Categories   >   Marketing Automation Software
Last Reviewed: November 12th, 2024

Best Marketing Automation Software Of 2024

What is Marketing Automation Software?

Marketing Automation Software orchestrates repetitive marketing tasks, allowing teams to focus on strategic initiatives. It automates email campaigns, lead nurturing, social media engagement, and more, saving time and resources. This frees marketers to personalize customer experiences, drive higher engagement, and ultimately boost revenue. This software tackles inefficiencies like mass emails and manual data entry, replacing them with targeted campaigns triggered by customer behavior. Its benefits include increased lead generation, improved conversion rates, and deeper customer relationships. Key functionalities range from email marketing and lead scoring to social media management and analytics. Emerging features like AI-powered personalization and predictive analytics further enhance campaign effectiveness. While small businesses and startups can benefit from basic marketing automation platforms, B2B and e-commerce companies often reap the most rewards from its robust features. Notable limitations include setup costs and the need for data hygiene. In essence, marketing automation software empowers marketers to work smarter, not harder, by automating repetitive tasks and delivering personalized experiences. Its value lies in its ability to drive efficiency, boost conversions, and ultimately, unlock business growth.

What Are The Key Benefits of Marketing Automation Software?

  • Efficiency boost
  • Lead nurture autopilot
  • Smarter segmentation & targeting
  • Personalized customer journeys
  • Data-driven decision making
  • Improved ROI & conversion rates
  • Streamlined sales & marketing alignment
  • Reduced marketing costs
  • 24/7 customer engagement
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SelectHub Award Winners - Array

Our Research Analysts evaluated 606 solutions and determined the following solutions are the best Marketing Automation Software overall:

Overall

  • 91 HubSpot
    Best Overall, Campaign Management, Compliance and Data Security
  • 90 Mailchimp
    Best for Integrations and Extensibility, Lead Management, Platform Capabilities
  • 90 Constant Contact
    Best for Integrations and Extensibility, Lead Management, Platform Capabilities
  • 89 GetResponse
    Best for Lead Generation
  • 88 Zoho Marketing Automation
    Best for Compliance and Data Security
  • 86 ActiveCampaign
    Best for Lead Management
  • 84 Eloqua
    Best for Compliance and Data Security, Email Campaign Management
  • 83 Omnisend
    Best for Platform Capabilities, Social Media Campaign Management
  • 82 SharpSpring
    Best for Email Campaign Management, Mobile Capabilities, Text Campaign Management
  • 82 Marketo
HubSpot Award
HubSpot
HubSpot
Start Price
$800
Monthly
Analyst Rating
91
SelectHub’s Analyst Rating for HubSpot, is based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Marketing Automation Software, user reviews, and our own crowd-sourced data from our free software selection platform. Scores are periodically updated via ongoing selection projects and user activity within our platform.
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Why We Picked HubSpot

With basic CRM alongside marketing, sales, service and content management, Hubspot offers a lot of functionalities, which users cite as a primary benefit. Its slick interface ensures an intuitive experience and extensive automation simplifies tasks, although some complicated functions make it time-consuming to learn. Users also appreciate how prompt customer support is, and that there’s a free version that’s ideal for small and mid-sized businesses.
However, certain email elements present issues and the paid versions are expensive for what they offer. Overall, businesses that are in need of a robust and scalable product suite, especially those with a focus on inbound marketing, might find this to be a good fit.

Pros & Cons

  • Ease of Use: Every user referencing navigation reports the platform is user-friendly.
  • Customer Support: The support team is reliable and offers quick responses to any need, according to 91% of reviewers referencing this aspect.
  • Automation: Automating email campaigns, lead scoring and workflows, managing sales funnel and social engagement, and creating email templates is easy, according to 95% of reviewers who talk about automation.
  • Feature-Rich: The range of features offered, such as creating landing pages, forms and email campaigns, is a benefit to 85% of users mentioning functionalities.
  • Marketing: Every user who refers to marketing feels it’s easy to market products.
  • Interface: A slick interface makes it easy to navigate, in the experience of 80% of reviewers referencing the UI.
  • Price: Premium products are expensive for the amount of functionality, especially for small and mid-sized companies, according to 86% of reviewers mentioning cost.
  • Training: In 85% of reviews referencing training, users say it’s difficult for average users to perform complicated tasks such as tracking leads and making different mailing lists, causing a learning curve.
  • Email Functionality: All reviews about this issue note that customizing the mobile version of an email affects the desktop version, inserting custom HTML such as a for promo timer isn’t possible and more.

Key Features

  • Pipeline Management:
    •  Reduces data entry through auto-populated data and grants control over pipelines to match how users work. 
    •  User-friendly edit tools alongside a drag-and-drop interface simplify the entire management process. 
    •  Quick access to key metrics is available with a sales dashboard. 
  • Lead Management: Perform CRM activities without the hassle of reconciling different data sets and gain full visibility into contacts by accessing data-rich profiles in one location. Capabilities include lead segmentation, contact activity history and tasks. 
  • Messaging: Facilitates better internal and external communication, promotes strong customer experiences, supports lead generation and enables more timely follow up. Offers Facebook Messenger, a customizable live chat widget, shared email and a chatbot builder. 
  • Conversations Inbox:
    •  Provides context, alignment and transparency for marketing, sales and service teams through a team-wide inbox. 
    •  Aids cross-functional collaboration via a central hub for communicating with prospects, leads and customers. Routing rules deliver emails to the most relevant team or member. 
    •  Offers a seamless experience to customers no matter what stage they’re in. 
  • Contact Activity: Gain deeper insights by leveraging analytics that show website interactions. Track form submissions, page visits and more. 
Mailchimp Award
Mailchimp
Mailchimp
Start Price
$13
Monthly, Freemium
Analyst Rating
90
SelectHub’s Analyst Rating for Mailchimp, is based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Marketing Automation Software, user reviews, and our own crowd-sourced data from our free software selection platform. Scores are periodically updated via ongoing selection projects and user activity within our platform.
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Why We Picked Mailchimp

Stepping into the realm of email marketing, Mailchimp emerges as a prominent contender, captivating businesses with its user-friendly interface and extensive features. User feedback from the past year sheds light on Mailchimp's strengths and weaknesses, offering valuable insights for potential adopters. Mailchimp's intuitive design empowers users of all skill levels to craft visually appealing email campaigns. The platform's drag-and-drop editor and diverse template library simplify the creation process, enabling businesses to maintain brand consistency and engage their audience effectively. Affordability is another hallmark of Mailchimp, with tiered pricing plans catering to businesses of varying sizes and budgets. The availability of a free plan further enhances accessibility, making it an attractive option for startups and small businesses.

However, Mailchimp's automation capabilities have drawn mixed reviews. While the platform offers basic automation features, such as welcome emails and abandoned cart sequences, some users find them to be less robust compared to competitors like ActiveCampaign or Klaviyo. Additionally, Mailchimp's segmentation options, while functional, may not provide the same level of granularity as more specialized email marketing platforms. Despite these limitations, Mailchimp's ease of use, affordability, and comprehensive feature set make it a compelling choice for businesses seeking a reliable email marketing solution. Its intuitive interface and extensive template library empower users to create professional-looking emails without extensive design experience. The platform's scalability ensures that it can accommodate the evolving needs of growing businesses, making it an ideal choice for those embarking on their email marketing journey.

Pros & Cons

  • Easy to Use: The platform has a simple interface and can easily be understood by anyone with basic knowledge of email marketing, observe 95% of reviewers referencing this feature.
  • Easy Email and Templates: It’s easy to create and understand emails using templates, send professional email flyers, and run campaigns automatically, according to 83% of users who mention this feature.
  • Email Marketing: Everyone referencing this aspect thinks it’s a comprehensive email marketing tool with features like campaign management, customer journey, transactional email, integrations and more.
  • Customization: Almost 80% of reviewers who talk about this feature feel the built-in templates are easily customizable, and editing them doesn’t require graphic design experience.
  • Paid Version: More than 85% users mentioning this aspect observe that the free version doesn’t include all features and the premium version is expensive compared to other email marketing services.
  • Email Spam: Every user talking about this feature mentions that sometimes clients' e-blasts end up in the spam folder for recipients.
  • Glitches: There are glitches such as difficulty signing in when logged in from another device, frozen modules, slow editing process, poor compatibility with Outlook and more, as every review on this feature mentions.

Key Features

  • Audience Dashboard: Store contact data and track trends to understand the audience better. Clickable sections in the dashboard help instantly launch campaigns based on that data.
  • Segmentation: Ready-made segments based on campaign activity, purchase history and more are offered to send campaigns. Enable up to five layers of segmentation filtering, and update data automatically. Add a set of nested conditions facilitating different combinations of data collected such as purchase activity, gender, age range and more.
  • Behavioral Targeting: An API enables pulling custom event data or actions performed by users, to send targeted messages based on specific activities, such as downloads or account renewal.
  • Lookalike Audience: Works with social ads and postcards to reach more people. Find new people similar to contacts using marketing CRM data and an audience network. Create Facebook and Instagram ads, and target people interested in the company’s products.
  • Content Studio: Stores assets such as photos, documents and other files. Upload or sync assets, edit them directly in the content studio and use them for marketing.
  • Templates: More than 100 predesigned templates are available. Customize templates to launch campaigns.
  • Email Builder: Create posts for Facebook, Instagram and Twitter directly from the email builder. Also add photos, write copy and share the post after the email is sent.
  • Landing Pages: Create a place for contacts or potential contacts to land on when they click through from an email, ad, social post or other location on the web.
  • Email Automation: Automate welcome messages after user subscription, and emails based on dates and events. Drag and drop RSS content into any template to pull in the latest posts.
  • Schedule Campaigns: Send a campaign or schedule it for a specific date and time. Includes: 
    •  Send time optimization, which recommends a time for subscribers based on click time activity. 
    •  Timewarp to send campaigns to recipients based on their time zone. 
    •  Batch delivery to send campaigns in timed batches. 
    •  Ability to pause campaigns. 
  • Reporting: Monitor trends and track performance. The growth, engagement and revenue reports facilitate viewing who’s interacted with marketing, along with their clicks, buys and downloads. Compare open, click and unsubscribe rates to industry peers.
  • Real-Time Analytics: Keep tabs on all marketing campaigns including emails, automations, social ads and more. Manage marketing budget using real-time stats. Track sales from a campaign to purchase by finding out who made a purchase after opening the campaign, viewing what they bought and seeing the money earned by the campaign.
  • Integrations: Integrates with apps and web services including Xero, Zapier, Square, LiveChat and more.
  • A/B Testing: Test up to three variations for campaign and build a working strategy.
  • Security:Includes data center security, protection from data loss or corruption, application-level security, internal IT security and more.
Constant Contact Award
Constant Contact
Constant Contact
Start Price
$9.99
Monthly
Analyst Rating
90
SelectHub’s Analyst Rating for Constant Contact, is based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Marketing Automation Software, user reviews, and our own crowd-sourced data from our free software selection platform. Scores are periodically updated via ongoing selection projects and user activity within our platform.
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Why We Picked Constant Contact

Designed for small businesses, Constant Contact delivers web-based email marketing that’s easy to use. Most users find its robust email marketing and campaign management feature beneficial. It offers lots of templates and strong contact management capabilities. The customer support team is quite helpful as well. However, it lacks some important features such as Google Analytics and automation settings, limiting its usefulness in some key areas. Additionally, reviews indicate most of the emails users send are marked as spam. Overall, it’s a decent software for small businesses that are in need of an efficient, lightweight solution.

