As a marketer, time is one of your most precious resources. You need to use it wisely if you want to make the most of your campaigns and generate the results you need to see in order to grow your business.
Using automation software is a great way to streamline your marketing efforts. With it, you will be able to generate more leads in less time and at a much lower cost than it would be with traditional methods.
Marketing automation software automates many of your tasks, so you can spend more time focusing on the strategies that will bring your business the success it deserves.
When trying to find the best marketing automation software for your business, it is essential to take the time to do your research and find a product that will meet your needs without costing a fortune.
1. ActiveCampaign
The software allows marketing automation which includes sending out marketing emails and transaction emails. It is also a customer relationship management (CRM) tool in which you can create contacts, segment them and increase your engagement with these contacts. There are many ActiveCampaign alternatives available in the market (discussed after the features).
Important Features of ActiveCampaign:
- It allows you to send newsletters easily and with free email templates, you do not need to spend much time creating designs for your email.
- It has managed email delivery.
- It can integrate with social media tools and has the option to auto import from other services.
- It has a built-in CRM that allows lead scoring and tracking leads easily.
2. HighLevel
HighLevel understands that a marketing channel is needed to cover all the stages of the customer journey. As a result, it is built keeping that in mind. It helps agency owners understand their website traffic and analyze customer data. Since marketing and sales go hand-in-hand, marketing teams can also get an insight into contact and deal management using HighLevel’s CRM software.
Important Features of HighLevel:
- With its reporting dashboard, the marketing funnel can be visualized.
- It allows the creation of online surveys and forms that can be sent easily.
- Marketing teams can also monitor sales activity which allows them to gauge the ROI of their campaigns.
- It allows scheduling of social media posts and each post can be categorized according to the marketing strategies.
- With its Custom CSS & Javascript, you can customize the software according to your branding guidelines so that you have a customized look and feel.
- Its SaaS configurator allows the creation of your own plan by dragging and dropping the features that are required. For instance, the drag and drop feature can be used to create personalized landing pages.
3. Marketo
The software’s services include managing email campaigns, creating content , and SEO that helps in making the buyer journey simple. It helps in automating the entire customer experience. It offers content personalization, a marketing data environment, and other important features as discussed below.
Important Features of Marketo:
- It allows marketing lead generation which helps manage video campaigns, online ads, and virtual events.
- It has advanced BI capabilities which help in analyzing data, visualizing it to help answer complex questions, and streamlining the business reporting process.
- With Marketo’s predictive content, you can target buyers effectively with high-performing content. It leverages the power of AI to recommend relevant content to potential buyers.
- It allows segmentation of refined leads that update in real-time that allows the creation of customer profiles.
4. HubSpot
One of the most used CRM tools, Hubspot allows you to store data of as many as 1 million contacts in one place.
HubSpot is a powerful CRM tool with a module for marketing that allows you to gather leads, and break them into categories according to their interests, statuses, and requirements. Additionally, the leads can be nurtured easily through the platform.
HubSpot is designed to make inbound marketing easier. This software can help you in reaching a large audience and even build a strong relationship with potential and existing customers.
Important Features of HubSpot:
- HubSpot allows you to create web pages, landing pages, and blogs. It also allows uploading featured images for blogs, writing meta descriptions, creating tags, creating calls to action (CTAs), etc.
- The software allows scheduling social media and blog posts for a later day. Once a content calendar is created, posts for the entire month can be scheduled.
- Customer profiles can be created from active lists. The lists can be categorized according to the action they have taken. For instance, subscribe to the newsletter, nurturing, etc.
- Automated workflows can be created to run marketing and email campaigns.
- It provides engagement analytics that includes open rate, bounce rate, clicks, form submissions, click-through rates, etc.
- It has an A/B Testing tool with which you can test out different layouts, visual elements, CTAs, and subject lines.
- It has a dashboard that includes a summary of the number of calls made, emails sent, and meetings held by each employee. The dashboard also helps track sales figures that can be utilized by the marketing team.
5. Eloqua
It provides training to customers to help marketing teams to excel. Although the software is expensive, it provides a range of features that can somewhat justify the high price associated with it. It integrates with third-party services with ease.
Important Features of Eloqua:
- Provides visibility into the customer journey so you can understand the needs better.
- Allows reaching out to contacts at their preferred marketing channels and at the time they are the most receptive.
- The software helps drive engagement using AI tools, optimizing email open rates, and helping in maximizing customer lifetime value.
- Its asset management allows the creation of fully responsive forms, dynamic content for emails and landing pages, and the ability to add prebuilt content blocks.
- It has interactive dashboards that help to examine information.
- With its closed-loop reporting, the ROI of marketing campaigns can be analyzed.
6. Customer.io
It is not completely out of the box and can be customized. It has resources to help developers develop functionalities that are most needed by the company. It has a simple UI which makes the software great for companies that are just starting to automate their marketing processes.
Important Features of Customer.io:
- It allows sending data in multiple languages including Python, Go, and Ruby.
- It offers third-party integrations with platforms such as Segment, Zapier, RudderStack, etc.
- It allows the creation of customer profiles according to different filters such as personal attributes, conversion goals, etc. These customer segments can be turned into ad audiences and enable retargeting of specific customers that demonstrate some kind of interest.
- It has a transactional API that is built keeping speed and deliverability in mind.
- It allows adding messages sent via push notifications into the marketing strategy.
Summing Up The Best Marketing Automation Software
To sum up, automation is the key to effective marketing. Without it, your campaigns will be lackluster and ineffective. Choosing the best marketing automation software from the aforementioned list is tricky.
HighLevel was built keeping entrepreneurs and digital agencies in mind. Since it is designed by an agency owner, it caters to all the pain points that an agency with multiple clients goes through. It stands out due to its drag-and-drop features that allow you to customize the look and feel of your website.
While HubSpot, offers many different functionalities but does not deep dive into any specific function. HubSpot is more of an “all-in-one” tool, having multiple functionalities in-built.
As far as Marketo and Eloqua are concerned, they have exceptional functionalities that automate many of the marketing tasks. Both of them have AI capabilities that allow optimizing engagement and pushing out the right type of content to the target audience. However, they are suitable for large companies and enterprises that can afford the high price tag associated with them.
ActiveCampaign has a built-in CRM similar to HubSpot. It offers some level of automation which includes email marketing and sending out newsletters. It is suitable to be used by both sales and marketing teams who work closely together.
The last in the list of automation software is Customer.io, which is perfect for teams requiring customization and has developers at their disposal to carry it out. It also has an API that can help in integration with third-party applications, making it suitable for a mid-size agency that has a number of clients.
To conclude, it can be said that the best automation software depends on your budget and the niche that you operate in. Go through the list of features and decide for yourself which one is more suitable for your future marketing plans.
Author Bio:
Osama Zahid is a technology content strategist who is passionate about content marketing and all things SEO. He has helped various companies rank their content on the first page of search engines. In his free time, Osama loves to play football and travel.
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