Integrating CRM With Ecommerce Platforms

Omnichannel Marketing: Reaching Customers Where They Are Introduction & Overview Omnichannel marketing is crucial in today's landscape, focusing on a seamless, integrated experience across various channels. Unlike multichannel marketing, which operates independently, omnichannel meets consumers where they are, offering a smooth, personalized journey. This approach enhances customer satisfaction, boosts conversion rates, and strengthens brand loyalty, driving growth. Key Concepts -Cross-Channel Integration: Ensures consistent messaging and experience across all channels. -Customer-Centric Approach: Focuses on understanding customer needs to create personalized experiences. -Personalization: Tailors messages based on user behavior, enhancing relevance. -Data-Driven Insights: Uses analytics to optimize channels based on customer behavior. Challenges Omnichannel marketing faces challenges like integrating diverse platforms for a seamless experience, managing and securing customer data from multiple sources, and balancing personalization with privacy concerns. Additionally, coordinating offline and online efforts to ensure consistent branding requires effective team collaboration. Strategies & Solutions Enhance your omnichannel marketing by creating detailed customer profiles, maintaining consistent branding, and using marketing automation for timely communication. Optimize the mobile experience, engage customers through social media, connect online and offline interactions, and continuously analyze data to refine your strategies. Benefits & Insights Omnichannel marketing enhances customer experience and engagement, increases retention and conversion rates, and provides valuable insights through integrated data collection. This approach builds a competitive edge by offering a seamless, personalized journey that meets customer needs across channels, fostering loyalty and driving sales. Conclusion Omnichannel marketing helps brands deliver a consistent, personalized experience by integrating online and offline channels, using data to enhance customer journeys. Though it requires initial investment, the approach strengthens customer relationships, boosts engagement, and drives sales growth. Next Steps Start with an audit of your marketing channels for consistency, then develop a strategy for gathering and using customer data while maintaining privacy. Invest in cross-channel marketing automation, explore online-offline integrations, and use data analysis to continuously refine your omnichannel strategy. #omnichannelmarketing #customerengagement #digitaltransformation #reachyourcustomers #marketingstrategy

Grateful to be featured in the "Shoptalk Hot Takes" interview by Blenheim Chalcot and ClickZ.com alongside George Looker to unpack omnichannel commerce. 5 key takeaways and tactics from my conversation: 1. Design for Customer Continuity, Not Just Channel Expansion 💡 71% of customers expect brands to personalize interactions across every touchpoint. Tactical: Map out customer journey across channels, then design experiences that recognize and reward continuity—cart persistence, loyalty rewards, browsing history sync, etc. 2. Build the Infrastructure: Unify Data Streams Across All Touchpoints 🧠 Data fragmentation = missed opportunity Tactical: Integrate POS, e-commerce, mobile, social, and marketplace data into a centralized data lake or unified commerce platform. 3. Establish a Single Source of Truth for Customer Profiles 🔍 Brands with unified profiles see up to 2x better campaign performance. Tactical: Implement Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) to consolidate behavioral, transactional, and engagement data into unified customer profiles. 4. Partner Strategically for Scale, Not Just Stack ⚙️ A bloated tech stack doesn’t equal agility As I noted, Retailers are getting sharper about which partners can scale with them. Ecosystem efficiency matters more than ever. Tactical Step: Audit your tech stack and partnerships consistently. Prioritize partners that offer extensibility, future-proofing, and proven omnichannel success. 5. Measure What Matters: Unified KPIs Across Commerce 📈 You can’t optimize what you don’t measure holistically Tactical: Align your analytics stack to report holistically across channels—tie marketing to merchandising, CX to LTV, and inventory to revenue. 🧠 Bottom line: think holistically, move strategically, and build ecosystems that scale experience with agility, not just transactions. Complete list in comment 👇 #ecommerce #omnichannel #unifiedcommerce

