Automate Subscription Management for CRM Contacts Using Workflows in Zoho Campaigns

Automate Subscription Management for CRM Contacts Using Workflows in Zoho Campaigns

Hello, marketers! Welcome back to Marketer’s Space. In this week’s post, we’ll look at how to simplify subscription management using Workflows for contacts synced from Zoho CRM in Zoho Campaigns. There are multiple ways to assign topics to your contacts:
  • Default assignment at sync: When syncing contacts from CRM, you can either keep them unsubscribed (no topics) or subscribe them to all available topics. This gives you a clean starting point, especially if you plan to collect preferences later.
  • Letting contacts choose: You can send an email campaign with a preference center link, allowing contacts to choose the topics they’re interested in. Their selections are automatically reflected in their topic subscriptions.
  • Manual updates via CRM: If your sales team collects customer interests during conversations, they can record them in custom CRM fields such as a field called “Interests.” These fields can hold one or more interest values like sale, product launch, or newsletters. Once these contacts are synced into Zoho Campaigns, you can build a Workflow that reads this data and automatically subscribes each contact to the relevant topics.
In this post, we’ll look at how to use custom CRM fields and Workflows in Zoho Campaigns to automate topic assignment based on customer interests.

Why automate subscription management?   

When both your sales team and your customers update subscription preferences, manual handling can get messy. Automating this process ensures that:
  • Your contact lists stay up-to-date
  • You remain compliant with email regulations
  • You send only relevant emails to the right audience

Sync CRM contacts with a targeted list   

To begin, sync your Zoho CRM contacts to a specific mailing list in Zoho Campaigns. This list will serve as the foundation for your targeting and automation.
Here’s how you can set it up:
  • Go to Settings > Apps > Zoho CRM and connect your account.
  • Then navigate to Contacts > Sync Services > New Sync.
Choose the CRM module you’d like to sync (e.g., Leads, Contacts or custom modules ) and map it to a mailing list in Zoho Campaigns.

Once the sync is set up, you can trigger Workflows using:
  • List Entry – Triggers when a contact is added to the synced list.
  • Field Update – Triggers based on changes to mapped CRM field values.

This setup ensures your Workflows respond dynamically to CRM data and list activity.

Capture interests directly in Zoho CRM   

Your sales team can log customer interests in a custom CRM field (e.g., Interests). This might include values like:
  • Sale
  • New Product Launch
  • Exclusive Content
These values become the key to targeting contacts with relevant content.

Create topics in Zoho Campaigns   

To align campaigns with user interests, create relevant topics inside Zoho Campaigns.
You’ll find this under Contacts > Manage Topics. 



Consider topics like:
  • Newsletters
  • Member-only updates
  • Sale announcements
  • Product launches

Organizing your campaigns under topics helps contacts manage preferences and improves engagement.

Build your automated subscription Workflow      

Trigger the Workflow   

Use the “List Entry” trigger with your CRM-synced list.
Alternately, use the “Field Update” trigger to filter based on interest fields or subscription status.  

Split based on Interests   

Add the Process Condition component and select the Multi-way option.
  • Branch 1: Interest is “Sale”
  • Branch 2: Interest is “New Product Launch”
  • Branch 3: Interest is empty → default to unsubscribe  

Assign subscriptions automatically   

For each branch, add the “Subscription Management” action component:
  • Branch 1 → Subscribe to Sale Announcements
  • Branch 2 → Subscribe to Product Launches
  • Branch 3 → Unsubscribe from all topics to avoid sending irrelevant emails
This ensures each contact only receives what they opted in for or nothing irrelevant.

Assigning Multiple Topics Using Comma-Separated Values   

If your CRM contacts are interested in more than one topic, you can record multiple interests in a single CRM field using comma-separated values. For example: sale, launch, newsletters
When you use the “contains” modifier, you can match this field against several keywords at once and assign multiple topics in a single branch.

Trigger the workflow 

Use the Field Update trigger and select the CRM field where interests are stored (e.g., Interests). This workflow will activate whenever the field is updated in CRM.

