The project in 30 seconds
- Client
- Octopus Intelligence
- Industry
- Competitive intelligence agency
- Location
- United Kingdom & UAE
- When
- July – September 2026
- Engagement
- Fiverr · about 2 months, then retainer
- My role
- CRM & email migration lead
Where Octopus Intelligence started
Octopus Intelligence is a competitive intelligence agency with offices in Nottingham and Dubai. The founder ran sales, newsletters and nurture campaigns from Zoho One.
Over the years it had built up around 2 million records, most of them old or bouncing. He wanted a CRM he'd actually use, newsletters and nurture sequences that just run, and a place to log sales calls and see who needs chasing. Done for him, without the technical detail.
What had to be solved
The risks were mostly invisible, which is what made them dangerous:
How I tackled it, step by step
- 1
Choose the stack honestly
Compared options, chose Folk + Brevo + Make, and showed the full running costs before any work began.
- 2
Migrate only what's alive
Moved ~20k active, opted-in records and archived the ~2M old ones as an export, never mailed.
- 3
Build Folk for how he sells
Six segments, a MENA / UK–US split, a deal pipeline and a "Needs chasing" view.
- 4
Protect the sender
A dedicated subdomain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, plus a warm-up plan.
- 5
Connect and automate
Two-way Make sync, the MENA nurture sequence and weekly/monthly broadcast templates.
Inside the system
10 real screenshots from the build. Click any image to enlarge.
01No surprises: costs and setup up front
Before any build work, I wrote the client a short setup guide: which three accounts to open, which plan to pick and why, and what it costs each month. It caught the Folk Premium (API) and Brevo plan requirements before they could become surprises.
02A CRM built around how the founder sells
Folk holds six segments (leads, customers, former clients, inbound, spoken-to and information sources), a region split for MENA and UK–US, a deal pipeline from meeting to statement of work, and a "Needs chasing" view with reminders, call notes and attached proposals.
03A sending domain built to land in the inbox
Brevo sends from a dedicated subdomain, authenticated with SPF, DKIM and DMARC. This isolates the main domain's reputation, and a warm-up plan eases the new sender into volume.
04Two systems that always agree
Adding a contact to a Folk group adds them to the matching Brevo list. When someone unsubscribes or bounces in Brevo, a webhook marks them as suppressed in Folk, so they're never emailed again by mistake.
What changed for Octopus Intelligence
The calls that made it work
Good systems come from good decisions. Here's what I chose, and why.
Brevo over Constant Contact
Constant Contact prices by contacts and would have needed a workaround for the nurture hand-off. Brevo prices by sends, handles the hand-off natively, and was far cheaper for this list size.
Make over self-hosted n8n
At a few hundred sync events a month, Make costs a few dollars and needs no server. Saving $5 isn't worth a silent failure in a deliverability-critical sync.
Archive, don't migrate, the 2M
Old, bouncing data is what got an account blocked before. A clean break was the single biggest deliverability safeguard.
Show the real costs first
Surfacing the Folk Premium and Brevo plan requirements before quoting built the trust that turned the build into a retainer.
"Built up an excellent business relationship with Dami. His expertise has been incredibly important to our development of our CRM and mailshot strategy."
A similar system could help if…
- You're outgrowing, or overpaying for, an all-in-one suite.
- You have a large, messy contact history and worry about deliverability.
- You want newsletters and nurture sequences driven from your CRM.
- You'd like someone to run it with you after launch.
Prospect, deal and contact names are blurred to protect the client's pipeline. Every screenshot on this page comes from the real project; nothing is a mock-up.