Some say email tree, but I prefer customer experience blueprints. 😊 No matter what you call them, data-driven email nurturing workflows that are based on lifecycle stage, buyer intent signals, and content engagement are a sales enablement engine—and more so, they act as a strategic lever for aligning marketing and sales to accelerate revenue outcomes. So why don't more teams prioritize them? While workflows are less visible and not as flashy, viewing workflows as living GTM assets offers a framework for operationalizing personalization at scale—something most marketers want but few actually execute well. Here are some hard truths about nurture workflows: - Most marketers know they should personalize—but execution is the tricky part. Start by auditing your user journey and mapping your segmentations, trigger logic, and dynamic content. I like the whiteboard feature in Canva or a tool like Miro for this.  - Integration is everything. Marketing can build the journey, but Sales still drives the close. Full CRM sync powers pipeline velocity, accountability, and better conversion. Sales can’t act on signals they can’t see. - Quarterly performance reviews and workflow audits are non-negotiable. Treat nurture like any other campaign: optimize regularly based on buyer behavior shifts, sales feedback, and funnel performance. What worked last quarter won’t always work next. - And let's face it, personalization at scale is HARD to do. Even the best intentions won't go far without clean data, sharp segmentation, integrated systems, and—the most overlooked—time. Are you feeling guilty because you haven't optimized your workflows yet in 2025? At least you have them. Over 65% of B2B marketers don't even have established lead-nurturing programs, which supports why 80% of marketing leads don't actually convert to sales. (gulp) But fret not, B2B marketers that implement marketing automation have reported increased sales pipelines by as much as 10%! (phew) Whether you're just getting started or ready to review, use this as your call to action to optimize opportunities you may be overlooking. Even the best-run teams can benefit from quarterly workflow audits, behavioral trigger improvements, or segmentation refreshes. If you want more, these topics were featured in Brianna Miller's article for MarTech, "How data-driven email nurturing transforms the B2B sales funnel". I really like this article because it bridges theory to execution and reminds us that nurturing your customers isn't a one-and-done, it's a mindset. Check it out here: https://lnkd.in/gGqn2j8v #B2BMarketing #LIPostingDayApril #EmailMarketing

What’s Better to Focus on in Q4: Retention or Acquisition? Retention in Q4: 1. Q4 is Noisy and Expensive for Acquisition: - With high competition, the acquisition is costly. Focus on getting new users into your CRM in September and October for more cost-effective acquisition, then market to them using internal channels like email and SMS in November and December when paid ad costs peak. 2. Build Desire Before Key Buying Periods: - Many consumers plan purchases for Cyber Weekend and big-ticket items before payday. Use the lead-up to communicate key offers, understand their wish lists, and personalise offers so you’re at the top of your mind for Black Friday. 3. Loyalty & Repeat Purchases: - Existing customers are more likely to convert during the holiday season. Offer personalised promotions or early access to sales to encourage repeat purchases and increase AOV. 4. Cost-Effectiveness: - Retaining customers through email, SMS, and loyalty programmes is cheaper than acquiring new ones, maximising returns during Q4. --- Acquisition in Q4: 1. Capitalise on Increased Spending: - Consumers are in a buying mindset during the holidays. Targeted holiday campaigns can draw in new customers. 2. Start Early: - Focus on acquisition in September and October, when ad costs are lower, and use internal channels to re-target them during the peak buying period. Don’t think sales promotion, think about how you maximise data collection - get incentives to encourage them to sign up to your CRM - use high conversion tactics like competitions. 3. Target Casual Shoppers: - Q4 brings more casual shoppers, like gifters. Cater to them with personalised services, like gift reminders, to retain them for future purchases. Recommended Strategy: Prioritise retention , but grow your CRM aggressively before November with competitions or exclusive deals. Once the peak period hits, focus on understanding customer intent and personalising offers. For acquisition, be consistent with messaging , don’t change discount daily, new customers get disgruntled if they see a better deals and stops pre-planning and consider strategies like basket builders or spread payment tools to drive AOV. #q4 #acquisition #retention #crm #blackfriday

