Getting Started with Zoho Marketing Automation

Zoho Marketing Automation is Zoho's full marketing suite: email, SMS and WhatsApp campaigns, automated journeys, website tracking, pop-ups and landing pages. This guide covers the foundations — getting your contacts in from Zoho CRM, organising them so the right people get the right emails, and building campaigns. The next guide covers journeys and website tracking.

Not sure whether you need Marketing Automation or Zoho Campaigns? See Zoho Campaigns vs Zoho Marketing Automation.

Ignore the home screen stages (if you use Zoho CRM)

The home screen tracks lead stages inside Marketing Automation. That's useful if you use it standalone, but if you have Zoho CRM you'll track stages there and sync contacts across. Most businesses can ignore this page.

Topics: keep them simple and customer-friendly

Topics let people choose what they hear about, so they can unsubscribe from one topic rather than everything. In practice most people still unsubscribe from everything, so don't spend days designing the perfect set. Start with a Newsletter topic and add one or two more if you genuinely need them.

Topic names and descriptions are visible to your contacts when they manage their preferences. Never name a topic something like "Gold customers ready to buy" — and never use a topic as a "do not mail" list.

Topics matter when you send: if a contact isn't opted into the campaign's topic, they won't receive it, even if they're in the list or segment you chose.

Sync contacts from Zoho CRM

Rather than importing spreadsheets, sync directly from CRM:

1. Create an empty list (e.g. "CRM leads").
2. Go to Settings → Integrations & Apps, connect Zoho CRM and create a new sync from the Leads module into that list.
3. Tick remove when a lead is converted, so converted leads don't linger.
4. Set the subscription type (marketing or non-marketing), the topics to opt them into, and the basis for marketing — for example legitimate interest. The right basis depends on your contacts and the privacy rules that apply to them.
5. Turn on update empty fields (so a value cleared in CRM is cleared here too), exclude opted-out contacts, and remove records that are later opted out in CRM.
6. Map fields. Not every CRM field syncs automatically — add the ones you'll segment on, such as Industry or Country.

Tip: Marketing Automation has a very long list of built-in fields. Name every field you sync from CRM with a prefix — "CRM - Industry", "CRM - Country" — so you can find them instantly when building segments.

Create a second sync for Contacts. Marketing Automation is simpler than CRM: the Contacts sync also brings across related Accounts and Deals data. That means you can segment on things like "contacts with an open deal over £10,000".

A large first sync (tens of thousands of records) takes a while — carry on with other set-up while it runs.

Lists vs segments

• A list is a static collection — for example everything synced from CRM Leads.
• A segment is a dynamic filter on top of your lists. Change a lead's industry in CRM and they move in or out of the matching segment automatically. You can't add someone to a segment by hand.

Build segments by choosing list membership first, then stacking criteria (e.g. CRM - Industry is X and Latest campaign sent is Y). Clone a segment to make variations quickly. Segments also drive journeys: entering a segment is the most useful journey trigger.

Build an email campaign

1. Create a campaign, choose the topic, and pick Simple email — the other types add little you can't do in a simple email.
2. Choose recipients by list or segment. You can use custom criteria, but a segment is better because you can see exactly who's in it before sending — custom criteria only gives you a count.
3. Use exclusions for one-offs: send to your usual segment but exclude, say, contacts whose email contains one client's domain, rather than building a new segment.
4. Add a subject and pre-header (both accept merge fields). Pre-headers matter less now that many inboxes show AI summaries in that space, but they still help on some platforms.
5. Set the sender and reply-to. You'll need your sending domain authenticated as part of set-up.

Every campaign is sent for review before it goes out. Once your account has built up trust this is near-instant; new accounts can wait 15–30 minutes.

Four content features worth knowing

1. Saved blocks

Spent ages perfecting a button? Hover over it, click the cog, then the star to save it to your favourites. It's then available in every future campaign — and it works for text, images, footers, videos and more. If you manage a brand, build a set of saved blocks so everyone's emails stay consistent.

2. Dynamic content

Add a section that only shows for contacts who match a criterion — for example a block per industry, or a VIP-only discount button. You build one email; each recipient sees the parts relevant to them. Other tools often reserve this for their top plans.

3. AI-generated HTML

Choose Build your own → HTML and paste in code. Tools like Claude or ChatGPT can generate an HTML email that matches your website's style from a simple prompt (or from your website's URL). It's a fast way to get polished emails without waiting on a designer — and you can ask for changes until it's right.

4. Plain-text emails

A left-aligned, text-only email that looks like someone typed it personally — but it's still tracked like any campaign. People expect to be sold to in glossy emails; a plain one often gets read. It's particularly effective in B2B where you already have a relationship. Include your normal email footer plus the unsubscribe and update-profile links: in the UK you're expected to show details such as your registered address and company number, so check the rules that apply to you.

WhatsApp and SMS campaigns

WhatsApp campaigns use templates that Meta must approve. Approval is often 15–30 minutes but can be slower at busy times such as the run-up to Black Friday. In the UK, WhatsApp tends to outperform SMS. Built-in SMS currently only works in the US, Canada and India; elsewhere you can connect a provider such as Twilio.

Social

The social features inside Marketing Automation are basic. If you're on Zoho One or Marketing Plus, Zoho Social is included and is far more capable.

Are you on version 1?

If your Marketing Automation looks different from the screenshots in Zoho's help — a different logo and sidebar — you may be on the original version. Zoho relaunched the product as Marketing Automation 2. Contact Zoho about migrating before you build anything new, or you may end up redoing work.

Watch the full Getting Started with Zoho Marketing Automation webinar to see each step on screen.