For a Canadian business, a customer database has two jobs: helping you sell and helping you prove you’re allowed to contact people. CASL puts the burden of proof for consent on the sender, and PIPEDA expects you to protect the personal information you hold. Mailpro’s contact management covers both.
What to track for every Canadian contact
- Consent type and date: express or implied, and when it was given. Implied consent from a purchase lasts two years and from an inquiry six months, so the date matters.
- Consent source: web form, in-store sign-up, trade show, checkout.
- Language: English or French, so every message arrives in the right one.
- Province: for regional offers, holidays and time zones.
- Channel preferences: email, SMS or both, since CASL consent for one channel is not automatically consent for the other.
Contact management inside Mailpro
Import lists, add custom fields, tag contacts and build segments without spreadsheets. Unsubscribes and bounces are recorded automatically, so your database stays clean and compliant. Each contact’s campaign history shows what they received and how they responded, which is useful when a customer calls with a question or when you need to document a consent trail.
Connect the tools you already use
Many Canadian companies already run a sales CRM. Mailpro connects with Salesforce, and you can link other applications through Zapier, so new customers flow into your email lists and campaign activity flows back to your sales team. Keep the consent fields in sync across systems so an unsubscribe in one tool is honoured everywhere.
Automations that use CRM data
Once your contacts are organized, automated emails can act on the data: a welcome series for new subscribers, a reminder before implied consent expires, a birthday message, or a follow-up after a purchase.
Data residency and Canadian privacy law
PIPEDA does not forbid storing customer data abroad, but you stay accountable for it and should be open about where it is processed. Quebec’s Law 25 goes further, requiring a privacy impact assessment before personal information is communicated outside Quebec. Mailpro hosts data in Switzerland on private infrastructure, outside US jurisdiction, with TLS 1.3 encryption, and never sells or rents it. Switzerland’s EU adequacy decision supports the “adequate protection” analysis Law 25 asks for. Learn more about why Switzerland.
Who benefits most
Professional firms with long client relationships, retailers with loyalty programs, non-profits managing donors and volunteers, and service businesses that book appointments all gain from having consent, language and history in one place. To understand the concept in more depth, read what a CRM is and how Canadian firms use it, and compare plans on the pricing page.