Nowadays, the majority of firms employ marketing automation tools in some capacity; according to research, this percentage is now about 51% and rising. A 2018 Forrester survey states that 55% of marketing decision-makers want to raise their technology investment, with 1/5 of the respondents anticipating an increase of 10% or more.
All of this means that, in 2019, you might want to think again about not employing marketing automation tools. Automation software is necessary, but the market is confusing and full of numerous software solutions with a wide range of features and applications.
Which marketing automation tools are the best?
Only email activities, drip sequences, and CRM updates are available on some platforms. Others may offer assistance with SMS, lead rotation, lead scoring, and other tasks. For SMB and B2C contexts, a more specialised solution could be preferable, whereas B2B and corporate settings might require a platform with broader capabilities.
When deciding which automation tools are the best for you, keep the following points in mind:
- Reporting and analytics
Your marketing automation tools should be tracking the metrics that are most important to you since you’ll want to be able to evaluate the performance of any drip campaigns you are currently conducting. You could also want sophisticated reporting capabilities, such as customised dashboards or automated reporting through email, in business contexts and corporate settings with several stakeholders.
- How easy it is to use
As it is, marketing automation tools aren’t an easy thing to implement, so be sure the software’s user interface will support you rather than hinder you. Find screenshots of the UX if you can so you can assess whether it appears straightforward and user-friendly.
- Limitations
There may be monthly action limitations on some marketing automation tools, as well as database capacity restrictions. Know how many contacts you have, how many emails you send on average, and what you want the programme to do before starting any evaluation. By doing this, you will avoid overestimating the price of your automation software.
- Support
I’m unsure whether my programme has the capacity to.
One day, when you consider the advantages of marketing automation, you may have this thought. Automation may be sophisticated, so search for vendors with extensive tutorials, knowledge bases, and other customer support resources.
- Integrations
How effectively does your current stack integrate with the marketing automation tools? Through integrations, you can better utilise your tools and manage data. Here, we’ve compiled a list to make it easier for you to compare your alternatives and decide which marketing strategy would work best for you and your team.
- Scalability and pricing
If the advantage of marketing automation tools could be summed up in one sentence, it would be this: It will increase your productivity so you can concentrate on the activities you find most enjoyable and which yield the best returns. In light of this, you should weigh cost while thinking about capabilities. A streamlined solution could be adequate for SMBs and B2C businesses that mostly use email.
Enterprise software, which often costs more and has more complex demands, is ultimately more cost-effective. Make sure to pick a service that can not only expand with you as your demands evolve, but is also fairly priced. After all, successful scalability depends on decreasing bloated activities.
Here’s a list of the best marketing automation tools for Small-to-Large Business:
- ManyChat
Email is simply one aspect of marketing automation tools. Imagine if some of the more routine chats on other platforms could be automated. This is exactly what ManyChat, a chatbot, can accomplish on Facebook Messenger and via SMS.
With the help of their templates and user-friendly drag-and-drop interface, a bot can be created in a matter of minutes. Additionally, your CRM and other tools may be synchronised with the data you discover about your users.
- HubSpot Marketing Automation
One of the most effective tools on our list in terms of features is the marketing automation tools of HubSpot. In addition, it ranks in the top three in terms of customer satisfaction, appearing in the upper right corner of the G2 Crowd quadrant.
Of course, HubSpot offers a whole growth suite that includes support, sales, and marketing tools, all of which seamlessly interact with HubSpot’s CRM. When all of your data and growing activity are in one location, it creates a multiplier effect that opens up a tonne of creative automation options that would be challenging or impossible to do if you used different platforms.
With HubSpot’s marketing automation tools, you can create straightforward or extremely complex conditional processes using an intuitive visual board. The technology can be difficult to learn (although HubSpot Academy will help you scale up more rapidly), but once you do, the creative possibilities are virtually limitless.
You may create straightforward email list autoresponders or a sophisticated network of rules that targets certain users with the ideal email, live chat, website experience, and more.
The workflow tool basically extends email automation so you can expand your growth and spend less time on menial duties.
- Omnisend
Omnichannel marketing automation tools are designed for e-commerce, one of them being called Omnisend. You can get started quickly with pre-built templates that are designed with online retailers in mind and offer strong automation workflows.
You may include a number of channels into a single automation workflow with Omnisend, including push notifications, Facebook Messenger, email, and SMS. Additionally, Omnisend leverages templates and a user-friendly WYSIWYG visual builder to quickly and easily create workflows, forms, landing pages, popups, and emails.
In addition to three subscription plans with different features that scale across them, Omnisend also offers a free plan for essential email marketing. However, the channel management functions of Omnisend will probably be most useful to medium-sized to large-sized retailers.
- Moosend
Among the platforms for email marketing automation tools is Moosend which serves a variety of markets, including e-commerce and SaaS.
The marketing automation tools often makes use of sophisticated website monitoring and triggers to enable you to deliver the appropriate email campaign to contacts who have expressed interest in a certain good or service. To target potential consumers who abandoned their shopping carts without buying anything, for instance, you may create a cart abandonment series.
Customer data management and collection might be useful for creating product suggestion campaigns based on product views. Using this information, you may also produce thorough reports on the campaign’s development and user behaviour to enhance the potency of your advertising messaging.