Enterprise Shopify Integrations are a piece of cake.... 🧁 Or at least that is what many had assumed before that start of 2024. The sheer complexity of some of the implementations have taken some people by surprise. Retailers and agencies, please take note! the complexity of enterprise-level Shopify integrations is being massively underestimated — and it’s costing millions. While Shopify (and Shopify Plus) has won hearts with its promise of agility and simplicity, the reality for large-scale projects is often very different. Integrating advanced systems like ERP, CRM, and custom legacy applications isn’t a plug-and-play affair. Far from it in some cases. And yes, you have no code low code companies like Patchworks that Jim Herbert has done a great job of positioning (right time right place for sure) as a solution that can resolve a lot of integration problems. BUT, in the larger, enterprise projects (Fenwicks is a good, recent example) these implementations demands deep expertise, robust architecture, and a healthy respect for the unforeseen challenges that arise when scaling. Things that I am hearing people (on both sides) struggle with... Real-World Pain Points: There are numerous accounts (some detailed case studies published in outlets like Practical Ecommerce and eCommerce Times) where enterprise migrations to Shopify Plus have run into massive integration roadblocks. These challenges have led to extended timelines, unexpected costs, and, in some cases, significant revenue impact. Ecosystem Readiness: The current Shopify agency ecosystem, while excellent for small to medium-sized brands, is still catching up when it comes to the demands of enterprise-scale projects. Many agencies simply don’t yet have the necessary breadth of experience to navigate the complex integration landscape that large retailers face. What I take from this.... If you’re considering or are in the midst of an enterprise migration, ensure your integration partners have demonstrable expertise in handling multifaceted systems. The consequences of underestimating complexity can be severe—financially and operationally. You have been warned! 😱 #eCommerce #Enterprise #ShopifyPlus #DigitalTransformation #IntegrationChallenges #RetailTech

I turned 10,000 dead CRM accounts into meetings using Clay workflows. The results were a 20% reply rate, over $200K in pipeline, and zero cold outreach. Most sales teams are sitting on a goldmine, yet they don't even know it. Here's how you can do the same: 1. TURN PAST CUSTOMERS INTO NEW OPPORTUNITIES Look for companies where your contract has ended or gone inactive. Import these accounts from your CRM into Clay. Find the original champion plus new decision-makers who've joined since. Then send targeted messages like: → "We worked with your sales team last year - wanted to share how we've solved the X challenge they mentioned" → "Since our last project with Acme Corp, we've added features specifically addressing your scaling issues." This approach feels like reconnecting, not cold outreach. 2. USE CHAMPIONS AS REFERENCE POINTS Find accounts where you had a strong champion in the past. Use Clay to verify if they still work there and in what capacity. Then reach out to new contacts in that account: → "Saw you work with Sarah, who implemented our solution for your marketing team last year." → "Your colleague Jason mentioned your team is facing challenges with X." Always verify employment status before sending these messages. 3. TARGET RENEWAL WINDOWS Pull contract end dates from your CRM into Clay. Create auto-updating lists that flag accounts 60-90 days before expiration. Find both original buyers and newly added stakeholders. Time your outreach perfectly by saying something like: → "Your current plan comes up for renewal in September - perfect timing to share what's new." This timing creates a natural sense of urgency without being pushy. 4. CONNECT THROUGH OFFICE LOCATION Import location data for your contacts from your CRM. Use Clay to find new prospects at the same physical office location. Verify if both your champion and new prospect work on-site. Write messages that reference the shared location: → "Noticed you work with Sarah in the Austin office - we helped her team last quarter with X" This creates immediate familiarity and leverages existing presence. 5. BUILD LOOKALIKE ACCOUNTS Take your best-performing customers from your CRM. Run them through Clay + Ocean.io to find similar accounts. Target these accounts with messaging that references success patterns: → "Companies like Apple, Tesla, and Spotify saw 43% faster sales cycles using our approach." → "Based on our work with similar X teams, we've found Y works well for them" This combines the credibility of social proof with personalization. _____ The real edge comes from maintaining good CRM hygiene and regularly updating data. Most teams are sitting on gold, but still use outdated or incomplete information. Start using what you already have instead of starting from scratch.