Pros & Cons

  • Email Campaigns: It’s possible to add tables and buttons, check open and click rates, and schedule, customize and manage emails, according to 90% of reviewers who mention this aspect.
  • Ease of Use: More than 95% of users who talk about this aspect report it’s easy to navigate.
  • Templates: Creating and using pre-built templates, including those for different occasions, aid announcements and sales marketing, as 70% of users referencing this aspect observe.
  • Contact Management: The system helps save and organize contacts in one place, as well as create emails and events to send out to different groups of contacts, according to 90% of reviewers who talk about this feature.
  • Customer Service: The customer support team is helpful and always available to assist, note 82% of users mentioning it.
  • Lack of Features: The system lacks certain features such as Google Analytics tracking, configuration options, CRM capabilities and automation options, note 90% of reviewers talking about this aspect.
  • Spam Emails: Most of the emails sent via the platform go to junk folders, according to 83% of users referencing this issue.

Key Features

  • Drag-and-Drop Editor: Facilitates customizing an email template and designing professional, mobile-responsive emails for every device. 
  • Sign-Up Forms: Supports creating inline sign-up forms that can be embedded into the HTML code on the website or blog to enable collecting sign-ups as people view a specific webpage. Provides sign up-forms and automatic display triggers to maximize list growth. 
  • Surveys and Polls: Facilitates creating custom surveys and polls, and enables viewing individual results from respondents or tracking general data trends from social media or an email survey. 
  • Campaign Report: View email metrics such as sends, opens, clicks and more. Compare campaigns to determine which received the most opens or clicks. 
  • Integrations: Integrates with apps such as Salesforce, Outlook, Mindbody, Shopify, Facebook and more. 
  • A/B Testing: Run an A/B test on two versions of subject lines to maximize email open rates. 
  • Contact Segmentation and Targeted Marketing: Create customized segments based on a contact’s engagement with email campaigns, location and company details, and already-existing lists. Send targeted marketing emails with relevant messages. 
  • Contact Management: Upload contacts from Excel, Outlook, Salesforce and more. 
  • Email Scheduling: Send emails instantly or schedule them to be sent at a future time. Suggests the best time to send emails based on the industry’s open rate. 
  • Landing Pages: Two types are available: 
    • Lead Generation: Collects visitor information and helps set up automated email series to stay connected to new leads. 
    • Shoppable: Enables selling products and supports tracking results such as gross revenue, page visitors, conversion rates and more. 
GetResponse Award
GetResponse
GetResponse
Start Price
$15.60
Monthly
Analyst Rating
89
SelectHub’s Analyst Rating for GetResponse, is based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Marketing Automation Software, user reviews, and our own crowd-sourced data from our free software selection platform. Scores are periodically updated via ongoing selection projects and user activity within our platform.
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Why We Picked GetResponse

GetResponse, the comprehensive marketing automation platform, has attracted considerable attention in the digital marketing realm. Reviews from the past year highlight its strengths, weaknesses, and unique offerings, providing valuable insights for businesses seeking to optimize their marketing efforts.

GetResponse is frequently commended for its user-friendly interface and extensive feature set. The platform's drag-and-drop editors and intuitive workflows make it accessible to users of all skill levels, while its comprehensive tools, encompassing email marketing, automation, landing pages, webinars, and ecommerce integration, position it as a true all-in-one solution. Users appreciate the platform's ability to streamline marketing processes and deliver personalized experiences through robust automation capabilities. Additionally, GetResponse boasts impressive email deliverability rates, ensuring messages reach their intended recipients.

However, some users have noted that GetResponse's pricing can be a bit steep, particularly for small businesses or those with limited budgets. Additionally, while the platform offers a wide range of features, some users have expressed a desire for more advanced reporting capabilities and customer support options.

GetResponse is an excellent choice for businesses seeking a comprehensive and user-friendly marketing automation solution. Its robust features, automation capabilities, and impressive deliverability make it a valuable asset for businesses of all sizes. However, businesses with budget constraints or those requiring extensive reporting and support may want to explore alternative options.

Pros & Cons

  • GetResponse is a comprehensive marketing platform: GetResponse offers a wide range of features, including email marketing, marketing automation, landing pages, webinars, and more. This makes it a good option for businesses that want to manage all of their marketing activities in one place.
  • GetResponse is easy to use: The platform has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to create and manage marketing campaigns. Even users with no prior experience with marketing automation can get started quickly.
  • GetResponse is affordable: GetResponse offers a variety of pricing plans to fit different budgets. This makes it a good option for businesses of all sizes.
  • GetResponse has good customer support: The company offers 24/7 customer support via email and live chat. This means that users can get help whenever they need it.
  • Limited Design Flexibility: The email template designs can feel restrictive, making it challenging to create emails that precisely align with specific branding guidelines or complex layouts.
  • Learning Curve: GetResponse has a wide range of features, which can make it initially overwhelming for new users to navigate and fully utilize the platform's capabilities.
  • Pricing Structure: The cost can increase significantly as your contact list grows, potentially making it less budget-friendly for businesses with larger audiences or those experiencing rapid growth.

Key Features

  • Email Marketing: Supports email templates, design tools and deliverability with a drag-and-drop interface to create emails. Design emails using sections and layouts. View scheduling and setup on a single page. Use stock photos and GIFs in emails.  
  • Autoresponders: Create and send email sequences on time with Time Travel and Perfect Timing tools to nurture audience segments. Send trigger-based emails to sell products. Share posts on social media and via email. Also supports sending transactional emails to send reminders and receipts.  
  • Conversion Funnel: Capture leads with opt-in funnels on landing pages. Email valuable content to grow the subscriber base. Sell, promote and deliver with purchase funnels. Promote webinars with webinar conversion-focused funnels.  
  • Marketing Automation: Use the visual automation builder to take customers through the buyer’s cycle. Create campaigns with prebuilt workflows or personalize automations, nurture new subscribers with automated emails, personalize messages and recommend products to customers.  
  • Push Notifications: Increase conversions with website push notifications with personalized opt-in calls-to-action. Send unlimited notifications and maximize the marketing stack.  
  • Live Chat: Let customers contact the business directly with live chat. Apply custom fields and tags to segment contacts according to their chats. Enable live chat from emails and landing pages.  
  • Landing Pages: Build landing pages to build your digital footprint, generate leads, sell products and promote webinars. Use over 200 pre-made templates and optimize landing pages to increase site visits. 
  • Paid Ads: Create paid ads from the platform to add subscribers. Engage existing subscribers with optimized ads, identify audiences with similar interests and retarget landing page subscribers who didn’t convert with relevant ads.  
Zoho Marketing Automation Award
Zoho Marketing Automation
Zoho Marketing Automation
Start Price
$14
Monthly
Analyst Rating
88
SelectHub’s Analyst Rating for Zoho Marketing Automation, is based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Marketing Automation Software, user reviews, and our own crowd-sourced data from our free software selection platform. Scores are periodically updated via ongoing selection projects and user activity within our platform.
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Why We Picked Zoho Marketing Automation

Zoho Marketing Automation has carved out a niche for itself in the crowded marketing automation landscape, attracting businesses of all sizes with its blend of affordability, user-friendliness, and a comprehensive suite of features. Users frequently highlight its intuitive interface and straightforward setup process, making it a suitable option for those new to marketing automation or seeking a hassle-free solution. The platform's pricing structure is another key advantage, offering competitive rates compared to industry giants like HubSpot or Marketo, making it an attractive choice for budget-conscious businesses.

Zoho Marketing Automation's feature set covers a wide spectrum of marketing needs, including email marketing, social media management, lead generation tools, and detailed analytics. This breadth of functionality allows businesses to manage various marketing activities within a single platform, streamlining their workflows and enhancing efficiency. The platform's ability to personalize content and automate customer journeys based on behavior further empowers businesses to deliver targeted and relevant experiences, fostering stronger customer relationships and driving conversions. However, some users note that Zoho Marketing Automation's advanced features may require a steeper learning curve compared to its basic functionalities. Additionally, while the platform integrates with various third-party applications, some users express a desire for more native integrations to enhance its overall connectivity.

Zoho Marketing Automation emerges as an ideal solution for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) seeking a cost-effective and user-friendly platform to manage their marketing efforts. Its comprehensive feature set caters to a wide range of marketing needs, while its ease of use makes it accessible to users with varying levels of technical expertise. However, larger enterprises with complex marketing requirements or those seeking highly advanced automation capabilities may find that Zoho Marketing Automation's feature set falls short of their needs. It's important to note that the marketing automation landscape is constantly evolving, so it's recommended to check for the latest information and updates on features and capabilities.

Pros & Cons

  • Lead Nurturing: Zoho Campaigns helps businesses build relationships with potential customers by sending targeted email sequences based on their behavior and interests. This can help move leads through the sales funnel more effectively.
  • Social Media Management: Zoho Social allows users to manage multiple social media accounts from one platform, schedule posts, track analytics, and engage with followers. This can save businesses time and effort while helping them improve their social media presence.
  • Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Integration: Zoho Marketing Automation integrates with Zoho CRM, providing a complete view of customer interactions and enabling businesses to personalize their marketing efforts. This integration can help businesses improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.
  • Marketing ROI Measurement: Zoho Marketing Automation provides detailed analytics and reporting, allowing businesses to track the performance of their marketing campaigns and measure their return on investment (ROI). This information can help businesses make data-driven decisions about their marketing strategies.
  • Learning Curve: Zoho Marketing Automation can be challenging to learn due to its extensive features and complex interface, especially for those new to marketing automation or the Zoho ecosystem. The learning process may require a significant time investment and potentially additional training resources.
  • Customization Limitations: While Zoho Marketing Automation offers customization options, some users find them to be restrictive for more complex or unique workflows. This can lead to workarounds or compromises in achieving desired automation processes.
  • Integrations: Although Zoho Marketing Automation integrates with various third-party applications, the depth and functionality of these integrations can vary. Users may encounter limitations or require additional tools to achieve seamless data synchronization and workflow automation across different platforms.

