Marketer's Space: Leveraging CRM Data for Dynamic Content and Personalized Campaigns

Marketer's Space: Leveraging CRM Data for Dynamic Content and Personalized Campaigns


Hello Marketers!
Welcome back to another post in Marketer’s Space! We’re excited to continue our series on the many advantages of integrating Zoho CRM with Zoho Marketing Automation (ZMA). This series is designed to help you unlock the full potential of your CRM data and show you how it can enhance your marketing efforts. In the past weeks, we’ve looked at how to create targeted lists and segments using CRM data. We also discussed how you can set marketing goals and measure ROI effectively by utilizing the insights from your CRM.
This week, we’ll look at how you can use the CRM data directly in your marketing campaigns. Whether it’s crafting highly personalized email or SMS campaigns, or creating engaging WhatsApp messages, we’ll explore how Zoho CRM data works hand-in-hand with ZMA to transform your multi-channel campaigns into meaningful, personalized conversations with your audience.

Using CRM Data Across Multi-Channel Campaigns


You can seamlessly use CRM data within your campaign content to create highly personalized communications across channels. For instance, you can bring CRM data into your Email, SMS, and WhatsApp campaigns. In email campaigns, you can personalize the subject line and pre-header text by including the CRM Lead Owner’s Name and CRM Lead Owner’s Email. For SMS campaigns, you can personalize the message content using relevant CRM data to make it more engaging. Similarly, in WhatsApp campaigns, you have the flexibility to customize both the header text and the message content to ensure each communication feels tailored to your audience.

Maximizing Personalization with Custom Fields and CRM Integration

When integrating Zoho CRM with Zoho Marketing Automation (ZMA), you’re not just syncing standard contact data—you can also create and sync custom fields to bring in more tailored customer information. These custom fields allow you to structure your data effectively and use it within Dynamic Content and Merge Tags to personalize campaigns without creating multiple versions. Let’s see how you can set up and use custom fields for better targeting.
  1. Create a Custom Field in Zoho CRM – Define a field that stores relevant customer information, such as Customer Type with values like “High Profile” or “Important Customer.”
  2. Create the Same Custom Field in ZMA – Ensure consistency by replicating the field type in Zoho Marketing Automation.
  3. Map the Fields During Sync – When setting up the sync between CRM and ZMA, match the CRM custom field with the corresponding ZMA field to ensure seamless data transfer.
Now, this mapped data can be used in your campaigns through Dynamic Content and Merge Tags.

What is Dynamic Content?

Dynamic Content, available in the email template builder, allows you to create a single campaign that adapts to different audience segments based on the conditions you specify.
Idea
This feature supports various content types, including text, images, text with images, and even buttons, dynamically changing them for each recipient.
When integrated with Zoho CRM, you can use Account Tags like Industry, Rating, Account Type, Account Name, Annual Revenue, Number of Employees, SIC Code, Website, and Account Owner to tailor your campaigns. Apart from these tags, you also have custom fields synced from Zoho CRM under Predefined Tags, allowing you to further personalize your messages.
Let’s say you want to personalize your email content based on the Industry tag. For contacts in the “Technology” industry, you could display the message: “Explore our latest tools designed for tech innovators.” And for contacts in the “Healthcare” industry, the email could say: “Discover solutions tailored for healthcare professionals.”
Similarly, you could tailor visuals, CTAs, or even button text based on a custom field tag. For instance, you can create a custom field in Zoho CRM to track membership status and sync it with Zoho Marketing Automation. During a sale, you can use Dynamic Content to show an exclusive banner for members with a message like:
“Members get exclusive deals—shop now!”
Additionally, you can add a CTA button, so members see:
“Browse Member-Only Discounts”, redirecting them to the exclusive sale section.
Meanwhile, non-members would see the standard sale content, ensuring a seamless yet personalized experience for every recipient.
By leveraging dynamic content with CRM tags, you ensure every recipient gets a message that feels personal and relevant, driving better engagement and response rates.

What are Merge Tags?

