In 2024, 24% of the chief marketing officers across the USA and Europe are investing in marketing technology, that’s a range of systems, software, and solutions that harness technology to achieve marketing goals. The digital initiative enables marketing automation across different stages and automates repetitive tasks, which is essential for the campaign’s success.
These marketing automation tools, from personalized email scheduling and CRM updates to lead scoring and sales lead rotation, are designed to streamline workflow, boost efficiency, increase conversion, and more. With such a robust array of choices, it’s a testament to the power of technology that businesses can now automate these essential tasks, freeing up time and resources for other strategic initiatives.
After extensive research, the list of best marketing automation software is compiled based on ease of use, integration, automation capabilities, reporting, price, and other features. Consider these marketing automation systems that help you create impact.
Top 10 Marketing Automation Software That Is Leveraged at Scale
The leading digital marketing agencies leverage digital marketing automation software to help businesses bring winning results faster. Trying hands on these best marketing automation platforms helps allow your business to move forward.
HubSpot | Marketing automation software
HubSpot is one of the best marketing automation tools, and it is one of the leading marketing automation solution providers, with a 35% market share in 2024. In just half a decade, between 2018 and 2023, HubSpot’s global revenue skyrocketed by over 320%, surpassing 2.17 billion U.S. dollars in the latter year.
HubSpot is a comprehensive solution that provides not just sales automation tools and marketing software, but also a customer support system that seamlessly integrates with the CRM system. This centralized system for sales and marketing helps businesses unlock the value of data, workflow, and automation. Going beyond simple email marketing automation tools, HubSpot enables setting up email list autoresponders, personalized email scheduling, live chat, and more.
Pros of using Hubspot
- Automate routine tasks with email automation
- Enable creating automated campaigns using workflow and bot builder
- Enhance campaign reach with SMS, in-product campaigns, etc.
- Automate lead nurturing with email drip campaigns
- Visualize and customize the workflow
- Automate lead scoring, follow-ups, notifications, and more.
Cons of using HubSpot
- Chatflow automation is available in free packages
- A separate hub needs to be purchased for sales, marketing, and service automation.
- Little expensive to use for small businesses
Price of using HubSpot
Hubspot marketing automation plans are available for individuals and enterprises. Marketing hub professionals start at $800 per month for three seats, and marketing hub enterprises begin at $3600 per month for five seats, which have advanced features, control, and flexibility.
Mailchimp: Marketing, Automation & Email Platform
One of the free marketing automation tools for small businesses allows businesses to connect with targeted customers, engage them, and convert at scale. The tool provides a customer journey builder to create a customized marketing automation workflow that is adaptable to customer preferences and behavior. Email automation software updates customers on their account activity or others with personalized transactional emails.
Ad retargeting allows bringing back the right customers at the right time, which helps catch maximum eyeballs and increase loyalty. Besides, Mailchimp seamlessly integrates data with other platforms (Google, Facebook, and Instagram) and helps send targeted, relevant messages to customers, which improves conversion rate.
Pros of using Mailchimp
- Data-driven tools help to outperform the last marketing campaign
- Customized purchase paths increase conversion
- One-to-one transactional emails increase relevant targeting
- Ad retargeting engages customers across different platforms.
- Create and automate campaigns in multiple formats.
- Reporting and analytics help improve engagement and revenue
Cons of using Mailchimp
- Comparatively expensive
- An increasing number of contacts amplifies the price
Price of using Mailchimp
Mailchimp offers four different pricing plans, making it an affordable option for businesses of all sizes. The free email campaign plan with pre-built email templates and email support for 30 days is a great starting point for small businesses. The Essential plan is $13/month for 500 contacts, the Standard plan starts at $20/month for 500 contacts, and the Premium plan starts at $350/month for 10,000 contacts offering increasing levels of personalization, optimization tools, and enhanced automation at reasonable prices.
