Marketing Automation Technologies
Almost all of us are familiar with the term “Automation” which automates the repetitive task and thereby saves effort and time to a great extent.
We have also heard about “Marketing”, which is a business or action of promoting, selling of products, services. How about the thought, if these words come together and form “Marketing Automation”?
Marketing Automation refers to the software platform which automates the marketing actions or processes.
There are several repetitive tasks in the marketing field such as e-mails, campaign management, website analysis, social media marketing, etc and these tasks otherwise would have been performed manually. But due to Marketing Automation, these tasks have become much easier and that in turn helps to grow the business.
A marketing automation solution needs to incorporate 3 capabilities:
- It needs an engagement hub or database to capture everything you learn about your customers across all channels & touchpoints.
- It needs an automation engine where you can create and trigger campaigns across all of your channels. Your campaigns can take what you learn from your customers and use it to best communicate with them in the moment they are engaged with you.
- It needs an analytic engine that can leverage data and the engagement hub to measure the impact of your campaigns and channels and provide metrics about the customer journey.
Marketing automation is a component of Customer Relationship Management (CRM). There are various marketing automation tools and platforms that are available in the market to automate these tasks.
HubSpot is a Software Company for Inbound Marketing and Sales. It is launched in 2006 and is headquartered at Massachusetts, United States. The company had revenue of $271 million in 2016 with 34,000 customers across 90 countries and 3,400 agency partners. Hubspot is specifically designed considering small and medium-sized businesses.
HubSpot provides marketing tools for web analytics, landing page, social media marketing, search engine optimization, content management, etc. It is an Inbound Marketing Software that helps to launch marketing campaigns in a short time but in an effective manner.
Key Features:
- Easily edits content and modifies a design.
- The formatting of content is simple and publishes the content on the website.
- HubSpot has integration features for SugarCRM, Netsuite, Salesforce, etc.
- Creates an email template, automates the subject line and content for each recipient.
- Based on the keywords, HubSpot optimizes the blog post and the landing page.
- The product has a starting price of $200 per month and a free trial version is also available.
- Support is available online and 24 X 7.
(2) SendinBlue
SendinBlue offers services such as email marketing, SMS campaign, and transactional emails.
It requires no specific skill to create email designs or templates. The interface is so simple to use with a drag and drop facility and customized template gallery which helps to create a simple but unique email template. This email template is supported by all types of mobile devices with any version.
SendinBlue offers various plans and the lowest one starts at $7.37 per month. This plan includes unlimited contacts and 40,000 emails.
There are various other features such as importing contacts from another platform, customized contact search, responsive email design, campaign reporting, trigger marketing email as per the user interest, etc.
(3) Pardot
Pardot was launched in 2006 and salesforce.com is its parent organization with its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.
Pardot is famous because of its exceptional services to its customers and builds a relationship with the client. Pardot product is easy to use and its interface guides in building effective campaigns.
Pardot is the best solution for small to midsize companies which are looking to streamline the efficiency of their marketing and sales team. Pardot B2B Marketing Automation provides a powerful and smarter marketing program for marketers.
Key Features:
- Builds a dynamic and comprehensive marketing campaign.
- Measure and Track campaign with a customizable dashboard.
- Pardot identifies gaps in campaigns and fixes it before the campaign launch.
- Build professional emails quickly and helps to create an email campaign.
- Scheduled and Automated email sending facility.
- Pardot’s software model built on the Force.com platform.
- Pardot works well with Salesforce, SugarCRM, Netsuite, Microsoft Dynamic CRM, etc.
- It has 4,000 customers across the globe and around 40,000 users.
- Partdot plan costs $1000/month/user and also a free trial version is available.
(4) Marketo
Marketo Inc. is a marketing software company that makes marketing automation software for companies. It was launched in 2006 with its headquarters in California, United States. Marketo has offices across the globe namely in Sydney, Dublin, Tel-Aviv, etc.
Marketo products are used for small to medium-size businesses and large enterprises. It has a better customer support and the products are evolving on a regular basis.
