Marketer's Space: Streamline marketing and sales by integrating ZMA's Planner with Zoho CRM

Marketer's Space: Streamline marketing and sales by integrating ZMA's Planner with Zoho CRM


In a competitive market, clear goal-setting and seamless campaign execution are crucial for marketing and sales alignment. When integrated with Zoho CRM, Zoho Marketing Automation's Planner enables marketers to create, manage, and measure campaigns effectively with comprehensive reporting and goal tracking.
This post covers how to use ZMA's Planner to manage campaigns, track budgets, and view activities by stages via the Kanban board. You'll also learn to track ROI with reports, set goals, and view contacts segmented by CRM insights in the Contacts tab.

Adding activities to ZMA's Planner online and offline

ZMA's Planner bridges the gap between digital and traditional marketing campaigns by enabling you to add and manage activities across multiple channels.

Digital activities

You can associate existing email campaigns or create new ones within the Planner. For instance, a marketer can configure an email campaign promoting a new product and track its engagement metrics. Similarly, they can add, configure, and directly monitor SMS campaigns.

Offline activities

Add activities like trade shows, events, or print ads to give marketers the flexibility to manage all campaigns in one place, including generating shareable short URLs and downloadable QR codes for use in physical stores.

Let's look at an example to see how adding activities to Planner works.

Let's say you're a marketer planning a product launch campaign targeting sales qualified leads (SQLs). Using ZMA's Planner, you create an email campaign and configure it directly, as well as track link clicks and email engagement metrics to gauge interest levels. One of your sales executives uses the Planner's contact filters to identify SQLs who have interacted with your campaign and then personalizes follow-ups to close deals faster.

Tracking progress with the Kanban board

The Planner's Kanban board visualizes campaign progress under stages like the following:
  • Ideating
  • Yet to start
  • In progress
  • Scheduled
  • Completed

You can also add custom stages to suit your campaign needs.


Why is this valuable to marketing and sales teams?

This segmentation ensures that campaigns are on schedule, providing clarity for both marketing and sales teams. For example, if a campaign is “In Progress,” the sales team knows when to prepare for lead engagement.

The Budget tab: Monitoring campaign finances

The Budget tab is vital for tracking the following:
  • Total budget
  • Total expense
  • Acquired leads
  • Cost per acquisition

It also provides insights through views that cover budget split, expense split, budget versus expenses, and detailed breakdowns of how budgets and expenses are distributed.

Setting goals with CRM data

ZMA's Planner enables you to define goals using metrics like the following:
  • MQL to SQL conversion rat
  • Count of SQLs, MQLs, and raw leads generated
  • Lead count by stage
  • Average lead score and location
  • Count of leads that have moved up a stage
  • Email engagement and leads engaged via Planner
  • Website visits by source, referral URL, location, and type (new or returning)
  • Organic and social website visit count
  • Website engagement metrics, including page views and visit types
It also includes CRM-related goal metrics like the following:
  • Leads closed (won or lost)
  • SQL to Closed Won conversion rate
You can also drill down into categories and set numerical targets for granular tracking. These insights provide a comprehensive view of marketing performance and help align efforts with sales goals.

Let's say you've set a goal to achieve 100 closed-won deals in Q4. Using the Planner, you track your count of closed-won leads and align your marketing activities to support this target. With CRM data integrated, you can ensure your campaigns focus on high-quality leads and help both marketing and sales teams stay aligned and meet their shared goals effectively.

The Reports tab: Actionable insights for ROI

The Reports tab consolidates key metrics, such as the following:
  • Existing leads reached and leads engaged (also shows how many contacts have achieved your plan's primary goal.)
  • Revenue and deals stats: Revenue generated and deals closed won
  • Expense and ROI stats: Campaign expense, ROI, and Channel-Wise ROI.
  • Website and location stats: Consolidated views of website visits by region.
For example, let's say you review reports to evaluate the success of your campaigns. For example, the Channel-Wise ROI report helps you identify which marketing channels delivered the highest returns and therefore serves as a guide for your future budget allocations.

