What are buying signals?

Buying signals are observable business events that indicate a company may be entering a period of change where purchasing decisions become more likely. Examples include rapid hiring in specific functions, new funding rounds, leadership appointments, office expansions, M&A activity, and contract renewals.

What is commercial intelligence?

Commercial intelligence is the systematic analysis of live business signals to identify companies entering buying windows. Unlike traditional sales intelligence which focuses on contact data, commercial intelligence focuses on timing — detecting when companies are most likely to need specific products or services and why.

How does Acitinar detect buying windows?

Acitinar monitors millions of live business signals including hiring patterns, funding activity, leadership appointments, contract activity, and financial filings across UK companies. Our AI processes signal combinations to calculate an Opportunity Score for each company, surfacing those entering buying windows with a full explanation of what the signals mean commercially.

What is a Prospect Brief?

A Prospect Brief is an AI-generated commercial intelligence report about a specific company. It includes company description, growth stage, strategic outlook, supporting signals, likely priorities, future priorities, pain points, risk analysis, outreach angle, and who to contact — everything a sales professional needs to engage effectively.

How is Acitinar different from a lead database?

Lead databases give you contact data. Acitinar gives you commercial intelligence — specifically which companies are entering buying windows right now, why they need your services, and exactly who to contact with what message. Instead of a static list of names, you get a dynamic, prioritised opportunity pipeline with AI-generated outreach strategies.

Which industries does Acitinar support?

Acitinar is used by recruitment agencies, marketing and creative agencies, accountancy firms, corporate finance advisors, commercial property consultants, IT service providers, legal firms, HR consultancies, cyber security companies, and any B2B business that sells into companies undergoing commercial change.

How much does Acitinar cost?

Acitinar starts at £79 per month (Starter: unlimited search, 500 Prospect Brief unlocks), £199/month (Growth: 2,500 unlocks), £399/month (Team: 10,000 unlocks), and Premium plans available for enterprise teams. All plans include the full signal detection engine and AI Prospect Brief generation.

Does this touch companies I haven't unlocked?

No — only companies you've unlocked are ever pushed to HubSpot. Nothing else in Acitinar's database leaves the platform.

Will re-syncing overwrite a deal stage a rep moved manually in HubSpot?

No — deal stage is only ever set the first time a record is created. A re-sync refreshes company details but never touches a stage you've since moved by hand.

Can I connect Salesforce too?

Yes, independently — each CRM has its own connection and its own Sync Now button.

What happens if I disconnect?

Future syncs to HubSpot stop. Anything already created there — Companies, Contacts, Deals — stays exactly as it was.

Back to Documentation

Connecting HubSpot to Acitinar

A walkthrough for creating a HubSpot private app and linking it to your Acitinar account — captured from a real setup, screenshots included.

What gets synced

Once connected, clicking Sync Now creates or updates, per unlocked company: a Company, Contact records for employees with a verified email on file, and a Deal. Re-running a sync updates the same records rather than duplicating them — Companies are matched by UK company number, Contacts by email, and Deals by a hidden reference Acitinar creates automatically the first time you sync.

Every synced Company carries name, website, address, industry, founded year, annual revenue, and employee count. Checking "Include Sales Intelligence" before syncing also pushes company state, outreach angle, pain points, and likely priorities — the AI-generated sales summary for that company, drawn from whichever version of the brief your subscription currently gives you access to.

Before you start

Unlike Salesforce, there's no OAuth redirect here — HubSpot's Private Apps use a single access token you copy and paste. You'll need HubSpot admin access and about five minutes.

1Create a private app

In HubSpot, go to Settings → Integrations → Private Apps(HubSpot may route this through a "Legacy Apps" page first — that's expected, private apps still work exactly the same way). Click Create a private app, name it something you'll recognize, like Acitinar.

HubSpot Legacy Apps list showing a newly created private app alongside an existing one — A new private app shows up alongside any others already in your account — this one and your production integration can coexist.

2Add the required scopes

On the Scopes tab, search for and check each of these — all twelve are required. Missing any of the crm.schemas.*.write scopes silently blocks dedup, so re-syncing creates duplicates instead of updating:

crm.objects.companies.readcrm.objects.companies.writecrm.objects.contacts.readcrm.objects.contacts.writecrm.objects.deals.readcrm.objects.deals.writecrm.schemas.companies.readcrm.schemas.companies.writecrm.schemas.contacts.readcrm.schemas.contacts.writecrm.schemas.deals.readcrm.schemas.deals.write

Click Create app once all twelve are selected, then confirm in the dialog that follows.

3Copy the access token

On the app's Auth tab, click Show tokennext to Access token and copy it — this is what goes into Acitinar, not the Client secret below it (that's only used for signature validation, and Acitinar doesn't need it).

HubSpot Auth tab showing masked access token and client secret, plus all 12 selected scopes — All 12 scopes confirmed selected, token and secret masked by default — click "Show token" to reveal the access token when you're ready to copy it.

Treat it like a password

Anyone with this token can read and write your HubSpot CRM data. Only paste it into Acitinar's own connect form — never into a spreadsheet, chat message, or public repo.

4Watch the full setup

Naming the app, selecting all 12 scopes, creating it, and the masked Auth tab, captured end to end:

Animated walkthrough of creating a HubSpot private app

5Connect in Acitinar

In your Acitinar dashboard, go to Settings → Integrations and open the HubSpot card. Paste the access token in and click Connect— Acitinar verifies it immediately by making a live call to HubSpot, so you'll know right away if it's valid.

Unlike Salesforce, that's the entire connection step — no redirect, no separate login screen. The custom properties Acitinar needs — UK company number, company status, SIC code, funding info, and the Sales Intelligence fields — are created automatically on Companies, Contacts, and Deals in your HubSpot account the first time you sync, as long as the scopes above are in place.

Confirm it worked

Once connected, the card should read Connected:

Acitinar Settings page showing both HubSpot and Salesforce cards marked Connected — Both CRMs can be connected independently — each has its own card, its own "Last synced" timestamp, and its own Sync Now button.

From here, click Sync Now whenever you want to push your latest unlocked companies. Check "Include Sales Intelligence" first if you also want company state, outreach angle, pain points, and likely priorities pushed as custom properties too.

How syncing works

Sync is manual — click Sync Now whenever you want to push your latest unlocked companies.
Re-running a sync updates existing records rather than creating duplicates. If a rep has manually moved a Deal to a different stage in HubSpot, re-syncing never overwrites that stage — only newly-created Deals get their initial stage set by Acitinar.
The "Last synced" timestamp on the card shows when you last ran a sync.
Disconnecting HubSpot stops future syncs but doesn't delete anything already created there.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause
Companies sync but Contacts/Deals don't appear	The token is missing one of the crm.objects.contacts.* / crm.objects.deals.* / crm.schemas.*.write scopes — check the Auth tab's scope list.
"Invalid HubSpot API token" when connecting	The token was copied with a trailing space, partially copied, or the app was deleted/rotated after copying — go back to the Auth tab and copy it fresh.
Re-syncing creates duplicate Companies instead of updating	One of the required scopes wasn't in place on your first sync — fix the scopes, then sync again; matching resumes correctly.
Connection stops working after rotating the token	Rotating a token in HubSpot invalidates the old one immediately — you'll need to reconnect in Acitinar with the new token.

Common questions