Modern CRM | dentsu

Fragmentation Undermines Growth

Martech spend is at an all-time high, but adoption and value realization still fall short. Customer data remains fragmented, identities are disconnected across channels, and organizational silos continue to slow growth.

Customers are feeling the effects. They expect brands to recognize them across email, social, and loyalty, wherever they show up. Our research says 91% expect differentiated treatment, but only 18% feel consistently recognized (Merkle 2026 Loyalty Barometer Report).

Businesses are feeling the effects, too. Without a clear line from marketing investment to customer value, budgets are defended instead of expanded, and the pressure to prove impact continues to build.

AI, connected signals, and intelligent decisioning have changed what's possible. What's needed now is a partner who knows how to make your data, teams, and technology work smarter, not harder, to uncover unrealized value that grows.

Person in a yellow shirt standing up whilst typing credit card number into a laptop

Progressing Customer Relationships

Modern CRM is the unification of identity, data, teams, technology, and desired business outcomes around AI-powered decisioning, resulting in growth that compounds. It continuously interprets customer and business signals—from real-time behaviors to commercial pressures—to determine the right content, offer, channel, and timing for each customer. It adapts and learns from every interaction, adjusting in real time rather than following static rules. Those decisions are delivered where they’re most impactful across paid and owned channels, deepening the value of each relationship over time.

Success only comes when teams have defined roles, clear communication structures, and integrated workflows. While most organizations fail to solve the integrated workflow challenges, the ones who do will progress customer relationships that measurably increase in value over time.

Our Capabilities

Identity & Data

We resolve known and unknown customers to a single ID across paid, owned, and in-store, then connect behavioral signals and business context into a decision-ready view available at the speed of decisioning.

Engagement & Loyalty (Owned Media)

We design and operate the strategies, content, and decisioning that power Modern CRM. That means loyalty programs that go beyond points and tiers to drive authenticated identity and richer signals, lifecycle strategies that adapt to real-time customer context, and AI-driven orchestration that selects the next best action, based on what is most likely to create incremental value.

Paid Media

Media spend is often optimized to platform-defined metrics and disconnected from CRM, loyalty data, and customer value. Modern CRM changes that by connecting media decisions to the same identity, signals, and business objectives that power owned engagement, enabling smarter investment decisions, improved efficiency, and measurable business outcomes across the full customer relationship.

Platforms & Engineering

Modern CRM depends on technology that's connected, composable, and built for the speed of decisioning. We engineer the platforms and infrastructure that turn strategy into execution.

Analytics & Insights

If you can't measure what a decision changed, you can't prove it was worth making. Modern CRM shifts measurement from campaign activity to incremental customer and business value, and builds continuous learning back into the system. We bring the analytics, data science, and research capabilities that make this real.

Featured work

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Our Technology Partners

Braze

We combine Merkle's 25+ years in data-driven CRM with Braze's engagement platform to orchestrate personalized messaging across every touchpoint. As a Platinum Delivery Partner and Certified Partner Led Onboarding provider, we unify customer data, power precision segmentation in real time, and execute campaigns faster no matter the channel.

Salesforce

Our identity solution sits directly in Salesforce Data Cloud, giving your teams a complete customer view without moving data. We connect loyalty, messaging, promotions, and commerce into one experience. With 20 years as a Salesforce partner and 10,000+ certified experts on staff, we help teams activate the platform's full potential and guide them through Agentforce implementation safely.

Snowflake

Our data architecture expertise paired with Snowflake's platform lets brands unify data and build analytics that deliver real-time insights and measurable marketing impact. Through dentsu.Composable, we enable closed-loop reporting so that insights stay within your environment while connecting media spend to customer outcomes.

Talon.One

Merkle pairs strategic consulting, implementation, and operational support with Talon.One’s real-time incentives platform to help brands launch and scale promotions, loyalty initiatives, gamified experiences, and personalized offers. Together, we help brands achieve 40% increase in ad spend ROI, 3.2x lift in customer lifetime value, and 2-3x improvement in operational efficiency.

Adobe

As an Adobe Platinum Solution Partner, Merkle brings deep expertise across the full Experience Cloud stack. Our data & identity platform connects your Adobe Experience Platform to unified customer profiles, while GenStudio enables teams to produce and activate content faster. From account-based strategies to 1:1 personalization at scale, we help brands activate the full value of their Adobe investment.

LoyaltyPlus

LoyaltyPlus is dentsu’s cloud-based loyalty platform that moves beyond points to build gamified experiences, personalized rewards, and real-time integrations with businesses’ CRM, CDP, and commerce tools. Real-time dashboards track what's working so brands can optimize on the fly and turn loyalty into measurable revenue growth.

Movable Ink

As Movable Ink's preferred global agency partner for Da Vinci, its AI-powered decisioning engine, we help brands deliver more relevant customer experiences across the journey. Our team of 250+ CRM and personalization experts brings together data, decisioning, and creative execution at scale. We deploy more than 70 billion emails annually with 99.7% accuracy, driving an average 27% revenue lift and nearly 20% conversion growth for our clients.

Databricks

Merkle partners with Databricks to help brands build unified data foundations at scale. We architect lakehouses that connect your customer data across sources, power real-time analytics, and activate insights across marketing, media, and personalization.