CRM as the customer-data layer

A CRM can provide the customer and deal context that makes marketing automation more relevant—provided the underlying data stays useful.

CRM and automation solve different parts of the problem

A CRM organizes relationship data and, depending on the product, sales activity and pipeline records. Marketing automation orchestrates communications and actions around that data and customer behavior.

Questions worth asking

• Which fields determine lifecycle stage?
• Who owns data quality?
• What events should create or update records?
• Which marketing signals should be visible to sales?
• When should automation stop and a human take over?

Continue with CRM and marketing automation or compare software in our platform guide.