Key Features

  • Lead Management: Gain insight into lead management with profitable lead identification, lead stage tracking and performance analytics. Oversee interactive media campaigns, build landing sites and integrate third-party programs. 
  • Web Behavior: Track website visitor interaction and gain awareness of product perception. Connect with clients by sending them unique customized content. 
  • Campaign Planner and ROI: Find the optimum route to complete full-cycle lead execution and cost management goals. Create promotions with exclusive budgets and objectives to monitor returns. 
  • Multi-Channel Management: Understand what type of content generates potential customers. Discover what social platforms users interact with most, create mobile and email campaigns, and plan promotions across various channels. 
  • Engagement Tracking: Visualize productivity and improve quick decision-making. Save time with workflow templates, and oversee the progression of leads through in-depth reports. 
  • Analytics: Comprehend complex behavioral and attribution statistics with visual data maps and KPIs. Optimize time and enhance visibility using website traffic reports, application preference data and descriptive context. 
ActiveCampaign Award
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign
Start Price
$9
Monthly
Analyst Rating
86
SelectHub’s Analyst Rating for ActiveCampaign, is based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Marketing Automation Software, user reviews, and our own crowd-sourced data from our free software selection platform. Scores are periodically updated via ongoing selection projects and user activity within our platform.
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Why We Picked ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign provides cloud-based marketing services to businesses of any size. It’s easy to use and offers a wide range of features, along with robust automation and campaigning capabilities. The system integrates with all major platforms. Most users also find the customer support team as well as the training materials to be helpful.
However, it takes time to learn the intricate features thoroughly. Reviews also state the system suffers from glitches and the interface could be more user-friendly. Businesses that need a system that caters to CRM as well as marketing needs, and that have the ability to leverage its complex functionality effectively, should consider this as a solid choice.

Pros & Cons

  • User-Friendly: Everyone referencing this aspect states the software is easy to use.
  • Automation: It helps run customer and lead campaigns, triggered automatically based on set specifications, note 98% of reviewers referring to this feature.
  • Customer Support: The support team is easy to reach and very responsive, according to 93% of reviewers talking about this aspect.
  • Functionalities: Every user mentioning features states the system offers robust capabilities including client onboarding, lead funnels, newsletters, contact tracking and more.
  • Email Campaigns: In the view of 85% of reviews about this feature, it’s easy to send weekly emails, replicate earlier emails and develop templates for other uses.
  • Integration: Connecting with Zapier and other platforms makes it easy to transfer leads, according to 88% of reviewers referencing integration.
  • Help Resource: Everyone mentioning training reports there are helpful tutorials and webinars.
  • Learning Curve: According to 77% of reviewers talking about training, it’s tough and time consuming to learn the platform.
  • Glitches: Every user mentioning this aspect notes it can be glitchy at times and quite slow to load during peak business hours.
  • Interface: The interface is slow and not very intuitive, according to 62% of reviewers referencing this aspect.

Key Features

  • Dynamic Content: Keep content fresh and personalized by automatically changing email content depending on where a lead is in the buyer’s journey. 
  • Email Marketing: A robust and fully-featured suite offers broadcasting, triggered and targeted emails, funnels, and robust integrations with popular social media and e-commerce platforms. Also offers: 
    • Drag-and-Drop Builder: Create and automate campaigns with ease. 
    • Scheduled Emails: Enables scheduling emails for specific dates and times. 
    • Email Autoresponders: Enables sending welcome emails, starting a welcome series or delivering lead magnets automatically. 
  • Segmentation: Target specific groups within the contacts list to be more personal in emails and engage people with the right information. 
  • CRM: Notify the sales team, update deals, create tasks and nurture leads automatically. Scores leads, passes off highly-qualified targets to sales and integrates with popular email providers. 
  • Advanced Reporting: Offers custom reporting features, including custom KPIs, sales reporting, tag counting and robust segmentation. Gives insights into email performance. Split testing can also be used to get email opens, clicks and buys. 
  • Fast Training: Schedule one-on-one appointments with the company’s customer service team to help teams get up to speed with training. A series of robust webinars and user docs are available. 
  • Migration Services: Receive assistance migrating from another marketing automation product. Services include contact list and tag import, form recreation, workflow recreation, and email template recreation. 
  • Powerful Integrations: Integrates with PayPal, Stripe, Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Facebook, Google Analytics and more than 250 other apps including payment processors, membership websites and e-commerce stores. 
  • Audience Segmentation: Allows personalized messages by adding tags to segments. Tags can be based on purchase history, geographic location, time since last purchased, personal interests and more. 
  • Geo-Tracking: Automatically capture a contact’s location for geo-targeted email marketing campaigns. 
  • Site Tracking: Pulls data in from other websites to assist in tracking the customer’s activity. 
  • Social Sharing: Gives insights into performance on social platforms and enables greater audience engagement. 
  • Split Testing: Try different email subject lines, body copy and more to increase and optimize campaign conversion rates. Add up to five variations for a single campaign. 
  • SMS Marketing: Automate SMS marketing to send notifications and campaigns such as appointment reminders, flash sale notifications and more. 
  • Conversation Features: Provides: 
    •  Live chat to facilitate capturing leads and creating contacts from the website. Includes customizable auto reply, custom branding, contact creation and triggered automations. 
    •  A unified inbox to connect conversations with customers. 
  • Predictive Sending: Automate emails using machine learning algorithms. It ranks the hours in a day based on a contact’s open time and uses these recommendations to schedule an optimal send time. 
  • Contact and Lead Scoring: Sends notifications when leads are getting hot, with automatically triggered email notifications and task assignments based on lead score changes. Helps follow up with deals that are most likely to close. 
  • Win Probabilities: Calculates the conversion chance for a specific lead, giving foresight into lead behavior. 
Eloqua Award
Eloqua
Eloqua
Start Price
$48
Monthly
Analyst Rating
84
SelectHub’s Analyst Rating for Eloqua, is based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Marketing Automation Software, user reviews, and our own crowd-sourced data from our free software selection platform. Scores are periodically updated via ongoing selection projects and user activity within our platform.
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Deployment
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Why We Picked Eloqua

With a vigorous set of features and tools, Eloqua assists many marketing automation activities. The ease of use and convenient navigation of the product proves to be a strong benefit among users. Users also appreciate the seamless integration opportunities it allows with third-party APIs, which helps strengthen campaigns.
However, user feedback suggests that it’s on the expensive end, especially considering delayed updates and an out-of-date visual interface. Users also report that unresponsive customer support is a drawback. Overall, it’s most useful for larger companies that want strong functionality and integrations, and that have resources to handle some glitchy behavior and system complexities.

Pros & Cons

  • Functionality: The product offers robust personalization, segmentation and automation, according to 86% of user feedback on features.
  • User-Friendly: Almost 80% of users who mention user interface and navigation note that the product is easy to use.
  • Integration: More than 85% of user feedback about integrations suggests that connecting with third-party APIs enhances the software’s usability.
  • Cost: It’s not cost-effective for the functionality offered, according to 86% of user feedback about this aspect.
  • Support: Over 75% of users referencing support report that customer service isn’t up to the mark and often responds based on issue severity.
  • Updates: Infrequent feature updates and an outdated interface are a cause for concern, according to all the users who mention this aspect.

Key Features

  • Online and Offline Data Aggregation: Access a multitude of different data sources while enabling the ability to parse, process and enrich multiple data silos. Also feeds into the system’s customer targeting features. 
  • Campaign Management: Create robust campaigns and view campaign information and customer journeys in an easy-to-understand visual interface without any technical resources. 
  • Interest-based Messaging: Utilize customer data to deliver personalized messaging campaigns. Pause or adjust campaigns on the fly for a delightful customer experience. 
  • Intuitive Digital Whiteboard: Envision campaign goals and processes with an easy-to-use digital whiteboard. 
  • Partner Ecosystem: Integrate seamlessly with hundreds of partners and their products with minimal technical work and knowledge. 
  • Native CRM Integrations: Enrich data pools and segmentation with CRM integrations that are easy to set up. 
  • Customizable Dashboards and Interactive reports: Customize dashboards to suit business needs and access interactive reports for stronger insights into marketing strategies. 
  • Lead Management: Improve sales readiness with an automated lead scoring system, which scales automatically and offers updates for various campaigns and business lines in real time. 
  • Asset Management: Create dynamic content like responsive emails, landing pages and interactive forms to engage customers. Reuse brand-compliant content for campaign assets. Also, access historical email open data to assess a campaign for insights. 
  • Segmentation:  Assemble data from multiple sources to segment and connect to the right audience based on geography, interests and more for data-driven targeting. 

Pricing

License/Subscription Cost
  • Subscription-based pricing model: price charged per month, in addition to extra fees for premium training and support services
  • Offers three-tier pricing models: Basic, Standard and Enterprise
  • Cost varies based on the number of contacts, number of marketing users and number of sales users
  • A signed contract for an annual subscription is required
Maintenance Cost
  • Included in the subscription cost
  • Provides regular upgrades and software updates, plus 24/7 ongoing support services via online, documentation, whitepapers and webinars
Installation/Implementation Cost
  • Cloud-based/SaaS: Included in the subscription cost
  • Cost is over and above the subscription cost
  • Offers Oracle Marketing Cloud Onboarding services
  • Provides Oracle Marketing Cloud Implementation Services
  • Cost varies based on the scope of implementation, business requirements and pricing tier
Customization Cost
  • Cost varies depending on the type of functional requirements added on, based on business requirements such as Oracle Eloqua Insight Analyzer, Custom Security Administration, Oracle Cloud Priority
  • Service, Multi-Lead Scoring & Advanced Routing, Event Management Module, Advanced Data Cleansing and Digital Advertising
Data Migration Cost/Change Management/Upfront Switching Cost
  • Cost varies depending on the amount and type of data to be migrated from the legacy system, availability of migration tools, complexity of data and gaps between the existing system and the new system
Training Cost
  • Cost is over and above the subscription fee
  • Cost varies depending on the type of training program chosen
Recurring/Renewal Costs
  • Cost is equivalent to the recurring subscription fee, plus customization costs and training costs
Omnisend Award
Omnisend
Omnisend
Start Price
$16
Monthly, Freemium
Analyst Rating
83
SelectHub’s Analyst Rating for Omnisend, is based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Marketing Automation Software, user reviews, and our own crowd-sourced data from our free software selection platform. Scores are periodically updated via ongoing selection projects and user activity within our platform.
Company Size
Small Medium Large
Deployment
Cloud On-Premise
Platform
Mac Windows Linux Chromebook Android
Request Pricing Request Demo

Why We Picked Omnisend

Omnisend has been making waves in the e-commerce world, but is it all smooth sailing? Let's dive into what users have been saying about this marketing automation platform over the past year.

