If you’re looking for an email marketing agency, chances are you’ve browsed your fair share of portfolios. Nice-looking email campaigns! But here’s the thing: That’s just the tip of the iceberg. What truly drives results isn’t just design and catchy subject lines—it’s the strategy, the data quality in your CRM, and the seamless integration between your marketing efforts and business goals.
At Centric Squared, we started as CRM consultants, which means we spent a lot of time helping businesses understand their processes and goals and match them with the right system.
We’re not just talking about strategy and recommendation, we were implementation experts, too. We were rolling up our sleeves, analyzing lists, checking data, and making sure our clients had CRMs that were not only functional but served as a strong foundation for marketing initiatives. Data, technology, and strategy must align to make email marketing the highest-performing marketing channel.
When we work with clients for the first time, we often have to explain what’s included in “CRM Management.” Here’s what that encompasses and why it matters for your business.
1. CRM Consulting: Are You Even in the Right CRM?
Before optimizing your email marketing, we ask the bigger questions:
- Is your CRM the right fit for your business?
- What pain points are you experiencing?
- What opportunities are there in your industry that you might not be aware of?
It’s notoriously hard to recognize what you don’t know, and that’s why our CRM Consulting is so effective. Many companies struggle with email marketing not because their campaigns are bad, but because their CRM isn’t built to support their needs. What’s tricky is that every CRM will tell you solutions are possible, but the reality is that some CRMs are better fits than others depending on your business model, data structure, and goals.
We’ve worked with 100+ clients and conducted countless audits. We stay deeply connected to CRM industry trends, helping businesses choose the right platform, migrate data, and optimize workflows.
Most agencies will be able to point you to resources that explain how to do something within your current system (spoiler: a quick search of their knowledge base). At Centric Squared, we help you determine if you’re even in the right CRM. That alone can set you up for more success than any sexy campaign can.
2. List Hygiene: Your Email Strategy Is Only as Good as Your Data Quality
Bad data tanks email performance. We clean up your lists by removing:
- Invalid emails (reducing bounces)
- Duplicate contacts (improving segmentation)
- Inactive subscribers (boosting engagement rates)
A well-maintained list leads to higher deliverability and more effective campaigns.
3. Segmentation Consulting & Management
Most agencies help with segmentation within the limits of your CRM, but we take it further:
- Consulting: We analyze your business and help you identify segments, then work with the data you have to define and create lists.
- Management: We continuously check, clean, and optimize your segments so they evolve with your business.
Segmentation is not a one-and-done project; it’s an ongoing process and should be considered as your business evolves. Most agencies will help you define segments and then call it “done.” When really, segmentation work never ends and needs to get roped into your ongoing strategy. It needs defining, adapting, testing, and monitoring. And sometimes new segments emerge too. The better your segments, the more relevant your email campaigns become, which means higher open rates, more clicks, and more revenue from email.
4. Deliverability Optimization: Because Emails That Don’t Land Don’t Convert
If your emails land in spam, your marketing doesn’t matter. We take a proactive approach to deliverability:
- Monitoring sender reputation
- Optimizing email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)
- Reducing spam complaints & managing unsubscribes
Many agencies will make sure you’re set up with a good sending domain, but monitoring long-term is tedious and time-intensive, as is mitigating deliverability issues. At Centric Squared, we make this a priority and monitor deliverability each month, sometimes each week, for clients. This is critical, because a beautiful email is worthless if no one sees it.
5. First-Party Data & Preference Centers
First-party data is information you collect directly from your audience—not from a second or third party. You may not realize it, but every time a company asks you questions before granting access to content (e.g., What are you shopping for? What type of business do you have?), they’re gathering first-party data to personalize your email experience.
At Centric Squared, we are technical enough and know our way around CRMs to be able to help you devise systems to:
- Collect better first-party data
- Set up preference centers so subscribers can choose what content they receive
- Use that to drive segmentation & personalization
This leads to higher engagement and lower unsubscribe rates.
6. Integration Support: Data Is a Numbers Game
Email marketing doesn’t work in a silo. It’s connected to your other marketing channels and looking at your data from a customer journey standpoint will help you identify broader opportunities.
At Centric Squared, we get this. We are always looking for opportunities to integrate your CRM with other systems you may have data on:
- Websites & E-commerce platforms
- Customer support tools
- Ad platforms
- Other channels like WhatsApp, SMS
The more data you collect, the clearer the picture of your customers becomes, allowing you to tailor their experience more effectively.
7. Comprehensive Reporting: More Than Just Open & Click Rates
Most agencies will offer reporting as part of their ongoing service. At Centric Squared, we take that a step further. Our reporting includes:
- A/B test results
- Billing & account management (because cost efficiency matters)
- Deliverability insights (to prevent inboxing issues before they start)
Depending on the client and data available, we may add other channels to our report. Our goal is to help you digest the data to give you a full picture of performance. Why? So that you get insights that can drive strategy.
8. Strategic Recommendations That Move the Needle
Most agencies will make recommendations, but many are just a cover for upselling. That’s not our approach..
When we make recommendations, we draw not only on your data, but also on:
- Insights from our work with 100+ clients
- The latest industry trends & competitor strategies
- Real-world examples of what’s working in email marketing
We’re constantly connecting the dots—not just telling you what to do, but why and how it fits within the broader email landscape. We always ask ourselves: if this were my business, what would I do next? And only make recommendations we believe in.
9. Data Quality
Your email marketing strategy is only as strong as the data behind it. Poor data quality can limit your success, making it crucial to address issues like:
- Hard and soft bounces
- Unsubscribes
- Typos and undeliverable emails
- Data enrichment to fill in gaps
- Proper formatting for names (e.g., first and last name in the correct case)
Some things can be automated in maintaining data quality, depending on the CRM you are using and your business. But sometimes, it means pulling out lists, manually checking and making updates, and re-importing.
It’s tedious, and it’s not glamorous, but it’s important.
At Centric Squared, we take that on as our role to maintain and don’t mind getting into the details because that’s where the magic happens.
10. More Than an Agency—We’re Your CRM & Email Marketing Partner
We don’t just run email campaigns. We optimize, refine, and manage your entire CRM and email marketing ecosystem.
Most agencies focus on campaign development. We focus on quality execution and long-term success. It’s our goal to help clients build scalable, data-driven email marketing programs that drive revenue.
So if you’re looking for an agency, don’t forget to ask about:
- Segmentation
- Consulting
- Strategy
- List Hygiene
- Data Quality
- Deliverability
These topics matter. At Centric Squared, we scope this into our monthly support for clients to make sure we’re doing our best.