Marketer’s Space - Automating CRM Actions with Journeys - Part 1

Marketer’s Space - Automating CRM Actions with Journeys - Part 1

​
Marketing and sales go hand in hand, yet teams often struggle with inefficiencies in lead management. Leads may go cold due to delayed follow-ups, and valuable prospects might get lost in the shuffle. This is where integrating Zoho CRM with Zoho Marketing Automation (ZMA) comes into play. By utilizing CRM actions in Journeys, businesses can automate lead nurturing, push only engaged leads to sales, and ensure seamless collaboration between the marketing and sales teams. This integration helps marketers target the right prospects at the right time while allowing sales teams to act on high-intent leads without delays.

In this post, we’ll explore how leads that originate in Zoho CRM are nurtured through ZMA before being handed off back to sales.

Syncing Leads from Zoho CRM, Engaging Them, and Automating Sales Follow-Ups

Many businesses capture leads first in Zoho CRM—through website forms, inbound inquiries, or sales outreach. However, not all leads are immediately ready for sales engagement. That’s where marketing steps in, using Zoho Marketing Automation to nurture these leads until they show clear interest. Here’s how you can set up a CRM-integrated Journey to automate this process from start to finish.

Sync Leads from Zoho CRM to Zoho Marketing Automation

To ensure a smooth transition of records between Zoho CRM and ZMA, you first need to sync your CRM leads into Marketing Automation. This allows marketers to send targeted campaigns to the right audience. Ensure all relevant fields (such as Name, Email, Lead Source, and Lead Stage) are mapped properly. Once synced, these leads will now be available in ZMA for segmentation and targeted campaigns.
Setup syncSync Leads from Zoho CRM to Zoho Marketing Automation

Send a Marketing Campaign to Engage CRM Leads

With the leads synced, you can now target them with an email campaign. Let’s say you’re promoting a product demo or a free consultation. You send an email with a call-to-action (CTA) button, inviting leads to learn more.

Create a Journey to Target Interested Leads

Navigate to the Journeys section in Zoho Marketing Automation and create a new Journey. This Journey will track engagement and ensure that interested leads are identified, categorized, and updated in both ZMA and Zoho CRM.
  • Add the Email Action Trigger . Click on “Specific Email” and choose the email campaign.
  • Then select the email action “Specific link clicked” and choose the CTA that you included in the campaign.
  • Specify the exact URL you want to track (e.g., a demo request page, a pricing page, or a consultation booking link).
Email ActionCreate a Journey to target interested leads

Adding this trigger ensures that your Journey only targets leads who have shown clear intent by clicking on your email’s CTA. This helps you:
  • Identify engaged leads who are actively interested in your offering.
  • Filter out unresponsive leads, allowing marketing and sales teams to focus their efforts on high-potential prospects.
  • Automate lead qualification without manual tracking.
Once a lead clicks on the CTA, they enter the Journey, signaling that they are engaged and should be prioritized for further marketing and sales efforts.

Update the Lead Stage in Zoho Marketing Automation

Now that the lead has clicked on the CTA and entered the Journey, the next step is to update their lead stage to reflect this new level of engagement.
  • Add the Update Lead Stage action component right after the Email Action Trigger.
  • Configure it to move these contacts to the “Marketing Engaged” stage in ZMA.
Update lead stageUpdate the Lead Stage in Zoho Marketing Automation

By moving them to the Marketing Engaged stage, you’re ensuring that these leads are recognized as actively interested, making it easier to track their Journey through your funnel.

Push the Updated Lead Data to Zoho CRM

At this stage, the lead stage has been updated in Zoho Marketing Automation, but we also need to reflect these changes in Zoho CRM. Since both platforms need to have the latest details, we now push the updated lead information back to Zoho CRM.
  • Add the Push Data to CRM action component after the Update Lead Stage action.
  • Configure it to push the lead’s latest details into the Leads module in Zoho CRM.
  • Ensure that all relevant fields are mapped correctly.
CRM push dataPush the Updated Lead Data to Zoho CRM

Keeping Zoho CRM up to date is critical for sales teams, as it ensures they are always working with the latest information.
At this point, your Journey has:
  • Tracked engaged leads through the Email Action Trigger.
  • Updated the lead stage in ZMA to “Marketing Engaged.”
  • Pushed the updated lead data back to Zoho CRM.
With these foundational steps in place, you are now ready to take the next action—automating deal creation and assigning follow-up tasks to the sales team.