- Ontraport
Ontraport is business automation software created especially for entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and small firms, unlike other marketing automation tools. They provide CRM and marketing automation tools, but they also have a number of additional tools for managing and expanding a small business, such as but not restricted to:
- Email advertising
- Page landings
- Reporting
- Ecommerce
Ontraport’s emphasis on reporting and insights is one of its most advantageous features. Ontraport provides you with a clear view of the effectiveness of your efforts, whilst some tools might be a bit of a mystery.
- EngageBay
Another in the list of marketing automation tools that is created exclusively for small- to medium-sized organisations is Engage Bay. There are several features available with Engage Bay, including:
- Email advertising
- Facebook management
- On-site dialogue
Drag-and-drop email and landing page builders are among other impressive capabilities, along with A/B testing for each element of an email and landing page, SMS marketing, push alerts, abandoned cart recovery and reminders, and autoresponders, automated answers, and more.
There are three more sophisticated, paid options from EngageBay that expand with your company’s demands in addition to a free plan for small organisations.
- ActiveCampaign
Email marketing, marketing automation, and small company CRM are all combined in Active Campaign. Active Campaign’s robust and adaptable marketing automation tools are its best suit. One of the most complete options available is this one. They also have one of the best deliverability in the market.
For people who lack technical proficiency or are newbies, this definitely isn’t the best tool. The platform requires a little more time and effort to master, but once you do, it’s rather strong.
- SendInBlue
Though it began as a digital firm, SendInBlue eventually developed a robust email marketing solution that eventually evolved into well-liked marketing automation tools.
They offer several sophisticated functions, such as lead scoring and reporting. SendinBlue also provides a really good free plan that comes with basic marketing automation tools features, phone support, and up to 300 emails each day. From SendInBlue, you can also execute SMS campaigns.
- InfusionSoft
Thousands of marketers have used InfusionSoft (now Keap), which has been around for a while (15+ years, I believe), to help them meet their goals for leads, revenue, and client acquisition. They particularly thrive among small company owners and solopreneurs, and from my observations, I can tell that their user base is rather affluent.
Depending on the lead magnet someone signs up for, how many (and which) emails they open and click, or other contact property data, you may put up very complicated decision trees.
- Pardot
One of the cloud marketing automation tools called Pardot, which is a component of the Sales Force empire, primarily caters to business clients that have the time and technical resources to become familiar with the platform.
They provide a tonne of tools to help you automate engagement with current contacts, including CRM integration, email marketing, lead nurturing, lead scoring, and an ROI reporting option to make sure your campaigns are effective.
You may keep track of all online interactions and provide a predicted lead score based on the criteria you choose. All of this enhances marketing effectiveness while saving your sales team time and effort. It’s crucial to note, that Pardot is a sophisticated enterprise, but lacks lead-generating capability and may not be as accessible or economical for smaller enterprises, or entrepreneurs.
- Marketo
The long-standing company Marketo was recently bought by Adobe and added to their business marketing cloud. Using Adobe Analytics for data measurement and Adobe Target for experimentation and personalization will provide you robust corporate marketing automation tools and optimization suite thanks to the Adobe connection.
The technology is primarily designed for enterprise clients; most small business owners find it to be a bit out of their price range.
- Autopilot
One of the most aesthetically pleasing marketing automation tools available is Autopilot. They advertise themselves as the most user-friendly marketing automation platform and produce an email marketing, messaging, and automation platform. As previously said, their graphic editor is neat, simple to use, and just enjoyable.
However, you may simply make a straightforward autoresponder based on a time sequence. Of course, their technology is often used for more sophisticated messaging and targeting.
- Drip
One of the few apps on this list that is particularly geared on e-commerce marketing automation is Drip. They provide one of the more “open” platforms and assert that they are compatible with “very much any marketing approach you wish to set in action.”
Email is another one of their strong points. The following are some email marketing and automation features:
- Workflows for Email Builders Automation
- Email campaigns for multi-channel marketing
- Unique Emails
They are also quite good at analytics and customisation. Drip is a strong tool for automating e-commerce marketing in general.
- GetResponse
GetResponse is a marketing automation programme with several features and levels. Starting at just $10 per month (which includes fundamental autoresponders and a list capacity of 1,000), they are quite affordable. However, their pricier plans come with useful extras like:
- Email advertising
- CRM
- Page landings
- Autoresponders
- Ecommerce resources
- list-making instruments
GetResponse is a user-friendly tool that often produces positive results, albeit it performs best when using the most basic capabilities, such as email newsletters. If you want to use complex conditional logic and marketing automation, using the platform might be more challenging.
- Mautic
The only free marketing automation platform on our list is Mautic. As a relatively new player, it was just established in 2014. But they’ve developed swiftly and seem to be gaining traction with high-tech businesses. Over 200,000 organisations utilise Mautic at the moment.
Software for marketing automation comes in a wide variety. The key is picking the appropriate one based on your technical know-how, financial constraints, and company needs. Want something that is infinite and immensely powerful? Learning might wind up being more expensive and time-consuming. The scope of the less expensive solutions could have been too constrained. In the end, there is a trade-off.