Every delightful customer interaction begins with the marketer, and it can only be as powerful as the #CRM and #metadata underpinning it. With agents supporting them at every step of the customer journey creation process, marketers and #customerengagement teams can now create superior experiences shaped by intelligent and emotionally resonant conversations. At a cognitive level, the human brain no longer perceives AI as a “chatbot.” It perceives a relationship. This emotional shift fundamentally changes how consumers relate to brands, fostering deeper loyalty and trust. When customers interact with agents in a way that feels natural, their engagement deepens. The implications go far beyond engagement. Every AI-driven interaction generates a wealth of contextual data, far richer than what brands could ever collect from a single web form or survey. In one conversation, an agent can gather insights about a customer’s preferences, behaviors, and intent, building a more complete, dynamic customer profile. This continuous intelligence loop allows brands to maximize the value of every interaction. Let’s bring this to life with an example... Imagine Melanie, one of your many potential customers. She’s been thinking about joining Posh Fitness, a popular gym chain in her city. Instead of filling out a form, she decides to engage with the agent on their website. As they chat, it quickly feels more like a friendly exchange than a transaction. Melanie shares her fitness goals, whether she wants to lose weight, gain muscle, or improve flexibility, and the agent listens closely, asking the right questions to understand her needs and intent. The agent gathers valuable insights through this conversation that a simple web form could never capture. Melanie mentions her dietary restrictions, her preference for a supportive personal trainer style, and that she loves outdoor workouts but needs a flexible schedule due to her busy life. In just a few minutes, the agent collects a wealth of data about Melanie: her goals, preferences, and availability—all essential to crafting a personalized experience. And because the conversation feels human-like and emotionally resonant, it creates an immediate connection to Posh Fitness. By collecting this richer data early in the relationship, Posh Fitness can offer tailored recommendations and build Melanie’s loyalty well before she signs up. This isn’t just about closing a sale. It’s about building trust and delivering personalized experiences that evoke emotions and feel deeply human. Brands that will thrive in the era of #Agentic #AI are those that recognize the shift from transactional interactions to relationship-driven engagement. This isn’t just about personalization; it’s about creating experiences and dialogues that feel alive—where AI and marketers co-create journeys that adapt in real time, amplifying the impact of every customer moment.

Beauty Pie tried to win me back. Here’s why it didn’t work 👇 Visually, the campaign is unmistakably them: sleek, well-executed, and aligned with their brand identity. The tone is confident, the message is clear, and the value proposition is front and centre. But as a former member, it left me wanting more. Not more products, but more relevance. ✖️ No mention of what I used to buy. ✖️ No reminder of the products I loved. ✖️ No nudge to come back based on my actual behaviour. Because here’s the thing: winback campaigns are one of the highest-potential flows in CRM. These customers already know the brand. They’ve already converted. Arguably, the hard part is done. The job now is to remind them why they chose you and give them a reason to return, and that’s where data comes in. ✔️ Call out past purchases ✔️ Highlight likely replenishment windows ✔️ Use timing, product lifecycle, and preferences to tailor the message ✔️ Make it feel personal, not promotional A generic 'you’ve been missing out' is easy to send. But it doesn’t always land. Winbacks work best when they say: 'We remember you. Here’s why you loved us. Ready to pick up where you left off?' Great branding got my attention, but personalisation might have earned the sale. #CRM #EmailMarketing #WinbackStrategy #RetentionMarketing #BeautyPie #DTC