Create a Deal for the Interested Lead

At this stage, the lead has shown interest, so we should automatically create a deal in Zoho CRM.
  • Add the Create Deal CRM Action Component and configure the deal name, due date, stage, amount, and deal assignment.
  • You can also map fields at this stage.
CRM Create dealCreate a deal for the interested lead

Create a Task for Follow-Up

The final step is to ensure a salesperson takes action on the newly created deal.
  • Add the Create Task CRM Action Component.
  • Configure the CRM module, subject and description, due date, priority, status, and assign the task to the deal owner in CRM.
CRM Create taskCreate a task for follow-up

After this, you can connect the components to ensure a seamless flow.


This setup ensures that leads are not just nurtured, but also seamlessly handed off to sales when they show interest. The sales team receives up-to-date CRM records, active deals, and clear follow-up tasks, increasing their chances of closing the deal faster.

Why This Matters for Businesses

By using Zoho CRM and ZMA together, marketing and sales teams need not waste time on cold outreach, and can focus on high-intent leads.
For businesses, this means:
  • Higher revenue by focusing only on engaged leads.
  • Stronger collaboration between marketing and sales.
  • Better customer experience with timely follow-ups.
This is just one of the many ways you can use Zoho CRM actions in ZMA Journeys to refine your lead management process and ensure that only high-intent prospects reach your sales team. In the next post, we’ll explore another powerful use case—how to handle leads that originate in ZMA and transition them seamlessly into Zoho CRM for sales follow-up. Stay tuned for part two, and until then, happy marketing!

Regards,
Pearlin Nitika
User education | Zoho Marketing Automation

      • Recent Topics

      • The Social Wall: November 2025

        We’re nearing the end of the year, and the holiday season is officially kicking in! It’s that time when sales peak and your social media game needs to be stronger than ever. We’re back with exciting new updates across AI, analytics, and the mobile app

      • Truesync for Linux

        Is Truesync available on linux ?

      • Hidding/excluding specific picklist options from filter

        Hi. Is it possible to hide/exclude specific picklist options from this filter? I don't want them to be shown when someone tries to filter in the leads module

      • Subforms to Capture Multi-Row Data in Job Sheets

        Subforms transform your job sheets from simple checklists to powerful, data-rich forms. In field service work — whether maintenance, inspection, installation, or repair — a single job can involve multiple repeatable entries: readings, parts used, activities

      • 年内最後のユーザー向けイベント：5名限定！ 課題解決型ワークショップイベント Zoho ワークアウト開催のお知らせ (12/18)

        ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは。コミュニティチームの中野です。 12月開催のZoho ワークアウトについてお知らせします。 今回はZoomにて、オンライン開催します。 参加登録はこちら（無料） https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/QHn6kJAcRs-znJ1l5jk0ww ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Zoho ワークアウトとは？ Zoho ユーザー同士で交流しながら、サービスに関する疑問や不明点の解消を目的とした「Zoho ワークアウト」を開催します。

      • Add "Fetch Composite Item" Action for Inventory

        I want to make a Flow that uses information returned in the GET call for Composite Items, and it's not currently available in Zoho Flow. Please consider adding this functionality.

      • Adress Labels for sending of the oder und barcode

        We want to print with my address labels to stick on the order of the ware can. there are these options?

      • printing individual labels - Dymo LabelWriter

        I am trying to print individual labels to my Dymo LabelWriter - has anyone done this? Latest Update (December 2025): The Canvas Print View is now available! We encourage you all to try it out and share your feedback with us. Learn more here: Zoho CRM

      • Zoho Creator for Agriculture

        Greetings, I am starting to work on  Zoho Creator specifically for the agricultural field, any recommendations, tips or ideas that might be helpful ? Also, if you are interested by any means in working on such project, kindly contact me. The project is

      • Custom Print Layout

        I would like to create a custom print layout of a Lead or Contact. Is there a way to do that? What I mean is that if I'm viewing a specific lead or contact I'd like to be able to print or export that lead/contact and only print and/or export certain information.