Key Features:
- Marketo offers a web-based email marketing platform.
- It includes features like email marketing, landing pages, nurturing, web analytics, social media, etc.
- Automates marketing campaigns and engages the customer in a personalized manner.
- Marketo helps to identify the customer and their business which will help to increase their revenue.
- Worldwide around 3,300 customers and over 43,000 users.
- Marketo plan costs around $895 per month.
- Online 24/7 support.
(5) ActiveCampaign
Activecampaign is a popular Email marketing service with third-party integration, different types of auto-responses, etc. It provides a solution for the business that needs their contacts for various purposes. A welcome email, birthday emails,etc., and triggers a variety of emails for different activities.
Activecampaign tracks the website visits, various events of the customer and based on that it provides real-time analysis. Valuable customer data is organized in a good manner and automatically consolidates communication.
Key Features:
- Automatically fetches contacts and adds new contacts from various platforms like CRM, e-commerce, etc.
- Monthly new email sent to their customers.
- Dynamic email content depending upon customer behavioral analysis, interests, social data, etc
- An activecampaign plan starts with a cost of about $9 per month for up to 500 contacts.
- Various plans are available for $29 per month, $45 per month with 2,500 & 5,000 contacts and unlimited emails.
- 14 days free trial period.
- Online support and live chat support are available but on-call support is unavailable.
(6) LeadSquared
LeadSquared was launched in 2012 with a revenue of $3 million in 2016.
It provides a solution in areas such as real estate, education, travel, health, financial services, etc. It has customers like Flipkart, Time Pro, NIIT, Randstad, etc. LeadSquared provides services in around 20 countries.
LeadSquare focuses service in the B2C model i.e. Business to Consumer service, in this model products or services, are directly sold to the consumer.
Key Features:
- Using the LeadSquared solution, sales grow by 50%.
- It is the best lead management tool that captures leads from various sources like email, campaign, phone call, etc.
- It helps to prioritize leads and tasks.
- LeadSquared functions are available through the website as well as through mobile apps.
- It sends automated sales notification to the salesperson.
- Various email templates are available to support different types of devices.
- More than 15,000 users and 650 customers.
- The initial plan starts at $25 per month and a free trial for 30 days is available.
(7) Campaigner
Campaigner is a robust email marketing solution for all sizes of businesses like small, medium and large enterprises.
External data can be integrated with Campaigner, it filters out the customer addresses and sends the appropriate one to one email communication. Email messaging integrates with social media sites like Facebook, Twitter to increase email campaign success.
Campaigner tracks the user activities, purchase or shopping data and based on this effective email campaign it sends to the user.
Key Features:
- It creates personalized email and sends to the subscribers.
- Campaigner generates revenue from its email campaign.
- It has over 900+ email templates.
- It is reliable and is available online, hence it can be accessed from anywhere.
- Detailed reporting shows how a user interacts with the campaign.
- Campaigner includes automated advertising.
- Campaigner initial plan starts with $19.95 per month.
- 30 days free trial is available.
- 24/7 customer support with live chat.
(8) Infusionsoft
Infusionsoft is an email marketing private company for small and medium businesses needs which was launched in 2001 and has its headquarters in Arizona, the United States. Currently, it has around 650 employees and its revenue is $80 million.
Infusionsoft is mainly focused on the growth of small businesses using technology and automated marketing platform. It automates most of the repetitive tasks such as follow-up, billing, contact management etc.
Key Features:
- The customized campaign helps SMB’s to plan.
- Deeper website tracking like customer first visit, purchase data, no. of online customers, average time spent on a page per user, etc.
- Infusionsoft’s marketing solution combines CRM, e-Commerce, marketing automation etc.
- Over 29 billion emails are delivered, 396 million contacts are managed, over 450K various campaigns are running and $3.4 billion payments are processed.
- 125,000 users and over 36,000 customers across the globe.
- The initial plan starts at $199 (Essential plan) per month which includes 2,500 contacts and 12,500 emails.
- Online and 24/7 live support is available.