Users consistently highlight Omnisend's user-friendly interface as a major strength. The drag-and-drop email editor and intuitive campaign builder make it simple for even those with limited technical expertise to create professional-looking campaigns. This ease of use is a significant advantage over more complex platforms that require extensive training or coding knowledge. Another standout feature is Omnisend's robust automation capabilities. Users appreciate the ability to set up automated workflows triggered by specific customer actions, such as abandoned carts or purchase history. This allows businesses to send targeted and timely messages, leading to increased engagement and sales. Omnisend's multi-channel approach, which includes email, SMS, and push notifications, is also a key differentiator. Users find this particularly valuable for reaching customers on their preferred channels and creating a more cohesive brand experience.

While Omnisend receives overwhelmingly positive feedback, some users note that the platform's pricing can be a barrier for smaller businesses or those just starting. Additionally, while Omnisend offers a wide range of features, some users express a desire for even more advanced segmentation and personalization options. Overall, Omnisend appears to be an ideal fit for established, growth-focused e-commerce businesses with sizable contact lists. Its user-friendly interface, powerful automation features, and multi-channel capabilities make it a valuable tool for driving sales and building customer loyalty. However, businesses should carefully consider their budget and specific needs before committing to Omnisend or any marketing automation platform. The marketing technology landscape is constantly evolving, so it's always a good idea to research and compare different options to find the best fit for your business.

Pros & Cons

  • Easy-to-use Interface: Users appreciate the platform's intuitive design and user-friendly interface, making it easy to navigate and manage marketing campaigns effectively.
  • Comprehensive Feature Set: Omnisend offers a wide range of features, including email marketing, SMS marketing, automation workflows, and more, providing businesses with the tools they need to create and execute successful marketing strategies.
  • Effective Automation Capabilities: The platform's automation features enable businesses to automate repetitive tasks, such as sending welcome emails, abandoned cart reminders, and post-purchase follow-ups, saving time and improving efficiency.
  • Personalization Options: Omnisend allows businesses to personalize their marketing messages based on customer data, such as purchase history, browsing behavior, and demographics, leading to more targeted and effective campaigns.
  • Strong Reporting and Analytics: The platform provides detailed reporting and analytics, giving businesses insights into the performance of their campaigns and enabling them to make data-driven decisions.
  • Limited Segmentation Capabilities: Users have expressed frustration with Omnisend's segmentation limitations, particularly when trying to target specific customer groups based on purchase history or engagement levels. This can hinder the ability to create highly personalized campaigns.
  • Email Deliverability Issues: Some users have reported challenges with email deliverability, with messages occasionally landing in spam folders or experiencing delays. This can impact campaign performance and overall reach.
  • Reporting and Analytics: While Omnisend offers reporting features, some users find them to be less comprehensive than those provided by other marketing automation platforms. This can make it difficult to gain deep insights into campaign performance and customer behavior.

Key Features

  • A/B Testing: This feature helps users optimize their marketing efforts by sending out two subject lines or two different sender names to a small percentage of recipients to see which one worked best. The one with the highest click-through rate then gets sent automatically to the rest of the recipients. 
  • Campaign Booster: This feature helps optimize engagement rates by letting users resend a campaign with a new subject line to contacts who are likely to buy but didn’t open the first email. 
  • Email Template: Several types of templates simplify the process of customizing email campaigns. 
  • Abandoned Cart: The software tracks visitors who abandoned their carts so users can send follow-up emails to win them back and boost revenue. It does this by showing abandoned carts at multiple stages — after shoppers have entered their email address or directly from cookies in their browser. 
  • Content Editor: A product picker feature lets users create newsletters and allows them to have a unique discount code for every customer. It can also add automatic product recommendations. 
  • Audience Segmentation: Marketers can be sure to reach subscribers with relevant content with this feature. A variety of criteria are available to build segments, such as customers who placed orders and contacts who opened and clicked on campaigns. Users can also target subscribers based on their demographic data or where they signed up. 
  • Powerful Integrations: One-click integrations are available with major e-commerce apps like Shopify, ShopifyPlus and WooCommerce. It can also connect with Zapier and Magento. It supports custom integrations via API. 
  • Push Notifications: Users can optimize interactions with leads and customers by adding push notifications to automated flows and campaigns. They can use notifications to announce flash promotions, confirm orders and more. 
  • Forms: A signup box widget displays at the bottom of web pages, so it’s available to click while visitors browse without being a distraction. The software also provides a game-based sign-up form to collect subscribers by offering them a chance to win a prize, discount or anything else by entering their email address and spinning the wheel. 
SharpSpring Award
SharpSpring
SharpSpring
Start Price
$449
Monthly
Analyst Rating
82
SelectHub’s Analyst Rating for SharpSpring, is based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Marketing Automation Software, user reviews, and our own crowd-sourced data from our free software selection platform. Scores are periodically updated via ongoing selection projects and user activity within our platform.
Company Size
Small Medium Large
Deployment
Cloud On-Premise
Platform
Mac Windows Linux Chromebook Android
Request Pricing Request Demo

Why We Picked SharpSpring

SharpSpring combines CRM and marketing automation functionalities to provide robust, user-friendly features and performance. Users particularly appreciate its lead tracking and regular software updates that improve and add features. Comprehensive customer support is another prominent benefit. Some product limitations include a lack of display functionality in the form and landing page builders and a mobile app that isn’t user-friendly and lacks responsiveness. Custom stylesheets are also time-consuming to work with. Despite some drawbacks, it can be a solid option for businesses looking for a budget-friendly and intuitive sales and marketing solution.

Pros & Cons

  • User-Friendly: The platform is easy to use, and the kanban boards, the marketing automation and drip campaigns are easy to adapt to, in the experience of 69% of users referring to this aspect.
  • Robust Lead Tracking: Over 60% of reviews about this feature appreciate the end-to-end tracking functionality for marketing and sales data, with the ability to generate, track, filter and score leads.
  • Customer Service: All reviews on support say it’s professional and highly responsive.
  • Updates: The system constantly keeps updating with new features and offers updated dashboards for use, a benefit according to 75% of users mentioning updates.
  • Mobile App: Every user referencing the mobile app suggests it’s inoperable, not relevant and lacks basic functionalities.
  • Limited Design Flexibility: The landing page builder lacks the ability to add custom code, restricting users' ability to fully customize their pages and potentially hindering brand consistency or advanced functionality.
  • Email Deliverability Issues: Some users report challenges with emails landing in spam folders, which can impact campaign performance and lead to missed opportunities. It's important to note that email deliverability can be influenced by various factors, so it's recommended to investigate and address potential causes to improve deliverability rates.
  • Reporting Limitations: Users mention that the reporting features could be more robust, particularly in terms of attribution and providing deeper insights into campaign performance. This might make it difficult to accurately measure the effectiveness of marketing efforts and identify areas for improvement.

Key Features

  • Email Builder: Offers drag-and-drop email editor and HTML customization. Dynamic features and smart tags automate the process of customizing email messages. Designs can also be saved as templates for later use. 
  • Email Campaign Testing: Native integration with Litmus facilitates testing and previewing emails on dozens of applications, email providers and devices. 
  • Behavioral-Based Email Tracking: Gives complete information on visitor activity, including page visits, form fills, webinar sign-ups and white paper downloads from email campaigns. 
  • Web Form Builder: Provides: 
    • A drag-and-drop tool with auto-completion capabilities to design and customize web forms and CTA buttons.
    • The option to view and test forms before making them live.
    • CSS to customize forms.
    • Data sharing with other applications and databases by adding a Postback URL to sync information automatically.
  • Customer Segmentation: Offers lists that automatically update as contacts meet the list’s criteria such as location, visited pricing pages, product interest and more. Map a field in web forms to preset buyer personas, setting up questions accordingly. Responses aid list segmentation, allowing follow up with personalized information. 
  • Workflow Builder: Supports automation tasks and leverages branching logic, task combination and action groups to devise a path buyers should take. Responses use custom triggers and filters to personalize lead journeys. 
  • Lead Scoring: Scores leads based on engagement. Custom metrics allow increasing or decreasing scores, including page visits, filled out forms, content downloads and specific demographic characteristics. Assigning a decay rate on leads automatically decreases scores over time. 
  • Real-Time Alerts: Automated workflows can trigger notifications via email and SMS whenever a sale is made, a high-quality lead is created or a prospect moves along their buyer’s journey. 
  • Pipeline View: Create and customize custom deal stages to track the progress of an opportunity. Provides a drag-and-drop interface to move opportunities across deal stages to get an overview of each prospect’s progress through the sales cycle. 
  • VisitorID: Tracks anonymous visitor IP addresses with reverse IP lookup to identify companies that visit the business’ website. Records page visits, recognizes visitors’ views on an important page, determines where they came from and identifies which search terms led them to the website. 
  • Customer Timeline: Offers a timeline view of individual buyers’ journeys to track significant events associated with each contact. 
  • Landing Page Builder: Provides a WYSIWYG interface with HTML for customization. Pages can automatically adapt based on visitor preferences and behaviors. Supports optimizing for mobile and creating a series of linked pages to design a funnel for visitors and prospects. 
  • Content Calendar: Offers an interactive application with daily, weekly or monthly list views of all the planned content such as social activity, scheduled emails and blog posts. Share social media content immediately or at a later date. 
  • Site Tracking: Embeds a custom tracking code snippet in landing pages, websites, microsites or blogs to track every visit. Add media center links to track visits to external resources. 
  • Blog Builder: Provides a WYSIWYG blog and website editor that’s customizable with HTML views. Includes dynamic content that can automatically adapt to resonate with different audiences based on who they are, what interests them and how they behave on the blog and website. Also has an embeddable social sharing widget. 
  • Google Ads Integration: Tracks the ROI of paid search engine marketing campaigns and derives keyword data. 
  • Campaign Analytics Tracking: Automatically tracks website visitors conversions from the moment they first visit till the final sale. Detailed campaign analytics track campaign ROI goals and work offline without the need to set up conversion funnels. 
  • Social Listening: Find and filter social conversations on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn by hashtag, keyword and more. Spots customer queries, captures interactions to identify prospects that are ready to buy and offers affiliate programs to promote current customers to help close the next deal. 
  • Custom Reports: Customizable across campaigns, email, social media and CRM to include business-specific metrics. Measures and predicts present and future performance, turning data into insights. 
  • Open API: Developers have access to a platform-agnostic, open API that supports programming languages such as Java, Ruby, Perl, PHP, Python and more for building custom integrations with third-party software. 
  • Third-Party Integration: An app marketplace provides access to prebuilt extensions and integrations across categories such as CRM, accounting, analytics, forms and more, extending capabilities. 
Marketo
Marketo
Start Price
$895
Monthly
Analyst Rating
82
SelectHub’s Analyst Rating for Marketo, is based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Marketing Automation Software, user reviews, and our own crowd-sourced data from our free software selection platform. Scores are periodically updated via ongoing selection projects and user activity within our platform.
Company Size
Small Medium Large
Deployment
Cloud On-Premise
Platform
Mac Windows Linux Chromebook Android
Request Pricing Request Demo