Add the Process Condition  

  • Insert a Multi-way process component and set the condition to: Interests contains sale launch newsletters 
  • Make sure the keywords are separated by spaces so that each word can be evaluated individually. If the contact’s field contains any of the specified values (sale, launch, newsletters), the workflow will take this path.

Assign multiple topic subscriptions 

To that branch, add the Subscription Management action component and add all relevant topics. This ensures:
  • A single contact can be subscribed to multiple relevant topics
  • No interest is missed out during automation

Advanced Use Case: 

Use an additional CRM field like Customer Type (e.g., Member, Non-member). Create a separate Workflow that:
  • Filters contacts with “Member” status
  • Subscribes them to exclusive member-only topics
This lets you send gated content without mixing up audiences.  

Use Segments as an alternative trigger   

Instead of using a list-based trigger, you can create a Segment using criteria like CRM fields or engagement behavior. Then:
  • Trigger a Workflow when a contact is added to a segment using the “Enter a Segment” trigger component
  • Automate topic subscriptions or unsubscribes from there
This is ideal when you prefer dynamic criteria over static list membership.

With Workflows in Zoho Campaigns, subscription management becomes hands-free, precise, and personalized. Whether you’re handling thousands of CRM contacts or running niche campaigns for select groups, this setup keeps your audience segmentation sharp and relevant.

See you soon with more ways to supercharge the Zoho CRM + Campaigns integration. Until then, happy marketing!

Regards,
Pearlin Nitika
User Education | Zoho Campaigns

    Nederlandse Hulpbronnen


      • Recent Topics

      • Canva Integration

        Hello! As many marketing departments are streamlining their teams, many have begun utilizing Canva for all design mockups and approvals prior to its integration into Marketing automation software. While Zoho Social has this integration already accomplished,

      • Clone Entire Zoho Boooks Organization, including all transactions for testing & training

        Can Zoho Books support help with direct cloning of entire Zoho Books & Inventory Organization? including all transactions, just like a copy & paste or disk cloning. Is this possible?

      • Can't change login email address in zoho books.

        Hello, Does anyone have any idea how to change login email in zoho books?

      • Zoho Site Vs. Wordpress website - which is better ?

        Hi I  have a Wordpress website  hosted at hostgator.   I use zoho CRM  for leads , customers, scheduling , etc.  I am considering moving my website to zoho sites.  What are advantages  and disadvantages to using zoho site compared to a wordpress website? On a scale of 1 to 10 ,  how good is zoho sites?    zoho sites with being found by potential customer searching the web for products , services? I sell and service business phone systems into local markets in California. My goal would be to increase

      • Bank Reconciliation Reports Do Not Have the Requisite Information Needed for a Proper Bank Rec Report

        Basic accounting practices for bank reconciliations dictate that bank reconciliation reports have the following components: Date or Period of Reconciliation: The report should clearly state the date for which the reconciliation is being performed, typically

      • How to record chargeback in zoho books?

        Hi all, Does anyone know how to record a chargeback transaction in zoho books? Thanks, Mo

      • workflow fields before assigning the ticket when the client opens the case by email.

        I want to create a workflow that forces the technician to complete the mandatory fields before assigning the ticket when the client opens the case by email.

      • Answer to wrong email address

        Hi Everybody! When we receive a customer request (let's call him Peter) on our info@abc.com mail address, we manually forward the email message to Zoho desk (support@). Of course, sender of that message is info@abc.com and Zoho opens a new ticket with "info" as the contact name and info@abc.com as email address (nobody can blame Zoho for doing that). We then edit the ticket and fill in contact name (Peter), account name (Peter Ltd) and email address (peter@mail.com) of the customer. When we answer

      • Zoho Desk nog sending true Gmail

        Desk isn't sending our outgoing e-mail anymore. We can still receive e-mails but not send. I reconnected the email again and disabled the 2FA (to test). If I choose the Desk generated outgoing email address it works just fine. Please assist.

