Email is the cornerstone of modern sales communication: it propels deals forward, facilitates follow-ups, and nurtures relationships.

As teams increasingly depend on automated outreach, multi-channel engagement, and precise tracking, the competition among CRMs intensifies, particularly concerning their native email integrations.

While Streak and Zoho CRM both feature built-in email workflows, their depth, usability, and influence on daily sales operations vary significantly. For teams that prioritize simplicity and seek fast, reliable email execution, folk offers one of the cleanest and most effective email integrations available in any CRM, allowing you to effortlessly send, track, and automate your outreach directly from your workspace.

Why Email Integration Matters?

Effective email integration elevates a CRM from a basic database to a cohesive communication hub. Rather than toggling between tabs or relying on disparate tools, representatives can send messages, automate follow-ups, and monitor engagement all in one location.

• Centralized communication. All emails—both sent and received—sync automatically with the appropriate contact or deal.
• Smarter follow-ups. Automated reminders and sequences enable reps to follow up at optimal moments without manual intervention.
• Real-time tracking. Open rates, clicks, and replies are integrated directly into the CRM, guiding actionable next steps.
• Cleaner data. Emails instantly enhance contact profiles with context and conversation history.
• Email templates. Reusable, personalized templates help teams maintain consistency and save time.
• Outreach automation. Execute bulk emails, sequences, or triggered messages based on deal stages or contact activities.

When a CRM manages email seamlessly, reps can stop juggling tools and start concentrating on conversations that drive revenue. This distinction sets apart a good CRM from one that genuinely accelerates sales!

What is Streak?

Streak is a lightweight CRM that seamlessly integrates with Gmail, transforming your inbox into a collaborative pipeline for sales, support, and account management. Users can manage deals, monitor stages, and collaborate on threads without switching tabs, all from the familiar Gmail interface. Email is central to the platform, with real-time tracking and pipeline views enhancing your existing conversations.

What is Zoho CRM?

Zoho CRM is a versatile, all-in-one CRM solution tailored for companies seeking extensive customization and a broad suite of business applications. Its email integration supports Zoho Mail, Gmail, Outlook, and other IMAP providers, allowing teams to send, receive, and archive messages directly within the CRM. With shared inbox views, basic tracking, and automation capabilities, email interactions become integral to a comprehensive omnichannel engagement strategy.

Feature comparison of Streak and Zoho CRM

Integration Capabilities

Streak seamlessly integrates within Gmail, transforming your inbox into a comprehensive CRM without the need for additional windows or applications. Every email you send or receive is automatically recorded in the appropriate pipeline and shared across your team’s workspace, ensuring you have a real-time timeline for each deal without the hassle of manual bcc’ing.

Zoho’s Email Insights add-on allows you to sync Gmail, Outlook, or any IMAP provider directly with Zoho CRM, automatically associating messages and attachments with the correct records. You can select which folders to sync, filtering out irrelevant threads while capturing every email that drives opportunities. Additionally, Zoho Calendar synchronizes bidirectionally with Google, Office 365, or iCal, ensuring that meeting invites and updates are reflected in both your personal calendar and CRM timeline.

Sync Frequency and Reliability

Streak’s email synchronization occurs in real time, seamlessly integrated within Gmail’s infrastructure. The moment you send or receive a message, Streak immediately logs it to the relevant pipeline, ensuring your team has up-to-date visibility on all activities without any delay. There is virtually no lag or queuing—messages and thread updates are reflected instantly in both your inbox and Streak’s interface. By connecting directly to Gmail, you can take advantage of Google’s exceptional uptime and reliability.

Similarly, Zoho’s Email Insights add-on maintains a live connection to your mail provider via IMAP IDLE or OAuth, allowing messages to sync almost instantly. You can expect emails to appear in the CRM timeline within seconds of arrival, complete with attachments and metadata. Additionally, two-way calendar synchronization occurs immediately for Google Calendar, Office 365, and iCal, with Zoho’s retry logic effectively managing any intermittent issues.

Two-Way Email and Calendar Sync

Streak's Mail Merge tool is integrated directly within Gmail, enabling you to send personalized mass emails to hundreds of recipients in less than two minutes—no need for CSV imports or external applications. You can easily insert custom variables (such as first name, company, and deal data) straight from your pipelines, schedule automatic follow-up sequences within the same thread, and perform A/B tests on subject lines to enhance reply rates. Every sent message and follow-up is logged effortlessly in your Streak timeline, ensuring you maintain visibility on who has opened, clicked, or replied. However, it's worth noting that Streak's campaign features do not offer advanced analytics dashboards, meaning you'll miss out on detailed reporting regarding unsubscribes or bounce handling unless you integrate another tool.

Zoho CRM facilitates email synchronization through POP/IMAP or OAuth for Outlook, Gmail, and any IMAP provider. Once set up in Settings > Channels > Email, both inbound and outbound messages are automatically linked to the corresponding lead or contact record.

