Why messy CRM and marketing data is such a big deal
CRM and marketing data often turns into a ‘mess’ due to misalignment between systems and departments. When these tools don’t sync properly, inconsistencies like duplicates, outdated records, and mismatched formatting arise, making data harder to manage and trust. Thomas points out that it’s not just a matter of missing phone numbers or email addresses:
“Messy CRM data often includes duplicate customer entries, incomplete contact details, or outdated information. Data is also scattered across different platforms and not synced properly. Add in the differences in how teams enter data—varying formats for names or phone numbers—and it can wreak havoc on reporting, leading to incorrect lead statuses, misclassified opportunities, and sales stages that don’t accurately reflect reality.” —Thomas Sonneveld
It is worth mentioning that marketing teams manage a far greater variety of data types, from ad clicks and email engagement to customer preferences and behavioral patterns, making their systems more complex. Factor in campaign tracking, attribution codes, and multiple data sources that aren’t aligned, and you start to see why marketing data can be particularly chaotic. A slight typo in a UTM parameter, for instance, can skew an entire marketing attribution report.
Additionally, any siloed systems, like event management tools that don’t sync, lead back to your CRM and add another layer of confusion, making it difficult to create a cohesive, data-driven view of the customer journey.
How poor CRM and marketing quality can lead to revenue loss
Poor CRM data quality is a direct contributor to revenue loss. In fact, a recent Salesforce report found that 44% of businesses experience financial setbacks due to bad CRM data.
It’s tempting to think that a single tool or process can fix this issue, but the problem often runs deeper. As Thomas points out, the root of the problem isn’t just the data itself—it’s the misalignment between teams. In many organizations, sales teams are driven by short-term targets, such as hitting monthly or quarterly revenue goals. Meanwhile, marketing teams focus on long-term strategies like brand-building and lead nurturing for sustained growth. These differing priorities shape not only the types of data each team collects but also how they structure, maintain, and synchronize that data.
This disconnect leads to inconsistencies, gaps, and duplication, ultimately making it harder to gain a clear, unified view of customer interactions. Here’s how this misalignment plays out:
Outdated customer data hurts personalization and engagement
One major issue is incomplete or outdated customer data, which makes personalized outreach nearly impossible. If your marketing messages and sales emails are sent to invalid addresses or outdated phone numbers, you’re not only wasting resources but also damaging customer experience and engagement.
Inaccurate reporting leads to poor sales and marketing decisions
Inaccurate reporting is another costly problem. When marketing and sales decisions are based on flawed data, businesses are essentially operating in the dark. A common example is botched CRM migrations, where critical customer notes fail to transfer between systems like Salesforce and HubSpot. These notes are often essential for understanding customer needs and tracking deal progress. If they get lost or buried in spreadsheets, sales teams lose valuable context, making it harder to close deals.
Marketing and sales misalignment causes missed opportunities
Then, there’s the disconnect between marketing and sales. If sales teams don’t have visibility into marketing data, such as customer interests or preferred communication channels, they struggle to engage prospects effectively. This leads to missed opportunities, longer sales cycles, and a fragmented customer experience. Ultimately, poor CRM data quality doesn’t just impact revenue; it weakens the entire customer journey.
The critical role of data hygiene in CRM and marketing success
Data hygiene is the foundation of any successful CRM or marketing strategy. When executed well, it improves campaign targeting, shortens sales cycles, and boosts conversions. Here is how to keep your data hygiene in check:
Regular audits: Schedule frequent check-ups to identify duplicate leads, missing fields, or invalid contact information.
Automated validation: Implementing tools and setting up simple safeguards, like validating email formats before they enter the system or phone numbers, can prevent bigger issues down the line.
Cross-team alignment: Maintaining strong data hygiene heavily relies on team alignment. Sales and marketing must agree on data standards, such as naming conventions, field usage, and lead-status definitions.
User education: Your team needs a shared understanding of how to use CRM and marketing tools effectively and maintain data hygiene. Otherwise, even the best tools won’t fix the problem.
Ongoing checks: As your business adds new fields or adopts new systems, data flows can change. Re-test integrations regularly to confirm they still work as intended.
6 signs your CRM needs a cleanup
A cluttered, unreliable CRM can slow down your business and frustrate your team. Here are some key red flags that indicate it’s time for a data cleanup:
1. Duplicate records and missing information
If your sales and marketing teams constantly complain about duplicate contacts or missing customer details, your CRM is becoming more of a burden than a tool. Inconsistent or incomplete data wastes valuable time, leading to lost productivity and frustration. Worse, it can result in misleading reports that cause poor decision-making and resource misallocation.
2. High email bounce rates
When marketing emails repeatedly bounce due to outdated or incorrect contact information, your CRM is failing to do its job. Every undelivered email is a wasted opportunity, reducing engagement rates and negatively impacting conversion. If you’re noticing more bounces than usual, it’s a clear sign your database needs attention.
3. Teams relying on personal systems or spreadsheets
If employees are managing customer data outside the CRM, whether in spreadsheets, emails, or personal notes, it’s a major red flag. This scattered approach leads to inefficiencies, miscommunication, and errors, making it harder to maintain a single source of truth. A properly maintained CRM should be the go-to resource for all customer interactions.
4. Time wasted on fixing data errors
The more time your team spends correcting data inconsistencies, the less time they have for high-value tasks like engaging with customers and closing deals. A CRM should streamline operations, not create extra work. If error handling has become a daily chore, it’s time for a cleanup.
5. Low CRM adoption rates
When employees hesitate to use the CRM, it’s often because they don’t trust the data. If your team avoids the system due to outdated or unreliable information, data hygiene is likely a problem. A well-maintained CRM encourages adoption, ensuring that everyone works from the same accurate dataset.