      • Add Hebrew Language Support for Zia Auto-Tag in Zoho Desk

        Dear Zoho Desk Team, We hope this message finds you well. We are currently utilizing the Zia Auto-Tag feature in Zoho Desk, which has proven to be quite valuable for categorizing and organizing tickets based on their content. However, we’ve encountered

      • Footer: Zoho make a big downgrad with new footer option

        Every post about the new footer function is negative and all say: its a big downgrade. The idea behind this new function was: Make it more simple. Great, now its faster and more simple to add an footer. But nobody from zoho team think about the more bigger

      • Need help with Zoho Billing/Subscriptions API

        Hello, We need help in figuring out which APIs to use in the following scenarios to process customer payments and manage subscriptions. When 14 days trial period is over and subscription status in Zoho changes to "TRIAL_EXPIRED" , customer comes back

      • Multiple Filters? Question answered many times, but never satisfactorily

        Hi. I love Zoho Creator.   However, I would like to know more about creating a view that allows users to easily filter the records, using several filters at once.   I know many people have asked this before, and mostly the answer given is "Use the search function, and search in each column for the required parameter"   However, this is not a satisfactory solution for a number of reasons:   1) You have to know the exact value to search for (sometimes the value might be a two or three word answer)

      • Sendmail with filtered report as attachment - Best practice ?

        Salut, I am scripting sendmail workflows with reports attached. I need those reports to be filtered. For example, a 10 subrows order would have 3 different suppliers, and I want those 3 suppliers to receive a copy of the order with only the subrows related

      • Issues w/ Screen Share & Accessing via Mobile Web Browsers

        1. How do I share my screen while still seeing video of myself & paticipants without rebroadcasting the participant video feeds? All other video conferencing tools provide this feature so not sure if it's a setting I'm missing or a programming oversight. 2. How do I know what screen/application I'm sharing? After selecting the screen/application a notice appears however it is appears on the wrong screen leading to confusion about what participants can actually see.  3. How to I allow participants

      • 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

      • Option to duplicate views ( ticket and others)

        Hello, I would like to ask for the option to duplicates views, especially ticket views. Often we need to use the views for very particular information, including filtering out custom data. It would be great to allow duplicate an existing View, so it can

      • Option to copy/duplicate Custom Ticket views

        Hi Team, Hope you're all well. I was wondering if you would consider a feature on Custom Ticket views: The option to copy or duplicate an existing custom ticket view It would help tremendously for views with a lot of criteria that could be reused multiple

      • Democratize data visualization across your organization using Chart View in CRM

        Hello everyone - As part of CRM for Everyone, we've introduced a whole new set of features. This announcement will focus on one of them: Chart View. Why did we add this view? To put insights directly in the hands of the people closest to the action. Here's

      • Will Zoho implement DANE?

        I know that setting up DNSSEC and DANE is quite a risky process. But it will improve email security. With DANE, a server can verify a SSL certificate before connecting to the server. There are some RFC related to DANE which can be found here: DNS-based

      • How do I stop Notifications in Mail?

        How does one turn off notifications for our Mail accounts? Why is an answer to such a basic question impossible to find in this community forum? Also, could you point us to the most current user guide so we don't have to spend time asking such fundamental

      • Turning off self view in Zoho Meeting

        Hi Is it possible to turn off/hide self view in meetings?  Cant see any options for it. Thanks

      • Is it possible to hide self view in Zoho Meetings

        Hi - I want to hide my camera view when conducting meetings in Zoho Meetings.  Most of my meetings are one to one with clients & I prefer to focus on them them on the screen? I've searched and cant find any options for this? Thanks Ro

      • Darshan Hiranandani : Can I hide my self-view in Zoho Meetings, and if so, how?

        Hi everyone, I’m Darshan Hiranandani, looking for a way to hide my self-view during meetings in Zoho Meetings. I find that seeing my own video feed can be distracting, and I’d like to know if there’s an option to hide or disable it. Could anyone provide

      • mx.zoho.com servers blacklisted by UCEPROTECTL3

        Hello, An MXtoolbox check for my domain showed that UCEPROTECTL3 has blacklisted all three of the zoho MX servers. I am unable to sign up for Zeptomail service for our company transactional emails until this issue is resolved. But this is out of my hands.