𝗢𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘇𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼𝘂𝗰𝗵𝗽𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗶𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝗼𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹. 𝗜𝘁’𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲. 👇 Most brands obsess over traffic, but ignore 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 happens at each interaction. ↳ That’s why your “customer journey” stalls (and conversion rates flatline). 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗲𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗲 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘁 𝗮𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱: → Mapped every touchpoint: From first ad view to post-purchase follow-up. → Zeroed in on the friction: Missed emails, weak cart recovery, unclear product info. → Revamped with CRO tactics: Personalized emails, frictionless checkout, clarity at every step. 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁: Revenue +34%. NPS up. Returns down. Customers 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲. A few slides from HappyFresh’s playbook say it all—small changes, compounding impact. Want customers who stick (and spend)? Start with the details no one else sweats. How are you optimizing YOUR touchpoints this quarter? https://lnkd.in/gyEU9-vc #eCommerce #CustomerExperience #CRO #Retention

Omnichannel commerce isn’t a destination, instead it’s a moving goalpost! As customer expectations evolve, so must our ability to integrate data, people, platforms & purpose. A tech project once is now a strategic operating model. Last week, I spoke on a panel titled “Beyond the Cart: Unlocking Holistic Growth with Omnichannel Commerce.” A timely topic, as retail shifts from clicks & carts to connected, customer-first journeys. What does omnichannel mean today? It’s a unified commerce approach- stores, websites, apps, marketplaces & social platforms working in harmony to deliver seamless, personalized experiences. From browsing to buying, returning to re-engaging, the brand voice stays one, the customer memory consistent. Here are 4 shifts from our talk: 1. Journey Orchestration Starts with Unified Data Think- Unified Customer View; Personalization, In-store Tech(Clienteling, endless aisle, mobile POS), Consistent Experiences & Real-time inventory visibility. A few examples: * Zara uses RFID and real-time inventory to sync store + online. * Vedant Fashions' Wedding Closet lets store staff access saved looks; personalization starts before trial. Shift: Data isn’t just for analysing the past, it designs the next moment. 2. Cross-Functional Execution is the Real Moat Think shared customer- & journey-centric KPIs; Agile Cross-Functional Squads for campaigns, drops; Supply Chain as a Growth Lever(Fast replenishment, last-mile delivery, BOPIS/ROPO) & Customer Service with Context. *Amazon unifies service, logistics & marketing around Prime. *Decathlon turns stores into local fulfillment hubs. *Vedant Fashions launched white kurtas on Blinkit via cross-team collab. Lesson: Connected commerce brands are organizationally collaborative. 3. Omni-channel: Driving Loyalty & Lifetime Value Think experience-led commerce, feedback loops & loyalty across touchpoints to build long-term relationships. *Zappos’ service culture became its brand, “Delivering Happiness”. *Sephora ties loyalty to stores, app & events. *Stitch Fix blends AI + stylists for personalized trunks. Learning: Great brands build feedback loops, not funnels. 4. Future-Proofing = Modular, Local, Adaptive Tech Think Composable Commerce for scalability + personalization; AI Demand Forecasting, Visual Search, Chat Assistants; Last-Mile Innovations; AR/VR, try-ons. *JD.com uses drones in rural China. *Bata’s AR Sneaker Studio enables at-home try-ons. *Voice, vernacular & low-bandwidth tech unlocks Tier 2/3 India access. In emerging markets, omnichannel must be context-aware, tech-light & people-smart. As I shared on the panel: "The moment you think you’ve nailed omnichannel, your customers' expectations have already moved." That’s why it’s not a finish line, it’s a moving goalpost. Grateful to Bijoya A Ghosh, ADGULLY & co-panelists Lawrence Suchitha, Swarnendu Mandal for a sharp conversation at CMO Charcha. #Omnichannel #DigitalCommerce #RetailInnovation #Leadership #FutureOfRetail