Why We Picked Marketo

As a part of the Adobe Experience Cloud, Marketo Engage supports both demand and account-based marketing strategies that work in sync with marketing and sales. It offers a range of features that help businesses operations. Notable features that users call out include custom reports, automation tools and lead management. It’s highly customizable and can integrate with a wide range of business systems. Users also appreciate the robust customer service.
Some limitations include an inconvenient mobile app, outdated user interface for campaign dashboards and cumbersome functionality. Overall, businesses looking to automate their sales and marketing efforts will find the system has a lot to offer.

Pros & Cons

  • Lead Management: The ability to route and categorize leads based on requirements is helpful for staying on top of customers inputs, in the view of 60% of users talking about lead management.
  • Customizable: All reviews on this aspect agree that the system is highly customizable and offers email templates that can be created as per requirements.
  • Automation: Marketing and sales automation make it easy to use and eliminate manual entry, according to 83% of users who reviewed this feature.
  • Reporting: Provides custom reports that fit the user requirement and are insightful, say 75% of users referencing reporting.
  • Integrations: Integrations for websites, event platforms, survey platforms, mobile apps and more, along with two-way integration with CRM systems, aid functionality, according to 75% of users mentioning integrations.
  • Customer Support: The training is great and customer support is responsive, according to 66% of reviews on this topic.
  • Not User-Friendly: The functionality is cumbersome and pages take time to load, in the experience of 60% of users who reviewed the usability.
  • Dashboard: Campaign dashboards are outdated and the design needs an upgrade, according to 75% of users specifying this feature.

Key Features

  • Search Engine Optimization: Compares keyword rankings of competitors, provides recommendations for new keywords for higher ranking web pages, and discovers inbound link opportunities based on targeted keywords and competitors’ links. 
  • CRM Integration: Offers native integrations for Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365 applications to provide a bi-directional data sync that auto-updates every five minutes. Also facilitates custom-configured integrations for various CRM platforms such as NetSuite, Oracle, SAP Sales Cloud and SugarCRM. 
  • Lead Scoring: Rank customers by assigning positive and negative scores based on demographics or their likelihood to exhibit certain behaviors, such as making a new purchase, being open to cross-sell offers and more. 
  • Email Marketing: Supports both batch and real-time triggered emails. Helps: 
    • Create personalized campaigns for mobile, web, ads and more using a visual editor and responsive templates.
    • Personalize content based on inferred information from website visitors, such as company, country, zip code and city, helping segment and localize content.
    • Use browsing behavior to identify product interest for target accounts.
  • Mobile Marketing: 
    • Helps connect with customers on the go, track inputs from different marketing channels and respond via mobile apps.
    • Sends push notifications and in-app messages, and incorporates beacon and geo-fencing technology to send location-relevant messages to customers.
    • Visual dashboards measure overall performance by opens, installs and session duration across multiple apps.
  • Social Media Marketing: Facilitates running social polls, sweepstakes and referral campaigns with built-in social share buttons and shareable videos. Integrates social metrics into marketing reports to help measure the impact of social activity on conversions and revenue. 
  • Digital Ad Campaigns: Connects with Facebook, Google, LinkedIn and other advertising platforms, and targets customers with relevant ad campaigns. 
  • Analytics and Reporting: Automatically connect data from different sources into a unified platform. Enables: 
    • Mapping and measuring a customer journey at every stage through shareable, prebuilt dashboards and ad-hoc reporting tools.
    • Designing custom models with the help of AI.
    • Leveraging a suite of attribution models.

COMPARE THE BEST Marketing Automation Software

Select up to 5 Products from the list below to compare

 
Product
Score
i
SelectHub’s Analyst Rating is based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Marketing Automation Software, user reviews, and our own crowd-sourced data from our free software selection platform. Scores are periodically updated via ongoing selection projects and user activity within our platform.
Start Price
Free Trial
Company Size
Deployment
Platform
Logo
HubSpot
91
$800
Monthly
Yes
Small Medium Large
Cloud On-Premise
Mac Windows Linux Chromebook Android
HubSpot
Mailchimp
90
$13
Monthly, Freemium
Yes
Small Medium Large
Cloud On-Premise
Mac Windows Linux Chromebook Android
Mailchimp
Constant Contact
90
$9.99
Monthly
Yes
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Cloud On-Premise
Mac Windows Linux Chromebook Android
Constant Contact
GetResponse
89
$15.60
Monthly
Yes
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Cloud On-Premise
Mac Windows Linux Chromebook Android
GetResponse
Zoho Marketing Automation
88
$14
Monthly
Yes
Small Medium Large
Cloud On-Premise
Mac Windows Linux Chromebook Android
Zoho Marketing Automation
ActiveCampaign
86
$9
Monthly
Yes
Small Medium Large
Cloud On-Premise
Mac Windows Linux Chromebook Android
ActiveCampaign
Eloqua
84
$48
Monthly
Yes
Small Medium Large
Cloud On-Premise
Mac Windows Linux Chromebook Android
Eloqua
Omnisend
83
$16
Monthly, Freemium
Yes
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Cloud On-Premise
Mac Windows Linux Chromebook Android
Omnisend
SharpSpring
82
$449
Monthly
No
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Cloud On-Premise
Mac Windows Linux Chromebook Android
SharpSpring
Marketo
82
$895
Monthly
Yes
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Cloud On-Premise
Mac Windows Linux Chromebook Android
Marketo

All Marketing Automation Software (606 found)

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Telnyx

by Telnyx
Telnyx
Telnyx is a well-known software system that ranks 101 among all Marketing Automation Software according to our research analysts and 54 crowd-sourced reviews from 2 sources. Starting from $1, Telnyx is priced moderately, has offered a free trial in the past and is most advisable for businesses large and small. Telnyx can be deployed in the cloud and on-premise and is accessible from a fewer number of platforms including Windows and Linux devices. Similar alternatives to Telnyx include Style Report, Loadstop TMS and Tweet Eye.
User Sentiment User satisfaction level icon: excellent
Cost Breakdown
$10 or less
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Hypefury

by Hypefury
Hypefury
Hypefury is a well-known solution that ranks 102 among all Marketing Automation Software according to our research analysts and 30 crowd-sourced reviews from 2 sources. Starting from $19, Hypefury is priced less than most others, commonly offers a free trial and is most fitting for small-to-mid-sized businesses with less than 1000 employees. Hypefury can be deployed online. Similar alternatives to Hypefury include Mention.com, Vergic and LeadGen App.
User Sentiment User satisfaction level icon: excellent
Cost Breakdown
$10 - $100
Company Size
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Deployment
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Platform
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Tontine

by Tontine
Tontine
Tontine is a popular software application that ranks 6 among all Pricing Software according to our research analysts and 2 crowd-sourced reviews from 2 sources. Starting from $299, Tontine is priced fairly, has offered a free trial in the past and is most fitting for companies large and small. Tontine can be deployed in the cloud. Similar alternatives to Tontine include FPX, Oracle CPQ and Pricefx.
User Sentiment User satisfaction level icon: excellent
Cost Breakdown
$100 - $500
Company Size
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Platform
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AnswerThePublic

by AnswerThePublic
AnswerThePublic
AnswerThePublic is a sophisticated tool designed to manage and analyze search queries, particularly focusing on questions that users frequently ask online. This software is particularly beneficial for marketers, content creators, and SEO professionals who need to understand their audience's search behavior. It is especially useful in industries like digital marketing, e-commerce, and content development, where insights into consumer questions can drive strategy and content creation. One of the standout features of AnswerThePublic is its ability to visualize data in a user-friendly format, making it easier to identify trends and opportunities. Users appreciate its intuitive interface and the depth of data it provides, which can be crucial for developing targeted content strategies. Compared to similar products, AnswerThePublic is often praised for its comprehensive data visualization and ease of use. Pricing for AnswerThePublic varies, and it is recommended that users contact SelectHub for a personalized quote based on their specific needs. This ensures that users get the most accurate and relevant pricing information tailored to their requirements.
User Sentiment User satisfaction level icon: excellent
Cost Breakdown
$10 - $100
Company Size
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Platform
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Act! CRM

by Swiftpage ACT!
Act! CRM
Act! CRM by Swiftpage ACT! is a customer relationship management (CRM) software application designed to help businesses of all sizes build and maintain strong customer relationships. It acts as a central hub for storing and organizing customer data, including contact information, interactions, and sales history. Act! CRM is particularly well-suited for small and medium-sized businesses seeking a user-friendly and affordable CRM solution to streamline processes and enhance customer service. Key benefits of Act! CRM include its ease of use, affordability, and comprehensive features. The software is simple to set up and navigate, making it accessible even for businesses with limited IT resources. With a starting price of $49.99 per month, Act! CRM offers a cost-effective solution for managing customer relationships. Its wide range of features encompasses contact management, lead tracking, sales management, and reporting capabilities, providing businesses with the tools they need to effectively engage with customers and drive growth. Act! CRM stands out among other CRM solutions due to its user-friendly interface, affordability, and extensive feature set. It is a compelling choice for small and medium-sized businesses seeking a reliable and efficient CRM system to optimize customer interactions and achieve their business objectives.
User Sentiment User satisfaction level icon: good
Cost Breakdown
$10 - $100
Company Size
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Deployment
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Platform
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Qualfon

