Use it when the question requires multiple data points and would take you an hour to piece together manually.

Good questions:

• Which job titles convert from contact to closed deal at the highest rate?

• What's our pipeline value by industry, and how does that compare to actual close rates?

• Which lead sources drive contacts that actually become revenue?

Bad questions:

• How many new contacts this month?

• What's our email open rate?

• Show me this quarter's MQLs

The tool shines when you're trying to make strategic decisions about where to focus time and budget.

The Reality: Queries Take 24-30 Minutes

Yes, you read that right.

When we tested these queries for clients, each one took between 24 and 30 minutes to run. That's just the nature of crunching complex data across multiple objects.

This isn't a real-time reporting tool. It's a strategic planning tool.

Run your queries. Go make coffee. Check email. When you come back, you'll have insights that would have taken hours to compile manually.

And here's the thing: that time is actually getting longer as the tool gets smarter and more thorough. Three months ago, similar queries took 15-18 minutes. But the output quality improved significantly.

Start with Your 2026 Persona Review

Most marketing teams set personas once and never revisit them. But your market changes. Your product evolves. What worked two years ago might not work now.

Start with this question: "Analyze all HubSpot contacts created in the past 12 months grouped by job title. Show me how many associated deals each group has and what the close rate is."

The system will ask follow-up questions. Answer them. Be specific about date ranges and which properties you want analyzed.

What you get back: a clear view of which titles are actually converting.

Example results:

• COOs had the highest close rate

• CISOs came in second

• Marketing Directors had volume but lower conversion

But don't stop there. The real power is in the follow-up questions.

Iterate to Get Deeper

Once you have that first answer, dig in with follow-ups:

"What's the average deal size for each job title?" Maybe CISOs have lower volume but bigger deals. That changes your strategy.

"Show me average sales cycle by job title." If one persona closes in 30 days and another takes 90, that affects your nurture programs and sales forecasting.

"Which combination of job title and industry has the shortest sales cycle?" Now you're identifying your sweet spot—the prospects who move fast and close well.

Each follow-up runs faster because it builds on the previous query. You're not starting from scratch.

Validate Your ICP Assumptions

You think you know your ideal customer profile. But does the data agree?

Ask: "Show me all open deals in the pipeline grouped by industry. Include total pipeline value, number of deals, and average deal size."

What comes back might surprise you.

We found with one client:

• Financial services showed massive pipeline value

• But healthcare had better close rates

• Tech companies had smaller deals but closed fastest

This changes everything. Your content strategy. Your paid ad targeting. Your sales enablement focus.

Follow-up questions that matter:

• "Which industry and company size has the highest win rate?"

• "Where do we have high pipeline value but low close rates?"

• "Is our current pipeline similar to what closed last year?"

The last one is critical. If your current pipeline looks nothing like what historically closes, you need to adjust now—not in Q3 when you're behind on targets.

Fix Your Lead Source Strategy

Traffic metrics lie. Volume doesn't equal value.

You need to know which channels drive contacts that become revenue. Not which channels drive the most contacts.

Ask: "Analyze all contacts created in the past 12 months by lead source. Show me total contacts, how many have associated deals, and how many closed."

Then calculate conversion rates: "Show me contact-to-deal conversion rate and deal-to-close rate for each source."

What you might discover:

• Organic search has high volume but low conversion

• Paid social has lower volume but great close rates

• Email referrals have the best ROI but you're not investing there

This is where you reallocate budget. Cut what's not working. Double down on what is.

Write Prompts That Work

The system only knows what you tell it. Vague prompts get vague answers.

What makes a good prompt:

• One clear question at a time

• Specific HubSpot property names (use "original source" not just "source")

• Explicit date ranges ("Q4 2025" not "recently")

• The format you want back ("show as a table" or "list the top 5")

Compare these:

Bad: "Show me our best customers" Good: "Analyze closed deals from the past 12 months grouped by industry. Show total revenue, number of deals, and average deal size."

Bad: "Which marketing channels work?" Good: "For contacts created in 2025, calculate contact-to-deal conversion rate and deal-to-close rate by lead source property. Include total contacts, associated deals, and closed won deals for each source."

Specific prompts get specific answers.

What You Can't Access (Yet)

The connector only reads standard objects: contacts, companies, deals, and tickets.

It cannot access Marketing Hub tools directly. No email performance. No landing page data. No campaign analytics.

You can work around this somewhat. Properties like "last email open date" or "most recent conversion" live on contact records. But you can't analyze email subject line performance or which blog posts drive MQLs.

We expect this to change. HubSpot keeps expanding what these connectors can do. But for now, you're limited to CRM data.

Always Verify Before Sharing

ChatGPT can hallucinate. It's rare with clear prompts and real data, but it happens.

Before you present findings to your exec team or base budget decisions on results, verify in HubSpot.

Pull up a few examples. Check the math. Make sure the patterns match what you see in your regular reports.

The tool is for exploration and direction. Not for final decision-making without validation.

What This Means for Your Q1 Planning

You're already planning content calendars, setting paid ad budgets, and updating sales enablement materials.

But are you basing those decisions on actual data or assumptions from two years ago?

This tool gives you the answers in the time it takes to drink a coffee. Which personas convert. Which industries close. Which lead sources deliver ROI.

That's the insight you need to make 2026 different from 2025.

Getting Started

You need a paid ChatGPT account. Connect it to HubSpot through the Deep Research connector.

Review your user permissions first. Everyone who connects sees the data they have access to in HubSpot.

Start with one strategic question. Let it run. Review the results. Ask follow-ups.

Don't try to replace your reporting dashboards. Use this for the big questions that shape strategy.

Ready to dive deeper? We've created a prompt pack with ready-to-use queries for marketing, sales, and service teams.

Need help figuring out which questions to ask or how to interpret results? That's what we do.