How to Use Copper CRM: The Complete Guide for 2025

At Add to CRM, we're obsessed with sales efficiency. We know that the right CRM can make or break a sales team's success. Copper CRM is a powerful platform, especially for teams living in the Google Workspace ecosystem. It’s designed to eliminate data entry and help you build stronger relationships.

We created this guide to walk you through everything you need to know to master Copper CRM. From initial setup to advanced reporting, we'll cover it all. We'll also show you how to supercharge your prospecting efforts and fill your pipeline faster than ever before.

Getting Started with Copper CRM

Initial Setup and Configuration

Getting started with Copper CRM is straightforward, thanks to its native integration with Google Workspace.

1. Sign Up: Head to the Copper CRM website and start a free 14-day trial. We recommend signing up with your Google account for the most seamless experience.
2. Connect Your Gmail: Authorize Copper to access your Google account. This allows it to sync emails, contacts, and calendar events automatically.
3. Install the Chrome Extension: Copper has its own Chrome extension that brings the CRM directly into your Gmail inbox. This is a must-have for tracking conversations without switching tabs.
4. Add Your Team: Invite your sales team members and assign them roles and permissions. This ensures everyone has access to the information they need.

Customizing Your Dashboard

Your dashboard is your command center. It provides a high-level overview of your sales activities, active leads, and pipeline health. You can customize this view to prioritize the information that matters most to you, whether it's your task list for the day or your team's overall performance.

Managing Contacts and Leads

Adding Contacts Manually

You can always add contacts to Copper CRM manually. Simply click the "Add New" button and select "Person" or "Company." You'll then need to fill in their details like name, email, phone number, and title. While this works for one-off additions, it's slow and prone to typos when you're dealing with a high volume of prospects.

Importing Contacts Efficiently with LinkCopper

Manual data entry is a major time sink. A much better way to add prospects is with LinkCopper. Our Chrome extension is built to solve this exact problem. When you're on a prospect's LinkedIn profile, LinkCopper finds their verified contact information, including email addresses and phone numbers. With one more click, you can add them as a new lead or contact directly into Copper CRM, completely eliminating manual entry and saving hours each week.

Organizing and Segmenting Contacts

Once contacts are in your CRM, organization is key. Use Copper's features to keep your data clean and actionable:

• Tags: Use tags to segment your contacts. For example, you could use tags like hot-lead, webinar-attendee, or q4-target to filter and prioritize your outreach.
• Contact Types: Differentiate between Potential Customer and Current Customer to tailor your communication.
• Custom Fields: Create custom fields to store unique information that's relevant to your business.

Sales Pipeline Management

Setting Up Your Sales Pipeline

Your sales pipeline is a visual representation of your sales process. Copper CRM makes it easy to set up and customize.

1. Navigate to Settings > Pipelines.
2. Click "Create a Pipeline" or edit the default one.
3. Define your sales stages. A typical pipeline might look like: Lead > Qualified > Presentation > Proposal Sent > Negotiation.
4. Customize the stages to match your team's specific workflow.

Moving Deals Through Your Pipeline

Copper features a user-friendly, drag-and-drop interface for managing your pipeline. As a deal progresses, you simply drag the opportunity card from one stage to the next. You can update the deal value, close probability, and expected close date directly on the card.

Pipeline Reporting and Analysis

Copper's reporting tools give you a clear view of your pipeline's health. You can track metrics like the number of deals in each stage, your average deal size, and your win rate. This data is crucial for forecasting revenue and identifying bottlenecks in your sales process.

Prospecting and Lead Generation

Traditional Prospecting Methods

The old way of prospecting involves finding someone on LinkedIn, searching for their email address with another tool, and then manually copying and pasting all that information into your CRM. This process is slow, inefficient, and often results in outdated or incorrect data.

Modern Prospecting with LinkCopper

LinkCopper transforms this outdated workflow. Our tool integrates directly into LinkedIn. When you find a promising prospect, simply click the LinkCopper icon. We find their verified contact information for you. Then, click "Add to CRM," and the prospect is instantly created in Copper CRM with all their details. It turns a multi-step, five-minute task into a two-click, ten-second action.

Communication and Follow-up

Email Integration and Management

Copper's integration with Gmail is one of its standout features. You can track email opens, use pre-built email templates for consistent messaging, and see all communication history with a contact without ever leaving your inbox. This context is vital for personalized and timely follow-ups.

Task Management and Reminders

Never miss a follow-up again. Within any contact or opportunity, you can create tasks for yourself or a team member. Set due dates for calls, emails, or proposals, and Copper will remind you when it's time to act.