by Qualfon
Qualfon
Qualfon provides comprehensive contact center, BPO (business process outsourcing) and back-office processing solutions. Its offerings include customer service, integrated marketing, big data analytics and back-office processing. It provides outsourcing services through offices in India, Philippines, United States, Mexico, Guyana and other areasQualfon supports multi-channel customer service through phone, email, live chat, text and social media. Integrated marketing and campaign management tools are geared towards optimizing campaigns and improving lead generation. Advanced data mining, customer segmentation, data analytics and predictive modeling tools help forecast customer behavior to provide superior customer experiences.
Cost Breakdown
$100 - $500
Company Size
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Deployment
Cloud On-Premise
Platform
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UpLead

by UpLead
UpLead
UpLead is a popular software system that ranks 107 among all Marketing Automation Software according to our research analysts and 146 crowd-sourced reviews from 2 sources. Starting from $0, UpLead is priced initially at no cost, has offered a free trial in the past and is most advisable for all company sizes. UpLead can be deployed online. Similar alternatives to UpLead include Mention.com, Vergic and LeadGen App.
User Sentiment User satisfaction level icon: excellent
Cost Breakdown
$10 or less
Company Size
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Deployment
Cloud On-Premise
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Textline

by Textline
Textline
Textline is a popular platform that ranks 108 among all Marketing Automation Software according to our research analysts and 154 crowd-sourced reviews from 1 source. Starting from $59.97, Textline is priced more competitively, has offered a free trial in the past and is most suitable for business of all sizes. Textline can be deployed in the cloud. Similar alternatives to Textline include Mention.com, Vergic and LeadGen App.
User Sentiment User satisfaction level icon: excellent
Cost Breakdown
$10 - $100
Company Size
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Deployment
Cloud On-Premise
Platform
Mac Windows Linux Chromebook Android
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MaxBounty

by MaxBounty
MaxBounty
MaxBounty is a well-known solution that ranks 109 among all Marketing Automation Software according to our research analysts. Starting from $0, MaxBounty is priced at no cost when starting and is most fitting for any sized company. MaxBounty can be deployed in the cloud. Similar alternatives to MaxBounty include Servetel, Onstipe and InMoat.
Cost Breakdown
$10 or less
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Cloud On-Premise
Platform
Mac Windows Linux Chromebook Android
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Brandfolder

by Smartsheet
Brandfolder
Brandfolder is a popular software tool that ranks 110 among all Marketing Automation Software according to our research analysts and 862 crowd-sourced reviews from 2 sources. Brandfolder is most advisable for any business. Brandfolder can be deployed in the cloud. Similar alternatives to Brandfolder include Style Report, Loadstop TMS and Personyze.
User Sentiment User satisfaction level icon: excellent
Cost Breakdown
$100 - $500
Company Size
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Blueshift

by Blueshift Labs
Blueshift
Blueshift is a customer data platform (CDP) that unifies data, intelligent decision making and omnichannel interactions to deliver connected experiences to customers at every interaction. SmartHub CDP helps create content, engage users and activate customer data. It brings together customer profiles and segments audiences to deliver personalized and relevant content to customers. It uses AI for decisions and predictions and to build automated omnichannel and automated customer journeys. Its capabilities include mobile marketing, website personalization, email automation, audience targeting and contextual chat.
Cost Breakdown
$1,000 or more
Company Size
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Zoho Social

by Zoho
Zoho Social
Zoho Social is a well-known application that ranks 113 among all Marketing Automation Software according to our research analysts and 5253 crowd-sourced reviews from 2 sources. Starting from $0, Zoho Social is priced initially at no cost, offers a free trial on occasion and is most fitting for small-to-mid-sized companies. Zoho Social can be deployed in the cloud and on-premise and is accessible from a fewer number of platforms including Windows devices. Similar alternatives to Zoho Social include Mention.com, Vergic and ZIWO.
User Sentiment User satisfaction level icon: excellent
Cost Breakdown
$10 or less
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Higher Logic

by Real Magnet
Higher Logic
Higher Logic is an engagement platform that provides brands with automated marketing capabilities. It builds, retains and grows personalized connections to accelerate business growth. Features include member and customer communications, community building, member engagement, customer marketing, and more.Integration with over 40 industry-leading products provides convenient access to more functionality. Through expertise, resources and cutting-edge technology, it helps businesses develop strategies and implementation plans.
User Sentiment User satisfaction level icon: great
Cost Breakdown
$100 - $500
Company Size
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Deployment
Cloud On-Premise
Platform
Mac Windows Linux Chromebook Android
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Surfer SEO

by Surfer
Surfer SEO
Surfer SEO is a well-known software system that ranks 115 among all Marketing Automation Software according to our research analysts and 567 crowd-sourced reviews from 2 sources. Starting from $29, Surfer SEO is priced less than most others and is most applicable for any sized company. Surfer SEO can be deployed in the cloud. Similar alternatives to Surfer SEO include Mention.com, Vergic and LeadGen App.
User Sentiment User satisfaction level icon: excellent
Cost Breakdown
$10 - $100
Company Size
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Kipsu

by Kipsu
Kipsu
Kipsu offers a robust software solution designed to streamline customer interactions through Live Chat, SMS, and social messaging. This platform is particularly well-suited for industries such as hospitality, retail, and healthcare, where real-time communication is crucial for enhancing customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. Users appreciate Kipsu for its intuitive interface, which allows for seamless integration with existing systems and easy deployment across various communication channels. One of the standout features of Kipsu is its ability to consolidate multiple messaging platforms into a single, manageable interface, making it easier for staff to respond promptly and effectively. This capability is especially beneficial for businesses that handle high volumes of customer inquiries and need to maintain a high level of service quality. Additionally, Kipsu's analytics tools provide valuable insights into customer interactions, helping businesses to identify trends and improve their service strategies. Pricing for Kipsu typically varies based on the size of the business and the specific needs of the organization, with options for monthly or annual payments. Users often highlight the platform's reliability and the exceptional support provided by the Kipsu team, which sets it apart from other similar products in the market. Overall, Kipsu is praised for its ability to enhance customer engagement and streamline communication processes, making it a valuable tool for businesses focused on delivering exceptional customer experiences.
User Sentiment User satisfaction level icon: excellent
Cost Breakdown
$100 - $500
Company Size
Small Medium Large
Deployment
Cloud On-Premise
Platform
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Revinate

by Revinate
Revinate
Revinate is a well-known software system that ranks 26 among all Customer Experience Software according to our research analysts and 1 crowd-sourced review from 1 source. Starting from $150, Revinate is priced reasonably and is most suitable for business of all sizes. Revinate can be deployed in the cloud. Similar alternatives to Revinate include Zuar Runner, Locobuzz and mobile-pocket.
User Sentiment User satisfaction level icon: excellent
Cost Breakdown
$100 - $500
Company Size
Small Medium Large
Deployment
Cloud On-Premise
Platform
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SE Ranking

by SE Ranking
SE Ranking
SE Ranking is a well-known software platform that ranks 118 among all Marketing Automation Software according to our research analysts and 456 crowd-sourced reviews from 2 sources. Starting from $18.60, SE Ranking is priced more competitively, offers a free trial on occasion and is most suitable for companies large and small. SE Ranking can be deployed online and on-premise and is accessible from a limited number of platforms including Windows devices. Similar alternatives to SE Ranking include Mention.com, Vergic and ZIWO.
User Sentiment User satisfaction level icon: excellent
Cost Breakdown
$10 - $100
Company Size
Small Medium Large
Deployment
Cloud On-Premise
Platform
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Wishpond

by Wishpond Technologies
Wishpond
Wishpond is an automation platform that helps users nurture website visitors and convert them into leads. It lets users segment and score leads based on demographics and activity. It is designed for small and medium-sized organizations. It includes landing pages, website pop-ups, promotions, lead management, online forms, email management and more. It supports conversion tracking, drip campaigns, multi-channel marketing, list management, social media marketing and more.
User Sentiment User satisfaction level icon: good
Cost Breakdown
$10 - $100
Company Size
Small Medium Large
Deployment
Cloud On-Premise
Platform
Mac Windows Linux Chromebook Android
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CoPilot AI

by CollegeForward
CoPilot AI
CoPilot AI is a well-known software solution that ranks 120 among all Marketing Automation Software according to our research analysts. Starting from $389, CoPilot AI is priced fairly and is most suitable for small-to-mid-sized businesses with less than 1000 employees. Similar alternatives to CoPilot AI include Amplifr, Qualified and Mobile Streams.
Cost Breakdown
$100 - $500
Company Size
Small Medium Large
Deployment
Cloud On-Premise
Platform
Mac Windows Linux Chromebook Android
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SocialPilot

by SocialPilot
SocialPilot
SocialPilot is a popular platform that ranks 121 among all Marketing Automation Software according to our research analysts and 677 crowd-sourced reviews from 2 sources. Starting from $35, SocialPilot is priced less than most others, commonly offers a free trial and is most applicable for large corporations. SocialPilot can be deployed online and is accessible from a limited set of platforms including Windows devices. Similar alternatives to SocialPilot include Vergic, ZIWO and iPresent.
User Sentiment User satisfaction level icon: great
Cost Breakdown
$10 - $100
Company Size
Small Medium Large
Deployment
Cloud On-Premise
Platform
Mac Windows Linux Chromebook Android
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Pricing & Cost Guide

See the Price/User for the top marketing automation tools… plus the most important considerations and questions to ask when shopping for software.

Buyer's Guide

Marketing Automation Platforms Are All About Augmenting Marketing Initiatives and Boosting Campaign Performance

By Shweta Joshi, Market Analyst and Technical Content Writer at SelectHub

Marketing Automation Software BG Intro

Do you feel like there isn’t an end to the tedious struggle of manually managing your marketing campaigns? Have no fear; marketing automation platforms are your light at the end of this stress-filled tunnel.

In this guide, we’ll talk about the features and benefits of these solutions, how they can help your business expand and how to pick an ideal system with a list of guiding questions.

Executive Summary

  • Marketing automation platforms automate marketing processes and activities, analyze campaign performance and guide marketing strategies.
  • Key features include lead management, campaign management, social media management, email marketing automation and more.
  • Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), robotic process automation (RPA) and hyper-personalization are some leading industry trends.
  • Software comparison strategies should include a real-life needs assessment, setting specific targets and evaluating your adaptability.
  • Some important cost and pricing factors include pricing models, integrations and data migration costs.
  • Assess internal software and business requirements and ask vendors important questions before committing to a purchase.
What This Guide Covers
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What Is Marketing Automation Software?

