The cloud sales and marketing platform leader delivered a solid second quarter. Here's what investors need to know.

What Happened
Shares of HubSpot Inc. (NYSE:HUBS) climbed 15.8% in August, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence, after the cloud-based sales and marketing platform provider announced strong second-quarter 2018 results.

More specifically on the former, HubSpot's quarterly revenue increased 38% year over year to $122.6 million, and it translated to adjusted earnings of $7.4 million, or $0.18 per share, up from $0.07 per share in the same year-ago period. By comparison, most analysts were only expecting adjusted quarterly earnings of $0.16 per share on revenue of $118 million.

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So What
HubSpot's subscription revenue climbed 38%, representing the vast majority of total sales at $116.6 million. That growth was driven primarily by a 40% increase in HubSpot's total customers, to 48,091, which more than offset a modest 2% decline in average subscription revenue per customer. Professional services and other revenue also jumped 27%, to $6 million.

"Q2 was another strong quarter for HubSpot and I'm really pleased with our results," added company co-founder and CEO Brian Halligan. "We're starting to see the fruits of our investment in R&D and we're excited about the progress we've made toward building out our suite of products."

That's not to say HubSpot shares popped immediately in response. In fact, the stock declined modestly in the two trading days after its formal report hit the wires. But more than anything, that brief pullback appeared to be driven by short-term traders taking profits following the stock's more than 40% year-to-date rise leading up to its latest release.