By Timothy Jacqmin, co-founder of Nexuro Digital · October 2026
TL;DR
- The Odoo 20 CRM generates leads from the Dun & Bradstreet company database (replacing Clearbit), switches from one team's pipeline to another in one click and refines automatic lead assignment.
- Quotations are built faster: template chosen at creation, sections saved as templates, editable margins and tax-included or tax-excluded display.
- eCommerce adds returns from the customer portal, a preferred delivery date, pay on invoice, progress bars towards a benefit and abandoned cart follow-up through WhatsApp.
- Marketing automation gets a visual journey builder, event-based triggers (page visit, subscription, webhook) and AI campaign creation.
- Watch your tracking: UTM handling changes in email marketing. Check your attribution reports after the upgrade.
Nexuro is both a marketing agency and an Odoo partner: our job is to connect acquisition (SEO, Google Ads, content) with CRM and sales. That is the lens through which we read the sales features of Odoo 20, presented at Odoo Experience 2026. Here are the ones that genuinely help find, convert and retain customers, and the points to check before switching them on.
What is new in the Odoo 20 CRM?
The Odoo 20 CRM focuses on lead generation and distribution: a new Dun & Bradstreet prospecting database, several lead entry sources, a pipeline switcher per team and rotation rules for automatic assignment.
A Dun & Bradstreet prospecting database
Odoo 20 lead generation now uses the Dun & Bradstreet company database instead of Clearbit, for better worldwide coverage and better data quality. In the official demo, Odoo announces a directory of more than 580 million entities, which you filter by segment and location to get the number of leads you want.
For a Belgian B2B SME, this is a built-in prospecting tool, with no separate database subscription. Two common-sense caveats: generated leads remain cold data to qualify, and using them for email prospecting must comply with GDPR (documented legitimate interest, easy right to object).
More ways to bring leads in
The Odoo 20 demo cites several entry sources, on top of the prospecting database:
- Website visitor detection by IP address, to identify companies browsing your pages.
- Lead import from Outlook or Gmail, through the mail plugins.
- Business card scanning, which creates an opportunity with email and phone.
Pipelines and distribution
A new switcher lets you move from one sales team's pipeline to another's; any lead created from that pipeline is automatically assigned to it. Nothing gets lost between boards. Automatic assignment rules gain three modes per salesperson: always in rotation, in rotation with a limit, or out of rotation.
Finally, for companies selling subscriptions, a customer's existing subscriptions are accessible from the lead, with upsell or renewal quotations created directly.
A CRM is only as good as the way you run it: our method is detailed in CRM: how to really manage your sales, and it still applies with Odoo 20.
What changes in sales and quotations?
Odoo 20 speeds up quotation creation: the template is chosen at creation, whole sections can be saved as reusable templates, and margins and unit costs are displayed and edited directly on the lines.
| New feature | Sales benefit |
|---|---|
| Sales dashboard | KPIs and quick filters at the top of quotation and order lists |
| Quotation template at creation | A standard quotation ready in a few clicks |
| Sections saved as templates | Reuse a frequent group of items |
| Editable margins | Changing the margin on a line recomputes the sales price |
| Tax included or excluded | Switch the display on quotations, orders and invoices |
| Lines without a product | Create a line with a simple description |
| Single-use discount codes | One use per customer |
| Payment-based commissions | Compute commissions on the amount paid |
| Product images | Show visuals on quotations and their PDFs |
What is new in Odoo 20 eCommerce?
Odoo 20 eCommerce works on three moments of the customer journey: product discovery, checkout and after-sales, with self-service returns from the portal.
Discovery and product pages
- Richer product blocks: ribbons, comparison prices, attributes and secondary images appear directly in the product blocks on pages.
- Variant thumbnails taken from product images, and central management of variant images.
- Search by attribute value: searching "black t-shirt" opens the right variant directly.
- Range filter for numerical attributes, and "On Sale" and "In Stock" filters.
- Stock-based publishing: products are automatically unpublished and republished based on availability.
- AI-assisted editing: generate a product image or change name, price and description from the shop.
- Automatic cross-selling: accessories, optional and alternative products generated automatically.
Cart and checkout
- Progress bars in the cart, showing how close the customer is to a benefit such as free shipping.
- Preferred delivery date chosen during checkout.
- Pickup points filterable by country.
- Pay on invoice: a new payment provider lets customers confirm their order without paying immediately, then pay later through the invoice. Very useful in B2B.
- Tax-included or tax-excluded prices per pricelist, to serve B2C and B2B customers on the same site.
