With the rise of digital marketing channels and data-driven technologies, marketing automation tools have come to play a central role in marketing strategies.
Marketers need to manage multiple channels, audiences and campaigns in order to remain competitive. And manually executing tasks, such as data collection or social media posts, takes up valuable time.
Marketing automation tools can save you hours searching through customer databases for potential leads at the click of a button by drawing your most engaged prospects with features like integrated lead generation forms, data warehouses, and scheduled social media posts.
This article covers the importance of marketing automation tools for successful campaigns, how to choose the right tool for your company, as well as some of the best marketing automation platforms out there.
What Are Marketing Automation Tools?
Marketing automation tools are software solutions that automate time-consuming, repetitive tasks to increase efficiency and optimise marketing campaigns. They are specifically designed to help businesses streamline their marketing efforts, deliver high-quality content and build meaningful relationships with customers.
As they can perform a wide range of functions, let’s explore a few marketing automation tool examples:
- Automating lead nurturing through the sales funnel, including sending targeted content and messages based on prospects’ and leads’ behaviour and preferences.
- Automating email campaigns is one of the most popular automation tools. This includes drip campaigns, segmentation, welcome/cart abandonment messages and more.
- Social media automation tools can automate social media posts, track social media engagement and analyse social media performance.
- Marketing automation tools provide data and analytics to help you measure the effectiveness of your campaigns and make data-driven decisions.
- Marketing automation tools harness customer behaviour and preferences to create a more personalised user experience, thereby increasing engagement and conversion rates.
Who Uses Marketing Automation Tools?
Marketing automation can be a powerful tool for marketing managers and sales teams looking to streamline their marketing efforts.
By automating repetitive tasks, such as email campaigns, lead scoring and social media posts, and using data to optimise campaigns, marketers can focus on what they do best—creating engaging content and building relationships with their audience.
Not only does this save time, but it also allows marketers to manage a larger number of campaigns at once, giving them more time to develop innovative marketing strategies.
Moreover, marketing automation tools can help marketers understand customer journeys and optimise touchpoints across multiple channels, facilitating more informed decision-making.
Overall, marketers can enjoy increased efficiency, productivity, overall effectiveness and better results for clients, all thanks to marketing automation tools.
Main Types of Marketing Automation Tools
In today’s business world, there is a wide range of marketing automation tools for small businesses available, meaning almost any marketing task can be automated.
Here are a few of the main types of marketing automation tools:
- Inbound marketing automation tools can attract prospects to marketing agencies’ websites and engage them with highly relevant content to convert them into leads and customers. With cross-channel automation, personalisation and user tracking, businesses can create and manage campaigns and track user behaviour across multiple channels.
- Email marketing automation tools automate the creation, distribution and tracking of email campaigns.
- B2B marketing automation tools automate targeted campaigns, track customer interactions, and deliver personalised content throughout the customer journey. Automated analytics and reporting help businesses scale their marketing efforts, improve lead quality and increase revenue.
- Social media marketing automation can schedule social media posts ahead of time or repost popular posts, saving you time and labour.
- Lead management automation tools can manage and automate the lead nurturing process, from capturing leads to qualifying them and ultimately converting prospects into customers!
- Pricing automation software optimises your pricing strategies, improves revenue and profitability, and quickly responds to changing market conditions. With pricing automation, you can manage pricing across different channels, such as online marketplaces, e-commerce platforms and retail stores.
- Referral marketing tools automate referral workflows to provide insights into the performance of referral campaigns, helping businesses optimise strategies and identify areas for improvement.
How to Choose the Right Marketing Automation Tools
Choosing the right marketing automation tools that fit your business’s needs can be a daunting task.
Here are some factors you need to consider in order to find the right marketing automation tool more easily and achieve your marketing goals:
#1. Understand Your Needs
Before choosing a marketing automation tool, it is important to identify your business’s needs.
To figure this out, try asking yourself these questions:
- What are your overall goals?
- What are you expecting to achieve with the tools?
- What kind of marketing campaigns do you want to run?
- Which marketing channels do you want to use?
Understanding your needs will help you choose the solution that’s uniquely effective for your particular business.
#2. Decide on a Budget
Make sure to choose a tool that fits within your budget, as marketing automation solutions can vary considerably in price. Some platforms have additional costs for implementation, training and support, so make sure you are aware of them before taking the leap.
The best approach to marketing automation is to look at it as an investment; while some solutions may seem expensive, they can pay off in the long run.
#3. Evaluate User Friendliness of the Tools
One of the main goals of marketing automation is to simplify your marketing tasks, not make them more complex. You’ll want to choose software that is intuitive and user-friendly to ensure implementation and training are as simple as possible.
Ongoing support is often included in packages, and many platforms offer free trials, so you can use this period to test out whether the user interface will be easy to learn, among other things.
#4. Explore Features of the Tools
Of course, different marketing automation tools offer different features, so be sure to choose a platform that has features relevant to your particular business.
