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

    • Proposal for Creating a Unique "Address" Entity in Zoho FSM

      The "Address" entity is one of the most critical components for a service-oriented company. While homeowners may change and servicing companies may vary, the address itself remains constant. This constancy is essential for subsequent services, as it provides

    • Latência

      Estou com bastante latência 200ms em São Paulo Brasil para o endereço mail.zoho.com, e email demora para carregar as vezes trava como está por ai ? segue print sabem se é normal ? ping

    • Push error with Zoho Books and Zoho CRM

      I have successfully linked Books and CRM but I have some push errors with the following message: "The customer associated to this record is not linked to module chosen in the current contact sync configuration." I am unable to work this out, could you help please.

    • How to change the module for contact sync from Accounts to Accounts & their Contacts?

      Hi, My ZOHO CRM integration is broken and pushing the errors for sales orders and invoices, the error message is: "The customer associated to this record is not linked to module chosen in the current contact sync configuration." So, Now I'm trying to

    • Zoho CRM Developer Series - Queries

      Hey everyone! We’re excited to invite you to our next Zoho CRM Developer Series focused on Zoho CRM Queries, happening on June 5, 2025 and June 26, 2025. Whether you're working on CRM customizations, integrating with third-party services, or just curious

    • Food Delivery + ZohoCRM

      I've been using the free version of Zoho for a while, and I think it's time to upgrade. I'm sure I might be doing something wrong or I'm lacking some features I deliver frozen food, 2 days a week. For this I create a new task for the contact who orders me with - date he receives as Due Date - what I'm sending and at what time he can receive it in the Description Is there a better way of doing this?? I'd like to track what customers buys (the way I use it I have no record of that), and delete it from

    • VOIP integration

      I emailed this question to rishi but never got a response. I notice when I mouse over phone number it has a link to launch into SKYPE. We dont use SKYPE we use Xlite SIP client. Is it possible to change that link to launch our client API? If so how? If not any plans to make that VOIP integration customizable?

    • File Upload in Creator's Subfrom

      Hello Sir/Madam, Here is a Problem......... Scenario: In CRM One Custom Module (Payments) have one File Upload Field now we have to Upload that File into Creator's Custom Form (Documents) have one Subform (Documents) in Document Upload Field using Deluge

    • Increase size of description editor when creating new ticket

      Please can you consider making the description editor in the create new ticket form a resizeable area as by default, it is very small and there appears to be no way to increase the size of it.

    • CRM For Everyone - Bring Back Settings Tile View

      I've been using CRM for Everyone since it was in early access and I just can't stand the single list settings menu down the left-hand side. It takes so much longer to find the setting I need. Please give users the option to make the old sytle tile view

    • Add "Ask Zia" Functionality for Report Creation in Zoho Desk

      Hi, How are you? We’ve noticed that Zoho CRM offers a very useful feature called "Ask Zia", which allows users to enter natural language prompts to generate reports quickly and easily using Zia's AI capabilities. Currently, Zoho Desk does not support

    • Compensation | Salary Packages - Hourly Wage Needed

      The US Bureau of Labor Statistics says 55.7% of all workers in the US are paid by the hour. I don't know how that compares to the rest of the world, but I would think that this alone would justify the need for having an hourly-based salary package option.

    • Zoho FSM API to search Zoho FSM Assets by Asset_Number?

      How can I search or otherwise retrieve an Asset from the Assets module in Zoho FSM using the Asset_Number? The API docs seem to say that the only field that can be searched is the Asset Name. Is this true? https://www.zoho.com/fsm/developer/help/api/search-records.html

    • I can't use zoho in my personal computer

      Facing error on monitor Oops! An error occurred

    • My Zoho Account Not Working, Suddenly its stoped

      Hello Team, our company email account is not working, we are not receiving email. Website: www.urgentdubaivisaonline.com Email: social@urgentdubaivisaonline.com

    • MX verification

      Dear All I face a difficulties to verify MX records in my domain alfagrouptrading.sk it is since two days. records are correct and I am waiting for 48 hour I send email shown in the error message with no reply.in addition, it supposed to be propagated

    • I'm not receiving emails.

      Hello. I'm having an issue in which I am able to send emails using my zoho mail, but I seem to be unable to receive them. please help.

    • Change zoho email address

      I am displeased with the email address I created. It's too long.

    • Departments Limit

      There is a limit of departments that i can have on zoho desk?

    • CRM for Everyone - More Actions Option to Create Record

      Please consider the option create a new record for the relevant record from the More Actions menu. I know there is an "Add New" icon further down the menu to create a record for any module, but this just seems more intuitive and could reduce the need

    • Unified WhatsApp Number Management in Zoho Desk and SalesIQ

      Dear Zoho Desk Support Team, We are currently utilizing both Zoho Desk and Zoho SalesIQ for our customer support operations. While both platforms offer WhatsApp integration, we are facing challenges due to the requirement of separate WhatsApp numbers

    • Mass Update of Lookup Fields not possible

      Hello List I've created a custom field for Leads and Contacts 'Current Campaign'. This is very Handy as I can filter leads and then related them to a campaign. Everything ready, but then I realized that mass update doesn't work for lookup fields... a

    • Time Limited Coupon or Expiring Link in Workflows

      I would like to see a feature where I can include a time limited link in Workflow Campaigns. For example: I could link to a sales page with a discount and set the link to expire after 24h. The link would be generated by Campaigns for each campaign sent

    • How to create a form using both contact and account fields?

