Connect your CRM to your website: how it works and what it delivers

Your website generates enquiries and your CRM manages your customer relationships, but the two know nothing about each other. So details get retyped from email into the CRM, or an enquiry sits in a shared inbox. By connecting your CRM to your website, every lead lands in the right place straight away, with the context sales needs to follow up properly.

What does an integration between CRM and website do?

An integration ensures that information from your website automatically ends up in your CRM. If someone fills in a contact form, within seconds there is a contact in your CRM with name, email address and message. If someone requests a quote, a deal is created that is immediately assigned to the right colleague. If someone downloads a white paper, the contact gets a label that shows where their interest lies.

With tracking it goes a step further. Then you also see in the CRM which pages someone visited before the form was filled in.

What does it deliver?

• No more lost leads. Every enquiry ends up in the CRM, not in an overflowing inbox.
• Faster follow-up. Sales sees new leads immediately and can respond within minutes instead of after a few days.
• Better data. No typos and no missing fields from retyping.
• Context in the conversation. If you know someone looked at three case studies and the services page, the conversation starts at a different level.
• Insight for marketing. You see which pages, campaigns and forms generate leads. That ties in with good analytics and reporting.

What levels of integration are there?

Not everyone needs everything. We distinguish three levels.

Level 1: forwarding forms

Form submissions go to the CRM automatically. This is the foundation. If you do not have this yet, start here.

Level 2: tracking and context

A tracking script from your CRM links website visits to contacts. Sales sees which pages someone viewed and through which campaign someone came in.

Level 3: automation and personalisation

Workflows start based on behaviour, leads get a score and known visitors see different content than new ones. This pays off mainly at larger volumes. You can read more about this under workflow automation.

Connecting your CRM to your website: what routes are there?

There are three routes, from quick to fully custom.

• A standard integration. Many combinations have an official app. HubSpot, for example, has one for Webflow. If it does what you need, this is the fastest route.
• An automation tool. With Make or Zapier you connect virtually any form to virtually any CRM, including extra steps such as creating a deal or task.
• A custom integration via the API. For specific requirements, large volumes or a CRM without a standard integration. See custom integrations.

Which data do you send along?

Start with what you actually use.

• Always: name, email address and possibly phone number.
• Often useful: company name, the form or page the enquiry came from and the campaign via UTM parameters.
• Sometimes relevant: specific answers from the form, such as interest or type of question.

You can always expand. A form with too many fields costs you enquiries.

Where does it often go wrong?

Field mapping

Your form has one field for name, your CRM expects first name and last name. Your form has an open question, your CRM a fixed dropdown list. Or the CRM requires a field that the form does not ask for, causing the integration to fail. Define in advance where each field goes.

Duplicate contacts

Someone who is already in the CRM fills in a form again. Have the integration update existing contacts based on the email address instead of creating a new contact, and decide which details may be overwritten.

Silent errors

An integration can stop without anyone noticing. Set up error notifications and also store form submissions in a second place, so that nothing gets lost.

How do you test the integration?

Before go-live, fill in forms yourself. Does everything arrive, in the right fields? Test long messages, special characters and empty fields. Fill in twice with the same email address and check that no duplicate contact is created. After go-live, check regularly during the first weeks that leads are still coming in.

What about privacy?

Tracking and processing form data fall under the GDPR. Be transparent in your privacy statement and make sure tracking only starts after consent via your cookie banner. Visitors who do not give consent still come in as a contact, just without their page visits.

An integration gets the most out of a website that is built to convert, such as a good marketing website. Want your website and CRM to work well together? Take a look at our system integrations or get in touch.