Gaining Visibility into Ungated Content Downloads

The Challenge

The client struggled with key roadblocks in testing their ungated content strategy, which made it nearly impossible to measure effectiveness or make informed adjustments:

• No way to track engagement with ungated content, leaving them in the dark about audience interaction

• Zero visibility into who was downloading content or how often it was accessed

• Blind spots in how ungated content impacted lead nurturing, undermining their ability to optimize campaigns

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The Solution

We used HubSpot’s CTA feature to embed custom CTAs for each piece of ungated content on the client’s WordPress site. This allowed the client to track views and clicks on their content, providing valuable engagement data without disrupting the user experience. Known contacts were also tracked, maximizing the data available while maintaining an ungated content approach. 

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The Impact

This solution provided the client with a wealth of new data:

• Real-time tracking of views and clicks on ungated content

• Insight into known Contacts engaging with the content, maximizing available data

• Enhanced ability to refine content strategy based on concrete engagement data

• Ability to trigger automation, such as additional nurturing, based on the specific ungated content downloaded — offering the best of both worlds in tracking and engagement

 

FAQ

How can you track who's downloading or viewing ungated content without requiring a form fill?

HubSpot CTAs embedded on ungated content pages capture views and clicks and tie that activity to known contact records automatically, giving you engagement data without adding friction to the content experience.

When a known contact visits a page with an embedded HubSpot CTA, their interaction is recorded on their contact record just like any other tracked activity. For anonymous visitors, the CTA still captures aggregate view and click data that can inform content performance reporting. This means teams can measure how their ungated content is performing and identify which pieces resonate with existing contacts without forcing every visitor through a form. For marketing teams testing an ungated content strategy, this is the data layer that makes the approach measurable.

 

Can HubSpot trigger automated follow-up based on which specific piece of ungated content a contact viewed?

Yes — because CTA interactions are logged on the contact record, a workflow can enroll contacts based on which specific CTA they clicked and route them into the appropriate nurture sequence.

The CTA click becomes an enrollment trigger, and the specific CTA clicked determines which branch the contact enters. A contact who viewed a particular topic gets follow-up relevant to that topic. This gives ungated content the same downstream automation capability as gated content, without the conversion friction of a form. Simple Strat, a HubSpot Diamond Solutions Partner, builds these CTA-driven engagement tracking systems for marketing teams that want the data and automation benefits of gating without sacrificing the audience experience that ungated content provides.

 

What's the business case for tracking ungated content engagement rather than just gating everything?

Gating converts better with high-intent buyers but kills engagement for early-stage visitors — ungated content with tracking gives you reach without sacrificing the data that makes content measurable.

The tradeoff with gating is that it filters out a large portion of the audience who aren't ready to exchange their contact information yet. Ungated content reaches more people, builds awareness faster, and lets the audience engage on their own terms. The historical knock against it was that you couldn't measure it. HubSpot CTAs change that — the engagement data is captured at the contact level, the content performance is reportable, and automation can still fire based on what people engage with. For content teams trying to build audience before converting it, this approach offers the best of both strategies.