ActiveCampaign
Using AI in digital marketing for SEO, SMM, automated email marketing, or paid advertising allows marketers to focus on strategic priorities. ActiveCampaign helps businesses build automation and run email campaigns on various channels, including email, SMS, and Ads that users use the most.
Businesses can choose one of the pre-built email templates or email designers, enabling the creation of advanced emails that are effective with customer segmentation. With sales automation, marketing automation, and CRM tools, the sales team can better prioritize opportunities, automatically assign tasks, update deals, and focus on selling, which improves conversion rates.
Pros of using Activecampaign
- Provide more than 900 marketing tools in one place
- Enhance customer engagement and meet business goals regardless of industry verticals.
- Increase email click-through-rate
- Amplify email interaction rate
- Analytics and reporting enable data-driven marketing campaign
- AI technology allows campaign recommendation, personalization, and validation
Cons of using Activecampaign
- Difficult to use for non-tech users
- No templates for form creation
- Predictive AI is available in premium packages
Price of using Activecampaign
The Activecampaign platform allows businesses to grow with four different plans. Here are the plans with 1000 contacts; A starter plan at $15 per month, a Plus plan that provides automation at $49 per month, a pro plan that unlocks full omnichannel marketing automation at $79 per month, an enterprise plan with enterprise-level support at $145 per month.
Brevo | Email Marketing Software, Automation & CRM
When there’s a need for marketing automation for small businesses, Brevo tops the list with its capabilities, allowing enterprises to effortlessly create personalized email templates and send messages automatically across channels from email to SMS. It saves time and money, and businesses can invest strategically and scale up growth.
Marketing automation is free for up to 2000 contacts. The guide provided by Brevo with all the tips and tricks for elevating marketing automation, sales automation, and customer relationship nurturing. It seamlessly connects with more than 150 digital tools to level up the marketing game.
Pros of using Brevo
- Improve engagement with AI-driven tailored content
- Improve website traffic with customer segmentation and automated lead scoring
- Boost revenue with personalized recommendations, tailored offers/deals, etc
- Save time and money with repetitive task automation
- Recover lost sales by winning back abandoned carts
- Personalized email marketing that captures user attention
Cons of using Brevo
- Customer support is not as expected
- Lead capture solutions are not good enough
- Credits won’t roll over
- It’s inflexible
Price of using Brevo
Four different plans are available for marketing automation, including a Free plan for $0, a starter plan ideal for start-ups and growing businesses starting at $8.08per month, a popular business plan that is built for marketing managers and eCommerce pros starting from $16.17 per month, and an enterprise plan whose cost depends on the functionalities opted by the enterprise.
Constant Contact: Digital and Email Marketing Platform
The all-in-one marketing platform allows delivering timely and relevant content in email and SMS so marketers can focus on core initiatives that increase online marketing campaign success. The automated message creation for repetitive activities and personalized customer journey creation based on their actions strengthen customer connections and conversion. The flexibility to add workflow and advanced automation improves the campaign and its results.
The pre-built, plug-and-play automation templates enable new businesses to get started with email marketing and manage new contacts as they are added to the lists. With hundreds of apps and integrations to choose from, businesses can enhance their marketing campaigns.
Pros of using Constant Contact
- A User-friendly interface allows beginners to get started with email marketing automation quickly.
- Professional templates save time and money.
- AI-powered content generation is relevant and engaging
- Built-in CRM enables contact management in all plans
- Good email deliverability rate
Cons of using constant contact
- Automation for multiple channels is not possible
- Limited A/B testing
- Limited customization capability
- Unlimited email sending is not available in any plan
- Lacks live chat, and email response time is slow
Price of using constant contact
Three different plans are available that businesses can choose from- a lite plan with email and social tools at $12 per month, a standard plan with effective marketing tools at $35 per month, and a premium plan with advanced tools for automation, segmentation, and more at $80 per month.
