People who know me know that I root for Ohio State. Though I didn’t personally go there, my whole family did. My dad put a “Block O” in their backyard. My brother recently served as president of the alumni association there. My mom knows the entire offensive starting line of the football team.
As you can imagine, I buy them lots of Ohio State paraphernalia. Ohio State coffee tables. Ohio State ice cubes. Ohio State mugs, bedsheets, shirts. You name it.
Typically, I buy them all these things at Fanatics, an $8 billion+ company, which does primarily licensed sports merchandise and apparel, but is now getting into sports betting and iGaming, as well as other live events.
Fanatics is very good at marketing. Why do I say that? Because they know my history of purchases and interests and it’s reflected in every marketing outreach toward me. Here’s an example of a recent Instagram ad campaign, a retargeting ad, that I recently came across. Note how good that is. It’s personalized to exactly my interests. If you put a Michigan jacket in front of me, forget it. But Ohio State! Yes! It catches the eye and hooks me because the company knows I’m already interested in the school apparel.
Or how about this email campaign, also from Fanatics. It builds on the same idea, putting content in front of me from all the different teams I might be interested in. (OK, I did once buy a Michigan shirt for my nephew who went there.)
How does the company do that?
It integrates its ad targeting, email, and CRM with precision.
Integration Means Personalization, Which Translates Into Revenue
Many companies don’t do these kinds of fundamental, foundational marketing pieces well. So, what does Fanatics do exactly? At a basic level, the company is executing in several areas.
Connecting website forms and actions to email marketing automation, then syncing those with the CRM. Every visit, sign-up, abandoned cart, and purchase triggers tailored follow-ups and recommendations. For example, if a site visitor leaves a product in the cart, the system immediately schedules a sequence of reminder emails and perhaps a special offer. Industry-wide, abandoned cart emails have an average conversion rate of 10-11%, well above standard marketing emails. Many brands recapture up to 20% of otherwise lost revenue from these campaigns alone.
Setting persistent cookies and pixel trackers on browsers. The company likely is then connecting site activity and browsing history to any profile associated with an email/newsletter signup—even if the user didn’t log in. That’s why, after browsing Ohio State coffee tables or mugs without being logged in, Fanatics could send emails about those very products. These persistent IDs link a user’s journey: if someone signs up for a newsletter, their browsing and shopping behavior is instantly mapped into their purchase profile. The company can then deliver email campaigns with products or content about pages the user browsed, offering a seamless, relevant experience.
Setting up remarketing pixels (e.g., Meta, Google) is also essential. This allows companies like Fanatics to run retargeting ads focused not just on broad product categories, but on specific items or teams you’ve shown interest in. It’s why, after looking at Buckeyes merchandise, a user might start seeing those exact items in their feed—not random generic offers. The more these pixels and platforms are linked with CRM data and purchase history, the more effectively companies can automate and personalize outreach: automated emails with offers related to frequent purchases, follow-up on specific browsing categories, and segmented newsletters built for superfans of certain teams or product lines.
The bottom line: Personalized experiences are proven revenue drivers. In 2025, recent reports have suggested that companies using advanced, AI-driven personalization have increased sales anywhere from 20-40% for targeted campaigns compared to generic outreach. McKinsey research shows a personalized recommendation section can generate between 15 and 35% of overall click-through rates and often becomes the second-largest channel of customer engagement and sales after direct product searches.
Setting Up Integrations for Small and Midsize Businesses
Yes, Fanatics is an $8B company. But with the right focus, small-to-midsize companies can certainly get close to what these bigger companies are doing as well. Here are some practical integrations we’d suggest setting up right now. And if you need help, don’t hesitate to contact us at Marketing Nice Guys:
- Connect Website Forms and Email System: Use plugins or built-in integrations to sync website forms (contact, lead magnets, purchase forms) with platforms like Mailchimp, Klaviyo, or Hubspot. For example, with WordPress, many of the forms and themes come with native integrations to email marketing automation systems such as Mailchimp. In other cases, you may need to pay for Zapier to do that integration.
- Sync CRM and Email Automation: If your CRM is separate, use Zapier or native integrations to ensure new contacts and purchases are instantly reflected in your email marketing automation system so you can automate outreach for nurture campaigns, abandoned carts, and more. If you have a system such as Hubspot, which doubles as both a CRM and an email marketing automation system, you don’t need a Zapier because it’s all one platform.
- Enable Behavioral Automation: Activate features that send abandoned cart reminders, product recommendation emails, and post-purchase follow-ups, using dynamic content blocks for personalization. Depending on the level of sophistication you want, you may need to do a bit of development work for this but it’s worth it.
- Deploy Pixels: Install Meta/Facebook Pixel and Google Ads tracking and link these to e-commerce data so ad sets can target specific product categories or exact SKUs a user interacted with. Then, you can set up ad retargeting campaigns with that specific product aimed at the specific website visitor who saw that particular item or page.
- Map Persistent IDs: Use cookies or first-party tracking scripts to associate browsing activity with newsletter/email signups. That means you can attribute user behavior on the site even if that individual isn’t signed in. This will take some developer work but again, it’s worth it.
- Segment and Tag Audiences: Create audience lists in CRM and email automation platforms based on purchase history, location, expressed interests, and browsing patterns. You can also use tags to store where that individual may have come in from (specific website form), offline event, purchase etc.
- Leverage Reporting: Periodically review campaign analytics to refine triggers, timing, and personalization. Even basic reporting reveals which products, subject lines, and segments drive responses and revenue.
Conclusion
No matter the tech stack, integration is less about having the biggest platform and more about making sure data moves freely between website, CRM, and marketing automation tools. In our experience, we’ve helped a number of small and midsize businesses achieve substantial gains just by sending multi-step abandoned cart emails or creating more integration between their website and CRM. Don’t hesitate to contact us for a free consultation.
