CRM + Email Marketing!?!

Can One Platform Cut It?

Small organizations love to economize on software expenses wherever possible. For some they look to a CRM platform’s emailing feature and they think that might cover it, but the reality is those are likely sales email type features. At the same time a platform like Hubspot can get pricy doing double duty as both your CRM and email marketing platforms - plus come with a lot more bells and whistles than the team knows how to use. Once client came to us asking if we could vet using the low cost Pipeline CRM for both their relationship management database and email marketing.

What a Low Cost Platform like Pipeline CRM Does:

• Manages your sales pipeline and customer relationships

• Tracks leads, deals, activities, and communications

• Helps sales teams close deals through automation, reminders, and deal stages

• Here’s what Pipeline CRM does offer for email:

• Plain text and basic rich text emails (bold, italics, links)

• Email templates for sales follow-ups and outreach, but these are more text-based, designed for sales communication, not visual marketing

• Bulk email sending to segments of your contacts (within limits)

• Email tracking (opens, clicks, bounces)

• Gmail/Outlook sync and email automation features

• A/B testing and engagement tracking

• What it does not offer:

• Drag-and-drop visual editors like Mailchimp’s

• Custom HTML email design for branded newsletters

• Advanced layout control, embedded media, or visual storytelling tools

So we suggested pairing it with an email marketing platform like Mailchimp or Constant Contact.

What an Email Marketing Platform like Mailchimp Does:

• Enhanced Email Marketing Capabilities: While Pipeline offers email sync and automation, Mailchimp has more advanced features for areas such as:

• Audience Segmentation: Creating highly specific customer lists for targeted campaigns

• Customizable Email Templates: Utilizing Mailchimp's extensive template library for professional-looking emails and newsletters

• Advanced Reporting: Accessing Mailchimp's detailed analytics on campaign performance

• Using the Pipeline CRM + Mailchimp Integration: allows for streamlined workflows for managing contacts and email campaigns from a single dashboard, eliminating the need to switch between platforms.

• Automated Contact Syncing: contact syncing between the two platforms, ensuring email lists are always up-to-date 

• Handles audience segmentation, visual email builders, and performance analytics

• Useful for brand building, customer education, and marketing automation 

So if your goal is to:

• Send branded newsletters with graphics, CTAs, product images, or visual storytelling…

• Use custom HTML email templates or a WYSIWYG visual builder…

👉 You’ll need a platform like Mailchimp, Constant Contact, or ConvertKit alongside Pipeline CRM.

But Can One Platform Do Both? 

Yep. After exploring some options we landed on Active Campaign as a strong all-in-one platform for small businesses and nonprofits that want robust CRM and email marketing capabilities without paying for multiple, overlapping tools.

At its core, ActiveCampaign combines contact management, deal pipelines, email campaigns, and marketing automation in a single system. This allows organizations to track relationships, segment audiences, and communicate in a highly targeted way without needing a separate CRM, email service provider, and automation platform.

From a cost-efficiency standpoint, the value comes from consolidation. Instead of paying for tools like a standalone CRM, an email platform, and an automation layer, ActiveCampaign covers all three. For teams with limited budgets or lean staff, this reduces both software spend and operational complexity. The platform is also particularly well-suited for organizations that rely on relationship-driven engagement such as nonprofits managing donors and supporters, or small businesses nurturing long sales cycles. Features like tagging, behavioral tracking, automated follow-ups, and simple deal pipelines enable personalized outreach at scale without enterprise-level pricing.

ActiveCampaign integrates well with common tools (website forms, ecommerce, event platforms, and accounting or fundraising systems), which minimizes the need for custom development or additional middleware. In short, ActiveCampaign offers a practical balance of power and affordability. For small organizations looking to professionalize their CRM and email marketing while keeping software costs under control, it delivers meaningful capability without unnecessary overhead.