Lots of automation tools provide analytics and reporting, which can be a great way to streamline your marketing efforts by identifying areas that will most benefit from marketing automation tools and areas for improvement. Most automation tools provide historical data retention, recording analytics and data over time, so you can keep track of the tool’s performance.
#5. Test the Tools
Free trials are a great opportunity to test both the interface and the features of the tool to find out whether it’s right for you.
Testing is important for a number of reasons:
- Testing a tool before committing to it can help ensure it actually meets your specific needs.
- To identify any technical issues. Marketing automation tools can be complex to run, so identifying any issues early on will help you avoid headaches further down the line.
- Testing can also help you optimise its performance and identify areas that would most benefit from automation.
Top 15 Marketing Automation Tool Examples
Our list of the best marketing automation tools available should help you find the right tool for your company.
#1. Eloqua
Being one of the best marketing automation tools out there, Eloqua can be integrated with a wide range of other business systems, including CRMs, analytics tools and social media platforms.
Top Features:
Email marketing, customer segmentation, lead management, lead scoring and nurturing and sales and marketing alignment.
Pricing:
The basic plan is $2000 per month, and the standard plan is $4000 per month.
Who It’s For:
Their B2B marketing automation tools are perfect for marketers who have complex marketing operations and want to improve their ROI. This is a great option for businesses with few budget restrictions looking to scale their solutions as they grow.
#2. Omnisend
Omnisend is a powerful tool with multiple channel capabilities and sophisticated targeting, allowing you to integrate many channels into a single workflow.
Top Features:
Customer segmentation, email and SMS marketing, welcome and transaction emails, analytics and reporting.
Pricing:
Omnisend has four plans: Standard ($16 per month), Pro ($99 per month) and a free plan. They also offer a custom plan tailored to your company.
Who It’s For:
Omnisend is well-suited for e-commerce businesses with tools that engage customers across multiple channels and improve their overall marketing performance.
#3. HubSpot
Hubspot is an all-in-one marketing, sales and service automation platform that helps companies attract and engage customers. Their tools can be used individually or together for an integrated, seamless customer experience.
Top Features:
Ad tracking, video content, SEO optimization, blog analytics, social media scheduling and live chat.
Pricing:
HubSpot offers three plans: Starter ($20 per month), Professional ($800 per month), and Enterprise ($3600 per month).
Who It’s For:
Hubspot is great for businesses of all sizes to improve their marketing, sales and customer service operations.
#4. ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is a cloud-based marketing automation and CRM platform that incorporates automation into workflows. It’s great for creating and monitoring personalised campaigns and managing customer relationships.
Top Features:
CRM integrations, lead scoring, A/B testing, custom sign-up forms, pre-built automation workflows, goal tracking and more.
Pricing:
ActiveCampaign offers four plans: Lite ($29 p/month), Plus ($49), Professional ($149) and Enterprise, a custom plan unique to your company.
Who It’s For:
It’s a great marketing automation tool for small businesses looking for a powerful yet affordable and easy-to-use solution.
#5. Marketo
Marketo is a powerful platform with a suite of marketing automation solutions that allow businesses to automate the entire marketing process.
Top Features:
Personalised email marketing, lead generation, lead management, lead scoring, analytics and social media marketing.
Pricing:
Marketo subscriptions have three tiers: $895, $1795 and $3195 per month.
Who It’s For:
This is an excellent solution for complex and extensive marketing operations.
#6. Moosend
Moosend is an easy-to-use solution specialising in email marketing, tracking and customer experience to drive growth.
Top Features:
Email design tools, list management features, workflow templates, segmentation, webtracking, analytics and reporting tools.
Pricing:
Moosend offers a Pro Plan ($9 per month) and an Enterprise Plan unique to your agency (quote available on their website).
They also offer a free trial for 30 days.
Who It’s For:
Moosend is ideal for small enterprises that are looking for an affordable but powerful email marketing solution.
#7. EngageBay
An all-in-one CRM software that specialises in marketing, sales and customer support products.
Top Features:
CRM, marketing automation, sales automation, social media management, lead scoring and customer service tools.
Pricing:
Engagebay has four pricing tiers: free, $14.99, $49.99 and $99.99 per month.
Who It’s For:
Perfect for startups to acquire and nurture customers. Engagebay builds both B2B and B2C marketing automation tools.
#8. Keap
An all-in-one CRM, sales and marketing automation tool that automates email marketing, tracks website activity and nurtures customer relationships.
Top Features:
Advanced Automations builder, segmentation, A/B testing, audience segmentation and curated templates.
Pricing:
Keap offers two plans: Pro ($149 per month) and Max ($199 per month), along with a custom plan unique to your agency.
They also have a 14-day free trial.
Who It’s For:
This is great for small businesses who want impressive email marketing and payment functionality.
#9. Drip
Drip is a comprehensive automation tool great for e-commerce, managing customer relationships and nurturing customer loyalty.
Top Features:
Pre-built workflows, personalised product recommendations, email campaigns, email builders and testing, social media, multi-channel marketing and insightful analytics for improved performance.
