If you work in B2B sales, marketing, or revenue ops, you know the pain: juggling a dozen tools, chasing down leads, cleaning data, and syncing info between platforms. Everything’s supposed to “work together,” but most days it feels like you’re doing manual labor with expensive software. Sound familiar?
This review is for you if you’re tired of duct-taping your go-to-market (GTM) stack together and want to know if Make can actually help. I’ll break down where Make shines, where it falls short, and what you can realistically automate without making a mess.
What Is Make? (And Who Should Even Care)
Make (formerly Integromat) is a no-code automation tool. Think of it as a giant Swiss Army knife for connecting cloud apps — Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, Google Sheets, and a hundred more. You build “scenarios” that trigger when something happens (“new lead in CRM”), then Make passes data around and does stuff for you (“email the AE, update a spreadsheet, ping the team in Slack…”).
If you’re in sales, marketing, or RevOps, you probably already use Zapier or have heard of it. Make is in the same category, but with a bit more flexibility and power under the hood — at the cost of a steeper learning curve.
Why B2B GTM Teams Should Care
- Manual data entry is death by a thousand cuts. GTM teams waste hours copying info between tools. Make can automate that drudgery.
- Sales and marketing alignment is a pipe dream if everyone’s looking at different dashboards. Automation helps keep data in sync, so nobody’s flying blind.
- You want to move fast, but your tech stack slows you down. Point-and-click workflows in Make can test ideas quickly, without waiting on IT.
So, if you’re cobbling together lead routing, alerts, handoffs, or reporting, Make might be worth a look.
Setting Up Make for GTM: The Good, The Bad, The Gotchas
The Setup: Not Exactly Plug-and-Play
Let’s be real: Make is more complicated than Zapier, but less so than building your own integrations from scratch. You’ll need to:
- Create a free Make account
- Connect your apps (OAuth for most, API keys for some)
- Build “scenarios” by dragging and dropping modules (triggers, actions, filters, etc.)
Pro Tip: Start with one small process, like syncing new leads from LinkedIn Ads to your CRM. Don’t try to automate your whole funnel on day one.
What’s Nice:
- The visual editor is genuinely helpful. You can see the flow and where things might break.
- Tons of pre-built templates make it easy to get started — though you’ll probably want to tweak them.
What’s Annoying:
- The terminology (“scenarios,” “modules,” “routers”) can be confusing if you’re used to other tools.
- Some apps are missing triggers or actions you’d expect. You’ll hit walls with less-popular platforms.
Connecting to the Usual Suspects
Make works with most B2B staples:
- CRMs: Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho, Copper, etc.
- Marketing: Marketo, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, Google Ads
- Collaboration: Slack, Teams, Gmail, Outlook, Asana
But here’s the catch: Not all integrations are equally deep. Sometimes you’ll find you can only “add a lead” but not “update a lead” or “find one by email.” Always check the docs before promising your boss you can automate everything.
What You Can (and Can’t) Automate with Make
The Good Stuff: Real-World GTM Workflows
Here’s where Make actually saves time and sanity:
- Lead routing: New inbound lead? Auto-assign based on territory or rep availability, ping the right AE, and update your CRM — all in under a minute.
- Sales notifications: Get a Slack alert when a deal moves to “Negotiation” in Salesforce. No more missed handoffs.
- Data cleaning: Standardize fields (fix phone numbers, capitalize names, enrich data via Clearbit) before leads hit your CRM.
- Reporting: Auto-update Google Sheets or dashboards with pipeline changes, so execs always see the latest.
- Marketing handoff: When an MQL hits a score, auto-create a task for sales and send a personalized intro email.
Pro Tip: Always test automations with dummy data. It’s easy to accidentally spam your team or nuke your CRM if you’re not careful.
The “Not Worth It” List
- Complex approval flows: If you need multi-step human approval (like deal desk or legal), Make gets clunky fast. Use your CRM’s built-in tools here.
- Heavy-duty data loads: Syncing massive datasets (think: 50,000+ records) eats up Make’s operations and can get expensive.
- Real-time anything: There’s a slight lag in triggers. If your workflow is mission-critical and must be instant, look elsewhere.
How Does Make Actually Boost Sales Efficiency?
Here’s the honest answer: It depends on how disciplined you are.
If you carefully automate repetitive stuff:
- Reps get more time to sell, less time wasted on busywork.
- Fewer mistakes from manual entry or missed handoffs.
- Data stays fresher, which means better reporting and forecasting.
If you go overboard:
- You’ll spend more time fixing broken automations than doing your real job.
- Rogue workflows can create data messes that snowball.
The sweet spot:
Automate the boring, repeatable things. Keep humans in the loop for anything that needs judgement or a personal touch.
Pricing: Not as Cheap as It Looks
Make’s free plan is fine for kicking the tires, but you’ll hit limits quickly — especially if you’re moving a lot of data or connecting multiple systems.
- Free: 1,000 “operations” per month (an “operation” is any action taken by Make).
- Paid plans: Start around $10/month and scale up based on usage.
Things to watch out for:
- Heavy data enrichment or lots of small operations add up fast.
- Pricing is per operation, not per workflow, so complex automations can get pricey.
Budget Tip: Map out your most common workflows and estimate how many “operations” they’ll need before you commit. It’s easy to underestimate.
Make vs. Zapier (and the Rest)
You’ll hear people ask: “Why not just use Zapier?” Here’s the honest comparison:
- Make: More flexible, better for complex/multi-step workflows, nicer visual editor, but steeper learning curve.
- Zapier: Easier for beginners, better support, more integrations overall, but less nuanced control.
If your needs are simple (“new lead, send email”), Zapier is probably fine. If you want to branch, filter, or handle if/then logic, Make is worth the effort.
Other competitors like Workato or Tray.io exist, but they’re expensive and usually overkill for all but the largest teams.
The Real Pros and Cons
What Works
- Visual builder: Actually see what’s happening — cuts down on “black box” automations.
- Flexibility: You can get pretty creative with branching, filters, and data transformations.
- Templates: Good starting point, especially for common sales/marketing workflows.
What Doesn’t
- Learning curve: Even with templates, expect to spend some time reading docs and testing.
- Debugging: When things break, error messages can be cryptic. Prepare to Google.
- Integration gaps: Some apps just don’t have the triggers/actions you need.
Ignore the Hype
- “No code!” Well, sort of. You don’t have to write code, but you do have to think like a developer.
- “Automate everything!” Please don’t. Only automate boring, repeatable stuff.
Pro Tips for B2B GTM Teams Trying Make
- Start small: Automate one painful thing, get it working, then expand.
- Test, test, test: Use sandbox or test data before going live.
- Document everything: Write down what your workflows do, so you don’t get lost later.
- Keep humans in the loop: Use notifications, not full auto-pilot, for anything customer-facing.
- Review automations regularly: What worked last quarter might not fit your process now.
Wrapping Up: Keep It Simple, Iterate Often
Make isn’t magic. It won’t fix broken GTM processes or make your team “10x” overnight. But if you start small, automate the busywork, and keep a close eye on what’s running, it can actually help you move faster and avoid the manual grind.
Don’t try to automate everything at once. Focus on the things that are boring, repetitive, and time-consuming first. As your team gets comfortable, you can expand — or decide it’s not the right tool for every job.
Keep it simple, keep iterating, and you’ll avoid most of the headaches that come with shiny new tools.