      • How to integrate Zoho CRM, Zoho Forms and a WIX Web Site

        Attached video demonstrates how to use Zoho Forms included in Zoho One, to design a Contact Us form to be embedded into a WIX web site and integrated into Zoho CRM.

      • Events on Calendar disappeared

        hello, Events (e.g. repeating events) disappeared on my calendar for Wed, Oct 2, which led to missing some meetings on that day. What exactly is wrong? This is not the first time this is happening! Please, fix this calendar issue.

      • FICHIER FEC - ZOHO BOOKS

        J'ai testé le fichier FEC, disponible depuis quelques semaines dans zoho books pour les sociétés françaises. C'est une grande avancée car nous allons enfin pouvoir importer facilement (sans avoir à réaliser de complexes rapports dans zoho analytics) la

      • ERROR CODE :550 - Your message to <xxx@xxxxx.xx> was classified as SPAM.

        Hey Team, I'm using Zoho Mail with my own domain, and from some of the recipients I'm receiving following error message: ERROR CODE :550 - Your message to <xx@xxxx.xx> was classified as SPAM. Please add more content, cut down on HTML links, use fewer

      • Allow 3 Subforms in a custom module

        We have many custom modules in CRM and every now and then we need more than 2 subforms for a module We are on Zoho One Plan Can you please increase the subfrom limit from 2 to 3 Our current workaround is to create a solution in Zoho Creator and embed

      • Time Zones

        Hello, Is there a way to add a time zone in a Deal related to "bid due"? We work on projects across the world and even though some things adjust to my own time zone, I have found that any dates we manually enter - Bid Date, RFI Due Date, etc. do not appear

      • Create Zoho Project and assign a contact without account

        I’m trying to automate the creation of new projects in Zoho Projects using Zoho Flow. In my setup, I often need to assign projects to individual contacts who don’t have an associated Account/Company in Zoho CRM—just a personal contact. When I create a

      • Update main form's Lookup value following the completion of a Subform within that same main form

        Hi, It's quite a simple request but I'm struggling with getting the deluge to work smoothly. In short, I have a main form (Place_New_Order). Public users will be able to use it. They have a subform to complete with their contact details etc (name, email,

      • ZOHO LOGIN PROBLEM

        Hello, my name is Bernice. One of the users in our company is having a problem logging into their system. They had two-factor authentication on their phone but unfortunately, they lost that phone. Now when trying to login to their Zoho people they are

      • New in CRM: Dynamic filters for lookup fields

        Last modified on Oct 28, 2024: This feature was initially available only through Early Access upon request. It is now available to all users across all data centers, except for the IN DC. Users in the IN DC can temporarily request access using this form

      • Sync Zoho CRM Events with Google Calendar?

        Hi, Is there a way to permanently sync all events from Zoho CRM with Google Calendar? I’ve seen that you can link Zoho CRM to Zoho Calendar and then connect Zoho Calendar to Google Calendar — but is there a way to sync existing and future events from

      • Pre-fill webforms in Recruit

        I don't want to use the career site portal (as I have my own already), but I would like to direct users to the application forms for each role, from my website job pages. Is there a way to pre-fill fields in Recruit application forms, so that I only have

      • image cover div or original aspect

        I changed my app's theme, and now when I return to the original theme, the images in my reports cover the entire div, whereas before they were displayed in their original aspect ratio. How can I change this? I can't find the option. I only see that you

      • Delete subform rows based on mainform input

        I took my first adventure in getting ChatGPT to write some code for me this weekend. I want to ADD new rows, UPDATE existing rows and DELETE existing rows based on the input of a mulitselect lookup in the mainform. ChatGPT produced this for me which seems

      • Des parcours WhatsApp simples pour engager vos prospects et les convertir durablement

        En tant que professionnel du marketing, il vous est sûrement arrivé de déployer des campagnes par e-mail, SMS, réseaux sociaux ou pop-ups, sans obtenir l'engagement espéré. Une situation frustrante, mais malheureusement fréquente. Vous vous posez sans

      • Next Page