Streak CRM for Gmail and G Suite is Google partner of the year 2019

Why This Matters

If you’re a creative, small business owner, or a designer who lives and breathes Gmail, you’ll know the pain of having your sales pipeline splintered across a tangle of spreadsheets, sticky notes, and half-remembered calendar alerts. Leads fall through the cracks. Promising enquiries disappear into the inbox vortex, only to be rediscovered months later, with the line “Just checking in” ringing hollow.

The cost goes beyond lost sales. It chips away at your confidence in your own systems. Worse, it means hours every week spent wrestling with copy-pasted details, hopping between tabs, or double-entering notes.

Big CRMs promise the moon, but when you’re a one-person band or a lean studio, most of those bells and whistles just become clutter. You need a tool that fits neatly into your daily workflow, where you already spend most of your time: Gmail (and, by extension, Google Workspace).

That’s why Streak CRM, built by a team of ex-Google developers and winner of Google’s Partner of the Year 2019 for G Suite, deserves your attention. It takes the hassle out of tracking clients, prospects, and projects right from inside Gmail itself. No more context-switching. No more forgotten follow-ups.

We’ve used Streak at Pixelhaze for over three years to wrangle everything from sales to support, after trialling enough alternatives to write a short novel. The results are in. Because it’s simple, flexible, and invisibly woven into Gmail, Streak helps small teams and freelancers keep momentum instead of getting bogged down.

If you’re keen to stop letting leads fizzle out and start building a reliably humming workflow, keep reading.

Common Pitfalls

It’s tempting to think, “Oh, a CRM’s a CRM. They’re all a bit clunky and over-complicated. I’ll just try to stay organised with my trusty labels (or spreadsheet, or whatever).” But that old-fashioned approach comes with costly trade-offs:

• Juggling too many tools: Switching between your inbox, task manager, and a generic CRM slows you down, confuses your brain, and leads to details slipping through the net.
• Giving up on personalisation: Many only scratch the surface of what a CRM like Streak can do, leaving everything on its boring default settings. The result? A sales pipeline that doesn’t match the messy realities of your client journey.
• Drowning in data, not decisions: Collecting information is easy. Acting on it at the right moment, such as following up on a hot lead or nudging a slow-moving proposal, is where most solo operators and small teams falter.
• Comparing feature lists instead of fit: It’s easy to get distracted by all-singing, all-dancing alternatives, convinced that more features means better results. In practice, “enough and integrated” beats “fancy but fragmented” every time.

The biggest mistake is believing your workflow should bend around the software, rather than finding tools that actually flex to you.

Step-by-Step Fix

Below is a practical, battle-tested approach to making the most of Streak CRM within Gmail and Google Workspace. Whether you’re setting up from scratch or finally ready to “do it properly,” these steps will get you up and running and keep the sales wheels turning.

Step 1: Get Your Foundations Right – Install and Integrate Streak

The first order of business: make Gmail do the heavy lifting.

Head to the Chrome Web Store and install the Streak for Gmail extension. Once added, refresh Gmail and you’ll see the Streak toolbar embedded above your inbox. Sign in with your Google account and grant the requested permissions. Streak needs these to operate smoothly inside your existing workflows.

Now, all the CRM goodness lives inside Gmail. No extra windows. No remembering more passwords. If your team is spread across multiple Google accounts, it’s best to create a shared pipeline and invite colleagues, so everyone’s working from the same playbook.

Step 2: Build Pipelines that Match Your Actual Process

This is where most people get lazy. Don’t simply stick with the default “Sales Pipeline” Streak offers. Instead, map your real customer journey, from initial enquiry, to qualification, proposal, contract, and post-sale follow-up.

Jump into the Streak sidebar in Gmail and click on the orange “Pipelines” tab. Start with one that fits your main activity. Click “New Pipeline” and pick a template or, better, set up custom stages relevant to your world. Selling web design packages? Your pipeline might look like: New Enquiry → Discovery Call Booked → Proposal Sent → Contract Signed → Onboarding → Project Complete.

Rename fields to capture what you care about: budget range, client industry, key dates, and so on.

Step 3: Plug into the Rest of G Suite

If you’re already a Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) convert, Streak truly shines here. Schedule calls with Google Calendar, since Streak lets you add meetings to pipeline boxes in a click. Attach Google Drive docs and proposals to deals, so everyone can find the latest version instantly.

For number crunchers, Streak’s integration with Google Sheets lets you send pipeline data over in real time. This is helpful for custom reports, financial projections, or if you enjoy working with pivot tables.

Step 4: Track Emails Without Feeling Creepy

One of Streak’s lesser-known features is its email tracking. Turn it on and you’ll see when leads open your emails (even how many times). This works as a helpful nudge about who’s engaged and who’s gone cold.

