How most CRM teams can move beyond short-term goals?
Escape the trap of short-term thinking. Moving beyond clicks & conversions.
One thing that often gets swept under the rug in CRM teams? Goals. 🤫
Most CRM teams lack a clear strategy and, as a result, default to setting easily measurable—but ultimately shallow—goals like engagement and conversions. This leads to short-termism, making it really hard to invest into CRM’s potential to drive long-term user and business value.
Unlike other marketing channels, or product success metrics - CRM is unique in the way it works. It’s a weapon that can be used to do different things. Depending on your goals.
For instance, Duolingo, Spotify, Netflix use it as their strong engagement lever. They use push notifications, emails to provide engagement opportunities for users. That’s not to say they don’t send discounts. But primarily they use it for engagement.
Similarly, a Bumble or a Hinge uses CRM as an extension of their product. Messaging, Like alerts, etc. These are an absolute essential for their products.
So CRM is the weapon, that can be used to do many things. Depending on your product, but also what you decide to do with it.
And although calling out Duolingo here can prove a point that’s not worth making, the truth is that most companies can’t afford the luxury to play the long-game. Or sometimes there’s a lack of goal-setting from CRM teams that leads them into a weapon only used for conversions and black-hat engagement tactics.
Most CRM teams fall into one of three layers of goal-setting. In this post, I’ll break down what these layers are, why they matter, and how you can move beyond the short-term trap into building more strategic, impactful CRM systems.
The Real Problem: Strategy Follows Execution
I say that with the disclaimer that most teams bring me in when they’re struggling with these very challenges—so yes, I might be biased by exposure to the worst cases.
Let’s be honest. If you’ve ever been asked to:
Write CRM OKRs in an afternoon. Sometimes not even as a team together in a session but each to it’s own?
Create a “strategy deck” for leadership that’s just a rehash of campaign slides…
Or retro-fit a vision based on this quarter’s initiatives…
If the answer is yes, then you’re in good company. Most CRM teams operate this way—not because they want to, but because the pressure to move fast often overrides the space to think long-term.
The sequence looks like this:
Initiatives → Trends → Goals → Strategy
(Instead of: Strategy → Goals → Initiatives)
This reversal creates a trap: when your goals are shaped by execution (not the other way around), they tend to be shallow, short-term, and conversion-obsessed.
That’s not a problem because you won’t be able to impact your goals, it’s a problem because you’ll always set yourself up with easy goals. And as a result soon you’ll find yourself optimising for short-term engagement & conversion boosts. You’ll become a CRM hunter, not a farmer.
Let me explain what I mean by that. Here’s why I think this happens—and what we can do about it.
Why does this happen to most CRM teams?
So let’s do this from the ground up.
Simplistically speaking as CRM teams we send notifications through several channels (emails, push notifications, SMS, Whatsapp, In-app messages….). To what effect? That’s our goal.
We could have several ways to get to this goal. What is the route we choose? That’s our strategy.
Now because CRM teams usually have not had the luxury to choose a route, they fall into a route based on the short-term goals they can move quickly.
What are the easiest goals to move, when you don’t have a strategy?
They are the ones that are the easiest to measure and impact. Based on my experience, I’ve tried listing down the initiatives based on business impact and how long-term they are:
Over time, the “easier” and short-term goals leads teams to over focus on optimisation of cheap engagement & conversion comms rather than build a lifecycle strategy.
Easier goals → Conversion & Short-term metrics driven comms.
This is why being the Duolingo of notifications isn’t easy. It’s extremely difficult. Most CRM professionals would love to be a part of building something like that, but very few do.
Mental Model: The 3 Layers of CRM Goals
Layer #1: Channel Engagement (Clicks, Opens). Quickest goals win.
So, as CRM teams after we send out notifications & nudges - the quickest metrics you see are engagement rates. Opens and Clicks.
These are the fastest to measure—and easiest to influence. Push opens. Email clicks. Timing tests.
Some CRM teams get stuck in this layer of optimisation. If you don’t have a strategy, you’ll spend time optimising superficial metrics without knowing why they matter.
Symptoms to check if you’re in this layer:
Lots of emoji tests, subject line wars for constant hustle for results without really aiming.
No clear connection or visibility on business outcomes
Constant pressure for “fresh” experiments without much of a guideline to what these experiments need to build up to.
If you’re stuck here
You’ll spend time testing things that are not moving the needle on any specific business goals. This is why just optimising for open, clicks generally isn’t recommended.
Another good reason to avoid getting stuck in this layer - is that it’s too hard for you to control beyond a certain limit. Machine opens, push summaries, Apple’s hide my e-mails. These really beneficial initiatives make sure you'll only be able to see results when you move these engagement metrics in a BIG way. This can be hard to do. I think these initiatives are great. These user-focussed initiatives from Google, Apple, others are the only reason the CRM channels still work.
If you find yourself stuck here, and regularly are asked for new experiments without a clear direction - take a step back and ask for: What is the focus of our experimentation beyond getting more clicks? Where is the business gain maximum for a click ? Onboarding completion? Revenue per user? Anchor your next test to that.
