Global Yacht Manufacturer: Intent-Based Gating & HubSpot Growth
A luxury motor yacht manufacturer was sending nearly every form fill straight to sales, so a contact database past 41,000 records filled with unqualified enthusiasts instead of buyers. We rebuilt lead capture around intent-based gating, kept awareness content open so organic traffic held, and localized the WordPress front end by region. Sales stopped chasing browsers and started working contacts that showed real buying intent.
Executive Summary
Context
A high-volume CRM had filled with low-quality inquiries, which made real high-net-worth buyers hard to find inside the database. Intent-based gating and segmented content management separated serious prospects from casual traffic without cutting the awareness content that brings people in.
What We Built
Tech Stack
- HubSpot Marketing & Sales Hub, WordPress (Modular/ACF), JSON-LD components for SEO.
The Challenge
A bloated database held over 41,000 contacts, and most inquiries never translated into qualified leads. Marketing spend went to the wrong leads. CRM costs inflated along with the contact count.
Our Approach
Content shifted from ungated distribution to value-exchange models. The split was deliberate. High-value content moved behind intent-based gating, while awareness content stayed ungated to sustain traffic.
Impact
Lead Growth
Total leads processed increased 143%. Intent-based content gating strategies drove that significant gain.
MQL to SQL Conversion Rate
The MQL-to-SQL conversion rate stabilized at 16.9%. Gated access established a clearer quality signal.
CRM Cost Management
Ninety-day inactivity workflows retire dormant contacts automatically, which keeps the database from creeping into a higher CRM pricing tier.
Regional Targeting Efficiency
Regional targeting across the AU and Americas sites produced steadier month-to-month SQL counts, so pipeline stopped swinging with wherever traffic happened to land.
HubSpot Marketing Hub runs as the central engine, connected to a WordPress site that uses Advanced Custom Fields to drive the gated and ungated content.
Contacts and Deals carry specific custom taxonomies. Those taxonomies sharpen lead scoring accuracy.
Automation moves a contact from Subscriber to SQL based on defined interactions across content types, so the lifecycle stage reflects real engagement rather than a manual guess.
A bidirectional sync between the AU and Americas sites routes each lead by the region captured at submission.
Detailed technical architecture illustrating integration flow.
FAQ
Lead scoring identifies the real potential buyers. Scoring methodologies assess engagement after each download.
No adverse effects. High-intent gated content stays balanced against ungated content, which maintains overall traffic.
