Last Updated: April 2025
Email marketing continues to be one of the most powerful digital marketing strategies, delivering an impressive ROI of $42 for every $1 spent. To maximize success, businesses need the best CRM for email marketing—a platform that streamlines campaigns, automates workflows, and personalizes customer interactions. With so many options available, finding the right CRM can be challenging.
In this guide, we’ve ranked the 9 best CRMs for email marketing in 2025, helping you choose the perfect solution to enhance engagement, boost conversions, and grow your business.
What is a CRM and How Does It Work?
A CRM, or Customer Relationship Management system, is a software solution enabling businesses to manage interactions with prospects and customers. It centralizes customer data, streamlines communication, and automates important marketing and sales processes. A CRM combines email marketing, sales tracking, and customer support to allow businesses to foster strong relationships and improve customer engagement.
The global CRM market value would reach $157.6 billion by 2030, further indicating that businesses are relying more on CRM for growth and customer management.
How Does a CRM Work?
A CRM works by organizing customer information and automating workflows to improve efficiency. Here’s how it functions:
- Data Collection & Organization – CRMs collect and store customer information, such as contact details, purchase history, and previous interactions, in a single database.
- Lead Management & Tracking – Companies can follow leads along their experience with the business, from first interaction to sale.
- Email Marketing Automation – Most CRM systems come with in-built email automation tools for sending personalized and timely emails based on user behavior.
- Segmentation & Targeting – CRM allows businesses to market more effectively by segmenting contacts based on everything from demographics to purchase history to how (and how often) they interact with them.
- Performance Analytics – Integrated reporting tools give visibility into how an email campaign is doing, trends in sales, and customer engagement.
- Integration with Other Tools – CRMs can also integrate with various external platforms, from email to e-commerce stores and customer support systems, forming a seamless workflow.
A well-implemented CRM for email marketing ensures that businesses can engage their audience with relevant, data-driven communication, leading to improved customer retention and increased sales.
How CRM Helps in Customer Retention
Customer retention is just as important as acquiring new customers, and a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system plays a crucial role in building long-term customer relationships. Here’s how a CRM can help improve retention rates:
1. Personalized Communication
A CRM system that stores information about customers, including their interactions with the brand, their products and preferences, enables businesses to send personalized emails and offer products. This custom fit makes customers feel appreciated, thus, they’re more likely to remain loyal.
2. Automated Follow-Ups
Retention depends on consistent engagement. By utilizing automated email sequences, businesses can maintain communication with customers, send reminders, and follow up on past conversations, all automatically.
3. Improved Customer Support
A CRM system aggregates customer queries, complaints, and feedback for quick response and efficient handling by support teams. Quicker, more efficient resolutions improve the customer experience and increase satisfaction.
4. Loyalty Programs & Exclusive Offers
With a CRM, businesses can track purchase history and customer preferences to offer personalized discounts, loyalty rewards, and exclusive promotions—encouraging repeat business.
5. Data-Driven Insights
CRMs allow businesses to record purchase history and customer preferences to provide personalized discounts, loyalty rewards, and exclusive promotions that drive repeat purchases.
By leveraging these capabilities, a CRM ensures continuous engagement, better customer satisfaction, and long-term loyalty, ultimately driving higher retention rates and business growth.
List of Best CRMs for Email Marketing
By choosing the right CRM for email marketing, businesses can boost their customer engagement and ROI. The average returns seen from CRM since 2011 have doubled to $8.71 for every dollar spent, showing its increasing effect on business success.
Here, we round up the best CRMs for email marketing to help you streamline campaigns and achieve better results.
1. Hubspot
Ratings: 4.4/5⭐
Pricing: Free; paid plans start at $15/month
Hubspot provides an all-in-one business solution, combining CRM, sales and marketing tools to create a more seamless interaction with customers. It is a CRM for email marketing to help companies build leads and acquire loyal customers with personalized interactions.
With instant access to relevant contact data, your marketing team can write purpose-built emails that get closer to your customers and drive conversions.
Key Features:
- Automatically send emails to reach prospects and customers at the right time.
- Analytics to make data-driven decisions for your marketing.
- Pre-built email templates to save time and enhance communication.
- A/B testing tools to improve email campaign results.
- Easy way to access your email on the mobile app.
2. Zoho CRM
Ratings: 4.1/5⭐
Pricing: Free trials; paid plans start at $14/month
With Zoho CRM, email marketing automation is simplified so that you can remain in constant touch with your contacts. This AI-enabled customer relationship management (CRM) software boosts efficiency by providing intelligent recommendations and automatically updating contact records with email information.
With tailored content delivered depending on a prospect’s position in the sales funnel, businesses nurture leads more efficiently through Zoho CRM.
Key Features:
- Segmentation to deliver targeted email campaigns.
- Insights on your email opens, clicks, and bounces.
- Welcome emails are automatically sent to all new prospects entering your CRM.
- ROI measurement tools to determine the most profitable marketing campaigns.
- Access mobile CRM to manage and track emails on the go.
3. ActiveCampaign
Ratings: 4.5/5⭐
Pricing: Free trials; paid plans start at $15/month
ActiveCampaign is an automated CRM designed to simplify prospect management by focusing on active ones simultaneously with powerful marketing automation.
Its smart features help businesses to create personalized and timely campaigns, which prevent you from sending what marketers call “junk” e-mails, making people more likely to open the email and click.
Tags and custom fields allow you to log and structure contact data for more targeted and effective marketing campaigns.
Key Features:
- A/B split testing to optimize email sequences for better performance.
- Personalized dynamic email content for individual customers.
- Advanced audience segmentation for enhanced personalization.