Call Logging and Communication History

Log every interaction—calls, meetings, and notes—in the contact's activity feed. This creates a comprehensive history that any team member can access, ensuring everyone is on the same page and providing a seamless customer experience.

Reporting and Analytics

Key Metrics to Track

To optimize your sales process, you need to track the right metrics. In Copper CRM, focus on:

• Lead Conversion Rate: How many leads turn into opportunities?
• Sales Cycle Length: How long does it take to close a deal?
• Win/Loss Rate: What percentage of opportunities are you winning?
• Revenue Forecast: Predict future sales based on your current pipeline.

Creating Custom Reports

On the Business plan and above, Copper allows you to build custom reports. This lets you dive deeper into your data to analyze team performance, identify your most valuable lead sources, and uncover trends that can inform your sales strategy.

Using Data for Sales Optimization

Don't let your data sit idle. Use your reports to refine your strategies. If your sales cycle is too long, maybe a pipeline stage can be optimized. If one lead source is outperforming others, double down on it. Data-driven decisions are the key to scalable growth.

Team Collaboration Features

User Permissions and Access Control

As your team grows, you can manage who sees what. Set permissions to ensure team members only have access to the records and features relevant to their roles, keeping your data secure and organized.

Sharing and Collaboration Tools

Copper is built for teamwork. You can @mention colleagues in notes on a contact or deal to ask questions or share updates. All activity is tracked in a central feed, so everyone stays in the loop.

Advanced Features and Integrations

Automation and Workflows

Automate repetitive tasks with workflow automation. For example, you can set a rule to automatically create a follow-up task for a team member as soon as a deal is moved into the "Proposal Sent" stage. This saves time and ensures no steps are missed.

Third-Party Integrations

Beyond Google Workspace, Copper integrates with hundreds of other tools through Zapier, including Slack, Mailchimp, and QuickBooks. This allows you to connect your entire tech stack and create a single source of truth.

Mobile App Usage

Manage your sales from anywhere with the Copper CRM mobile app for iOS and Android. Update deals, access contact information, and log activities while you're on the go, ensuring your pipeline is always up to date.

Best Practices and Common Mistakes

Data Quality Best Practices

Your CRM is only as good as the data inside it. Make data quality a priority. The best way to do this is to ensure accurate data is entering your CRM from the very beginning. Using a tool like LinkCopper helps guarantee that contact information is verified and correctly formatted from the start.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

We see teams make the same mistakes over and over. Avoid these pitfalls:

• Inconsistent Data Entry: If half the team logs calls and the other half doesn't, the data is unreliable.
• Not Customizing Your Pipeline: A generic pipeline won't work. Tailor it to your actual sales process.
• Ignoring Reports: Don't fly blind. Use Copper's analytics to guide your strategy.

Optimization Tips

• Regularly clean your contact database to remove duplicates and outdated information.
• Use email templates to save time and standardize your most common communications.
• Schedule a weekly pipeline review with your team to discuss deal progress and strategy.

Supercharge Your Copper CRM with LinkCopper

LinkCopper is a Chrome extension that revolutionizes how sales teams add prospects to Copper CRM. It bridges the gap between prospecting on LinkedIn and managing relationships in your CRM, turning a tedious, manual process into an efficient, automated workflow.

Getting Started with LinkCopper

Getting set up takes less than two minutes:

1. Install the LinkCopper extension from the Chrome Web Store.
2. Navigate to any prospect's profile on LinkedIn.
3. Click the LinkCopper icon to instantly find their verified email address and phone number.
4. Click the "Add to CRM" button to save the prospect and their information directly into Copper CRM.

LinkCopper vs Traditional Prospecting

The difference is night and day.

• Without LinkCopper: You spend minutes on each prospect, juggling tabs, copying and pasting information, and risking data entry errors.
• With LinkCopper: You spend seconds. The entire process is reduced to two clicks, all without leaving LinkedIn. Sales reps at companies like ours save over 4 hours per week on prospecting.

Conclusion: Maximize Your Sales Success

Copper CRM is an exceptional tool for managing customer relationships, especially for teams that rely on Google Workspace. It provides the structure and features you need to build a scalable sales process.

But to truly unlock its potential in today's fast-paced sales environment, you need to pair it with modern prospecting tools. By eliminating manual data entry and providing verified contact data, LinkCopper is the missing piece that makes Copper CRM a complete sales machine. Stop wasting time on administrative tasks and start focusing on what you do best: building relationships and closing deals.