How to Connect Gmail and HubSpot in SponsorFlo: Setup and Send From Your Inbox

SponsorFlo lets you connect two powerful integrations: HubSpot (to sync website leads into your CRM) and Gmail or Outlook (to send and receive emails from your own inbox inside Communications). These integrations eliminate the constant app-switching that drains sponsorship teams of hours every week. Instead of copying lead data between platforms or toggling between your email client and your sponsorship management tool, everything lives in one place.

In this guide, we'll walk through the complete email setup process for both HubSpot and Gmail/Outlook — step by step, with troubleshooting tips and best practices so you can start sending sponsorship proposals, follow-ups, and fulfillment updates directly from SponsorFlo in minutes.

Why Email and CRM Integrations Matter for Sponsorship Teams

Before we dive into the how-to, it's worth understanding why these integrations exist and what problems they solve. Sponsorship professionals juggle an extraordinary number of touchpoints: prospecting emails to potential sponsors, proposal follow-ups, agreement negotiations, fulfillment confirmations, renewal conversations, and ROI reports. Each of those touchpoints typically involves an email — and often, that email lives in a completely different system than where you manage the sponsorship itself.

According to a 2024 McKinsey report on workplace productivity, the average knowledge worker spends 28% of their workday managing email and another 20% searching for information across disconnected tools. For sponsorship teams — who often rely on a patchwork of spreadsheets, email clients, shared drives, and standalone CRM platforms — that fragmentation is even more acute.

The Cost of Disconnected Tools

Here's what typically happens without integrations in place:

• Lead leakage: A brand fills out an inquiry form on your sponsorship proposal site. That lead sits in a web form database or gets emailed to a shared inbox. Nobody follows up for three days. The brand signs with a competitor.
• Context switching: Your sales rep opens SponsorFlo to check a deal's status, then switches to Gmail to compose a follow-up, then opens HubSpot to log the activity. Each switch costs 15–25 minutes of refocusing time, according to research from the University of California, Irvine.
• Lost email history: A colleague sent a critical pricing update to a sponsor six weeks ago. Nobody can find it because it's buried in that person's personal inbox, not connected to the deal record in your sponsorship platform.
• Manual data entry: Every new lead has to be hand-entered into both your CRM and your sponsorship management tool. Duplicate records pile up. Data quality erodes.

SponsorFlo's integrations with HubSpot, Gmail, and Outlook solve all four of these problems. When HubSpot is connected, new leads flow automatically into your sponsorship pipeline. When Gmail or Outlook is connected, every email you send or receive is threaded directly against the relevant sponsor, deal, or property record — no copy-paste required.

What You'll Need Before You Start

To complete the setup steps in this guide, make sure you have the following:

1. An active SponsorFlo account with admin or settings-level permissions
2. A HubSpot account (Free CRM tier or above) if you want to sync leads
3. A Gmail (Google Workspace) or Outlook (Microsoft 365) account for email integration
4. Browser pop-ups enabled (the OAuth authorization windows require them)

With those in place, the entire setup takes under ten minutes. Let's start with HubSpot.

How to Connect HubSpot to SponsorFlo

The HubSpot integration is designed to push website leads — from proposal sites, demo request forms, contact pages, and other SponsorFlo-powered touchpoints — directly into your HubSpot portal as contacts and companies. This means your marketing and sales teams get instant visibility into sponsorship interest without anyone lifting a finger.

Step-by-Step HubSpot Connection

1. In SponsorFlo, navigate to Settings → Integrations.
2. Open the Data Enrichment tab.
3. Find the HubSpot CRM card and click Connect HubSpot.
4. You'll be redirected to HubSpot's authorization screen. Sign in with your HubSpot credentials if prompted.
5. Review the permissions SponsorFlo is requesting. These typically include the ability to create and update contacts, companies, and deals in your HubSpot portal.
6. Click Authorize (or "Grant Access").
7. After you approve, you'll be redirected back to SponsorFlo. You should see a green "Connected" badge on the HubSpot CRM card.