Merge Tags are a powerful feature available in the campaign text editor that directly pulls data from Zoho CRM and replaces it as text in your content. These tags ensure seamless personalization by dynamically adding CRM details to your campaigns.
These are the types of merge tags that are pulled from CRM:

1. Account Tags:
  • Industry
  • Rating
  • Account Type
  • Account Name
  • Annual Revenue
  • Number of Employees
  • SIC Code
  • Website
  • Account Owner
2. CRM Merge Tags:
  • CRM Lead Owner Email
  • CRM Lead Owner Role
  • CRM Lead Owner Street
  • CRM Lead Owner City
  • CRM Lead Owner State
  • CRM Lead Owner Country
  • CRM Lead Owner Zip
  • CRM Lead Owner Phone
  • CRM Lead Owner Fax
  • CRM Lead Owner Mobile
  • CRM Lead ID
  • CRM Account ID
3. Lead Merge Tags:
Custom fields synced from Zoho CRM can also be used as Merge Tags. These are listed under “Lead Merge Tags”, allowing you to include additional personalized details that are unique to your CRM setup. This makes it easy to insert customized data directly into your content, ensuring a highly personalized experience for every recipient.

Suppose you are creating an email campaign and want to include the CRM lead owner’s name in the greeting. You can use the tag $[CRM:CONTACTOWNER]$ in your email content.
Content in Editor:
Hello $[CRM:CONTACTOWNER]$,
We noticed you’re interested in exploring solutions for your business in the $[AF:ACCOUNT_TYPE||]$ sector. Our team has tailored options just for you!
Content Seen by Recipient:
Hello John,
We noticed you’re interested in exploring solutions for your business in the Technology sector. Our team has tailored options just for you!
Let’s say you want an entire sentence to be different for each customer based on past interactions. Instead of sending a generic message, you can create a custom field in Zoho CRM with the Text Area field type, which supports values of up to 2,000 characters. The sales team can manually update this field with a personalized message or any important update from their last conversation with the customer. During the sync with Zoho Marketing Automation, create a custom field with the same Text Area field type in ZMA and map it to the corresponding CRM field. This custom field can now be inserted as a Merge Tag in your campaign content. 
Content in Editor:
“Hi [First Name],
We’re excited about your journey with us. $[CRM:PERSONALIZED_MESSAGE]$ Let us know if you need any help along the way.”
Content seen by recipient:
For one customer, the email might read:
“Hi Alex,
We’re excited about your journey with us. Your premium subscription is now active, and you can explore all the advanced features. Let us know if you need any help along the way.”
For another, it could be:
“Hi Sarah,
We’re excited about your journey with us. Our team has scheduled your product demo for Tuesday and will share the meeting link soon. Let us know if you need any help along the way.”
This allows marketers and sales teams to collaborate seamlessly, ensuring that every email feels personal, relevant, and directly tied to past conversations—without manually drafting individual messages for each contact.
This level of personalization ensures each recipient feels directly addressed, improving the overall impact and engagement of your campaigns.

Why Marketers Should Integrate Zoho CRM with ZMA

Integrating Zoho CRM with Zoho Marketing Automation is a game-changer for marketers looking to enhance their campaigns and maximize their ROI. Zoho CRM is a treasure trove of customer insights, from basic details like names and contact information to advanced metrics such as deal statuses and account types. By integrating Zoho CRM with Zoho Marketing Automation, you can leverage this data to create highly personalized and relevant campaigns across email, SMS, and WhatsApp. The integration also streamlines workflows, ensuring that your marketing and sales teams are always on the same page.

Stay tuned as we continue this series, where we’ll uncover more benefits of integrating Zoho CRM with ZMA. Until then, happy marketing!

Regards,
Pearlin Nitika
User Education | Zoho Marketing Automation

    • Recent Topics

    • Add Ability to Reset Help Center User MFA in Zoho Desk

      Hello Zoho Desk Team, First of all, thank you for recently adding support for Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) in the Zoho Desk Help Center. We’re very happy to see this enhancement go live, especially since this was a highly requested security feature.

    • Upgraded sentiment analysis model for more accurate detection

      Hello everyone! Sentiment Analysis in Zia is being upgraded to a newer model to improve how customer sentiment is detected and interpreted. This transition is aimed at getting better contextual understanding across all supported channels. As part of this

    • Integrate QuickBooks with Bigin and streamline your sales and accounting!

      If your business relies on Bigin for customer management and QuickBooks for accounting and invoicing, this new integration is here to make your operations more efficient. By connecting these two platforms, you can now manage your CRM and financial processes

    • Very limited support for MCP

      Has anyone else noticed how limited the MCP support for Zoho People currently is? Right now only a small set of read-only actions (exactly 15) seem to be available. At the same time Zoho CRM supports over 700+ functions. It makes it almost impossible

    • How has Zoho still not resolved Daylight Savings Time?

      According to these forums Zoho has been working on DST for 12 years. Totally unacceptable. Am I missing something? Why are other customers who observe DST not screaming for this to be fixed? Are there reasonable workarounds? This is a must-have for us. 