(9) Act-On
Act-On Software is a product developed for marketing automation by Act-On which was launched in 2008 with its headquarters in Portland, Oregon.
Act-On is a comprehensive automated marketing platform for small and medium-sized businesses and is growing as the fastest cloud-based marketing automation company.
The products by Act-On are email marketing, social media management, landing pages, CRM integration lead management, website visitor tracking, etc.
Key Features:
- Act-On marketing automation platform is simple and easy to use.
- The solution helps to identify the potential buyer and helps to increase sales by accelerating buyers through sales funnel.
- Custom reporting for a social media campaign.
- An automated marketing platform helps to get higher returns and is required to spend less money and effort.
- Over 5,000 customers and around 18,000 users are served by Act-On across the globe.
- The professional plan starts at $900 per month with 3 marketing users, 50 sales users and 30K API calls per day.
- Online support is available 24/7.
(10) Ontraport
Ontraport was launched in 2006 with its headquarters in California, United States. It has a revenue of over $10 million and more than 100 employees.
The Ontraport solution assists small businesses and entrepreneurs with the help of friendly automated business software. It offers various services like email and SMS marketing, content management, CRM, billing and online payments, etc.
Key Features:
- Automates marketing efforts and combines offline campaigns with an online campaign to get a fully integrated campaign.
- Campaign builder includes email, SMS, landing page, digital ads, etc
- Sends an unlimited automatic email, text using a tool with the correct user’s interest.
- Integrated with CRM, e-Commerce, and marketing automation tool.
- Built e-Commerce page using Ontraport’s e-commerce capabilities.
- The visual campaign performance reporting tool shows the online and offline results of marketing efforts.
- Creates a personalized customer journey and deeply tracks customer behavior.
- 5,000 customers and 6,300 users across the globe.
- It offers three plans and the initial plan starts at $79 per month.
- Online support is available.
(11) GetResponse
GetResponse is an email marketing Software Company launched in 1999, headquartered in Poland. It has offices across the globe like the U.S. Canada, Malaysia, India, and Russia. It focuses on small and large businesses with simple and powerful solutions.
GetResponse email marketing comes up with an auto-responder and landing page. It uses its inbuilt e-commerce capabilities to track the customer’s website visits, purchase data, etc. It creates events such as Clicked, Purchased, and Cart Abandoned using customer behavior.
Key Features:
- GetResponse email platform is available in 21 different languages.
- Automates the customer journey depending on their history and behavior.
- Build and publish various landing pages.
- GetResponse provides a webinar marketing solution.
- Drag and drop email editor.
- Set up a complex campaign with drag and drop workflow builder.
- Visual workflow helps to get the entire view of marketing communication.
- Contacts from various other tools, platforms can be easily imported into the GetResponse platform.
- 350,000 customers across 182 countries.
- Lowest plan rate with $25 per month with 2,500 contacts.
(12) SharpSpring
SharpSpring is a simple, affordable and yet powerful marketing automation platform.
SharpSpring is a cloud-based marketing tool that provides various services such as CRM, mobile marketing, social marketing, etc. SharpSpring tracks the customer and provides a wide range of data about the customer. Based on customer behavior and data, SharpSpring builds rules to send various types of marketing emails.
SharpSpring has over 6,000 customers and around 30,000 users across the globe. SharpSpring provides advanced features and functionalities which are expensive in CRM and other marketing tools.
(13) Netsuite
Netsuite’s marketing automation software automates various processes, flows and the tasks of the marketing department. It also helps to create multiple campaigns and aligns with the sales team.
Netsuite streamlines the execution of such multiple marketing campaigns which include email, social media, event management, etc. It helps to create landing pages using drag and drop interface. It also helps to create various reusable forms and templates with a high-quality look and feels.
It increases the revenue with a targeted mass email campaign and email personalization marketing.
(14) Eloqua
Eloqua was launched in 1999 with its headquarters in London, United Kingdom. It is an Oracle Marketing cloud platform for managing sales and marketing leads. It delivers campaigns across various channels such as emails, mobile, video, web and display search.