Contact engagement with ZMA's Planner

The Contacts tab shows engagement at every level:
  • Leads reached
  • Leads engaged
  • Contacts closed with won deals
You can also create a contact segment within the Planner by selecting the "Segment Filter" icon.

Let's say your sales executive uses the Contacts tab to filter for “leads engaged” and focuses on SQLs who've interacted with the campaigns. This enables them to prioritize warm leads and boost conversion rates.

The integration with Zoho CRM enhances the Planner by providing valuable insights that enable marketers to set precise goals and track performance effectively. It bridges the gap between marketing and sales, ensuring both teams are aligned and focused on shared objectives. With access to detailed metrics, marketers can craft more impactful campaigns while the sales team benefits from higher-quality leads and actionable insights that help close deals efficiently.

Stay tuned for more posts on ZMA's Zoho CRM integration. Until then, happy marketing!

Regards,
Pearlin Nitika
User Education | Zoho Marketing Automation

    • Recent Topics

    • Comparing 2 collections to make an action

      Salut, I have a customer form with a main phone number, and a secondary phone number. I have another form, a calendar, with a paste of the main phone number. I want to send a SMS to both phone numbers when the calendar event happen. I use the following

    • Rich-text fields in Zoho CRM

      Hello everyone, We're thrilled to announce an important enhancement that will significantly enhance the readability and formatting capabilities of your information: rich text options for multi-line fields. With this update, you can now enjoy a more versatile

    • Introducing Assemblies and Kits in Zoho Inventory

      Hello customers, We’re excited to share a major revamp to Zoho Inventory that brings both clarity and flexibility to your inventory management experience! Presenting Assemblies and Kits We’re thrilled to introduce Assemblies and Kits, which replaces the

    • How do you map a user picklist field to another user picklist field.

      In Zoho Projects, I'm trying to map a custom field (user picklist) in Task Details to a field (user picklist) in the Project Details. How do you get the two to map to each other? This is what I currently have that works for my other fields but doesn't

    • Writing Checks to Employees for Reimbursable Expenses

      I couldn't find a way to write a check through books or expense to an employee for reimbursable expenses. The expense created an entry in the system with a debit (expense) credit (liability). I entered a bill and used the liability account so it would

    • Flutter Plugin Compatibility Issue: Unresolved Reference to FlutterPluginRegistry in zohodesk_portal_apikit

      I am integrating the zohodesk_portal_apikit Flutter plugin (version 2.2.1) into my Flutter project, but I am encountering a build error related to an unresolved reference to FlutterPluginRegistry in the file ZDPBaseActivityAwarePlugin.kt. Below is the

    • Automate Ticket Assignment to Contact or Account Owner Using Custom Action

      Teltroz Inc specializes in data science, data analytics, and big data technologies. Serving a wide range of customers from large to medium-sized businesses, security has been their top priority. The firm uses Zoho Desk to enhance their business operations,

    • Zoho Payroll: Product Updates for India - May 2025

      This May, we are glad to unveil new capabilities in Zoho Payroll that simplify your payroll activities. Here's the list: Let Employees Choose Their Tax Deduction Method for One-Time Payments Calculate variable earnings based on percentage of CTC Carry

    • 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.

    • how to remove email headers from Zoho Desk emails and replies from customers?

      I'm testing Zoho Desk at the moment ant noticed some very annoying with the emails that go back and forth, the email headers are always included on the conversation in the web interface and the customer also receives emails with these readers showing

    • [Zoho Flow] Problem using "Send document for signing"

      Hi, I get the error "Zoho Writer says \"An Internal Server Error occurred while processing this request.\"" cant understand what exactly the problem is. Any ideas? Thank you KR, Victoria

    • File Upload and Add via API

      I've been attempting to upload to via the Files api and I have been hitting the wall with actually getting the file to attach. What type is the API expecting ? Base64 Encoded ? When I do I get a 414 Error. I would appreciate your help as I am currently

    • Is this a valid email from Zoho or a scam?

