JAM CRM: Rewriting the Rules of Customer Agency

When Andrea Cook joined JAM CRM a little over twelve months ago, she stepped into a marketing landscape under immense strain. Budgets were tightening, measurement was murky, and marketers were struggling to prove the ROI of sprawling data and tech stacks.

As she began to take stock of the marketing ecosystem, Andrea quickly noticed a growing disconnect between the sophistication of technology and the simplicity of what customers actually need. “Millions are being poured into martech systems that often don’t deliver on their promise,” Andrea says. “It’s not a data or systems problem. It’s a connection problem.”

A seasoned leader with a sharp instinct for transformation, Andrea saw in JAM CRM a rare opportunity: an agency built around the customer, but one that had been too humble about its success. “My perspective is that CRM is no longer a bolt-on to the brand campaign, instead, it’s becoming the centre point of marketing,” she says. “Big brands are shifting their spend toward customer-centric practices. JAM was already doing this brilliantly. I just wanted to give them a louder microphone.”

Eighteen Years in the Making

For nearly two decades, JAM CRM has been a quiet powerhouse, helping blue-chip brands across North America deliver personalised CRM at scale. Under Andrea’s leadership, the agency has refreshed its positioning, added four new clients in e-commerce, nonprofit, B2B and health, launched four proprietary tools, and celebrated its first major awards haul (seven wins across the DMA Echo Awards, Canadian Marketing Awards, and ANA Reggies).

“I joined JAM because its proposition is so relevant right now,” Andrea explains. “We play two essential roles for brands. First, we’re the connective tissue: the ‘jam in the sandwich’ that links martech systems and the customer experience so marketers can extract full value from their data and technology investments. Second, we’re championing a move from personalisation to individualisation, creating marketing experiences not for personas or segments, but for actual people. Ultimately, we are generating more bottom line impact for less.”

From Personalisation to Individualisation

Ask Andrea about the distinction, and her answer is sharp. “Personalisation isn’t dead – it’s just been poorly executed,” she says. “Slapping a first name in an email or dropping someone into a broad segment isn’t personalisation. It’s surface-level segmentation wrapped in data language. Consumers know when something feels genuinely meant for them, and when it was meant for someone like them.”

At JAM CRM, individualisation means combining data, tech, insight, channel, and creativity to craft experiences that feel intentionally made for each customer – not algorithmically assembled for a cohort.

Toyota is a powerful example. Historically, its customer communications were siloed and brand-first. JAM stepped in to map new journeys that recognised each driver as unique as the vehicle they own.

“We built an engine that connects business priorities, next-best-action technology, and dynamic creative,” Andrea says. “It allows us to deliver hyper-individualised messages at exactly the right moment.”

The results speak volumes: seven million unique experiences delivered with each campaign, customers three times more likely to service their vehicles, and a 55% lift in repeat purchases.

JAM also partners with large pet retailer to unlock the full potential of Salesforce, integrating data systems and optimising deliverability across millions of possible journeys. One standout innovation was ShopUp, a proprietary JAM tool designed to enhance AI-driven product recommendations. “AI is brilliant, but not always perfect,” says the CEO. “ShopUp lets brands spot-check and fine-tune AI outputs, ensuring customers always get content that’s relevant and engaging — a win for them and a win for ROI.”

A Practical Relationship with AI

Another reason Andrea was drawn to JAM CRM was its pragmatic approach to artificial intelligence. “A lot of agencies are still trying to figure out how AI fits in, but JAM’s been using it for over a decade,” she points out. “We don’t use it to reinvent what we do, but to make it smarter, faster, and more human.”

From QA and asset creation to data decisioning and predictive insights, JAM CRM integrates AI seamlessly into daily operations. The agency has even built a suite of proprietary ‘buddies’: secure, agentic AI tools embedded in its enterprise system.

“We’ve got a meeting buddy that distills discussions into next steps, and a copy buddy that writes in the JAM voice,” Andrea reveals. “But the real magic lies in our platform and client buddies, which are deeply trained on specific clients or technologies like Salesforce. They help our teams problem-solve faster and deliver sharper work.”
Andrea sees this as the next evolution of marketing efficiency. “AI will take on repetitive tasks like data entry or segmentation, freeing people up to focus on relationships and creativity. It’s not replacing us, it’s empowering us.”

The Power of Specialism

Reflecting on her first year, Andrea is clear on what sets JAM CRM apart: depth, focus, and expertise. “We’re 150 specialists who live and breathe CRM,” she says proudly. “That scale lets us individualise at speed and with excellence. We’re big enough to make a real impact, but nimble enough to move fast and keep ahead of the industry transformation.”

For Andrea, JAM CRM’s purpose is simple yet transformative: to use data, technology and AI to create more meaningful, more human customer experiences that in turn drive more and easier ROI. “At the end of the day, our job is to make marketing feel less like marketing and more like understanding. That’s the future, and at JAM CRM we’re already living it.”