Why Your CRM and Marketing Stack Still Don't Talk to Each Other

You've got Salesforce. HubSpot. Maybe Marketo. Whatever combo your team duct-taped together over the years.

They're supposed to sync. The vendor swore the integration was "native." You might've even paid extra for it.

And yet here we are. Leads vanishing into the void. Numbers that don't match. Marketing and sales looking at completely different data. Reports nobody trusts.

Yeah. We've seen this movie before.

The "native integration" lie

"Native integration" usually means someone built an API connector three years ago and never touched it again.

These things handle the basics fine - simple lead creation, standard field mapping, vanilla workflows. The moment you need anything custom, they choke.

And let's be real: every business needs custom stuff.

Maybe your lead scoring is complicated. Maybe your sales stages don't fit the default options. Maybe you bought a company and now you're running two instances of everything.

The native connector can't deal with any of that. So your team invents workarounds. CSV exports. Copy-paste sessions. Duplicates multiplying like rabbits.

What's actually breaking

Integration problems usually trace back to a few culprits:

The data models don't match. CRM thinks in contacts and accounts. Marketing platform thinks in leads and lists. Not the same thing. Translation gets messy.

Timing is off. Marketing wants emails triggered instantly. CRM syncs every 15 minutes. That delay creates race conditions and missed automations.

Field mapping is a nightmare. Same data lives in different fields across systems. "Company size" is a dropdown here, a number there. Nobody documented how they connect.

No source of truth. When data conflicts, which system wins? Most teams never actually decide. They just live with the chaos.

How to actually fix it

Another tool probably won't help. You don't need more connectors. You need to get clear on the fundamentals.

Pick a source of truth. Every data point gets one owner. Everything else subscribes. No exceptions. No "it depends."

Map the data model. Write down how entities relate across systems. When does a Marketo lead become a Salesforce contact? What triggers that? Document it.

Real-time where it counts. Not everything needs instant sync. But lead routing? Trigger-based follow-ups? Those can't wait for a batch job.

Actually monitor the thing. Most teams set up integrations and walk away. Then act surprised when data stopped syncing months ago. Build alerts. Check them.

The real issue

Your systems don't talk because nobody prioritized making them talk. Integration isn't glamorous. It doesn't demo well. Nobody gets promoted for it.

But it's what everything else depends on. Lead scoring, attribution, forecasting - all of it runs on data flowing between systems.

Fix the pipes first. The rest gets easier.