This is a flexible study plan for the free HubSpot Inbound Marketing Certification, scaled to a weekend or a single week. It works through the nine course lessons in order, uses the in-course quizzes as practice, and finishes with the online exam. HubSpot does not publish per-lesson weights, so it treats the lessons as roughly equal. Confirm the current course and exam details on the HubSpot Academy course page.
Session 1 - Inbound fundamentals
Watch the welcome and fundamentals lessons. Learn the inbound methodology (attract, engage, delight) and the flywheel model, and note how the flywheel differs from the traditional funnel. This is the backbone of the whole exam.
Session 2 - Know your customer
Buyer personas and the buyer’s journey: awareness, consideration and decision. Make sure you can describe what a buyer is thinking and needs at each stage, because later lessons build on this.
Session 3 - Creating content
Matching content formats to the buyer’s journey. Practise deciding which content suits awareness versus consideration versus decision, since this is a common exam theme.
Session 4 - Content distribution
Getting content seen across owned, earned and paid channels, including SEO and social. Note the difference between the channel types and when each is useful.
Session 5 - Behaviour, analytics and automation
Behavioural marketing and segmentation, then marketing attribution and experimentation, then automation and AI. This is a lot of ground, so focus on what each idea does rather than memorising tools.
Session 6 - Review and exam
Review your notes and the in-course quizzes, then sit the exam: 60 questions, three hours, around 75% to pass. The timer starts when you open the first question.
Tips
- Study the whole course; the exam follows HubSpot’s own definitions.
- Focus on the buyer’s journey and content-to-stage matching - they recur throughout.
- The exam is free and retakeable, so if you do not pass, review and try again after the short lockout.
- Avoid sites selling “real” exam questions - they breach HubSpot policy and are unnecessary when the course is free.