The way we live our lives has an impact on our work. Long lists of typical chores may turn your staff into marketing automatons, reducing their creativity and performance. Fortunately, there are some tools to help. Digital marketing’s first step is to automate and personalize your communications. Multi-channel marketing is a difficult job that requires good campaign management and intelligent automation. Let’s take a closer look at some of the best ones.
Importance of marketing automation tools
How do you figure out that you’ll need marketing automation tools? It’s critical to consider a few things before buying marketing automation software to make sure it’s beneficial:
- Is there a marketing team employed in your company? If you answer “no,” your staff would undoubtedly benefit from the use of automation solutions. This is especially true for small firms.
- Do you already use a marketing channel? If that’s the case, these automation tools might assist you in obtaining superior results. They allow you to optimize your campaigns quickly and effectively.
- Do you have a defined marketing strategy? Marketers may use marketing automation systems to analyze the results of their current approach. Then, you can continue improving and enhancing your campaigns with the usage of facts.
- Do you have a budget for the marketing automation tool? You may save money in the long run by utilizing such software.
Almost every organization in all industries may benefit from marketing automation solutions.
You may use many tools to optimize numerous fundamental operations when you increase your productivity. You’ll be much more successful with marketing automation when you use it:
- Email marketing
- Lead qualification
- Lead nurturing
- Lead generation
- Segmentation
- Retention
- Measuring ROI
- Cross-channel marketing campaigns
- Website personalization
Marketing automation use cases
We are in the age of hyperautomation, and marketing, of course, is affected by this. Don’t worry; we’ve already explained what hyperautomation is and how it works. Anyway, the arrival of this new era has opened up several use cases for marketing automation.
The following are some of the most frequent applications of marketing automation:
- All-in-one marketing automation tools
- Email marketing automation
- Social media automation
- Customer journey automation
- Pricing automation
- Advertising automation
- Loyalty and referral marketing automation
Before we start our best marketing automation tools list, let’s make a little reminder. If you are not sure how to choose marketing automation software, you can always use our comprehensive guide to assist you.
What are the top marketing automation tools in 2022?
Analytics capabilities are a component of marketing automation solutions, allowing marketers to analyze a campaign’s effectiveness across segments and platforms. These features track the influence of campaigns on marketing department KPIs and campaign ROI, and revenue growth.
Marketing automation solutions frequently connect with CRM software, social media management systems, CMS tools, and account-based orchestration platforms. If you’re unsure of the distinctions, you might want to look at the CRM vs marketing automation comparison. Let’s get started on our best marketing automation tools list if we are ready.
HubSpot Marketing Hub
In terms of features, one of the most useful tools on this list is HubSpot‘s marketing automation platform. It’s also one of the most popular among customers.
Your marketing tools and data are on one simple, powerful platform with Marketing Hub. You’ll save time and have all the information to deliver a tailored experience that attracts and converts the right people in large numbers. Because Marketing Hub is integrated with the HubSpot CRM system, marketers may keep data at the heart of their activities. Marketers can build on this using the full CRM platform to demonstrate ROI and validate expenditures.
Depending on the features and scale, pricing ranges from $50 to $3,200+ per month.
Marketo
Marketo is one of the most popular marketing automation suites on the market. Adobe acquired Marketo and integrated it into its corporate marketing cloud in recent years.
The Adobe connection gives you a strong business marketing automation and optimization suite if you utilize Adobe Analytics for data measurement and Adobe Target for experimentation and personalization.
The product is meant for larger business customers; it’s a little far above the price range for most small business owners.
Marketo is a reasonable alternative for businesses with 100+ employees who don’t want to spend over $2000 on an automated marketing software but desire a dependable program with viable automation capabilities.
Contact Marketo for pricing information.
Eloqua
Eloqua, which is now part of the Oracle software suite, distinguishes itself by integrating with nearly every other piece of your marketing arsenal. Eloqua has more than 700 integrations, allowing it to make every aspect of your marketing campaign more personalized and efficient. It’s also one of the few all-in-one solutions that specifically serve business-to-business marketers and firms.
Contact Oracle for pricing information.