That's it. You only need to do this once per organization. Your HubSpot connection is stored securely using OAuth 2.0 tokens — SponsorFlo never sees or stores your HubSpot password.

What Gets Synced (and What Doesn't)

Once connected, here's how the data flows:

• New website leads generated through SponsorFlo-powered proposal sites, inquiry forms, and contact widgets are automatically pushed to HubSpot as new contacts.
• Company records are created or matched based on the lead's email domain. If a contact from @cocacola.com submits a form, SponsorFlo will either create a new company record or associate the contact with an existing Coca-Cola record in HubSpot.
• Lead source data is tagged so you can track which sponsorship properties or proposal pages generated each inquiry.
• Existing HubSpot contacts are not pulled into SponsorFlo by default. The integration is a one-directional push (SponsorFlo → HubSpot) for lead capture. If you need bidirectional sync for advanced workflows, contact the SponsorFlo support team.

HubSpot Troubleshooting Tips

If your HubSpot integration isn't working as expected, here are common issues and fixes:

• Authorization window doesn't appear: Check that your browser isn't blocking pop-ups. Whitelist app.hubspot.com and app.sponsorflo.com in your pop-up settings.
• Leads aren't showing up in HubSpot: Verify that the connected HubSpot portal is the correct one (some organizations have sandbox and production portals). Also confirm that the form submissions in SponsorFlo are marked as "new" — previously synced leads won't re-push.
• "Insufficient permissions" error: The HubSpot user who authorizes the connection needs Super Admin or at least Marketing and CRM edit permissions. If you're using a limited-access account, ask your HubSpot admin to authorize instead.
• Duplicate contacts: SponsorFlo uses email address as the unique identifier. If a lead submits multiple forms with the same email, the existing HubSpot contact will be updated rather than duplicated. If you're seeing duplicates, check whether the leads are using different email addresses.

For teams that use the HubSpot integration alongside SponsorFlo's AI-powered features — like automated lead scoring and sponsor matching — the combination can dramatically accelerate your pipeline. Leads get scored in SponsorFlo, synced to HubSpot for marketing nurture, and routed to the right salesperson without manual intervention.

How to Connect Gmail to SponsorFlo

The Gmail integration lets you send and receive emails from your actual Gmail address — right inside SponsorFlo's Communications module. Every email you send is automatically logged against the relevant contact, deal, or organization record so your entire team has full visibility into sponsor communications.

Step-by-Step Gmail Connection

1. In SponsorFlo, go to Settings → Integrations.
2. Open the Communications tab (this is separate from the Data Enrichment tab where HubSpot lives).
3. Find the Gmail card and click Connect Gmail.
4. A Google sign-in window will pop up. Select the Google account you want to connect. This should be your work email address — the one your sponsors and partners recognize.
5. Google will show a permissions screen explaining what SponsorFlo will be able to do. This typically includes the ability to read, compose, send, and manage your email on your behalf.
6. Click Allow.
7. You'll be redirected back to SponsorFlo. The Gmail card should now display a green "Connected" status along with your connected email address.

Once connected, you'll be able to compose, send, receive, and reply to emails entirely within SponsorFlo's Communications section — and every message will come from (and be delivered to) your real Gmail address. Recipients see your name and your email domain, not a generic SponsorFlo address.

Important Notes About Gmail Permissions

The permissions Google requests can look alarming if you've never connected a third-party email integration before. Here's what you should know:

• SponsorFlo uses OAuth 2.0, the same secure authorization protocol used by every major email integration (HubSpot, Salesforce, Mailchimp, etc.). Your Gmail password is never shared with or stored by SponsorFlo.
• "Read, compose, send, and manage" permissions are required so that SponsorFlo can display your inbox threads, compose new messages, send them on your behalf, and sync replies back into the platform.
• You can revoke access at any time from your Google Account settings (Security → Third-party apps with account access). Revoking will immediately disconnect the integration.
• Each user connects their own account. Unlike the HubSpot integration (which is org-wide), Gmail connections are per-user. Every team member who wants to send emails from SponsorFlo needs to connect their own Gmail.