    • ZOHO Desk attachments support

      Hi I just setup MCP with claude, it works well, but it can't read attachments... which makes it kind of useless... Will you be adding attachment capabilities anytime soon?

    • HOW I CAN GET BETA VERSION FOT TESTING

      HI. ZOHO I AM INTERESTED IN YOUR BETA SOFTWARE TO EXPERIENCE NEW FEATURES.

    • How to Generate Separate Labels for Each Invoice SKU Line Item in Zoho Books?

      Hi everyone, I’m trying to implement a requirement in Zoho Books where separate labels need to be generated for each SKU/item from an invoice. Scenario: One invoice can contain multiple products/SKU items Each item/box should have its own separate label

    • HTML PDF Templates / Build From Scratch option not visible for Custom Modules

      Hi everyone, I am working with Zoho Books Custom Modules and trying to create a custom 4x4 package label PDF template using HTML/CSS. According to the official Zoho Books documentation for HTML PDF Templates, there should be an option like: Settings →

    • Updating Sales orders on hold

      Surely updating irrelevant fields such as shipping date should be allowed when sales orders are awaiting back orders? Maybe the PO is going to be late arriving so we have to change the shipment date of the Sales order ! Not even allowed through the api - {"code":36014,"message":"Sales orders that have been shipped or on hold cannot be updated."}

    • Direct Integration Between Zoho Cliq Meetings and Google Calendar

      Dear Zoho Team, We’d like to submit the following feature request based on our current use case and the challenges we’re facing: 🎯 Feature Request: Enable meetings scheduled in Zoho Cliq to be automatically added to the host's Google Calendar, not just

    • billable_expense_id in Invoice API does not set invoiced=true on bill line items — causes duplicates in Projects > Create Invoice

      Hi Zoho Community, We are running an automated batch invoicing system using the Zoho Books API and have hit two critical bugs that are causing duplicate invoice risk in production. Raising this here for visibility alongside a support ticket already filed.

    • New fields : radio button

      Hi, when customizing a module (eg: Candidates), we are able to select different types of fields (check box, currency, list, ...). However there is no "radio-button" component. This type of fields is often used in Web pages and will be certainly a plus-value

    • Huge confusion in zoho crm and zoho analytics

      Context => We have reporting based hierarchy in zoho crm and basically there will be one sales head and couple sales managers and 10 pre sales excutives divided between 2 sales managers we have maintained that in zoho crm and there is complex reporting

    • Huge confusion in zoho crm and zoho analytics

      Context => We have reporting based hierarchy in zoho crm and basically there will be one sales head and couple sales managers and 10 pre sales excutives divided between 2 sales managers we have maintained that in zoho crm and there is complex reporting

    • Import KB template OR Export template for zoho desk?

      Greetings. Can you tell me if there is a way to get an EXPORT of my KB articles? OR is there a template you supply for importing KB articles into my zoho desk? I am looking for a method of understanding what fields can be imported, and what their possible

    • Choice Availability Reset

      If an entry is deleted which included a response to a field with choice availability enabled does that increase the number of remaining times the choice can be selected?

    • Rich Text Type Format for Notes Field

      Has it been discussed or is there a way to insert a table in the notes field? We sometimes receive information in a table format, and it would be beneficial to have it in the same format as a note on a record.

    • [Bug] WebAuthn passkey registration blocked on rpIds with TLDs longer than 6 characters (.accountant, .technology, etc.) — isValidDomain regex too strict

      Hi, Filing on behalf of an enterprise customer where Zoho Vault is deployed across the company. The Chrome extension blocks WebAuthn passkey registration on legitimate sites whose Relying Party ID (rpId) has a TLD longer than 6 letters. This affects every

    • [Heads Up] Upcoming update to field values in Zoho Books - Zoho Analytics integration

      Hello Users, We'd like to inform you of an upcoming update to the Account Type field values in the Zoho Books integration for Zoho Analytics from June 1, 2026. What's Changing? The following values under the Account Type field are being renamed to align

    • Important update: Migrate to the new SalesIQ live chat widget before May 15, 2026

      The old SalesIQ live chat widget will be deprecated on May 15, 2026. This is a final reminder to migrate to the new SalesIQ live chat widget before this date. After May 15, 2026, the old widget will no longer be maintained, which can lead to slower performance

    • Zia Agent built in ChatKit UI does not render markdown

      Hi, You have a major shortcoming in the Zia Agent UI. The test UI that is embedded in agents.zoho.com allows you to test the agent has full support for rendering markdown, but your ChatKit UI does not have support for rendering markdown. If I embed it

    • Team folder not created when creating project using zoho flow

      When I try to automate project creation using zoho flow, and I have enabled workdrive integration to automatically create team folders to attach to the project, this only works when I create a new project through the UI. But I am trying to automate project

    • Zoho Projects - Email notification relabelling of modules not present on default templates

      Hi Projects Team, I noticed that in the default email template notification, the word "bug" was not renamed to the lable I am using in my system. As many users may used the Bugs modules for various purposes including Changes, Revisions, Issues, etc...