Pricing:
Plans start at $39 per month, depending on your customer list. They also offer a 14-day free trial.
Who It’s For:
Drip is designed specifically for e-commerce companies that want to automate email marketing campaigns.
#10. Customer.io
A cloud-based email automation solution, Customer.io allows agencies to create and send targeted and personalised messages to their customers based on their behaviour and interests.
Top Features:
Personalised emails, push notifications, automated workflows, analytics and reporting tools.
Pricing:
Plans start at $100 per month, with a free trial and demo.
Who It’s For:
Great for subscription based businesses who want to optimise marketing campaigns, increase customer engagement and retention and improve their ROI.
#11. Sendinblue
Sendinblue provides a suite of tools for businesses to manage their marketing campaigns, automate workflows, email marketing, landing pages, CRM and more.
Top Features:
Segmentation, retargeting, real-time statistics and website chat.
Pricing:
Their free plan allows you unlimited contacts and up to 300 emails per day. For more features and higher email limits, paid plans start at $25 per month.
Who It’s For:
The platform is designed to be easy-to-use for businesses of all sizes, from small startups to large companies.
#12. Act-On
Act-on is one of the most comprehensive social media and SEO tools that can automate all your marketing operations. With Act-on, you can integrate your email marketing with social media, customer relationships and SEO.
Top Features:
Email marketing automation, social media automation, SMS marketing, dynamic web forms, analytics and reporting.
Pricing:
The Professional plan starts at $900 per month, and the Enterprise plan starts at $2000 per month.
Who It’s For:
This is great for larger businesses with complex systems that want to drive better social media and SEO strategies.
#13. Pardot
Pardot is a powerful platform that automates lead management and generation while tracking website activity. Pardot is great for automating campaigns, managing customer profiles, segmentation and more.
Top Features:
Lead management and generation, email marketing, sales alignment, artificial intelligence and ROI insights/reporting.
Pricing:
Pardot has four different plans: Growth ($1250 per month), Plus ($2500), Advanced ($4000) and Premium ($15000).
Who It’s For:
Pardot is well suited for large scale enterprises and B2B marketing.
#14. Braze
Braze is a leading SaaS customer engagement platform that engages with consumers across channels to build personalised experiences between them and the brands they love.
Top Features:
Dashboard user interface, A/B testing, data API, app analytics, segmentation, multichannel messaging, push notifications and webhooks.
Pricing:
Subscriptions start at $60,000, and you can request a direct quote from Braze’s website.
Who It’s For:
This is great for big companies with extensive operations across multiple clients.
#15. Constant Contact
Constant Contact is an affordable email marketing automation tool with an intuitive user interface.
Top Features:
Email builders, contact management, dashboards and reporting, data integration and storage and A/B testing.
Pricing:
Plans start at $9 per month. The Email Plus plan is $45 per month. A 30-day free trial is also available.
Who It’s For:
This is a great option for businesses of all sizes that focus on email marketing. It’s easy to learn and use while being relatively affordable.
Automate Your Marketing with Custom Scripts and Apps by Acuto
It’s clear that finding the right marketing automation tool for your business can transform your operations and drive more sales.
At Acuto, we believe that every marketing agency deserves the best at an affordable price, which is why we provide bespoke software development services unique to your business to enhance your marketing strategy.
Furthermore, Acuto can build custom scripts to automate any aspect of your marketing, whether it’s paid advertising, SEO, or e-commerce.
If you need a robust marketing automation solution, opt for Acuto’s bespoke software development services and get a custom web app built specifically for your agency’s needs.
Key Takeaways
By now, you should feel confident in choosing automation tools suitable for your company.
Let’s go over some of the main points:
- Marketing automation tools automate time-consuming tasks while harnessing your data to enhance your marketing strategy.
- Marketers can use marketing automation tools to better understand customer journeys and make more informed decisions.
- The main types of marketing automation tools focus on the following: inbound, email and B2B marketing; social media; lead management; pricing; and referral marketing.
- When choosing which marketing automation tool is right for you, consider your needs, budget, user friendliness, and features, and finally, test the tools.
Marketing Automation FAQ
#1. What is a marketing automation tool?
A marketing automation tool is software that automates repetitive marketing tasks and processes. Marketing automation tools can help businesses improve their marketing efficiency, reduce manual efforts and increase lead generation.
#2. Do you need marketing automation tools?
Yes, you need marketing automation tools if you want to save time and implement a cutting-edge marketing strategy. Marketing tools can help you streamline and automate repetitive tasks while improving the accuracy and effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.
#3. Which automation tool is the best on the market?
There isn’t a “one-size-fits-all” best automation tool on the market per se, as it really depends on your needs, budget and the features and functionality of the tool. However, some of the most popular platforms are HubSpot, Marketo and ActiveCampaign.
#4. Are marketing automation tools expensive?
Marketing automation tools can be expensive, and for this reason, many popular platforms are more appropriate for large enterprises. For small businesses just starting out, opting for a custom solution, such as those that Acuto offers, can be better for your agency.