      I am sending a prefilled form from CRM with fields mapped, to update records in CRM. If I link the CRM field to the Contacts module, the Account Name field doesn't come up as an option in CRM. If I added it under Related Fields, my understanding it would

    • Boost your Zoho Desk's performance by archiving tickets!

      The longer your help desk operations are, the more likely it is to accumulate tickets that are no longer relevant. For example, ticket records from a year ago are typically less relevant than currently open tickets. Such old tickets may eventually lead

    • Are Zoho Help Center Email Notifications Customisable?

      Hi, I would like to find out if the Zoho Help Center email notifications can be customised to add our own styling and branding? These are the notifications that get sent when a client adds a new topic, adds a comment, signs up to the help center, etc?

    • Wizard Form

      I would like the option to create a wizard that works when you create a record and contacts that are already in the CRM captured with a web 2 lead form (field data inserted in to the wizard).  Having the option to create up to 3/4 segments per screen

    • Two-Way Sync Zoho CRM Custom Module with Zoho FSM Company Addresses

      Business fact: Many companies don't just have one location. They have multiple locations (some have many), with addresses we need to know for service, deliveries, etc. We have created a custom "Sites" module in Zoho CRM to store an Account/Company's addresses

    • Sharing and Converting Custom Reports Across Departments in Zoho Desk

      Hello, We initially started using Zoho Desk with a single department (Department "A"), which included multiple teams. Nearly a year later, we identified several limitations that led us to create three additional departments ("B", "C", and "D") with replicated

    • Dynamic Dashboard for CRM Flyout/Widget

      Hello, Apologies if this has been answered before—it's possible I'm just not searching the community with the right terms. I'm trying to create a dashboard in Zoho Analytics that pulls together reports from several datasets (e.g., CRM Deals, Books Invoices,

    • Mapping a new Ticket in Zoho Desk to an Account or Deal in Zoho CRM manually

      Is there any way for me to map an existing ticket in Zoho desk to an account or Deal within Zoho CRM? Sometimes people use different email to put in a ticket than the one that we have in the CRM, but it's still the same person. We would like to be able

    • Does Thrive work with Zoho Billing (Subscriptions)?

      I would like to use Thrive with Zoho Billing Subscriptions but don't see a way to do so. Can someone point me in the right direction? Thank you

    • Zoho Sprints mobile app(Android and iOS) v2.0

      Hello everyone! We’re thrilled to announce that Zoho Sprints Mobile app2.0 is now live. With the newest version of the Zoho Sprints mobile app, we hope to provide a fresh, faster, and intuitive experience for managing your sprints on the go! Whether you're

    • Subform dynamic fields on Edit, Load of Main form.

      Main Form: Time_Entry Sub Form (separate form): Time_Entries Time_Entries.Time_Entry_No is lookup to - Time_Entry.Time_Sheet_ID (auto number). I would like to disable some of the subform fields upon load (when edited) of the Time_Entry main form. What

    • View Answer Bot conversations?

      We are trialing Zia and are experimenting with Answer Bot on our knowledge base. So far so good! Management asks me if it is possible to view Answer Bot conversations, the purpose being to look over its shoulder and confirm that it is working as des

    • Delivery note from order or from offer

      Hello, in our company and in a lot of companies in Italy, the standard workflow is (in order): 1) Offer 2) Customer order 3) Delivery note. We can have also more delivery notes in one month. 4) Invoice at the end of the month from delivery note (so only

    • Sesiones 1:1 en Zoholics España 2025

      Una de las experiencias más valoradas por los asistentes a Zoholics son las sesiones 1:1 con nuestros expertos técnicos. Este 2025, las traemos de vuelta con aún más fuerza: cada entrada a Zoholics España 2025 incluye una sesión individual gratuita de

    • "The email sending domain must have an active and functional website so that we can proceed with the review."

      I've requested the approval of my account, and got the following response back: "The email sending domain must have an active and functional website so that we can proceed with the review." This is absolutely false. The website I have provided has been

    • Gestion de suivi des expéditions

      Le suivi des expéditions est un élément indispensable à une gestion réussie de la chaîne d'approvisionnement. Aussi bien le fournisseur que le client peuvent bénéficier de la transparence et de la responsabilité apportées par le système ; ce dernier fournit

    • Is there a way to set Document Owner/Sender via the API

      When sending requests for zoho sign, it would seem zoho uses the id of the person that created the zoho api cred to determine the owner_id, is there a way to set a default for this?

    • Next Page