“WeChat” app developed by Oracle Eloqua helps to find new customers and the data on the “WeChat” app helps to understand the activities of the customers.
Oracle Eloqua has over 7,000 customers and 70,000 users across the globe. It has a basic plan which starts at $2,000 per month with 10K contacts. Oracle network of 500 partners helps to empower marketing automation for scalability and extension.
(15) IBM Marketing Cloud
IBM Watson Campaign Automation is a digital marketing platform that uses customer behavior data from other sources and creates a campaign.
It delivers a campaign for email, SMS, mobile, social media, group messaging, etc. It supports campaign reporting to understand customer behavior and improve marketing decisions.
It has over 2,500 customers and 75,000 users across the globe. It has an initial plan with a starting price of $1,500 per month. This platform provides online support to its customers and is available 24/7.
(16) Comparison between Hubspot & Marketo on 5 parameters:
(a) System
- Marketo has 4 modules. Each module can be purchased separately or combined: (1) Marketing Automation (2) Consumer Engagement (3) Real-time personalization (4) Marketing Management
- Hubspot provides a single system. Sales applications are available as add ons. All in one system is attractive to buyers since it provides seamless functionality and is priced as a single unit.
(b) Pricing
- Marketo is priced as per scale of company: (1) Spark for small cos. (2) Standard (3) Select (4) Enterprise
- Hubspot is the more affordable option for small businesses. Its pricing is lesser than Marketo’s entry level option. In Enterprise prices are comparable but Marketo is still more expensive since most businesses will require more than 1 module to be effective.
(c) Ease of use
- Marketo specializes in customer solutions hence requires more IT knowledge. May require dedicated Marketing Automation specialist and you will require the depth of features offered.
- Hubspot is great for people using marketing automation for the first time. It is simple, intuitive and has several functions. It also enjoys higher average user rating vs. Marketo across sites.
(d) CRM integration
- Marketo doesn’t provide built in CRM. Their product was built using the Salesforce platform which means they offer the best salesforce integration in the industry. They also provide native integration for MS Dynamics & SAP.
- Hubspot has a built in CRM. It provides basic integration with popular systems such as Salesforce; SugarCRM; MS Dynamics; Zoho
(e) Analytics
- Marketo provides analytics to track campaigns and pull reports. It provides deeper and more strategic visibility. It provides Success Path Analyzer which provides correlation between marketing efforts and revenue fluctuations. It provides predictive analytics and modelling
- Hubspot provides analytics to track campaigns and pull reports.
(f) Key differences
- Marketo traditionally focuses on B2B & engagement planning. Globally serves 3,300 cos. Build for Large B2B cos. Align prospect engagement with business goals.
- Hubspot focuses on B2C marketing & inbound marketing. Globally serves 13,000 cos. Build for Small businesses. More visitors + Lead nurture.
(17) Salesforce
Salesforce.com, Inc. (styled in its logo as salesƒorce; abbreviated usually as SF or SFDC) is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. Though the bulk of its revenue comes from a customer relationship management(CRM) product, Salesforce also sells a complementary suite of enterprise applications focused on customer service, marketing automation, analytics and application development.
Salesforce was ranked first in Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2018.
The company was founded in 1999 by former Oracle executive Marc Benioff, Parker Harris, Dave Moellenhoff, and Frank Dominguez as a company specializing in software as a service (SaaS). Harris, Moellenhoff, and Dominguez, three software developers previously at consulting firm Left Coast Software, were introduced to Benioff through a friend and former Oracle colleague Bobby Yazdani. Harris and team wrote the initial sales automation software, which launched to its first customers during Sept-Nov 1999.
Salesforce is the primary enterprise offering within the Salesforce platform. It provides companies with an interface for case management and task management, and a system for automatically routing and escalating important events. The Salesforce customer portal provides customers the ability to track their own cases, includes a social networking plug-inthat enables the user to join the conversation about their company on social networking websites, provides analytical tools and other services including email alert, Google search, and access to customers’ entitlement and contracts.