Customer.io
Customer.io‘s email automation software is designed for subscription-based enterprises and focuses on engaging consumers throughout the customer lifecycle. It has a lot of integrations, allowing you to filter data from across your technology stack and transform it into automated segments and emails that get results.
Customer.io has a monthly fee of $150 to $1,000+ depending on the features and support required.
Constant Contact
Constant Contact is a simple marketing tool that allows you to design beautiful and highly converting email communications for your subscribers. It also has tools to assist you in growing your email list.
It’s simple to produce and send personalized emails using the drag-and-drop email builder. You may also utilize their pre-made email templates to write and send emails quickly.
You can trigger emails based on user activity and actions on your website with Constant Contact. You may segment your audience to send the appropriate message at the right time. It also keeps track of non-responsive subscribers and automatically re-delivers messages if necessary.
The cost per month ranges from $20 to $335, depending on the number of features and list size.
Salesforce Account Engagement (Pardot)
Pardot was released in the automation market in 2006 as an optional component of SalesForce. This cloud-based marketing automation software is ideal for large companies since it might take some time to get used to this marketing automation platform.
Pardot provides several essential features to help you improve your marketing efforts, including email automation, CRM integration, lead scoring, lead nurturing, and detailed ROI reporting. It also keeps track of how individuals use your website and delivers strong analytics that can assist you in connecting with them.
Based on the degree of automation and analytics, it costs between $1,250 and $4,000 per month.
ActiveCampaign
The category-defining customer experience automation platform (CXA) from ‘ActiveCampaign‘ empowers companies to interact with their customers meaningfully. The tool gives small and large corporations alike access to 500+ pre-built automations that link email marketing, marketing automation, and CRM for deeper segmentation and customization across social media, email, and more.
850+ integrations, including Microsoft, Shopify, Square, Facebook, and Salesforce.
Depending on the features and number of contacts, it costs anywhere from $9 to $400 or more per month.
Omnisend
Omnisend is an eCommerce marketing automation platform that aims to help you manage your whole customer journey. With pre-built templates designed with online merchants in mind, you can get started swiftly and efficiently with pre-built templates.
You can use Omnisend to connect several channels into the same automation process: email, SMS, Facebook Messenger, push notifications, etc. Omnisend also offers a user-friendly WYSIWYG visual builder and templates that make building workflows, forms, landing pages, popups, and emails simple and quick. If you are specifically searching for workflow automation, we have already explained what is workflow automation best software.
The free plan includes basic email marketing services. Automation costs from $16 per month to bespoke Enterprise pricing, depending on the features and number of contacts involved.
Keap
Keap (formerly known as Infusionsoft) is a marketing automation software promoting itself as a small business and enterprise solution. The software’s CRM and automation connections have made it well-known for its marketing campaign management.
Keap has integrated sales and marketing, giving you a comprehensive solution to automate your operations. While it’s beneficial for small companies, it may not be suitable for bigger organizations.
Keap also includes several other features that aid in managing your accounting firm. The system is also quite easy to use, which will make it much easier for you to handle all of your current tasks and new responsibilities, such as invoicing and payments. Furthermore, the automation builder is quite versatile, allowing you to design automation processes that may save you time. Overall, Keap is an excellent choice for SMEs, although it does have a steep learning curve.
The 14-day free trial of Keap allows you to check it out. After that, monthly plans begin at $79 and provide access to basic automation, CRM, and other features. However, if you want more advanced marketing and sales automation, you’ll need the Pro version at $149 per month.
Buffer
Buffer, the social media management software, is a solution that allows you to plan, collaborate, and publish amazing content while also providing detailed metrics so you may thrive on social networks.
The platform is best known for its suite of products for publishing, engagement, analytics, and team collaboration. It enables teams to work more productively and generate more meaningful social media interaction and results.
Overall, Buffer is a great tool that caters to small businesses and helps them grow their brands while genuinely engaging on social media platforms.
The free version of Buffer is good for beginners since it comes with a free plan that lasts forever. Paid plans start at $15 per month and come with more features and social media platforms.
Autopilot
Autopilot is one of the most visually attractive marketing automation solutions available.
They describe themselves as the simplest marketing automation platform to use, and they provide email marketing, messaging, and automation services. Their visual editor is simple to understand and has a sense of humor about it.