      Hi, I received an email advising me to update MX records for Zoho mail. Is it legitimate? Thanks, Nelson. Dear Admin, You may know that your domain (eg, yourcompany.com) has an MX record that points to an email server configured to process email for your domain. We have noticed that some of our customers have used Zoho IP address (instead of DNS server name) in their MX records to specify the mail server. This is NOT recommended practice. Vendors will sometimes change IP addresses for number of valid

    • Unable to add estimate field to estimate template

      I have the field "SKU" as part of my service data. I can also see it as a column when displaying the list of services. However, I have no way to include it on my estimate template because the field is not showing as a column field to include for the service/part

    • Add Pinned Tickets to top of queue

      As an IT Helpdesk, we have some tickets where they will need to be looked at daily over a week or 2, and the ability to pin a ticket to the front/top of the queue would be handy as we can be reminded to take a look, rather than placing them on hold and

    • Holding Shift to keep selected tickets

      It is annoying trying to change the category of tickets and then closing them. You have to select them one by one, no way to 'hold down left click and drag your mouse down to select multiple'. Once you have selected them and you change the category, you

    • CRM HAS BEEN SOOO SLOW For Days 05/15/25

      I have fantastic Wifi speed and have zero issues with other websites, apps, or programs. It takes an excruciatingly amount of time to simply load a record, open an email, compose an email, draft a new template, etc. Am I in a subset/region of subscribers

    • Including attachments with estimates

      How can attachments be included when an estimate is sent/emailed and when downloaded as a .pdf? Generally speaking, attachments should be included as part of an estimate package. Ultimately, this is also true for work orders and invoices.

    • What’s New in Zoho Inventory | April 2025

      Hello users, April has been a big month in Zoho Inventory! We’ve rolled out powerful new features to help you streamline production, optimise stock management, and tailor your workflows. While several updates bring helpful enhancements, three major additions

    • Formula Module how to convert to percentage

      Hello There, I have create a formula field and i want the outcome to be in percentage how do i do that This is my formula ${Deals.Forecast Revenue Per Year}/${Deals.Annual Processing Volume} I have try ${Deals.Forecast Revenue Per Year}/${Deals.Annual

    • Same users on different accounts

      I have an issue I need help with. Whilst trialing ZOHO CRM I created the following: Account1 using myname@myorganisation.com.au and 2 personal emails Account2 using a personal email and 2 users sales1@myorganisation.com.au and sales2@myorganisation.com.au

    • Error "The SMTP server requires a secure connection or the client was not authenticated. The server response was: 5.5.1 Authentication Required"

      Hi, I'm trying to send an email via the SMTP server using C# code but getting the following error: "The SMTP server requires a secure connection or the client was not authenticated. The server response was: 5.5.1 Authentication Required" I know the username and password are correct and I can login via the web interface an send email via this account no problems. Here is my code - can any body shed any light on why this would happen? Putting an invalid password gives the same error. I also have disabled

    • Existing subform data is being changed when new subform entries are added

      I'm having trouble with existing subform data being changed when new subform entries are created. I have the following setup to track registrations for a girl scout troop: Main Form: Child Subform: Registrations The data are a one-to-many relationship where each Child record has many Registrations (new Registration will be created for each year the child is in the troop.) Per the instructions, I have created the subfom, added it to the main form, gone back to the subform and created the bi-directional

    • How to get custom estimate field to display on existing or new services?

      I am using FSM. I recently added a new custom field to Service Details to help categorize my services. I can see the newly added field as a column on the service list view. However, when attempting to update an existing or create a new service, I don't

    • How to add a contact ID to contacts I'm importing with migration

      New user, business owner here, not a data specialist. I'm attempting to migrate import data from my old CRM, Daylite, via a .csv file. I feel like I've mapped the columns in the .csv file, however when I click save and next, I get a message saying the

    • FSM Job Sheets data to CRM

      Hello, is there anyway of getting the data collected in the job sheets into the CRM. We are collecting inspection data which we were using zoho forms for but the job sheets in fsm seem like a lot better way to collect it but we need to be able to get

    • Whats the Time out Limit for API Calls from Deluge?