Google Workspace Admin Restrictions

If your organization uses Google Workspace (formerly G Suite), your IT admin may have restricted which third-party apps can access Google accounts. If you see an error message like "This app is blocked" or "Access denied by your organization's admin", here's what to do:

1. Ask your Google Workspace admin to navigate to Admin Console → Security → API controls → App access control.
2. Search for "SponsorFlo" in the list of third-party apps.
3. Set the access level to Trusted or add the SponsorFlo OAuth client ID to the allowlist.
4. Try the connection again in SponsorFlo.

This is a common hurdle for enterprise organizations, but it only needs to be resolved once. After SponsorFlo is approved at the admin level, all users in the organization can connect their Gmail accounts freely.

How to Connect Outlook to SponsorFlo

If your organization uses Microsoft 365 and Outlook, the connection process is nearly identical to Gmail — just with Microsoft's authorization flow instead of Google's.

Step-by-Step Outlook Connection

1. In SponsorFlo, go to Settings → Integrations.
2. Open the Communications tab.
3. Find the Outlook card and click Connect Outlook.
4. A Microsoft sign-in window will appear. Sign in with your Microsoft 365 work account.
5. Review the permissions and click Accept.
6. You'll be redirected back to SponsorFlo with a green "Connected" status on the Outlook card.

Like Gmail, the Outlook integration is per-user. Each team member connects their own account. All emails sent from SponsorFlo will come from your real Outlook address, and replies will sync back into the platform automatically.

Microsoft 365 Admin Considerations

Similar to Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 environments often have restrictions on third-party app access. If you encounter a "Need admin approval" screen during authorization:

• Your Microsoft 365 admin needs to grant tenant-wide consent for the SponsorFlo application in Azure Active Directory → Enterprise Applications.
• Alternatively, they can enable user consent for apps from verified publishers under Azure AD → User settings → Consent and permissions.
• Once approved at the admin level, all users can connect without needing individual admin approval.

For organizations that manage sponsorships for sports teams, universities, or major event properties, Outlook is often the default email client. SponsorFlo's Outlook integration ensures those teams can work entirely within the platform without abandoning their existing Microsoft ecosystem.

Sending Your First Email From SponsorFlo

Once your Gmail or Outlook account is connected, you're ready to start sending emails directly from SponsorFlo. Here's a walkthrough of the experience.

Composing an Email From a Contact Record

1. Navigate to any contact, organization, or deal record in SponsorFlo.
2. Click the Communications tab (or the email icon, depending on your layout).
3. Click Compose or New Email.
4. The "From" field will automatically display your connected Gmail or Outlook address. If you've connected multiple accounts, you can select which one to send from.
5. The "To" field will pre-populate with the contact's email address. You can add CC and BCC recipients as needed.
6. Write your subject line and message body. SponsorFlo's email composer supports rich text formatting, inline images, file attachments, and link insertion.
7. Click Send.

The email is sent through your actual email provider (Google's or Microsoft's servers), which means it benefits from your domain's existing deliverability reputation, SPF records, DKIM signatures, and DMARC policies. This is a critical advantage over platforms that send emails through their own servers — your messages are far less likely to land in spam.

Using Email Templates for Sponsorship Outreach

SponsorFlo allows you to create and save email templates for common sponsorship communications. Here are templates worth creating:

• Initial outreach: A personalized introduction to a prospective sponsor, highlighting the opportunity and requesting a discovery call.
• Proposal follow-up: A nudge sent 3–5 days after sharing a sponsorship proposal, asking if the prospect has questions.
• Agreement for signature: A message accompanying your sponsorship agreement, with clear instructions for review and e-signature.
• Fulfillment update: A mid-campaign check-in showing the sponsor which assets have been delivered and what's upcoming.
• ROI report delivery: A post-campaign email attaching or linking to the sponsorship ROI report, with a teaser of key metrics.
• Renewal conversation starter: A message sent 60–90 days before contract expiration, proposing a renewal discussion.

