Why CRM and Media Are Finally Merging After Decades Apart
An industry perspective on the shift that's changing how we think about customers
I've seen plenty of "game-changing" trends come and go in marketing technology. Most turned out to be minor tweaks with fancy names. But what's happening with CRM and media right now feels different.
For the first time, we're actually tearing down the walls between how we find new customers and how we keep the ones we have.
The Problem We've All Been Ignoring
Most marketing organizations treat getting new customers and keeping existing ones like they're completely different jobs.
The acquisition team builds incredibly detailed campaigns to attract prospects. They know everything about their target audience—what they read, where they shop, what keeps them up at night. Meanwhile, the CRM team sends the same boring newsletter to everyone who's already bought from the company.
It makes no sense.
Customers suffer from this disconnect. They get personalized, thoughtful messages when companies are trying to win them over, then generic spam once they've converted.
Industry experts are calling this shift "CRM 3.0" where "CRM, commerce, media, AI and storytelling are no longer separate topics—they're converging fast into a single, fluid ecosystem." Finally, someone's saying what everyone's been thinking.
Why This Matters Now
The numbers tell the story better than I can. Retail media networks—where retailers use their customer data to sell ads—are exploding. We're talking about a market that's going to hit $100 billion in the next five years. That's 25% of all digital advertising by 2026.
Amazon figured this out first. They're sitting on 75% of retail media spending because they realized that the data about who buys what is incredibly valuable for deciding who to show ads to.
But here's what's really driving this change—third-party cookies are dying. You know, those little trackers that follow people around the web? They're going away. And suddenly, everyone needs first-party data (the stuff you collect directly from customers) to do effective advertising.
Retail media networks are basically one big first-party data solution. No cookies needed.
The Technology Is Finally Catching Up
Remember all those technical headaches we used to complain about? Different systems that couldn't talk to each other, measurement that didn't make sense, campaigns that couldn't be compared?
AI is fixing a lot of that. 91% of big companies have already put AI into their CRM systems. We're also seeing something called Unified Marketing Measurement (UMM) that actually works—it combines all your different tracking methods to show what's really driving sales in real-time.
We're getting real-time insights instead of waiting weeks for reports that are already outdated. Teams can actually change course in the middle of a campaign based on what's working.
Who's Actually Doing This Well
Some industries are way ahead of others:
Retail is leading the pack. Companies like Target and Walmart aren't just using their loyalty program data to send better emails—they're using it to sell advertising space. Target's Roundel lets advertisers reach Target customers on 150+ other websites using Target's shopping data.
Financial services are getting smart about combining transaction data with marketing. Instead of treating checking account customers and credit card prospects like different species, they're building unified profiles.
B2B tech companies are finally connecting their sales data with their marketing. Account-based marketing isn't just a buzzword anymore—it's how you stay competitive.
Take a software company targeting enterprise clients. In the old model, marketing would run broad campaigns about "digital transformation" while sales worked individual accounts for months. Now, they're using CRM data to see that their biggest deals come from companies already using specific competitor tools. Marketing creates targeted campaigns for those exact companies, while sales gets real-time alerts when prospects engage with that content. The result? Sales cycles shortened by 30% because both teams are working the same playbook.
The common thread? They stopped thinking about customer acquisition and retention as separate problems.
Why Old-School Attribution Is Dead
Here's something that might surprise you: most marketers are still using last-click attribution – giving all the credit to whatever the customer clicked right before they bought something.
That's like giving a touchdown to only the guy who carried the ball into the end zone, ignoring the 10 other plays that got him there.
New measurement approaches look at the whole customer journey. They combine TV ads, social media, email, word-of-mouth—everything—to figure out what really drives sales. Some companies testing this approach have seen 10% higher sales and 70% more website traffic.
Connected TV is becoming huge here too. By 2028, streaming ads will beat traditional TV ads. And when you combine that with retail media data? You can show someone an ad on their TV that's based on what they actually bought at the store last week.
What Smart Companies Are Doing Right Now
The winners are following three basic principles:
Know everyone equally well: Build the same detailed profiles for your customers that you build for your prospects. Use purchase history to inform acquisition campaigns. Use engagement data to improve retention.
Break down channel walls: Stop treating your email list, your ad campaigns, and your sales outreach like separate kingdoms. They should all be working together.
Optimize constantly: Don't wait for quarterly reviews. If something's working, double down. If it's not, change it. Today.
The research backs this up. 72% of marketers say proper attribution leads to better budget decisions. 63% understand how their channels work together better. More importantly, they're getting results.
The Bottom Line
The technology piece is just the beginning. The real challenge is organizational. Marketing departments have spent decades optimizing for silos—acquisition teams focused on lead volume, retention teams focused on email open rates, customer service handling complaints.
These divisions made sense when data lived in separate systems and connecting them required expensive custom integrations. That's no longer the case.
Companies continuing to operate with these artificial boundaries are leaving money on the table. The data shows it: organizations with unified customer approaches see 10-15% better performance across key metrics.
More importantly, customers are demanding this integration. They expect brands to remember their preferences across touchpoints. They want relevant recommendations based on purchase history. They assume their customer service rep knows about their recent marketing interactions.
The technology exists to deliver these experiences. The question isn't whether CRM and media will converge—they already are. The question is whether marketing organizations will reorganize around this reality or continue trying to force new capabilities into old structures.
Market leaders aren't waiting for permission. They're restructuring teams, changing KPIs, and building systems that treat customer relationships as continuous rather than transactional.
The rest will adapt or fall behind.
Sources: Industry research from The Drum, BCG, Criteo, Amazon Ads, Marketing Evolution, Lifesight, and other marketing technology publications.