Case Study: 300% Increase in Instagram Leads with HubBase | HubBase

"We were drowning in DMs. We knew there were customers in there, but we had no way to manage them. HubBase didn’t just throw us a life raft; they gave us a speedboat. Our Instagram lead flow has exploded, and it all runs on autopilot."

— Jenna Lee, Founder & CEO, GlowUp Cosmetics

About GlowUp Cosmetics

GlowUp Cosmetics is a direct-to-consumer beauty brand that has taken the internet by storm. Known for their viral makeup tutorials and vibrant online community, their Instagram account is the heart and soul of their marketing. With over 500,000 followers, it’s their primary channel for product launches, customer engagement, and brand building.

The Challenge: A Goldmine of Leads Trapped in the DMs

GlowUp’s Instagram was a massive success by every vanity metric. Their posts got thousands of likes, their stories had incredible reach, and their DMs were flooded—with hundreds of messages every single day.

But that’s where the problem started. Their DM inbox was a chaotic mix of:

• Product questions (“Is your foundation oil-free?”)
• Shade matching requests (“I have fair skin with cool undertones, what shade am I?”)
• Order support issues (“Where is my package?”)
• Rave reviews from happy customers.
• High-intent buying questions (“Do you have a pro discount?” or “Can I buy this in bulk for my salon?”)

Their small social media team was completely overwhelmed. They were using a spreadsheet to manually track the “hot leads,” but it was a losing battle.

• Leads were being missed: High-intent DMs would get buried under an avalanche of other messages.
• Slow follow-up times: It could take days for a sales-related DM to be forwarded to the right person, by which time the lead had moved on.
• No visibility for the team: The sales and support teams, who lived in HubSpot, had no idea what was happening on Instagram. They had no context for the leads they did receive.
• Zero ROI tracking: They were spending a fortune on Instagram content and ads but had no way to prove which activities were actually generating sales.

Jenna knew that her most valuable potential customers were in her DMs, but she had no way to systematically capture, track, and convert them.

The Search for a Solution

The team first tried using HubSpot’s native Instagram integration, but they hit a wall almost immediately. “The fact that it couldn’t see or log DMs made it a non-starter for us,” Jenna explains. “That was the entire problem we needed to solve.”

They considered building a custom solution with Zapier, but the process was clunky, unreliable for real-time conversations, and couldn’t provide the deep integration they needed. They needed a solution that was built for HubSpot, by HubSpot experts.

That’s when they found HubBase.

The Solution: Connecting the Conversation to the CRM

HubBase’s Instagram integration was the perfect fit. It was designed to do exactly what they needed: create a seamless, two-way bridge between their Instagram DMs and their HubSpot portal.

The implementation was shockingly fast.

“I think we were up and running in about three minutes,” Jenna laughs. “We signed up, clicked a few buttons to authorize our HubSpot and Instagram accounts, and that was it. We sent a test DM, and it appeared on a new contact record in HubSpot instantly. It was like magic.”

They configured HubBase to:

1. Create a new contact in HubSpot for every person who DMed them for the first time.
2. Log every single DM (both incoming and outgoing) as a timeline activity on the contact record.
3. Trigger a HubSpot workflow to identify and route DMs based on keywords.

The “Triage” Workflow That Changed Everything

This is where GlowUp went from simply logging data to building an automated lead management machine. They created a HubSpot workflow that acted as an intelligent dispatcher for every incoming DM:

• Trigger: A new Instagram DM is logged.

• If/Then Logic:
  • If the DM contained words like “help,” “order,” or “shipping,” it would automatically create a ticket in Service Hub and assign it to the support team.
  • If the DM contained words like “pro discount,” “salon,” “bulk,” or “wholesale,” it would create a deal in their “Pro Sales” pipeline and assign the contact to their B2B sales rep.
  • If the DM contained questions about products like “shade match” or “foundation,” it would enroll the contact in a nurture sequence with video tutorials and guides.

This single workflow instantly cleared the noise from their DM inbox and ensured that every message was being handled by the right person or process, automatically.

The Results: A 300% Increase in Qualified Leads

The impact was immediate and dramatic.

By automating the capture and routing of leads, GlowUp was able to:

• Increase Qualified Leads: They captured four times as many qualified leads simply by not letting them get lost in the inbox.
• Dramatically Reduce Response Times: Hot leads were now talking to a sales rep in minutes, not days, leading to a huge increase in conversion rates.
• Free Up Their Social Media Team: The team could now focus on creating great content and building their community instead of being bogged down by manual data entry.
• Finally Prove ROI: For the first time, Jenna could see a direct line from a specific Instagram DM all the way to a closed-won deal in HubSpot, proving the immense value of their social media efforts.

Conclusion

GlowUp Cosmetics’ story is a powerful testament to a simple truth: your Instagram DMs are one of your most valuable assets. Leaving them unmanaged is like letting qualified, hand-raised leads walk out of your store without saying a word.

By connecting their conversations to their CRM, GlowUp didn’t just clean up their inbox—they built a scalable, automated, and highly profitable new sales channel.

Ready to unlock the revenue hidden in your DMs? Learn how HubBase can do the same for you.