Naturally, their platform is typically utilized for more complex communication and targeting, but you may even make an automated responder out of a time sequence.
Rejoiner
Rejoiner is a marketing automation software that is managed. Unlike other systems, in which you must pay a subscription and figure out how to use the tool to expand your business, Rejoiner relieves you of this burden.
The more time you spend on the platform, the simpler it will be to find information and insights. The ease of use is also attributed to their intuitive design, which is particularly well-suited to e-commerce and SaaS firms, where modest enhancements may lead to substantial increases in revenue.
But it’s their à la carte services, such as marketing automation strategy, copywriting, design, and delivery testing that set them apart from other marketing automation solutions.
Rejoiner was one of our research’s top-performing marketing automation tools, with one of the highest customer satisfaction ratings.
Rejoiner has an exorbitant price tag, as you might expect. A typical customer of theirs spends $4,000 to $6,000 per month on their platform and services.
Freshmarketer
FreshMarketer is a free marketing automation solution powered by industry-leading software provider Freshworks. This platform offers a variety of solutions to help organizations streamline and accelerate their marketing processes, including end-to-end marketing capabilities such as email builder, event tracking, custom reports, and marketplace integrations.
Freshmarketer also has several useful tools to help you improve your marketing efforts. The solution offers behavioral targeting, behavioral segmentation, and customized campaign capabilities that you may employ to target a larger demographic. Freshmarketer allows you to develop your landing pages, accelerate lead creation time, and boost conversion rates.
Freshmarketer’s automation tools allow you to effortlessly manage your CRM procedures across the whole lifecycle, from acquisition to retention of clients, with Freshmarketer’s automation tools. The platform also includes an AI chatbot that may create automated responses at any moment, allowing you to engage with your clients in unique ways.
Best marketing automation tools by size
Different-sized firms with the same problem should have varied answers, and these are the solutions:
Best marketing automation tools for small business
ActiveCampaign is the best marketing automation software for small companies in most situations. This is especially true if you need an all-in-one sales and marketing platform, including a CRM.
However, if you already have a CRM, we suggest adding Autopilot or Rejoiner if money permits since their automation journey builder are unrivaled.
Lastly, if you own an e-commerce firm, Omnisend will demolish both preceding choices.
Best marketing automation tools for medium-sized businesses
ActiveCampaign, Autopilot, or HubSpot are small enterprises’ most recommended marketing automation tools.
HubSpot is a significant investment, so we suggest it’s best suited for agencies or B2B service organizations that can offset the expense by gaining one or two extra clients each year.
If you’re an e-commerce firm, Omnisend (or Rejoiner if money permits) are far superior alternatives to the three above.
Best marketing automation tools for enterprise businesses
For bigger businesses, providing that deliverability, security, support, and training is essential.
Unfortunately, most other business marketing automation systems (e.g., Marketo, Pardot, Eloqua) that satisfy these requirements are simply uninteresting, and their solutions are complex and difficult to use.
One of the minor exceptions is ActiveCampaign, which offers all of the standards, but vital capabilities – such as dedicated IPs and SLAs and SSO and account management – that you would d anticipate from an enterprise client.
The 3 best marketing automation tools free
22% of the most effective marketing campaigns will be automated as we move beyond the pandemic. And businesses are scaling and optimizing to make use of this development. So much so that, according to experts, the global marketing automation software market is expected to reach $15,018.5 billion by 2030.
Remember that free marketing automation services exist if you’re concerned about how much these solutions might cost. Some provide a free, no-obligation trial, while others (like HubSpot) provide a completely free package with all bells and whistles.
These are three of the best free marketing automation tools:
- Freshmarketer
- HubSpot Marketing
- Omnisend
Bonus: Google marketing automation tools
You’ve probably heard of Google, an Internet search engine that’s become increasingly popular. 3.5 billion searches for information are conducted every day on the Internet, right?
Google is much more than a search engine, though. So much more, in fact.
In reality, several Google business tools beyond its search engine can be quite helpful if you’re a marketer. These are some of the best ones:
- Google My Business
- Google+ Business Pages
- Google Webmaster Tools
- Google AdWords
- Google AdWords Keyword Planner
- Google Trends
- Google Drive
- Google Alerts
- Google Analytics