      • Print View

        Nothing happens when I'm in a module , ie; Contacts, and I hit the Print View Button. Even when it does come up and say "loading", nothing loads

      • Get Holiday ready with Zoho Mail's Offline mode

        With the holiday season right around the corner, this is the perfect time to get ready to unplug, relax, and enjoy a well-deserved break. In addition to preparing yourself, you can also make sure your organization members are set for their time away from

      • Zoho CRM Kiosk issues

        Firstly this is for a system on the AU servers if that makes a difference. Issues are as follows (For Kiosk): 1. Re-ordering fields in the screen builder is broken. The fields seem to be re-ordering themselves, unless you order everything by moving the

      • Zoho Books emails suddenly going to Spam since 11 Nov 2025 (Gmail + now Outlook) — anyone else?

        Hi everyone, We migrated to Zoho Books in July 2025 and everything worked fine until 11 Nov 2025. Since then, Zoho Books system emails are landing in customers’ Spam (first Gmail, and now we’re seeing Outlook/Office 365 also starting to spam them). Impacted

      • how to Solve Conflict Invoices in Zoho POS

        Hello Team, I am facing a repeated issue in Zoho POS while saving a sale that contains service-based items. My products are intentionally created as Service (Non-Inventory) items because I do not want to track stock for them. However, every time I try

      • Email Template Edits Not Saving

        I can make an edit, click save, and see the blue bar annimation at the top, but the edits don't actually save. Important, because my email templates are now broken and clients are receiving bad emails. Tried on Chrome, Firefox and IE.

      • Default Ticket View - Table?

        Guys, We mostly use the table view to queue tickets. Maybe I am missing it - but how can I set that view as 'default" for all our agents? Thanks JV

      • Can I have different users see different pick list values for Potential Stage?

        We have some users focusing on new business and others focusing on existing business, and they follow different sales processes/cycles, so we would like them to see different pick list values for Stage (eventually leading up to Closed Won/Lost in both cases).   And just to keep it interesting - some of these users will of course do a combination, so would need to see one pick list for their New business potentials and a different pick list for their Existing business ones.   Salesforce does this

      • Tracking Snippet not working in Zoho Marketing Automation!

        First off, the fact that you have to wait about 12-24 hours for every response is terrible. How are we supposed to conduct business? Second, we have been trying for several days to get the Tracking Code Snippet in marketing automation to work, to no avail.

      • Is there any way to send an Excel received by email to Dataprep?

        Every day I receive an email alert with an Excel file that I want to process through a Dataprep pipeline. To do this, I need to: -Save the file to disk -Open the pipeline -Run the pipeline -Update the source -Several clicks to select and open the saved

      • Recruit paid support?

        Hi all, Could anyone who has paid support package advise if it provides value for money with regards to support response times? Exploring the idea as unfortunately when we have faced issues with Recruit it has been a 7+ day timescale from reporting to

      • Hotmail is blocking the zoho mail IP

        Greetings, Since last Tuesday (5 days ago today) I wrote to Zoho support and I still haven't received a single response (Ticket ID: 2056917). Is this how you treat people who pay for your email service? I am making this public so that those who want to

      • Read webpage - MSXML2.ServerXMLHTTP

        I have the following VBA script, put together from various sources (mainly zoho forum/help/support, so it once worked, I guess): private Sub GetListOfSheets() Dim url As String Dim xmlhttp As Object Dim parameters As String Dim html As String range("B1").value

      • Zoho Creator Form Search

        I'm new to Zoho Creator and so far i do like it but im shocked there seems to be no easy way to add a search function and/or navigation to there forms as this readily available in every platform i have used in the past. Anyway i have a form which i have

      • How to setup DKIM / SPF in Zoho Mail

        Hello there! I'm having a hard time understanding how to setup the TXT records for SPF and DKIM with Zoho Mail. I'm following the instructions here: https://www.zoho.com/campaigns/help/setup-spf-dkim.html Specifically, when it comes to the value for the

      • Mass update cant trigger a workflow?