Mail Merge and Campaigns

Streak’s Mail Merge tool is integrated directly into Gmail, allowing you to send personalized mass emails to hundreds of recipients in under two minutes—no need for CSV imports or third-party applications. You can easily insert custom variables such as first names, company names, and deal data from your pipelines, schedule automatic follow-up sequences on the same thread, and even A/B test subject lines to enhance reply rates. Every sent message and follow-up is automatically logged in your Streak timeline, ensuring you maintain visibility on who has opened, clicked, or replied. However, it’s worth noting that Streak’s campaign features lack advanced analytics dashboards, meaning you won’t receive detailed reports on unsubscribes or bounce handling without incorporating an additional tool.

On the other hand, Zoho CRM’s Mass Email tool allows you to send up to 1,000 emails per day per user, complete with customizable templates and merge tags for added personalization. For larger campaigns, Zoho Campaigns integrates smoothly, providing advanced segmentation, drag-and-drop design features, and analytics for delivery, opens, clicks, and unsubscribes. However, since Zoho Campaigns operates as a separate product, managing billing and user permissions across both systems can lead to increased administrative overhead.

Open and Click Tracking

Streak integrates a discreet tracking pixel and link tracker into Gmail, providing real-time “eye” icons that indicate when an email is opened or a link is clicked within a thread. Simply hover over the green eye to access timestamps, locations, and click data for each link without needing to leave your inbox. Since it relies solely on Gmail’s API, setup is minimal, and feedback is instantaneous; however, it lacks aggregated campaign dashboards and multi-link heat mapping beyond individual message views.

Zoho CRM’s basic Email Insights automatically track opens when emails are sent through Gmail or Outlook connectors, and you can activate link-click tracking through the ZeptoMail integration for comprehensive click-through data. Without ZeptoMail, CRM users can only monitor opens; obtaining complete click analytics requires the additional transactional email product, which involves extra costs and configuration steps.

In-Inbox CRM Experience

Streak operates entirely within Gmail, providing complete CRM capabilities—such as pipelines, contact details, and email logging—without requiring you to leave your inbox. The sidebar displays deal stages, custom fields, and shared notes alongside each email thread, ensuring you always have relevant context at your fingertips. With the ability to effortlessly drag and drop emails into various pipelines or update statuses in real-time, it seamlessly merges your inbox with CRM functions. However, keep in mind that since Streak is exclusive to Gmail, this in-inbox experience will not be available if you decide to switch to Outlook or another email client.

Zoho’s eWidget appears as a sidebar in Zoho Mail, Gmail, or Outlook, allowing you to add leads, view contact details, and log emails without leaving your mailbox. You can see deal stages, tasks, and meeting notes inline, and with just a click, you can send predefined templates or create new records. However, this sidebar functionality is limited to specific mail clients—if you use Thunderbird or another service, you will forfeit the convenience of in-inbox integration.

folk CRM: The Best Email CRM

folk provides teams with the seamless, integrated email workflow they've been missing. It consolidates communication, automates follow-ups, and simplifies sequencing, all within a clean and user-friendly CRM. Boasting a 4.5/5 rating on G2, folk is recognized as one of the top lightweight CRMs for contemporary sales and partnership teams.

Designed specifically for startups, agencies, and scaling sales teams of 20-50, folk streamlines email operations without overwhelming users.

Extract Intel from Emails

One of folk’s standout features is its ability to centralize communication and convert every email and call into actionable insights, thanks to native email synchronization with Gmail and Outlook, coupled with AI-driven analysis. With folk, teams can:

• Quickly Recap Past Conversations using folk's Recap assistant, which compiles information from emails and notes to deliver a summary, granting you instant context.
• Follow Up at Optimal Times as AI scans conversations, notifying you when to reach out and even drafting responses for you.

Email Sequencing & Automation

folk’s integrated sequencing engine simplifies the creation of automated outreach flows directly within the CRM. You can design multi-step email sequences, personalize messages with CRM fields, and automatically log every interaction. Whether nurturing leads, executing outbound campaigns, or re-engaging dormant opportunities, folk empowers you with a robust yet straightforward sequencing workflow that eliminates the need for separate tools.

Set conditions based on your CRM variables to automatically send emails, such as upon closing a deal or acquiring a new lead.

AI-Powered Follow-Up Reminders

The AI Follow-Up feature in folk ensures that no conversation goes unnoticed. By evaluating your email history, folk notifies you of unanswered messages, highlights stale conversations, and pinpoints ideal times to re-engage. It functions as an in-built assistant, keeping your inbox organized and your pipeline active—without any manual tracking.

folk starts at $20 per user per month, includes native email integration and sequences, and offers a 14-day free trial—no credit card required.

Conclusion

In summary, Streak excels with its seamless Gmail integration and real-time tracking, making it ideal for teams that prioritize a streamlined inbox experience. Zoho CRM offers extensive customization and robust omnichannel capabilities, perfect for organizations needing a comprehensive solution. However, for teams that rely heavily on email integration, automation, and sequencing, folk outshines the competition. With its intuitive interface, powerful AI-driven features, and dedicated email workflows, folk transforms email into a central sales asset, making it the best choice for modern sales teams.

Start your 14-day free trial or book a demo today.