- Continual goal tracking throughout each stage of the sales funnel to assess marketing effectiveness.
- Customer satisfaction and loyalty enhancements using AI-powered recommendations.
4. Salesmate
Ratings: 4.6/5⭐
Pricing: Free trials; paid plans start at $23/month
Salesmate is one of the best marketing automation CRMs, and it allows businesses to send targeted emails when a customer takes certain actions or has specific preferences.
It simplifies follow-ups with prospects and customers so you can engage at the right time. With real-time notifications, you will never miss an important conversation and can build stronger relationships effortlessly.
Key Features:
- Advanced contact segmentation for granular personalization.
- Identifies the most effective email campaigns using A/B testing.
- Data-driven optimization via email performance analytics.
- Expandable library of time-saving email templates.
- Automated email logging to keep contact records organized.
5. Insightly
Ratings: 4.2/5⭐
Pricing: Free trials; paid plans start at $29/month
With its advanced segmentation tools, it empowers businesses to send out targeted email campaigns to their clients. It also offers relationship mapping that visually maps out the connections the client has for creatively personalized interactions.
Insightly enables businesses to create data-driven strategies that can enhance experiences and maximize profitability.
Key Features:
- Detailed analytics & reports to measure marketing success.
- Run A/B tests to find which message resonates the most.
- Customer journey mapping for optimized lead nurturing.
- Drag-and-drop email editor for easy customization.
- Customized views & layouts specific to your business requirements.
6. Microsoft Dynamics 365
Ratings: 3.8/5⭐
Pricing: Free trials; paid plans start at $65/month
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is an all-in-one business application, combining sales, marketing, customer support, finance and supply chain management. Its 360-degree customer view enables businesses to send personalized emails that strengthen relationships and improve engagement.
AI-guided insights help you understand customers better and provide personalized and relevant content through targeted emails.
Key Features:
- Comprehensive customer data insights for enhanced email personalization.
- Real-time analytics to optimize marketing strategies.
- Expert audience segmentation for high-accuracy targeting.
- Dynamic email contents that drive more engagement.
- Automatic emails trigger in-time and on-target outreach.
7. BIGContacts
Ratings: 4.5/5⭐
Pricing: Free up to 100 contacts; paid plans start at $9.99/month
BIGContacts is perfect for an all-in-one solution for simple yet powerful CRM with email marketing. It includes email tracking, automation, and analytics, offering a full toolbox to hone your campaigns. With an intuitive interface and robust support, BIGContacts makes email marketing effortless and effective.
Key Features:
- Behavior, preferences and status-based drip email campaigns.
- Pre-built & custom reports to monitor & optimise business performance.
- Auto email logging to keep your contacts organized.
- Seamless integration with various email platforms for centralized management.
- Mobile accessibility to manage emails anytime, anywhere.
8. SendPulse CRM
Ratings: 4.6/5⭐
Pricing: Free for up to 500 subscribers; paid plans start at $8/month
SendPulse CRM is an all-in-one tool for businesses to manage deals and task assignments, as well as optimize marketing campaigns. The tool offers multichannel marketing support, including email, SMS, and WhatsApp.
It delivers an all-in-one solution to reach your audience effectively. The user-friendly dashboard helps teams oversee workflows, automate follow-ups, and improve customer interactions.
Key Features:
- Create campaigns in minutes with the drag-and-drop email editor.
- Improved user segmentation to increase engagement via targeted emails.
- Seamless integrations with Gmail, WordPress, Shopify, and more.
- Activity-based and preference-based automated email sequence.
- Email analytics in real-time for tracking and optimizing campaign performance.
9. Nutshell
Ratings: 4.3/5⭐
Pricing: Free trials; paid plans start at $13/month
Nutshell features built-in email marketing tools and is an all-in-one CRM to help streamline your marketing efforts and align your team. It allows you to keep up with important conversations, send personalized drip campaigns, and get actionable insights on campaign performance. All done from one simple-to-use platform.
Key Features:
- Send bulk emails to targeted groups using advanced filtering options.
- Customizable reports to track key metrics like open and reply rates.
- Email templates to save time and maintain consistency.
- Automated multi-step email sequences to nurture leads effectively.
- Dynamic email list creation for better segmentation and targeting.
Saufter: The Best Email Marketing Tool for Your CRM
Saufter is revolutionizing email marketing by seamlessly integrating with your CRM to enhance customer engagement and boost conversions. This intelligent platform goes beyond traditional email automation by analyzing competitor campaigns, tracking user behavior, and studying customer journey stages to provide personalized campaign suggestions.
For SaaS businesses, Saufter monitors feature usage during free trials, identifies key success indicators based on geography and industry, and intervenes with targeted in-app and email messages to reduce drop-offs. Meanwhile, e-commerce brands can leverage its powerful automation to trigger campaigns for cart abandonment, product recommendations, and post-purchase engagement.
By combining AI-driven insights with personalized email marketing, Saufter ensures higher deliverability, smarter segmentation, and maximum customer engagement—making it the ultimate email marketing tool for any CRM.
Conclusion
Finding the best CRM for email marketing is essential for businesses looking to enhance customer relationships and drive higher conversions. With 82% of marketers leveraging automation to improve campaign performance, integrating a CRM with an AI-powered email marketing tool can significantly boost results.
While a CRM helps manage customer interactions, pairing it with a smart platform like Saufter takes email marketing to the next level. Saufter provides AI-driven personalization, competitor tracking, and automated campaign suggestions, ensuring higher engagement and deliverability.
To maximize success, choose the best CRM for email marketing that seamlessly integrates with AI-driven tools—helping you streamline workflows, optimize outreach, and stay ahead of the competition in 2025.
