What Is a Marketing Automation Platform? (And Do You Need One)
Marketing automation platforms are growing fast in search interest, but what do they actually do? Here's a plain-English breakdown, and how to know if your business is ready for one.
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Everything business owners are actually searching for - answered plainly.
Zendesk has made a strategic decision to focus its product investment on customer service and support software, which is where the company started and where it has the strongest market position. Zendesk Sell - their sales CRM - no longer fits that strategic focus, so they're discontinuing it. Zendesk has partnered with Pipedrive as the recommended migration destination for Zendesk Sell users.
31 August 2027. Zendesk has communicated a timeline to affected customers. If you haven't received direct communication, log into your Zendesk Sell account or contact Zendesk support to confirm your specific access end date. Build your migration plan with buffer time before that deadline - not right up to it.
You can move to any CRM you choose. Pipedrive is Zendesk's recommendation, not a requirement. Other commonly considered alternatives include HubSpot CRM, Salesforce, Zoho CRM, and monday.com CRM. That said, for most businesses moving from Zendesk Sell, Pipedrive offers the smoothest transition and the strongest feature-for-feature match.
For most sales teams, yes - particularly in terms of usability, native automation, reporting, and value for money. Pipedrive was purpose-built as a sales CRM, while Zendesk Sell was always a secondary product within a broader customer service platform. The transition is often an upgrade, not just a replacement.
🚀 If you liked this blog, you should also check out: Is Pipedrive the Right CRM After Zendesk Sell? 5 Questions to Ask Before You Migrate
Your data won't disappear overnight - there will be a window to export it before the platform closes. But if you wait until after the retirement date to try to access your data, recovery may be impossible. The safest approach: export a full data backup now, regardless of where you are in your migration planning.
Most of your core CRM data can be migrated successfully, including contacts and companies, deal records and pipeline stages, notes, and custom field data (if fields are set up in Pipedrive first).
Some data requires extra care or manual handling, such as email history (which lives in your email provider, not just Zendesk Sell), file attachments to deals and contacts, and complex automation rules (which need to be recreated in Pipedrive's workflow builder).
Report configurations and dashboard layouts cannot be migrated - they'll need to be rebuilt in Pipedrive's Insights module.
Yes. Zendesk Sell allows you to export contacts, leads, and deals as CSV files from within the platform. This is your starting point for any migration approach. The export is straightforward - the complexity comes in mapping those CSV fields to the correct fields in Pipedrive, and ensuring your data is clean before you import it.
For a straightforward migration - a small team, relatively clean data, standard pipeline - a DIY migration could be completed in 1–2 weeks if you have the internal bandwidth. A more complex migration with lots of custom fields, integrations, and historical data typically takes 3–6 weeks when done properly (including planning, configuration, testing, and training). Rushing this timeline is one of the most common causes of migration problems.
Custom fields don't automatically map to Pipedrive - you need to create equivalent custom fields in Pipedrive first, then map them during the import process. This is why auditing your custom fields before you start the migration is so important. Custom field data that isn't mapped correctly gets lost or lands in the wrong field, which can be very hard to fix after the fact.
You're not alone - most CRM databases accumulate duplicates, stale records, and inconsistent data over time. The migration is actually a great opportunity to clean things up. Before you import, merge or delete duplicate contacts, archive dead deals, and standardise key fields. You'll arrive in Pipedrive with a cleaner, more useful dataset than you had before.
Pipedrive has over 400 integrations in its marketplace, covering most major business tools - Gmail, Outlook, Slack, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, QuickBooks, Xero, HubSpot Marketing, and many more. If you're still using Zendesk Support for customer service, Pipedrive also integrates with it. For tools that don't have a native Pipedrive integration, Zapier can usually bridge the gap.
Yes. Pipedrive supports multiple pipelines, which is useful if your business has different sales processes for different product lines, customer segments, or regions. You can customise the stages for each pipeline independently.
Yes. Pipedrive has iOS and Android mobile apps that give your sales team full access to their pipeline, contacts, deals, and activities on the go. This includes the ability to log calls, add notes, and update deal stages from the field.
It depends on your team's technical capability and bandwidth. A DIY migration is possible - but it takes meaningful internal time (typically 20–50+ hours for a moderately complex migration) and carries more risk if something is mapped incorrectly. A managed migration service handles the technical work for you, reduces risk, and typically pays for itself in the time saved. If your operations team is already stretched, or if you have complex data, managed migration is usually the right call.
Ideally, choose a quiet period in your sales calendar - not mid-quarter, not immediately before a major pitch or sales push, and not during peak season. The start of a new month or quarter is the most natural cutover point. Whatever you do, don't let the retirement deadline choose your timing for you - that's how you end up migrating during your busiest week.
The most important thing is to train your team before go-live, not after. A 60-minute hands-on session walking through the daily tasks - updating deals, logging activities, creating tasks - makes an enormous difference to first-day adoption. Also: communicate clearly about why you're making the move and what the timeline is. Surprises create resistance; transparency creates buy-in.
Keep your Zendesk Sell account on read-only access for at least 30 days after go-live. This gives you a reference point if anything looks wrong in Pipedrive - you can cross-check against the original data. If you're working with a migration service, they should be available post-go-live to resolve any issues that come up.
Pipedrive has an extensive free resource library: the Pipedrive Help Centre, Pipedrive Academy (free video courses), a community forum, and regular webinars. For most of the core sales tasks, the learning curve is short - Pipedrive is consistently rated as one of the most user-friendly CRMs available.
If your specific question isn't covered here, or you'd like to talk through your migration situation in more detail, we're happy to help.
Book a free 30-minute migration consultation →
Latest updates
Marketing automation platforms are growing fast in search interest, but what do they actually do? Here's a plain-English breakdown, and how to know if your business is ready for one.
Zendesk Sell is retiring in August 2027. Compare it honestly with Pipedrive, feature by feature, and find out if your migration could be an upgrade.