Layer 1 is about channel-level engagement. Layer 2 is about business outcomes from those engagements, like purchases, upgrades, or feature adoption.Most of the CRM teams make it to layer 2.
Layer #2: Short-Term Conversions. Better. But very tactics focussed.
THIS is where most performance-driven CRM teams settle. It feels more meaningful: You’re driving purchases, subscriptions, plan upgrades.
It’s better than Layer 1, because you are driving business impact. It also works because companies can often measure this quickly. You send out nudges, BLAST comms and you see the results.
Experimentation is still very tactic focussed - subject line testing, emoijs, timing, etc. Not necessarily leading to a set of theories about a user but random data points of learnings that are hard to weave together.
Favors short-term payoffs. You start designing journeys around what converts now, even if it comes at the cost of long-term retention.
Because this is “Easier” to measure and you see the short-term business impact move with your efforts, here’s what your team start doing.
Symptoms to check if you’re in this layer:
CRM is mostly flash sales and discount blasts
Monetization experiments are priority #1. Always.
Journeys prioritize urgency of discounts over usefulness to user.
80% of your comms volume go out to your free users. People who are paying for your product get neglected.
Focus is on new conversions rather than renewals or premium user engagement. (because that’s harder to measure).
If you’re stuck here
Layer 2 feels productive — you’re measuring conversions, tying campaigns to revenue, and proving impact. It’s often where CRM earns its seat at the table.
But staying here too long creates a different kind of trap:
CRM becomes a reactive monetization tool. Every campaign starts to look like a promotion. The team is measured on short-term lifts, not lasting change.
👉 Over time, this undermines user trust. Over time performance starts deteriorating.
👉 And it blocks CRM from driving retention, habit, or product adoption — the things that actually grow LTV.
👉 But because now you’re an entirely a Growth function - CRM team is in trouble. Budgets are re-allocated. Making it even harder for teams to be able to recover.
To move beyond Layer 2, shift the question from:
“What can I do to convert all my free users?” to a segment-first approach
“What user segments would be interested in…?”
Start mapping your campaigns & your CRM initiatives to longer-term outcomes:
Are new users completing onboarding?
Are subscribers using the features they’re paying for?
Are power users coming back more often?
What does long-term retention look like — and can CRM influence it?
Layer 1 is about channel-level engagement. Layer 2 is about business outcomes from those engagements, like purchases. Layer 3 is about taking the long-view for your CRM team & making it a powerful lever that spans activation, engagement, retention and conversion.
Layer #3: Making CRM great again!
Most team don’t make it here. Teams that do, usually do it after they have spent some time in layer 2. Once they have had a seat at the table.
Layer 3 is essentially an exercise in bringing long-term goals to a level that can be influenced by CRM activities. It also relies on the understanding & alignment that CRM doesn’t and should not lead Growth. It’s an optimisation layer. It helps get users back on track, unblock the gaps they feel in the product - but eventually the product needs to do the lifting.
I know that sounds like a lot of fluff you might have already read, so let me break down some examples of activities that teams in this layer focus on:
Teams who make it here, are able to do the following
Breakdown long-term metrics to short-term CRM metrics: For instance, creating habit metrics (e.g. DAU/WAU uplift, time-to-key-action, activation %). The best example to follow is explained here.
Start collaborating with Product and data teams to track, measure and improve engagement and prove CRM as a lever for product teams to improve their metrics. I interviewed Emmanuelle (VP of CRM at Deezer on a CRM transformation project she led - I think this was the best example of being in Layer 3)
Layer on experiment bets i.e. instead of tactics the team is equipped with a mission of sorts. The team starts moving towards a consolidated set of learnings instead of random experimentation data points - follow a playbook mentality.
Being in this layer is what unlocks the value of CRM for companies. CRM teams that have a Layer 3 prowess of goal-setting can only get here if the strategy is put in place. A strategy is chosen based on what the role of CRM is in your product growth and retention efforts.
As a CRM professional, I often see a lot of tactics being discussed in this space - but not enough on goal setting and strategy refinement. I often think that this gap is why our phones are inundated with offers and discounts, why we receive so much spam in our inboxes. I don’t want to blame this approach as I’m aware sometimes that’s what keep businesses running - but if you are in a position to drive CRM to a better place for your org, I hope this inpires you to do it.
I’ve had the opportunity to work with clients in the past to improve CRM’s impact on M1 Retention, as well as to build loyalty and reward mechanisms that boosted user engagement & retention through CRM.
I truly believe that setting shallow goals, can lead to your CRM program becoming spam. Set layered, strategic goals—and CRM can become a much powerful lever.
The challenge is not that CRM teams lack ambition. It’s that they often lack the permission to slow down and set the right goals in the first place.
But long-term CRM is still measurable. It just takes a different mindset. And a strategic shift while you’re in Layer 2.
And sometimes, it starts with asking the hard question:
“What are we really trying to change for the user—beyond just getting them to click?”
Thank you for making us feel seen and not alone! 🙌