Lifecycle, CRM, SaaS and email

I have been doing this for over twenty years, since before most of today's tools existed and before anybody asked where the data came from. E-commerce, iGaming, banking, travel, the public sector and startups. Most of that work was not building something from nothing. It was fixing something that already existed and did not work: a customer base nobody was using, automations that stopped years ago, a platform somebody chose for the wrong reasons. But I am just as happy to build from scratch, exactly the way the client wants it. That is honestly my favourite part of the job.

[01]Where I can be useful

• Lifecycle end to end: onboarding, activation, winback, churn. Not individual emails, but what actually happens to the customer
• Cleaning data by the million rows: duplicates, broken addresses, wrong formats, contacts nobody has heard from in years
• Deliverability and sender reputation: SPF, DKIM, DMARC, domain warming, and why mail lands in spam when nobody can tell you why
• An audit: I go through what you have and tell you what works, what is broken and where I would start. Including when the answer is do not do this
• Automations and segments, from scratch or on top of what is there, built so they still work a year later
• A migration from one platform to another without breaking the customer base and without deliverability collapsing on the way
• Choosing a platform: I help you pick one, and help you not pick the one the salesperson recommends
• Managing the agency, when there already is one. I have chosen and run agencies myself, and I know what you are paying for and what you should not be
• Campaigns, not only email
• A second pair of eyes, when you have the person in-house but the decision is stuck

[02]Cleaning the data

The biggest database I have cleaned was two million people with about 80 fields each. Duplicates, broken addresses, wrong formats, contacts nobody has heard from in years. The whole thing had to be fixed, not a sample. Most platforms bill you by contact, so a dead contact keeps costing you every month. Cleaning usually pays for itself before anything else gets done.

[03]Two thousand, two hundred thousand, two million

I have run all three, and the problem is completely different at each size.

At two thousand the whole system is one person and one tool. The only question is whether the message matters to the person reading it.

At two hundred thousand the question is no longer the email, it is where the data comes from and where it goes. The CRM, the shop, support and the marketing tool have to talk to each other, there is more than one channel, and somebody has to own which number is the right one.

At two million it is infrastructure. The data model, event flows, consent, deliverability, sender reputation, and getting the report to show the same number two months running. One mistake costs you the domain.

Most people have only ever met one of them.

I have done the same work for charities, where there is no budget and the campaign still has to land.

[04]Why you would let me near your customer base

I have been background-checked by banks, by iGaming operators and by government agencies. Those checks go deep. Probably not as far as parking tickets, but that is what it felt like. If you are handing someone your customer base, that is worth knowing.

[05]I build software too

Not slides about software. Minute Mission is an app I made myself: 33 languages, Google Play and the App Store, card payments in twenty-one currencies, and a data processing agreement that stands up in the EU. The page you are reading was written by me from scratch too, no template and no agency. I mention it for two reasons. It is proof that I finish things. And if your marketing problem turns out to be a software problem, which it often does, you are talking to someone who can do both halves.

And when the job is bigger than one person can finish, I know some of the strongest developers in Estonia and can put a team together. You do not have to go shopping for an agency, and the deadline stays a real one.

[06]Automation, when the tools are working against you

n8n, Make, Zapier. They all promise you will not need code, then hand you a webhook and a raw JSON blob. I know what to do with them. n8n has one advantage worth naming: you can host it on your own server, so nobody bills you per task and the data stays yours. If something is already half-built, I will go through it. If it is not, I will build it and show you how to change it yourself.

[07]An honest warning

This is the one service on this page where the answer is not automatically yes. I choose who I work with. If the job is not something I want to do, I will say so straight away rather than three weeks in. And if I am not the right person, I will say that too, and I usually know who is.

[08]What it costs

200 € an hour plus VAT. For anything larger I make a proper offer: agreed price, agreed scope, and I finish it. You pay for the result, not for the calendar.

Charities pay 40% less, 120 € an hour. You do not have to ask for it or explain yourself.

[09]CRM, LIFECYCLE, EMAIL AND AI TRAINING

I have sat in plenty of trainings where one person talks in front of a full room with slides behind them, and everybody feels good about it until the next morning. At the end they ask whether anyone has questions. Nobody does. The next day everyone carries on exactly as before.

That is not how I do it.

I am not coming to look clever. We talk like people, we go through what is actually possible in your own work, and you leave with things you can try tomorrow. What happens after that is yours to do, and I say so up front because nobody else will.

We set the content around you. If the subject sits at the intersection of lifecycle, CRM, email and AI, I am the right person. If it does not, I will say that too.

Up to ten people. In a bigger group you cannot answer the questions and the whole thing turns into a lecture. I am not being arrogant, I am being pragmatic.

4000 € plus VAT. Two to three hours, on site at your office.