Templates can include merge fields — dynamic placeholders that auto-fill with the contact's name, company, deal value, property name, and other data from SponsorFlo's records. This lets you send personalized emails at scale without writing each one from scratch.

Tracking Opens and Replies

When you send an email from SponsorFlo, the platform tracks several engagement signals:

• Delivery status: Confirmation that the email was accepted by the recipient's mail server.
• Open tracking: SponsorFlo can embed a tiny tracking pixel to detect when the recipient opens the email. (This can be toggled off if your organization's privacy policies require it.)
• Reply threading: When the recipient replies, their response appears in the same Communications thread on the contact or deal record — visible to your entire team.
• Activity timeline: Every sent email, open, and reply is logged in the contact's activity timeline, creating a complete history of your engagement with that sponsor.

This visibility is invaluable for sponsorship teams. Instead of asking, "Did anyone follow up with Nike after the proposal went out?" you can simply open the deal record and see every touchpoint in chronological order.

Best Practices for Email and CRM Integration in Sponsorship

Connecting your tools is step one. Using them effectively is where the real value emerges. Here are battle-tested best practices from high-performing sponsorship teams.

1. Standardize Your Connected Email Accounts

Make it a policy that every member of your sponsorship sales team connects their email to SponsorFlo during onboarding. If even one person sends emails outside the platform, you'll have gaps in your communication history. A simple onboarding checklist works:

• Create SponsorFlo account ✓
• Connect Gmail or Outlook ✓
• Set up email signature in SponsorFlo ✓
• Save three core email templates ✓

2. Use HubSpot for Marketing, SponsorFlo for Sponsorship Sales

The HubSpot integration is most powerful when you draw a clear line between marketing and sales workflows. HubSpot handles the top of the funnel — nurture sequences, blog subscriptions, event registrations — while SponsorFlo manages the sponsorship-specific pipeline: prospecting, proposals, negotiations, agreements, and fulfillment.

When a website lead enters HubSpot via SponsorFlo's sync, your marketing team can add them to relevant nurture campaigns. When that lead becomes a qualified sponsorship opportunity, it lives and breathes in SponsorFlo — with all communications, proposals, and assets managed on the platform.

3. Leverage Email Data for Renewal Timing

One of the most underused benefits of having all sponsor emails in one platform is the ability to analyze communication patterns. If you notice that engagement with a sponsor has gone cold — no opens, no replies for 30 days — that's an early warning signal that the renewal conversation needs to start sooner rather than later.

Conversely, a sponsor who's actively emailing you about fulfillment metrics and asking for additional exposure opportunities is sending strong renewal intent signals. SponsorFlo's activity timelines make these patterns visible at a glance.

4. Don't Forget About Deliverability

Because SponsorFlo sends emails through your own Gmail or Outlook account (not through a third-party email server), your deliverability is generally excellent. But it's still worth ensuring your domain has proper email authentication in place:

• SPF (Sender Policy Framework): Ensures receiving servers know your domain's authorized senders.
• DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): Adds a cryptographic signature to verify emails haven't been tampered with.
• DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance): Tells receiving servers what to do with emails that fail SPF or DKIM checks.

Your IT team should have these configured already, but it's worth double-checking — especially if you're sending high-volume sponsorship outreach. A single deliverability issue can cost you a six-figure deal if a proposal email lands in spam.

5. Build a Communication Cadence

The best sponsorship teams don't just email when they need something. They build structured communication cadences that keep sponsors engaged throughout the lifecycle. Here's an example cadence for a 12-month sponsorship:

1. Month 1: Welcome email with onboarding checklist and key contacts
2. Month 2: First fulfillment update with asset delivery confirmation
3. Month 4: Mid-term performance snapshot with early ROI data
4. Month 6: Halfway check-in with optimization recommendations
5. Month 8: Second performance report with benchmark comparisons
6. Month 10: Renewal conversation starter with next-year proposal preview
7. Month 11: Final ROI report and renewal proposal delivery
8. Month 12: Renewal negotiation and agreement execution

With all of these emails flowing through SponsorFlo, every touchpoint is logged, visible to the team, and connected to the sponsorship record. No more guessing where you are in the relationship.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I connect both Gmail and Outlook at the same time?