6. Customer complaints about incorrect or duplicate messages
If customers mention receiving duplicate emails, incorrect details, or outdated information, your CRM is doing more harm than good. Poor data hygiene can damage customer trust and make your business appear unprofessional.
Setting the stage for success: strategy, tools, and teamwork
Even the best technology won’t fix a disorganized or misaligned team. Thomas emphasizes the importance of a strategic foundation:
“The first step is to define a clear long-term goal - your ‘dot on the horizon’ for the next five years. Break that down into annual and quarterly milestones, so you’re always working towards something bigger.”
Once you have set a solid foundation for your strategy, you can start optimizing tools, aligning teams, and fostering collaboration:
1. Choose the right tools—but keep it simple
A plethora of data-cleaning and integration tools exist, and not all are created equal. The best data-cleaning tools are often native integrations or solutions built specifically for your platform. If you’re a HubSpot user, for example, check HubSpot’s App Marketplace to find tools endorsed or reviewed by other marketers. If a tool isn’t native, checking user reviews can help determine its reliability and effectiveness. In any case, avoid stacking so many tools that the process becomes unmanageable.
2. Prioritize team needs and usability
A tool is only as good as how well your team can use it. Understanding what works best for your sales and marketing teams is key to ensuring smooth adoption. If the CRM interface is clunky or the marketing automation platform is too complex, employees will find workarounds, like personal spreadsheets, that lead back to messy, siloed data. Ensure every new hire understands how to enter, retrieve, and maintain data accurately.
3. Bridge the gap between sales and marketing
A frequent downfall in many organizations is treating marketing as an isolated function that simply hands off leads to sales. In reality, true alignment means both teams share targets, like overall revenue or customer lifetime value (CLV), and continuously collaborate. Thomas suggests:
“It’s not just about marketing handing over leads and stepping back. The process should be more of a continuous loop. Sales should be involved early on, and marketing should stay engaged even after the sale for upsell and cross-sell opportunities.”
Practical ways to align
- Shared goals: Replace departmental metrics (e.g., MQLs vs. SQLs) with broader revenue and growth targets.
- Regular meetings: Schedule joint updates where marketers and sales reps share insights, challenges, and recent successes.
- Cross-training: Encourage marketing to understand sales workflows (and vice versa) to see how data is used in practice.
- Collaborative planning: Align on your “dream customers.” What pain points do they have? What messaging works best? How can you serve them better long-term? Having these conversations and working together on a shared vision for your ideal customer can help both teams align on the bigger picture.
How integrations and iPaaS solve the CRM and marketing data mess
One major source of messy data is the lack of seamless integration between systems. Marketing teams might use multiple platforms, such as an email service provider, a social media scheduler, or a webinar tool, while sales rely on the CRM. Each system gathers valuable information, but if they aren’t connected, important data can remain siloed or become inconsistent.
“According to MarTech.org, the most recent estimate from 2024 is that there are about 14,106 martech tools available. Meanwhile, WebFX found that the average company uses 91 different marketing cloud services, and 44% of marketers rely on more than five tools in their martech stack. It’s no wonder data becomes messy so quickly. You’re pulling information from multiple channels and platforms, and without proper integration, you end up with a data nightmare.” - Thomas Sonneveld
Why iPaaS?
An integration platform as a service (iPaaS) can help unify these disparate systems:
- Scalability: As your data volume grows, an iPaaS can handle increasing complexity without extensive custom coding.
- Ease of maintenance: You’re less dependent on specialized developers who built a one-off custom integration.
- Consistency in data flow: Automated logic ensures data is always synced, reducing manual errors.
- Faster deployments: Pre-built connectors for popular CRMs (Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics) and marketing tools let you plug and play quickly.
A note on migration pitfalls
When migrating data, say, from Salesforce to HubSpot, it’s easy to lose context if notes or fields aren’t mapped properly. This can cripple sales teams who rely on historical information to build relationships and close deals. An iPaaS can manage these migrations more reliably by providing a visual framework to map fields and track errors before they cause revenue leakage.
Final thoughts
Messy data isn’t just an inconvenience; it’s a serious threat to your revenue growth, customer experience, and brand reputation. By prioritizing data hygiene, leveraging the right integrations (including iPaaS solutions), and fostering genuine alignment between marketing and sales, you can transform your CRM from a data graveyard into a powerhouse of customer insights.
However, for many organizations, their marketing automation tool is not the ideal single source of truth—a crucial reason why robust integrations and clear processes are essential. The payoff is immense: faster conversions, more personalized marketing, and higher customer lifetime value. Most importantly, you’ll have an organization where sales and marketing truly act as one cohesive team, driving sustainable growth and delivering real value to your customers.
“When both marketing and sales teams share goals, it’s much easier for them to collaborate and share resources effectively. They become a unified force, moving the company forward together.”—Thomas Sonneveld
Key takeaways for a future-proof strategy
- Aim for a unified data approach: A single source of truth, or well-synced systems, ensures everyone works with the same information.
- Adopt continuous data hygiene practices: Automate where possible, run regular audits, and fix issues at the source.
- Use iPaaS where appropriate: For complex, multi-tool ecosystems, an iPaaS can provide scalable, maintainable integrations.
- Align teams through shared goals: Ensure marketing and sales aim for the same outcomes, like revenue, pipeline velocity, or CLV.
- Plan for the long haul: Define a 5-year vision for your sales and marketing alignment, then break it down into quarterly steps.
By taking these actions, you’ll lay a solid foundation for both present and future success, ensuring that your data, your teams, and your technology all work in unison.