- Minimum order quantity per product.
- New payment methods: Wero through Buckaroo and Worldline, Klarna, Apple Pay and Google Pay through Mollie, among others.
After-sales and loyalty
- Returns from the portal: customers select the products to return and download the return label themselves.
- Automated review requests, with an adjustable delay after order confirmation.
- Abandoned cart follow-up through WhatsApp.
These features improve conversion, but they do not generate traffic. For an Odoo shop, SEO remains the most cost-effective acquisition lever over time: we explain it in eCommerce SEO in Belgium, and setting up a shop is described in Odoo eCommerce: building an online shop that sells for new projects.
What is new in Odoo 20 marketing automation?
Odoo 20 marketing automation offers three ways to create a campaign (from scratch with a trigger, from a ready-made template, or by asking AI to build it), then a drag-and-drop visual builder to customise it.
The key new features:
- Visual journey builder: delays, splits into several paths, stackable options.
- Event-based triggers: page visit, list subscription, date, anniversary, webhook or on demand.
- Webhooks: an external system (third-party form, business tool) adds participants to a campaign in real time.
- New actions, including "Wait for a value" and "Collect new activity".
- AI-assisted campaign creation.
On the email marketing side, Odoo 20 adds conditional content (blocks shown depending on the recipient), dynamic lists computed at send time, click tracking per recipient and a library of reusable templates.
Our advice: it will be tempting to ask AI for a complete campaign. Start instead with a single simple, measurable journey (welcome after sign-up, follow-up after an unsigned quotation), as we recommend in marketing automation: where to start as an SME, then build on it.
Which marketing tracking point should you check after the upgrade?
Odoo 20 aligns email marketing UTM handling with industry standards: instead of creating new sources on the fly, details are now entered in a new "Reference" field. That is good news for data cleanliness, but an attribution report built on the old sources may behave differently.
After the upgrade, check three things: the consistency of sources and mediums in your CRM reports, eCommerce event tracking in GA4 (improved in Odoo 20 to comply with the Google Analytics 4 specification), and conversion reporting to your ad campaigns. The full method is in measuring the real ROI of your marketing, and the overall view in connecting marketing and Odoo to link the two.
Our take: Odoo 20 for an SME that wants to sell more
Odoo 20 fills several gaps that pushed SMEs towards third-party tools: a built-in prospecting database, self-service eCommerce returns, pay on invoice for B2B and visual marketing journeys. Fewer tools to connect means less scattered data and more reliable attribution.
Where to start:
- Enable pay on invoice and portal returns if you sell online to businesses: immediate gain, low risk.
- Test lead generation on a precise segment, with a qualification sequence defined in advance.
- Build a first marketing automation journey on a simple trigger, and measure it.
All the new features of the release, along with the upgrade question, are summarised in Odoo 20: the key new features, our overview article.
FAQ
What is new in the Odoo 20 CRM?
The Odoo 20 CRM generates leads from the Dun & Bradstreet company database, which replaces Clearbit. It lets you switch between sales teams' pipelines with a switcher, offers new rotation rules for automatic lead assignment and gives access to a customer's existing subscriptions from the lead to create renewals.
Does Odoo 20 support eCommerce returns?
Yes. In Odoo 20, customers can request a return directly from their portal: they select the products to return and then download the return label themselves. The returns process has also been simplified on the inventory side, with the old return wizard removed.
What is pay on invoice in Odoo 20?
Pay on invoice is a new Odoo 20 payment provider that lets customers confirm their online order without paying immediately. The order is confirmed and the customer pays later through the invoice. It is especially suited to B2B shops, where paying at checkout often holds purchases back.
Can you create a marketing automation campaign with AI in Odoo 20?
Yes. Odoo 20 offers three ways to create a campaign: from scratch by defining a trigger, from a ready-made template, or by asking AI to build the campaign. The journey is then customised in a visual builder, with delays, splits and additional actions.
Can Odoo 20 follow up abandoned carts through WhatsApp?
Yes. Odoo 20 adds sending a WhatsApp message to follow up on abandoned carts in the online shop. It complements automated review requests and progress bars towards a benefit in the cart, two other features of the release designed to improve conversion and loyalty.
Sources
- Odoo, Odoo 20 Release Notes, CRM, Sales, eCommerce, Online Payments, Email Marketing and Marketing Automation sections, September 2026: https://www.odoo.com/odoo-20-release-notes
- Odoo, Meet Odoo 20's best features (official video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlmN5QcAdLs
