How to automate webinar registrations and follow ups using Hubspot workflows

Webinars are great for showing what you know, building an audience, and sometimes actually selling something. But the reality? The behind-the-scenes work—registration, reminders, follow-ups—gets old fast. If you’ve run even one webinar, you know the admin is a slog. Worse, it’s easy to miss a step and lose leads.

If you’re using Hubspot, you can automate most of this and get your life back. This isn’t magic, and it’s not foolproof. But with some upfront setup, you can make your next webinar feel a lot less like herding cats.

This is for marketers, sales folks, or founders who run webinars and want to stop copy-pasting emails—or worse, losing track of contacts. Let’s get into it.

Step 1: Map Out Your Webinar Flow (Don’t Skip This)

Before you touch Hubspot, sketch out your ideal flow. It’ll save you time (and headaches) later. Here’s a basic one:

Visitor signs up for your webinar.
Gets a confirmation email with the link.
Receives a reminder (or two) before the event.
Attends (or doesn’t).
Gets a follow-up email (maybe with the recording, or a sales CTA).

You’ll want to decide:

How many reminder emails you’ll send (one is fine, two is safer).
What information you want to collect on signup.
What counts as “attended” (this is trickier—more on that later).

Pro tip: If you’re using Zoom, GoToWebinar, or another platform, check if it has a native Hubspot integration. This saves a ton of hassle.

Step 2: Set Up Your Webinar Registration Form

You need a way for people to sign up—and for Hubspot to know about it. Here’s how to do it right:

Create a Hubspot Form

Go to Marketing > Lead Capture > Forms.
Build a new form for your webinar. Keep it short: name, email, maybe company.
Add a hidden field for “Webinar Name” if you’ll run multiple webinars.
Use a custom property like Registered for Webinar (checkbox or dropdown) to track signups.

Put the Form Somewhere Useful

Embed it on a landing page (Hubspot’s or your own).
Or, use a Hubspot popup form if you’re feeling fancy.

Watch out: If you use a third-party landing page tool, make sure submissions sync to Hubspot. Zapier can help, but it’s one more thing to maintain.

Step 3: Build Your Webinar Workflow in Hubspot

Here’s where the magic (okay, logic) happens.

Create a New Workflow

Go to Automation > Workflows.
Create a new “Contact-based” workflow, starting from scratch.

Set the Enrollment Trigger

Trigger: Form submission on your webinar registration form.
Or, trigger when contact property “Registered for Webinar” is set to your event.

Don’t use broad triggers like “Contact created.” You’ll end up emailing people who never signed up.

Add the Steps

A solid workflow looks like this:

Send Confirmation Email
Contains webinar link, calendar invite (attach an .ics file or Google Calendar link), and what to expect.
Add to Webinar List
Create a static or active list called “Webinar: [Name] Registered.”
Use this for manual exports or reporting.
Wait Until [X] Days/Hours Before Webinar
Use the “Delay until a date” action.
Send Reminder(s)
At least one the day before, one an hour before. Don’t overdo it.
Tag as ‘Invited’ or ‘Reminded’
Update a custom property if you want to track reminders sent.
(Optional) Notify Your Team
If sales needs to know who’s attending, send them a daily digest.

Pro tip: Build one workflow per webinar. Clone it for future events to avoid reinventing the wheel.

Step 4: Sync Attendance Data (The Tricky Part)

The real headache is telling Hubspot who actually showed up. Here’s what’s possible (and what’s not):

If Your Webinar Platform Integrates with Hubspot

Zoom and GoToWebinar offer native integrations.
These can push “Attended” or “Did Not Attend” data back into Hubspot contact records.
You can trigger follow-up emails based on this.

If Not Integrated

Export the attendance list after the event.
Import as a CSV into Hubspot, updating a property like “Webinar Attended.”
Not fun, but it works.

Ignore: Any workflow that promises to auto-detect attendance without an integration or manual import. That’s not a thing.

Step 5: Automate Follow-Ups (Don’t Overthink It)

Now you can segment your contacts:

Attended: Send thank you, slides/recording, next steps.
Did Not Attend: Send “Sorry we missed you,” maybe a recording, invite to next event.

Build Follow-Up Workflows

Create a new workflow for each group, triggered by the “Webinar Attended” property.
Send your follow-up email(s).
Optionally, set a task for sales to follow up if the webinar was sales-focused.

Keep it simple: One good follow-up is better than three mediocre ones.

Step 6: Test Everything (Seriously)

Before you go live:

Register with a test email. Make sure you get the confirmation and reminders.
Check all emails for typos, broken links, and calendar attachments.
Run through the attendance import (if needed).
Make sure contacts flow into the right lists.

Why bother? Because nothing kills trust faster than a broken registration or a reminder with the wrong link.

What Works (and What Doesn’t)

What works:

Hubspot’s workflows handle the basics—emails, delays, property updates—well.
Native integrations (Zoom, GoToWebinar) save tons of time and manual effort.
Cloning workflows for each webinar makes scaling easy.

What doesn’t:

Attendance syncing is clunky without an integration.
You can’t personalize reminders based on registration source unless you capture that info up front.
Over-complicating things (like multi-step conditional logic) usually backfires unless you really know what you’re doing.

Skip: Overly clever lead scoring or “nurture” sequences unless you have a proven reason. For most webinars, people just want the link and a follow-up.

Quick FAQs

Can I automate webinar registration and reminders without buying extra Hubspot add-ons?
Yes, if you’re on Marketing Hub Professional or above. The free/Starter tiers have limited automation.

Do I need Zapier or another tool?
Only if your webinar platform doesn’t integrate with Hubspot. If you do use Zapier, budget time for monitoring and fixing broken zaps.

What about GDPR?
If you’re in Europe, make sure your form collects consent for marketing and data processing. Don’t ignore this.

Keep It Simple and Iterate

You don’t need a 15-step sequence or fancy branching logic. Start with the basics: form > confirmation > reminder > follow-up. Get it working, then tweak. If you run webinars often, you’ll appreciate not having to rebuild the wheel every time.

Automate what you can, check your work, and don’t trust “set-and-forget” promises. That’s how you actually save time—and keep your sanity.