Write a proposal, hit send, and if you see someone opens it five times in one day, that’s your sign to follow up today, not next week. On the flip side, if they haven’t opened after 48 hours, maybe your subject line isn’t working.

Step 5: Automate Everyday Tasks So You Don’t Have To

Streak lets you automate email sequences, reminders, and tasks based on pipeline stage. This means follow-up emails, contract chasers, or appointment nudges can go out automatically, freeing you up for work that requires actual brain cells.

Set rules such as, “If a deal sits in Proposal Sent for more than three days, remind me to ping the client” or “Email the onboarding pack as soon as a client signs up.” What used to take a full morning can become a single tick-box.

Step 6: Collaborate Without Chaos

If you’re not riding solo, invite your team. Assign tasks, leave notes, and update statuses for each deal in real time. No more “Did you email that lead on Tuesday?” Slack chains or “Who has the latest proposal draft?” Teams that use Streak properly barely need to CC each other, since everyone sees the same, live view.

Permissions can be customised as well. This is useful for keeping sensitive deals private, or letting freelancers access only what they need.

What Most People Miss

Streak allows you to track everything inside Gmail and also empowers you to shape the system to fit how you (and your team) actually work, minus the overheads, training, or hassle of global-enterprise CRMs.

Most people dabble for a week, barely skim the features, and then wonder why things haven’t improved. The teams who get the most out of Streak:

• Ruthlessly customise their pipelines to mirror their actual sales journey.
• Use email tracking for better timing, not hard selling.
• Regularly review and tweak fields and stages, so the system evolves alongside their business.

The best practice is to make Streak your “single source of truth” for all things client-related. Don’t rely on side spreadsheets or jotting things down for later. Keep everything—notes, files, tasks, emails—together.

The Bigger Picture

When you gain control over your pipeline, several positive changes follow.

You win back brainspace. Instead of remembering who needs chasing this week, you focus on the real work: landing better-fit clients, refining your offer, or building long-term relationships.

Clients notice as well. A consistent process breeds trust. Prospects get timely responses, nothing falls through the cracks, and you present yourself as the well-organised professional you aim to be (even if you’re managing everything alone behind the curtain).

Streak keeps its focus. It’s straightforward, and for most solo and small teams, it’s difficult to outgrow. Deep integration with Google Workspace (and the Google Partner of the Year award) means updates arrive regularly, and issues are resolved quickly.

After three years at Pixelhaze, we can safely say: we spend less time firefighting emails and more time doing what pays. The system isn’t flawless, but it works impressively well for creative businesses who want to grow smoothly.

Wrap-Up

Streak CRM might not offer every fancy feature, but it covers what matters: keeping your leads, clients, and team communications in one tidy place, directly inside Gmail. Genius often comes from simplicity.

If you want to stop letting opportunities fade away in your inbox, dedicate a week to Streak and see the difference. Set up a pipeline that aligns with your actual sales process, explore the Google integrations, and notice how much calmer your workflow becomes.

Also, don’t buy into the myth that more features equal better results. Our experience shows that keeping things simple and properly integrated beats using a complex, overloaded CRM every time.

Want more helpful systems like this? Join Pixelhaze Academy for free at https://www.pixelhaze.academy/membership.

FAQ

How customisable is Streak CRM for small teams?
Very. Pipelines, stages, fields, and even views can be fully customised to match whatever process you actually follow—no need for workarounds.

Does using Streak mean my data is secure?
Streak is a Google-certified partner and stores your data securely in the cloud. You can control permissions at the pipeline or field level for extra privacy.

Is Streak suitable if I’m not a sales-driven business?
Absolutely. Many use it for project management, content planning, or even support tickets—anything that moves through stages and benefits from clear tracking.

What should I expect compared to bigger CRMs like HubSpot or Salesforce?
You won’t get advanced analytics, campaign management, or in-depth integrations with non-Google tools. Most freelancers and agencies don’t need this level of complexity or the associated costs.

Jargon Buster

Streak CRM: A customer relationship management tool that lives inside Gmail and Google Workspace.
Google Workspace (G Suite): Google’s suite of professional productivity apps (Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, and more).
Pipeline: Your set of stages for moving a client or project from “maybe” to “money in the bank.”
Box: Streak’s term for a single opportunity, client, project, or task tracked through your pipeline.
Google Partner of the Year: Awarded to tools and companies that work so well with Google’s platforms, even Google themselves get a bit jealous.

Want more? Keep an eye on the Pixelhaze blog for deeper Streak tutorials, templates, and honest reviews of other tools made for real creatives. If you’re still stuck, ask a question in our free members’ group to get answers from people who actually use these systems every week.