Brilliant

About Brilliant

Brilliant offers one of the market’s leading platforms for employee and customer surveys. With more than 25 years of experience and clients in over 50 countries, Brilliant helps organizations strengthen relationships with both customers and employees while making data-driven business decisions based on actionable insights.

The challenge

Fragmented systems made it difficult to follow the customer journey

Let’s rewind to 2020, when Digital Marketing Manager Anna Koopmann joined Brilliant. At the time, the company managed marketing activities across several different systems: Marketing Automation in Pardot, the website in WordPress, and Lime as CRM. This fragmentation made it difficult to follow the full customer journey and measure the business impact of different marketing initiatives.

“As a marketer, it’s incredibly important to understand which activities actually generate ROI, so you can do more of what works. With our old setup, we weren’t able to do that,” Anna explains.

For Marketing Automation, the team was also dependent on external consultants, even for minor adjustments, which was both inefficient and expensive. For Anna and her colleagues, the needs became increasingly clear: more control, better visibility, and closer collaboration between Marketing and Sales. 

The solution

Step by step toward HubSpot as a single source of truth

Step 1: Regaining autonomy over Marketing Automation

A 2020 project to update Brilliant’s website became the starting point for change. Anna had positive experiences with HubSpot as a Marketing Automation platform from previous roles. She saw an opportunity to replace Pardot with HubSpot in collaboration with Invise, who was already the web agency for Wise Group, which Brilliant was part of at the time.

“Since Invise was also a HubSpot partner, it felt like a natural next step. Invise helped us with the implementation and setting up templates, but after that we could do everything ourselves. It felt like we regained autonomy over our Marketing Automation,” says Anna.

Step 2: Connecting the customer journey through CRM and Service Hub

Anna and her Marketing colleagues appreciated being able to manage landing pages, forms, and email workflows in HubSpot’s user-friendly platform. Still, the goal of tracking the entire customer journey had not yet been achieved.

Meanwhile, Brilliant was going through major changes. The company became independent from Wise Group and transitioned from a consulting-based business to a SaaS model with a clear B2B focus. As part of this shift, the company reviewed its tech stack with the goal of increasing automation and reducing unnecessary costs. In 2024, Brilliant decided to move away from Lime and, together with Invise, implement HubSpot as its CRM platform as well.

Anna led the project and evaluated quotes from several different CRM vendors before the final decision was made. What ultimately tipped the scale in HubSpot’s favor was the opportunity to establish a reliable single source of truth.

“With HubSpot as our CRM, we connect Marketing, Sales, and Customer Operations in one shared platform. It gives us control across the entire customer journey. We can see which marketing activities drive sales and connect the right customer to the right activities and service tickets,” Anna explains.

Step 3: Launching a HubSpot website that reflects a changed B2B business

During 2025, Brilliant launched Brilliant 2.0, a repositioning initiative aimed at future-proofing the company’s business model and communication. Rooted in a thorough market analysis, a completely new brand platform was created. As part of this transformation, the company also needed a new website.

Anna emphasizes that the new site shouldn’t just reflect Brilliant’s updated visual identity and tone of voice. It also needed to support a changed B2B buying journey.

“The website plays a completely different role today. It functions more like a checkout, since visitors do their research in other channels. You need to make sure the information on your site aligns with what’s being fed into the LLMs, so visitors recognize the messaging. It’s about creating clarity and trust.”

With the launch of the new website, Brilliant left WordPress behind and moved its CMS to HubSpot as well. Anna says the decision evolved through conversations with both Invise and industry peers within HubSpot’s Customer Advisory Board:

“The more I spoke with others who had already made the same journey, the more obvious it felt to build the website in HubSpot.” 

A flawless delivery from a trusted partner

Having Invise build the new website was a given.

“It felt so reassuring to have a partner who understood both HubSpot and our business, especially considering all the major projects and changes happening in parallel,” Anna says.

She describes the website project with Invise as flawless from start to finish, with the same high standard across design, development, HubSpot strategy, and project management.

“It genuinely couldn’t have gone smoother. Everyone stayed on schedule while still leaving space for feedback and iterations along the way. We had very open communication where I challenged Invise’s designers, who raised the bar even further. It was a great collaboration.”

The result

Clarity and efficiency in one connected platform

Marketing Automation, CRM, Service Hub — and now the website in HubSpot as well. Anna describes it as the final piece of the puzzle falling into place.

“The new website is structured in a way that better reflects our business areas and how we work with lead scoring. Now, Sales and Marketing can collaborate even more closely.”

What are the biggest benefits of bringing everything together in HubSpot, as Brilliant has done?

Anna once again highlights the value of establishing a single source of truth:

“I want a dashboard where our CEO can see what’s happening in the business at any moment. That’s where we’re heading now.”

The biggest gains from Brilliant’s HubSpot journey:

• One shared platform for the entire business, where Marketing, Sales, and Customer Operations work from the same data. This minimizes silos and fragmentation while creating a clearer view of the customer journey.
  
• A stronger connection between marketing activities and business outcomes, making it possible to track ROI and prioritize initiatives based on actual impact.
• More efficient lead management and sales processes through playbooks, automated workflows, and a website that supports a lead scoring model based on Brilliant’s business areas.
• Increased independence and efficiency for Marketing, where the team can now manage campaigns, content, and the website in one user-friendly platform without relying on external resources.
• Better decision-making across the organization through dashboards that provide real-time visibility into what drives the business.

The values that guide Brilliant and shape their HubSpot journey

As part of the Brilliant 2.0 project, the company also updated the core values that guide it. Anna Koopmann explains how Brilliant’s HubSpot transformation aligns closely with two new additions in particular: “Simplicity” and “Built to last.”

“Our journey with HubSpot is about removing complexity, but also about building a sustainable business for our customers. Because when they grow through Brilliant, that’s when we’ve succeeded.”

Human-centric

“Even in a data-driven world, people come first.”

Serious playfulness

“We’re professional, but never boring.”

Simplicity

“We remove complexity to create clarity.”

Built to last

“Our customers’ success is our success.”

Looking ahead

Growing with a platform that never stops evolving

Anna emphasizes that Brilliant’s HubSpot journey doesn’t end with the launch of the new website. Going forward, she and her colleagues will focus heavily on SEO and AI tools within HubSpot, while continuing to develop lead scoring and reporting capabilities.

“Now, all the pieces of the puzzle are there. The next step is using them to fully understand what turns prospects into customers, so we can do more of that,” she says.

She also sees HubSpot’s continuous product development as a major advantage.

“They’re constantly moving forward. With HubSpot, we have a system partner that pushes us to stay up to date.”

This is why Brilliant doesn’t see its HubSpot implementation as a finished project, but as a long-term platform for continued growth. Anna looks forward to continuing the journey together with Brilliant’s long-standing partner.

"I truly appreciate working with Invise. Everyone I meet is competent, fun to work with, and always ready to deliver what’s needed,” she concludes.