      Hi Creator Devs, We are making API calls to third party server via Deluge. Getting this error message: Error at line : 24, The task has been terminated since the API call is taking too long to respond. Please try again after sometime. Whats the default

    • Footer in PDF template doesn't stay at the bottom of the page

      When setting up a PDF template there is an option for a header / footer. The header stays at the top of the page however the footer does not. It appears the footer actually serves no purpose as it seems to rise up to underneath the header (see image). Is there a way to lock the footer to the bottom of the page? Otherwise what is the point of it? Image demonstrating what I mean. https://ibb.co/cJY1xZ4

    • Hiring Staff Accountant in San Diego with ZohoBooks Experience

      Hello, We are a San Diego, CA company looking for an experienced Staff accountant or controller that has ZohoBooks experience for a full-time position. Please reach out if interested. Best, Ben

    • Unveiling Cadences: Redefining CRM interactions with automated sequential follow-ups

      Last modified on 01/04/2024: Cadences is now available for all Zoho CRM users in all data centres (DCs). Note that it was previously an early access feature, available only upon request, and was also known as Cadences Studio. As of April 1, 2024, it's

    • Third party apps for my mail

      Hello im new here and i have a very important issue. A third party company uses one of my emails to send invoices to our customers. My problem is that cannot connect to zoho mail server. my imap settings are corrent imappro.zoho.eu 993 smtppto.zoho.eu

    • Deal Product reference

      Hello All, I'm trying to use Zoho Writer to dynamically create a statement of work document. Our statement of work is heavily dependent on what products are included in the deal. As such, I need to be able to add or remove sections of text depending on

    • Kit Items Breaking Automations - "Provide mapped components for all kit items"

      This has been brought up in other threads, but I believe this issue warrants its own topic. Whenever a sales document (Estimate, Sales Order, Invoice) is created or manipulated programmatically, trying to include a Kit as an Item throws this error: "Provide

    • Outage?

      Is there an outage? Everytime I try to access Zoho FSM (web, as admin) I get a blank screen.

    • How to set the value of the Phone field importing contacts in Zoho Desk

      Hi everyone, i'm new in Zoho Desk, we're setting up the environment and i'm importing contacts from another CRM using a file CSV and i'm getting a problem with phone numbers (italian): the leading zero is cut away, also if the value is inside double quotes.

    • Have you checked your Email headers for DKIM Failure?

      Have you taken a look at your email headers for DKIM failures even with DKIM set up properly? I've had DKIM successfully set up for many months. My account currently shows Email Verified and Authenticated. Big green check marks. Email Relay is also showing

    • If Formula with Abs and Now included!

      Hi all, Having a bit of trouble with an If formula when creating a formula field with currency return type. This is what I've got: If(Now()>=${Agreement History.Rent Review Due}, '${Agreement History.Holdover Price}', 'Abs(${Agreement History.Rent Achieved

    • How to normalize CRM module when integrating with Survey?

      This question is about the problem with many-to-many relationships and Survey. One of the things our organization does is track people in our program and their jobs. We get new information from the people three times annually through Zoho Surveys. Survey

    • IMPORTRANGE Spreadsheets

      I am trying to importrange a spreadsheet into another, but an error keep appearing saying NOT LINKED. Noting that I've linked it. I've tried to publish both sheets and re-apply the formula many times but nothing is working. I don't know what can I do

    • Zoho Desk to Jira > Automatic Creation ?

      I've set up the integration for Jira and Zoho Desk, but when I create a test ticket as a customer nothing is sent to Jira automatically - is this correct ? I can manually link to Jira using the "More Actions", but I was expecting the issue to be created

    • Next Page