Marketing automation platforms are a set of tools that helps businesses augment customer journeys and automate repetitive marketing activities such as customer segmentation, drip campaigns, sending bulk emails or messages, and generating and nurturing leads.

Implementing marketing automation solutions supports delivering targeted campaigns and messages, measuring campaign effectiveness, boosting conversions by generating and nurturing leads, and gathering valuable insights with analytics and reporting.

They streamline marketing processes, personalize communications and analyze performance data with minimal manual intervention to guide marketing strategies and improve ROI across channels.

Deployment Methods

Most companies favor cloud-based deployment for their marketing automation platforms. Cloud-based services offer the following benefits:

  • Easy scalability
  • Data-security and reliability
  • Accessibility, flexibility and remote operations
  • Fast deployment and lower cost of infrastructure
  • Instant access to the latest features, updates and improvements

Primary Benefits

Research shows 46% of marketers are more likely to use automation in 2023 to drive their organization’s growth and innovation. Marketing automation benefits organizations in the following ways:

Benefits of Marketing Automation

Centralize All Marketing Activities

Marketing automation software offers an integrated approach to all marketing activities, such as customer segmentation, lead generation, social media content, email marketing and analytics, into a single interface.

These tools eliminate manual errors, improve marketing campaign effectiveness and allow marketers to build, manage and track campaigns on a centralized system.

Increase Productivity

Marketing automation solutions allow marketers to focus on more strategic work by automating manual and repetitive tasks. This increase in productivity not only reduces costs but also accelerates business growth.

Boost Return on Investment

With capabilities to automate repetitive tasks, deliver personalized content and enhance visibility into marketing activities, marketing automation enables businesses to reduce marketing spend and increase customer lifetime value and ROI.

Improve Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Marketing automation systems facilitate stronger relationships with customers by analyzing interactions. They deliver personalized content and offers to increase conversion and retention rates through behavior, buying pattern and preference studies.

It’s easy to confuse marketing automation solutions with CRM software, but the two perform different functions.

Check out this article for more information about the differences between CRM and marketing automation platforms.

Execute Multichannel Marketing

Marketing automation software consolidates several marketing channels like email, SMS, social media and websites to connect with customers through multiple touchpoints. This approach delivers a consistent brand experience, amplifies reach, builds engagement and improves the overall customer experience.

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Types

Types of Marketing Automation Software

All-in-One

All-in-one marketing automation solutions integrate various marketing activities and workflows, eliminating time spent on repetitive tasks and allowing more focus on strategy and creativity.

These tools handle everything from email marketing to content marketing, social media management, paid advertising, mobile marketing and data analytics from a single comprehensive platform. They offer a holistic view of marketing initiatives and seamless integration between various marketing channels and campaigns.

CRM

Customer relationship management (CRM) streamlines the management and analysis of customer interactions and data. Software automates tasks like contact management, lead tracking, lead nurturing, customer support and sales forecasting.

CRM automation facilitates better customer relationships, improves customer satisfaction, and guides sales and marketing strategies with detailed data and actionable insights.

Content

Content marketing automation tools automate creating, publishing, distributing and promoting content. They assist in content curation, SEO optimization, scheduling and distribution, and performance evaluation.

Automation assures consistent delivery of quality content and provides valuable data insights into performance. With automated content delivery and detailed analytics, marketers can optimize their content marketing strategy and execution.

Social Media

Schedule social media posts, maintain a central repository of social media creatives, interact with audiences, create channel-specific ads and track real-time engagement with dedicated marketing automation platforms.

Get detailed insights into engagement rates, customer behavior and preferences, and campaign performance to build more effective social media strategies.

Mobile Marketing

Mobile marketing automation facilitates app messaging, in-app adverts, push notifications, usage data and mobile device engagement.

Businesses can refine their mobile marketing strategies and deliver tailored content to mobile users based on in-app behavior data.

Pricing

Pricing automation utilizes AI and ML models to set dynamic prices for products or services based on market dynamics, demand, supply rates and competition. These tools offer insight into consumer behavior, eliminate manual pricing analysis and enhance revenue management.

Advertising

Advertising automation streamlines campaign management by automating ad creation, targeting, scheduling and performance tracking through data-driven insights and advanced algorithms.

These automations boost advertising efficiency, increase advertising impact and strengthen ROI, leading to higher conversion rates and increased revenue.

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Implementation Goals

Goal 1

Enhance Customer Segmentation

Deliver personalized and relevant content to targeted customer bases by dividing them into smaller groups based on demographics, behavior, preferences and engagement.

Segmentation improves customer engagement and conversion rates, enabling stronger customer relationships.

Goal 2

Manage Multichannel Campaigns

Offer consistent customer experiences with seamless creation, execution and monitoring of campaigns across channels like email, social media, content, mobile and websites.

Maintaining regular interaction through various touchpoints offers a holistic view of the customer journey and enables comprehensive performance tracking and optimization.

Goal 3

Improve Lead Scoring and Qualification

Assign values and scores to different actions for lead scoring, qualifying, and quality evaluation capabilities.

Prioritize high-quality leads, align sales and marketing activities, and increase conversion rates.

Goal 4

Nurture Leads

Engage prospects throughout the buyer’s journey with interactive and contextual content to improve conversion rates.

With accurate customer segmentation, businesses can create targeted lead nurturing flows and personalized communication strategies for effective lead management.

Goal 5

Increase ROI

Automate and centralize marketing processes, ensure consistent campaign deliveries, increase customer engagement, and leverage advanced analytics and reporting to improve conversions and ROI.
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Basic Features & Functionality

Here are some of the most common marketing automation software features:

Lead Management

Users can capture, filter, segment, track and nurture leads. Assign lead scores based on customizable qualifiers set up by sales and marketing reps.

Set up automated workflows to engage with high-quality leads promptly, prioritize effective and innovative sales initiatives, and increase lead conversion.
Campaign Management

Plan, execute and track marketing campaigns across channels.

Access to tools for campaign creation, scheduling, A/B Testing and performance tracking to enable data-driven decisions and continually optimize campaigns.
Social Media Management

Schedule, publish and track engagement for social media posts across channels from a single platform. With features like content curation, automated replies and social listening, engage with audiences promptly and enhance brand visibility.
Email Marketing Automation

Create, automate, and track email marketing and drip campaigns to engage audiences with pre-built templates and customer segmentation. Eliminate duplicate data, manage asset access permissions and automate repetitive tasks.

Send bulk emails and manage regular interactions with prospects and customers with targeted messaging for better engagement and conversion rates.
Landing Page Creation

Create and optimize visually appealing and conversion-focused landing pages for various campaigns with features like pre-built templates, drag-and-drop interfaces and A/B testing.

This feature enhances user experiences and increases lead generation.
Workflow Automation

Create and optimize visually appealing and conversion-focused landing pages for various campaigns with features like pre-built templates, drag-and-drop interfaces and A/B testing.Automation handles repetitive marketing tasks and processes such as lead nurturing, email drip campaigns, social media management and more, based on pre-defined triggers.

This feature eliminates manual errors, improves productivity and ensures timely and consistent engagement with leads and customers across all channels.
Integrations

Marketing automation platforms integrate with other solutions to enhance functionalities and facilitate seamless and personalized customer experiences. Some common integrations include:
Reporting and Analytics

Get access to detailed analytics and reporting capabilities to gauge campaign performance, understand customer behavior and make data-driven decisions to improve ROI.

Check key metrics like click-throughs, open and conversion rates, and revenue and marketing attribution.
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Advanced Features & Functionality

Apart from the basic features, some marketing automation systems also offer advanced functionalities to suit the needs of scaling businesses.

A/B Testing and Optimization

Automated A/B testing lets marketers test different variations of campaigns, landing pages, ad copies, social media content and email components.

With features like performance tracking, split testing and detailed analytics, businesses can facilitate personalization at scale, optimize marketing initiatives and improve conversion rates.
Behavioural Tracking and Segmentation

Track and analyze customer behavior across various touchpoints by mapping customer journeys and tracking website activities or events.
Advanced Lead Scoring and Nurturing

With sophisticated lead scoring and nurturing capabilities like lead behavior tracking, predictive lead scoring and automated lead nurturing tactics, businesses can prioritize high-quality leads and boost conversion rates.
Dynamic Content Personalization

With dynamic content personalization, businesses can deliver highly customized content to individual prospects and customers based on their preferences, buying patterns, behavior and demographics.
Multichannel Marketing Automation

With features like multichannel integration, customized messaging and cross-channel campaign coordination, businesses can align marketing initiatives across channels like SMS, email, social media and mobile marketing.

Our free requirements template can help you decide on must-have features to include in your selection process.

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Current and Upcoming Trends

Allocating marketing budgets amidst geopolitical and financial uncertainty requires a keen eye for resources and channels. However, investment in MarTech continues to rise. Between 2021 and 2023, the global marketing automation industry revenue grew by approximately 22% to $5.86 billion and is expected to exceed 13.7 billion by 2030.

Here’s a quick overview of some top trends. For a more thorough exploration, read our article on understanding the marketing automation landscape.

Marketing Automation Trends

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)

While adopting AI and ML isn’t entirely new to the marketing industry, the explosive growth and usage of generative language models such as ChatGPT, Bard, ChatSonic, Jasper AI and more can be validated by data. Research shows that the global market revenue of AI in marketing is projected to escalate from $27.4 billion in 2023 to 107.4 billion in 2028.

Integrating automation, AI and ML technologies isn’t just a fad but a strategic need for surviving and thriving in a competitive economy. These technologies collect, segment and analyze real-time data, study behaviors and patterns to improve content workflows, enhance SEO implementations, and facilitate refined and hyper-focused campaigns.

On the customer front, they offer personalized shopping recommendations, dynamic pricing, virtual experiences for physical products and round-the-clock support with AI-enhanced chatbots, augmenting customer experiences.

However, the rapid evolution of AI- and ML-based tools for marketing raises questions about governance, legal and ethical challenges. Businesses should strike the right balance between the capabilities of these technologies and the challenges they impose to enable a scalable, efficient and ever-evolving business landscape.

Robotic Process Automation

In addition to AI and ML, RPA is also gaining prominence in the marketing automation industry. In fact, industries like manufacturing, technology, healthcare, retail and CPG also leverage it to optimize operational efficiency.