        Hello there, Is this a normal Creator behaviour? In a report, if I manually edit each data row, it will pass those changes to all other reports. However, if I perform a Mass Update on a few data rows at once, the new data is not pushed to other reports.

      • search and Smart Bar both missing in Mail

        One of the users on my account does not have the search bar at the top right or the Smart Bar at the bottom left of the desktop Mail app. Any ideas how to get those back?

      • "Wrong password or login" Problem to configure Zoho on MAIL App on my Macbook

        Hi, I'm having problems to configure my e-mail on my MAIL App(Macbook pro). My e-mail is hari@trespontoum.net Actually was working perfectly, and still working on my Iphone. My MAIL App prompt me that my login or password is wrong. I tried to change 3

      • Remote Control Functionality During Screen Sharing in Zoho Cliq

        Hello Zoho Cliq Team, We would like to request the addition of remote control functionality during screen sharing sessions in Zoho Cliq. Currently, while screen sharing in Cliq is very useful, it lacks the ability for another participant to take control

      • Let us add Lookup fields in the Blueprint Transitions

        We are unable to add Lookup Fields in the blueprint transitions in Zoho Desk, we wanted to make it a requirement for our workflow but since it's not available in the transition we cannot. The lookup field exists in the Layout: But it cannot be added/selected

      • Zoho Projects API Scope for Issue Attachments

        I try to download issue attachments via the API, unfortunately I always get the following error code when trying to download the file from the supplied URL: {"ERROR_MESSAGE":"INVALID_OAUTHSCOPE","ERROR_CODE":401} indicating an auth scope error. I've tried

      • How to fetch custom fields for time entries in Zoho Project API v3

        In the previous Zoho Projects REST API, we were able to retrieve custom field details for time entries, including picklist options, using the endpoint: GET /restapi/portal/[PORTAL_ID]/timesheetcustomfields In the new Zoho Projects API v3, we tried using

      • Zoho Survey Enhancements

        We love Survey. We use it a ton. It needs some enhancements. Maybe some of these are already on the roadmap? API - this is crucial. We have some complex surveys that take place and need to update records, trigger other functions/automations, etc. I would

      • Images Don't Display on Blog

        Hi, I've just posted a new blog entry, but regardless of format (png or jpeg) Images that display in Preview mode do not display on any browser in the published post.  I've not done anything different with this post than others regarding images, please advice. Thanks! Edit:  I've discovered that moving the image files from a my sub directory folder "Pics for Blog" to the top level of the "Files" folder on my site allows the images to display live.  This, even though my other blog posts are correctly

      • Checkbox Field Mapping Zoho Forms to Zoho Sign

        I have an application that will be filled out via Forms that I am mapping into a PDF Filler on Zoho Sign. I need to have a series of checkboxes mapped to the corresponding fields in Sign and I only see single checkboxes available via the mapping, though

      • MCP > Creator connection failing with Claude

        I'm trying to get claude to access any of my Zoho Creator apps and it keeps failing. I have enabled all tools for creator and ensured in claude settings that everything is authorised. Here is what claude says : Unfortunately, the error messages I'm receiving

      • Books P&L by Customer

        Lately, we have found that the Customer field filter for the Profit & Loss report in Zoho Books is no longer available. We have several projects with the same customer and look at the P&Ls by project AND by Customer (overall). Can you please add back in this field selection alongside the Project field to the P&L report filter? Thanks! -Gina

      • Sent mail sort by date disappeared

        Hello, We used to be able to sort the emails by date in the sent folder, but this feature has recently disappeared. Can we bring it back?

      • I cannot check out to Zoho People.

        When I tried to check out today, there's prompt that inhibits me to check out: To add entry in Attendance, log time for any of your jobs

      • Pricing Strategies: #2 Plan your Service Offerings using Plans

        Meet Harvey & Mia, hailing from the same Tech school, carrying the dream of setting up their own IT maintenance firm in their location. They drew up a clear business plan and put their business in motion on New Year's Eve. They had great reception right

      • Next Page