    • GLM 5 not available

      Hello, I am trying to setup a Zia Agent using agents.zoho.com. The settings says that GLM5 is among the list of free zoho hosted models available. However, when I try to setup an agent and pick a model from the list only GLM 4.7 Flash is available. How

    • Set Custom Icon for Custom Modules in new Zoho CRM UI

    • Can not send or reply to mails

      Hello, I can not send mails or reply. If I try to send a mail i get "Unable to send message;Reason:553 Replaying disallowed. Invalid Domain - invata-programare.ro" Can you help me, please? Thank you!

    • Kaizen #241: Automating Deal risk escalation using Workflow APIs, Connected Workflows, and Functions

      Hello everyone! Welcome to another Kaizen week. In many organizations, sales teams work in Zoho CRM, finance teams manage invoices in Zoho Books, and support teams handle customer issues in Zoho Desk. Now consider this scenario: A sales representative

    • Upload own Background Image and set Camera to 16:9

      Hi, in all known online meeting tools, I can set up a background image reflecting our corporate design. This doesn't work in Cliq. Additionally, Cliq detects our cameras as 4:3, showing black bars on the right and left sides during the meeting. Where

    • Allow Super Admins to Edit Task “Created By” and Issue “Reporter” Fields

      Hello Zoho Projects Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to submit a feature request regarding the ability to manage and correct system ownership fields in Zoho Projects, specifically: Task → Created By Issue → Reporter / Reported By Current

    • The Social Wall: April 2026

      Hello everyone, This month, we’re excited to bring you a set of new updates for Threads in Zoho Social, designed to make publishing, monitoring, and managing your content much easier Threads updates You’ll now see a few useful improvements in the compose

    • Sort or filter CRM report by count value

      Hi there, I'm trying to create a report that will show me high frequency bookings (leads) coming through within a time period for any particular account - this is so we can proactively reach out to these accounts. I have a report that shows the information

    • Error when changing user permission from read only to user.

      Hi there, Ive tried to change one of my users to be able to edit, however i kept getting the error user license exceed.

    • Marketing Tip #30: Promote your brand differently on each social platform

      Not all social platforms work the same way. Posting the same content in the same way across every channel can limit your reach. Each platform has its own discovery system, and understanding what it prioritizes can dramatically improve how your brand is

    • Whatsapp Limitation Questions

      Good day, I would like to find out about the functionality or possibility of all the below points within the Zoho/WhatsApp integration. Will WhatsApp buttons ever be possible in the future? Will WhatsApp Re-directs to different users be possible based

    • **Building Role-Appropriate Accountability Layers in Zoho Projects - Looking for Real-World Experience**

      We're a small ISP/telecom operator on Zoho One and I'm trying to solve what I think is a common organizational problem. Would love to hear from others who've tackled it. **The Core Problem** Staff will only consistently use a project management system

    • Duplicate entries for contacts birthdays

      Good morning I have recently started to use my Zoho calendar and noticed that there are multiple birthday events showing for some of my contacts. I have checked my contacts and there were duplicates for some contacts which I have now rectified but the

    • Using IMAP configuration for shared email inboxes

      Our customer service team utilizes shared email boxes to allow multiple people to view and handle incoming customer requests. For example, the customer sends an email to info@xxxx.com and multiple people can view it and handle the request. How can I configure

    • What's New in Zoho Billing | March 2026

      March is here with a fresh wave of updates to Zoho Billing. From making compliance easier, reporting more flexible, to making day-to-day workflows smoother across the board. Here's everything that's new this month. Introducing Usage-Based Billing Reports

    • Subforms in Creator-Lookup Price

      I've got a modular called Price List with items and prices. Ive got another module called Estimates with a subform that looks up that Price List. I am trying to get the "Price" to auto-enter based on the Lookup field of the item name. Anyone know how

    • Next Page