# Introduction

Marker CRM is a CRM and email marketing tool that runs inside your WordPress site. Your
contacts, the emails you send them and the automations that look after them all live in
your own database — nothing is copied to an outside service unless you connect one.

![The Marker CRM dashboard, with contact growth and recent campaigns](/images/placeholder.svg)

## What it covers

- **Contacts** — everyone you know, with tags, lists, custom fields, companies and a
  timeline of what they did.
- **Emails** — one-off campaigns, sequences that send over days or weeks, and a block editor
  for writing them.
- **Automations** — flows that start when something happens (a tag is added, someone signs
  up, an order is placed), wait, check, and act.
- **Reports and logs** — what was sent, opened and clicked, by campaign and by contact.

## Where to start

1. [Install the plugin](/getting-started/installation/) and open **Marker CRM** in your
   WordPress admin.
2. [Set up sending](/settings/email/) so your emails come from your own address.
3. [Bring in your contacts](/contacts/import/), or let them arrive from sign-ups and forms.
4. [Send your first campaign](/emails/campaigns/), or start an
   [automation from a recipe](/automations/).

:::tip[Looking for the developer docs?]
Switch to **Developers** at the top of the sidebar for add-ons, hooks and the REST API.
:::