Each user connects one email account at a time. If you need to switch from Gmail to Outlook (or vice versa), disconnect the current account and connect the new one. Some organizations have team members on different email platforms — that's perfectly fine. Each person connects whichever platform they use.

Will my email signature carry over?

SponsorFlo allows you to configure a custom email signature within the platform's settings. We recommend recreating your signature in SponsorFlo so it renders consistently. Your Gmail or Outlook signature won't automatically transfer since emails composed in SponsorFlo use the platform's own composer.

Is there a sending limit?

SponsorFlo doesn't impose its own sending limits, but your email provider does. Gmail (Google Workspace) allows up to 2,000 emails per day for paid accounts. Microsoft 365 allows up to 10,000 recipients per day, depending on your plan. For typical sponsorship communications, you'll never come close to these limits. If you're doing large-scale outreach campaigns, plan your sends accordingly.

Can my team see emails I send from SponsorFlo?

Yes — and that's one of the primary benefits. Any email sent from SponsorFlo is logged against the relevant contact, organization, or deal record. Team members with access to that record can view the full email thread. This eliminates the "black hole" problem where critical sponsor communications are trapped in one person's personal inbox.

What happens if I disconnect my email?

If you disconnect your Gmail or Outlook account, previously synced emails will remain visible on the records where they were logged. However, you won't be able to send new emails or receive new replies through SponsorFlo until you reconnect. Your emails in Gmail or Outlook are not affected — disconnecting only removes SponsorFlo's access.

Does the HubSpot integration support two-way sync?

Currently, the HubSpot integration is designed as a one-way push from SponsorFlo to HubSpot. New leads captured through SponsorFlo's web forms and proposal sites are pushed into HubSpot as contacts. If you need to pull HubSpot data back into SponsorFlo or set up bidirectional workflows, reach out to the SponsorFlo support team to discuss your specific use case.

Is my data secure?

All integrations use OAuth 2.0 — the industry standard for secure authorization. SponsorFlo never stores your email password or HubSpot password. Access tokens are encrypted at rest and in transit. You can revoke SponsorFlo's access at any time from your Google, Microsoft, or HubSpot account settings.

Putting It All Together: Your Integration Checklist

To help you get everything set up quickly, here's a consolidated checklist you can share with your team:

1. Connect HubSpot (admin only, one-time): Settings → Integrations → Data Enrichment → Connect HubSpot → Authorize
2. Verify HubSpot sync: Submit a test lead through one of your SponsorFlo web forms. Confirm it appears in HubSpot within a few minutes.
3. Connect Gmail or Outlook (each user): Settings → Integrations → Communications → Connect Gmail/Outlook → Authorize
4. Set up your email signature: Configure your custom signature in SponsorFlo's email settings.
5. Create email templates: Build templates for your most common sponsorship communications (outreach, follow-up, fulfillment, renewal).
6. Send a test email: Navigate to any contact record, compose a test email, and send it. Verify it arrives from your real email address and that replies sync back into SponsorFlo.
7. Brief your team: Share this guide with every team member and ensure everyone completes the setup during their first week.

The entire process — HubSpot connection, email connection, signature setup, and template creation — can be completed in under 30 minutes. That half-hour investment pays for itself the first time a colleague can see the full communication history on a deal without asking you to forward email threads.

SponsorFlo AI is built to centralize every aspect of sponsorship management — from prospecting and proposals to fulfillment and billing. But the value of that centralization only reaches its full potential when your communication channels and lead sources are connected. The Gmail, Outlook, and HubSpot integrations are the connective tissue that turns SponsorFlo from a standalone platform into the command center for your entire sponsorship operation.

Ready to streamline your sponsorship workflow? Visit SponsorFlo's pricing page to find the plan that fits your team, or jump straight into Settings → Integrations to get connected today.