Do CRM Systems Cause One-to-One Marketing Effectiveness?

Abstract

This article provides an assessment of the causal effect of customer relationship management (CRM) applications on one-to-one marketing effectiveness. We use a potential outcomes based propensity score approach to assess this causal effect. We find that firms using CRM systems have greater levels of one-to-one marketing effectiveness. We discuss the strengths and challenges of using the propensity score approach to design and execute CRM related observational studies. We also discuss the applicability of the framework in this paper to study typical causal questions in business and electronic commerce research at the firm, individual and economy levels, and to clarify the assumptions that researchers must make to infer causality from observational data.