Marketo
Adobe’s marketing automation platform is designed using AI technology to plan, execute, and measure omnichannel campaigns. The compliant platform, along with easy integrations with other platforms, helps from batch email campaigns and automated nurture to advanced multi-step campaigns. With advanced customer segmentation, highly targeted audiences are built and targeted for better results.
Using Gen AI, the launch of complex, multi-step marketing campaigns is simplified. As using AI in sales increases overall sales with better insights and engagement, Marketo provides buyer engagement data directly to sales CRM so customer conversation is tailored. Additionally, templates, email, and chat tools are provided to sellers to engage their accounts at scale directly.
Pros of using Marketo
- Better targeting with customer profiling
- Boost and reach customers where they are
- Create content that connects with customers
- Customize the marketing campaign as required
- Track the campaign performance and use insights to make it better
- Seamlessly integrate with other platforms
- Improve operational efficiency
- Scalable architecture with pre-built integrations
Cons of using Marketo
- Complicated setup
- Poor customer service
- The form builder is not too good
Price of using Marketo
Four different packages- growth, select, prime, and ultimate plans- are available in other price ranges. The price quote is requested and provided by the platform based on the chosen functionalities.
Drip: Powerful, Easy-To-Use Marketing Automation
The easy-to-use marketing automation platform takes the email strategy up a notch by allowing businesses to sync the platform with their favorite tools seamlessly. In addition to easy integrations, face-melty service is an excellent combination of humanity and technology that delights customers. The AI-driven tool ensures a 99% delivery rate so that businesses are confident about email reaching the customers’ inboxes.
The visual drag-and-drop workflow builder, one-off rules, and daily marketing tasks automation help run complex automation efficiently. Behavior and lifecycle segmentation allow you to send relevant, targeted emails to your customers.
Pros of using Drip
- Ensure a high delivery rate and click-through rate
- Increase revenue with customer segmentation
- Excellent customer service according to North American and European time zones
- High customer satisfaction through live chat
- Easy integration with marketing tools of your choice
Cons of using Drip
- Steep learning curve
- No free version is available
- The free trial won’t include unlimited email sending
- Navigation is confusing
Price of using Drip
With no hidden fees or charges involved, Drip provides a plan that starts at $39 per month for 2500 people with basic functionalities included. Access to advanced features increases the price proportionately.
Omnisend: E-commerce Email Marketing and SMS Platform
The E-commerce-focused marketing platform helps online retailers automate emails and SMS to drive up sales. The easy-to-setup platform allows businesses to reach out to customers consistently with the same experience across various channels. The pre-built workflows, messages, and subject lines enable businesses to launch marketing campaigns in a few minutes. Drag and drop automation editor does wonders in making changes to the campaign.
Automation splits enable customizing offers/discounts for multiple messaging paths. With A/B testing, data-driven decision-making for email subject lines or marketing content is taken, which improves conversion rates.
Pros of using Omnisend
- Sales and engagement data tracking enable campaign optimization
- Compare campaign performance with automated reporting
- Integrate with all Ecommerce platforms
- Customer segmentation based on behavior and purchase
- Customizable templates
- Excellent customer support with live chat and email
- The free plan includes great features
- Affordable pricing structure
Cons of using Omnisend
- Ecommerce-focused features are available
- Interface takes time to get familiar with
- Contacts limitation on free plans
Price of using Omnisend
Omnisend provides three different plans that businesses can choose based on the number of contacts and the features they want. Here are the plans based on 251-500 contacts. The free plan is best for startups and SMBs, the Standard plan is best for growing and medium-sized businesses focused on email marketing of $16 per month, and the Pro plan is best for high-volume senders aimed at adding extra power with SMS at $59 per month, which is available under the Omnisend umbrella.
Pardot
Pardot integrates well with Salesforce CRM, empowering sales and marketing teams to work together with a range of marketing automation tools. The platform helps businesses find more leads and nurture them with dynamic, personalized campaigns. The improved engagement inches the customers closer to sales and converts them, which ultimately increases marketing ROI.