Research shows that the global robotic process automation market size was valued at $2,942.7 million in 2023 and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 39.9% from 2023 to 2030.

RPA adoption can automate up to 80% of repetitive tasks, improve productivity and accuracy, lower operational costs and deliver strategic value to organizations. Combined with similar cognitive technologies, RPA is bound to become an integral part of marketing automation.

Conversational Marketing

Conversational marketing offers an interactive and intuitive approach to the customer experience through live chat tools and chatbots. With two-way dialogue, instant responses, custom recommendations and real-time interactions, it encourages customers throughout their buying journey.

Marketing automation manages background operations with real-time data collection and analysis, whereas a conversational marketing interface uses this data to deliver a responsive and dynamic customer experience. Together, these technologies improve visibility and brand loyalty to drive revenue growth.

Enabled by marketing automation, the global conversational marketing software market size was evaluated at $18.40 billion in 2022 and is projected to reach $108.55 billion by 2030. This data illustrates the importance of incorporating marketing automation platforms to enable conversational marketing.

Hyper-Personalization

These marketing trends point towards hyper-personalization for maximizing conversion rates and ROI. By leveraging artificial intelligence and real-time data, hyper-personalization offers more contextual and bespoke experiences than a traditional personalization model.

The global hyper-personalization market is expected to be valued at $ 7.65 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 25.8% from 2019 to 2025. This growth is fuelled by marketing automation and machine learning models. They analyze granular customer data and gather insights into customer purchase history, interests and buying patterns.

Combining these technologies enables hyper-personalization, where businesses create and serve sophisticated and customized content, communications and offers to increase engagement, secure a sense of trust and create brand loyalty.

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Software Comparison Strategy

Evaluating your business requirements and budget is the first step toward choosing the best marketing automation software. Some other important factors to consider are:

  • Company Size and Scalability: Evaluate your size and scalability goals. Large-scale businesses and global enterprises need a more sophisticated and scalable solution than smaller operations to accommodate growing demands.
  • Usability: User-friendly and easily navigable marketing automation systems are crucial for lowering learning curves and increasing user adoption.
  • Data Privacy and Security: Marketing and sales operations depend on personal and sensitive user data. Ensure that your solution stores data securely in a centralized location, has tiered access controls and complies with industry regulations.
  • Integrations and Customization: Your system should seamlessly integrate and facilitate data exchange for efficient operations. It should also be able to set up tailored workflows and automation to meet unique business requirements.
  • Customer and Technical Support: Helpful and proactive support is essential for data migration, setup, onboarding, issue resolution, training and more.

While the above factors cover a basic checklist, you can follow these steps for a more strategic approach when choosing marketing automation software:

Perform a Real-Life Needs Analysis

Analyzing your business requirements is the foremost step in selecting marketing automation tools. Follow these steps to conduct a real-life needs analysis:

  • Define Business Goals and Objectives: Take inputs from all stakeholders, like marketing, sales departments and senior executives, to define specific objectives. Quantify each objective into time-bound goals.
  • Identify Pain Points: Determine current marketing strategy and execution struggles. Scout for solutions that address these specific challenges to simplify software selection.
  • Specify Functional Requirements: Compile a detailed list of features an ideal solution needs to meet business goals. Create pre-determined triggers to launch workflows to achieve those goals.
  • Adhere to Industry-Specific Requirements: Ensure you follow required regulatory and compliance requirements to serve customers better and avoid legal troubles.
  • Consider Scalability and Flexibility: Ideal software should align with scaling needs and easily handle increasing volumes of customer data, workflows and processes. It should also adapt to unique workflows to target various buyer groups.
  • Assess Customizations and Integrations: Marketing automation platforms should seamlessly integrate existing business systems for efficient operations and data exchange.

Set Specific Targets

Defining measurable targets helps evaluate how each shortlisted option fares against its goals and objectives. Consider the following factors to set specific targets for marketing automation tools:

  • Identify Target Audience and Communication Channels: Define the target audience, create audience and buyer personas, and identify their preferred marketing channels.
  • Define Quantifiable Goals: From increasing the accuracy of customer segmentation to improving campaign performance and increasing conversion rates, define measurable goals for all marketing channels and initiatives.
  • Set Up Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Identify relevant KPIs and metrics for each marketing channel and campaign to track marketing operation performance. These KPIs and metrics will create a benchmark for reporting and analytics functionalities and performance tracking.
  • Assess Reporting and Analytics Capabilities: With pre-defined channels, goals and metrics, look for systems that have features like visual insights, configurable dashboards, real-time data and tailored reporting to gather all the necessary information to optimize marketing initiatives.

Evaluate Your Adaptability

Adopting new technology is tough. Consider the following factors for successful adoption and a low learning curve for users:

  • Implementation Timeline: Consider time- and cost-consuming factors like software setup, data migration and integration with existing systems. Discuss and track projected timelines with the vendor to ensure a smooth transition to the new platform without disrupting current marketing operations.
  • Onboarding, Training and Support: Adequate training and support materials like documentation, live chats, video tutorials, webinars and more help users maximize the platform's benefits.
  • Technical Expertise: Apart from initial onboarding, training and access to support resources, your team may require additional guidance depending on the software’s complexity. Enquire whether the vendor offers additional training and support for free, at an extra cost or if you need to hire an external resource.
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Cost & Pricing Considerations

Several factors impact the pricing and total cost of ownership while selecting marketing automation software:

  • Pricing Structure: Vendors offer different pricing models, such as monthly subscriptions or tiered pricing based on user numbers.
  • Scalability and Flexibility: Adding up the costs for scalability goals and objectives is essential, as they significantly add to the price tag.
  • Discounts, Promotions and Referrals: Many providers offer timely discounts and promotions, while others have referral or loyalty programs that can reduce the cost.
  • Contracts and Long-Term Commitments: Review the contracts for shortlisted options and platforms in detail. While long-term contracts and subscriptions can offer better discounts, don’t compromise on essential features or robust support.
  • Implementation and Training: While some vendors offer implementation, user onboarding and training for free, others may charge extra.
  • Customer and Technical Support: Some vendors offer free support, while others have tiered packages of various customer and technical support levels. Though the support package pricing may not seem much at first, it adds to the total cost of ownership in the long run.
  • Additional Factors: Any third-party integrations, customizations and advanced features require additional time and pricing.
Price Guide for Marketing Automation Software

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Questions To Ask Yourself

Use these questions as a starting point for internal conversations:

  • What functionality can or needs to be automated?
  • Who will be responsible for monitoring efforts post-automation, and what metrics will you use to determine whether or not your efforts succeeded?
  • How much value will automation add, and how? For example, will it save time, improve decisions or drive higher revenue?
  • What are some short and long-term goals you hope to achieve with a marketing automation tool?
  • What are your current KPIs, and how can you use them within your marketing automation software to show each department’s value?
  • What deployment best fits your organization’s needs?
  • What kind of reporting capabilities do you need? Do they need to be customizable?
  • How many contacts do you need to store within the database?
  • Do you anticipate growth in your organization? Can this tool scale with you?

Marketing Automation Software Key Questions To Ask

 

 

 

Questions To Ask Vendors

Use these questions as a starting point for conversations with vendors:

About the Software

  • Does this product support social media plugins?
  • Does it integrate seamlessly with other apps? Can it achieve seamless integration with CRM systems?
  • How customizable is the software?
  • Does this product offer mobile capabilities? How does the mobile interface differ from the desktop version, and how user-friendly is the mobile UI?
  • Is it easy to add additional users?
  • Can additional features be added after implementation? Does this cost extra?

About the Vendor

  • What kind of support can they offer you?
  • How long does implementation take?
  • Is employee training with the software included in the price? For how long?
  • How often are new features or updates applied to this product?
  • Do they offer paid or free integrations?

Next Steps

Marketing automation helps prioritize growth by automating repetitive marketing tasks and taking your marketing initiatives to the next level. There are different types of marketing automation platforms out there, and some even offer a free trial.

Check out our free comparison report for in-depth feature scores and side-by-side comparisons of the leading products in the market. Or, use our free requirements template to match your essential features with your budget and find the best solution.

Marketing Automation Software Report

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Product Comparisons

Additional Resources

About The Contributors

The following expert team members are responsible for creating, reviewing, and fact checking the accuracy of this content.

Shweta
By Shweta Joshi
Technical Content Writer
Shweta Joshi is a Market Analyst at SelectHub. She writes content for Warehouse Management, Distribution and CRM. In her free time, she pursues her myriad interests in reading, writing, sketching, traveling, learning about new languages, cultures and cuisines, and occasionally playing the uke completely out of tune.
See Full Bio
Joan
Technical Research By Joan Akash
Senior Analyst
Joan Akash, a Senior Research Analyst at SelectHub, holds a Post-Graduate Diploma in Management with a specialization in Marketing. Her expertise as a researcher and reviewer spans diverse software categories, including Project Management, Customer Relationship Management, Live Chat, and Help Desk. Beyond her professional pursuits, Joan is spiritually driven, with a passion for teaching children and a penchant for reading biblical blogs and crafting poetry.
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Manan
Technical Review By Manan Roy
Principal Analyst
Manan is a native of Tezpur, Assam (India), who currently lives in Kolkata, West Bengal (India). At SelectHub, he works on categories like CRM, HR, PPM, BI, and EHR. He has a Bachelor of Technology in CSE from The Gandhi Institute of Engineering and Technology, a Master of Technology from The Institute of Engineering and Management IT, and an MBA in Finance from St. Xavier's College. He's published two research papers, one in a conference and the other in a journal, during his Master of Technology.
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Hunter
Edited By Hunter Lowe
Content Editor
Hunter Lowe is a Content Editor, Writer and Market Analyst at SelectHub. His team covers categories that range from ERP and business intelligence to transportation and supply chain management. Hunter is an avid reader and Dungeons and Dragons addict who studied English and Creative Writing through college. In his free time, you'll likely find him devising new dungeons for his players to explore, checking out the latest video games, writing his next horror story or running around with his daughter.
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Joe
Edited By Joe Evans
Content Editor
Joe Evans is an Editor and Senior Market Analyst at SelectHub. A seasoned professional wordsmith, he has a bachelor's degree in journalism and electronic media and a decade of professional expertise in crafting top-tier digital content for niche online brands. He leads his small yet formidable team in producing helpful, compelling content in vital categories like HR, payroll, talent management, performance management, marketing automation home health, MES. When not editing and writing, he enjoys sports, quality time with family and dogs, and remains constantly in pursuit of something new and interesting to read or listen to.
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