The Email Multiplier Effect
Why Integrations Are Your Secret Weapon
One of the most well-known stats proving the effectiveness of email marketing is that it delivers an impressive ROI of 36:1. But if you're treating your email platform like an island, you're missing out on exponential growth opportunities.
Connecting your email service provider (ESP) to the other systems in your marketing tech stack creates a multiplier effect that truly maximizes the potential of the channel. This is done through software we refer to as integrations, and if you’re not currently taking advantage of them, now is the time to start.
What Are Integrations?
For the non-technical user, we describe integrations as the bridges that connect your email platform to the rest of your business ecosystem. While your ESP might only know a subscriber's name, email address, open and click activity, integrations can unify that with the very rich data available from your CRM, e-commerce platform, customer support system, and website behavior tools. This data transforms generic email campaigns into personalized, relevant communications that your audience actually looks forward to receiving.
Integrations are more than mere technical connections, they are strategic tools that unify your disparate channels and systems. When your customer support system talks to your email platform, or when your e-commerce data flows seamlessly into your ESP for targeted campaigns based on past behavior, you create opportunities for deeper personalization and automation that can’t exist with siloed systems.
The ROI Impact of Connected Systems
While you might have a “good” email program without connecting your ESP to the rest of your tech stack, the opportunity cost of not integrating is significant. In a recent report from Omnisend, their 2025 benchmarks reported that nearly half of consumers made a purchase directly from an email in the past year, and automated emails now drive over one-third of all email-generated sales despite accounting for just a small fraction of send volume.
But none of this is possible without one critical campaign component: data. The most successful brands are those that integrate their email service providers (ESPs) with customer relationship management (CRM) systems, customer data platforms (CDPs), and other components of the marketing technology stack. The integration of these tools transforms fragmented datasets into a single, accurate source of truth. This allows your email marketing program to leverage those aspects that make it most effective, including personalization, automation, and behavioral segmentation.
Your organization’s ROI is not only measured by external returns, but also by the internal efficiencies you create through deploying integrations. Zeta Global found that linking an ESP with a CDP not only enhances segmentation accuracy and reduces workflow friction but also delivers greater cost efficiency and campaign responsiveness by eliminating manual data exports and platform switching. This also holds true for CRM-ESP integration, which has been shown to increase sales and customer satisfaction through more relevant messaging and improved audience insights.
While email marketing already generates exceptional ROI, connecting the rest of your tech stack to your ESP amplifies those returns. Better, richer data means smarter segmentation, faster automation, and ultimately more conversions from every campaign sent.
Beyond Basic Email: The Power of Connected Data
When an organization and email program are new, it’s quite typical to send basic email campaigns to the entire list, and that’s OK for a while. But recognize where you are, and where you want to be. Today's subscriber expects personalization; if they tell you who they are, they expect you to remember that. And the more information they have volunteered, the more of it they expect you to know.
By leveraging tech stack integrations with your ESP, your email program can move beyond the one-size-fits-all approach by bringing customer lifecycle data, purchase history, website behavior, and even customer support interactions into your email strategy. This approach makes it possible to send sophisticated automation sequences that respond to specific customer behaviors and preferences. Instead of guessing what your audience wants to hear, you're able to use real data to deliver the right message at the right time to the right person.
The organizations seeing the most success with email marketing aren't just sending newsletters, they're creating one-to-one conversations with their subscribers. Integrated tech platforms create the opportunity for comprehensive communications that leverage the data across systems for your team to really know the subscriber, their interests, wants, and needs.
By integrating your email platform with the data available across your organization, you truly unlock the multiplier effect.
At 108 Degrees, we specialize in helping organizations maximize their email potential through integration of their email platform and their marketing tech stack. If you need help to maximize your email results, contact us to learn more.