Pros of using Pardot
- Capture and nurture the leads at the right time
- Seamlessly manage leads and pass high-quality prospects to sales.
- Optimize sales processes
- AI-driven analytics provide quality insights
- Increase email campaign success with segmentation
- Hyper-personalization with AI-driven contextual content
Cons of using Pardot
- No free trial
- Challenging to master
- Limited features
- Lack real-time interaction
- Complex setup
Price of using Pardot
Businesses can use the platform by choosing one of the three plans- growth plan at $1250 per company per month, plus plan at $2500 per month, and advanced plan at $4000 per month.
Hootsuite: Social Media Marketing and Management Tool
One of the best social media marketing and management automation tools makes it easy for businesses to make the most out of social media networks in less time. It allows businesses to auto-publish and schedule social media posts with AI-powered contextual content at the right time that engages customers. The next level of social listening determines what’s trending on social media platforms that are relevant to the industry, as well as keywords and hashtags.
Social media analytics reveals the content that maximizes engagement and revenue. Benchmarking the performance against competition helps businesses identify rich insights. Improved customer service with chatbot integration, auto-responders, and automated routing is well-appreciated.
Pros of using Hootsuite
- Increase social ROI with analytics
- Free up resources with auto-scheduling from one place
- Provide inner peace by handling messages from a single place
- Ensure less work with automated caption writing and messaging
- Protect brand reputation by staying on top of what people are saying
- Increase traffic, conversion, and retention
Cons of using Hootsuite
- When more than 1000 pages are connected, performance is impacted
- Over-reliance on automation for social interactions is not good
- Auto-scheduling is concerning
Price of using Hootsuite
Businesses can manage social media marketing leveraging one of the three plans- the professional plan, available at $99 per month for 1 user and 10 social accounts; the famous team plan at $249 per month for 3 users and 20 social accounts; and the enterprise custom plan starts at 5 user and 50 social accounts, whose cost is revealed after requesting a quote based on functionalities required.
Campaign Monitor: Email Marketing Platform & Services
If you are looking to tap into the power of email automation, a campaign monitor is the best pick. The platform helps businesses get their target audience hooked with email marketing tactics and automation tools. Two guides are provided by the platform, helping businesses understand email marketing essentials and maximize customer engagement with email marketing automation setup.
With an email template builder, customer segmentation, AI-driven content creation, and analytics services, personalized email campaigns are set up to drive results. The email marketing campaigns integrate with most of the e-commerce platforms, allowing businesses to get more out of email marketing.
Pros of using Campaign Monitor
- Data segmentation enables personalization
- Email automation improves productivity
- Analytics provide an aggregated view of performance
- Professionally designed templates
- Auto-search emails and flag spammy links
- Drag and drop functionality to build email
Cons of using Campaign Monitor
- Support email-only automation
- Social media integration is not supported
- Multi-channel capabilities are limited
Price of using Campaign Monitor
The simple pricing structure of the campaign monitor platform is- the Lite plan contains core features at $12 per month, the Essentials plan contains unlimited emails for the frequent sender at $29 per month, and the Premier plan with advanced segmentation and premier support at $159 per month.
Summing It Up
Marketing automation solutions have become a staple of digital marketing campaigns worldwide. In fact, in the last five years, the number of marketing automation solutions has nearly doubled, surpassing 14.1 thousand. It indicates the increasing significance of marketing automation software, but it overwhelms marketers when choosing which one.
Considering the pros, cons, price, and market share of the software helps digital marketers choose the right solution. The list of top 10 marketing automation software, along with detailed descriptions, will help you find the best match for your marketing campaign needs. Browse the list for winning outcomes.
Derek Cohen
| Nov 14, 2024
Analyzing business activities and data to formulate the best business development ideas is where I earn appreciations and remunerations. I’m an ardent reader, business adviser, gadget aficionado and an amateur yet an avid writer. My urge for innovative writing evokes every time I come across new gadgets, neo technology and novel technical events.
