Best Marketing Automation Software in 2024

Marketing automation tools can be absolutely amazing when handed to the right team. In the best of all cases, it will be your “personal Amazon” for nurturing prospects and selling products and personalizing content to the extent that it will turn your customers into your biggest fans. At the end of the story, you will record excellent ROI rates and increased revenue, which is more or less what every company desires.

In the usual scenario, however, marketing automation can be a difficult and costly initiative, not exactly damage-proof, but certainly effective in the long run. We wouldn’t, however, generalize this characteristic because we are aware of another problem: some businessmen find it hard to hit it off with marketing automation because they expect it to be the common roof for all lead nurturing strategies. Marketing automation will nurture leads, assuming that you already have them.

If we had to put marketing automation software’s purpose in one sentence, it would be that this set of advanced tools helps businesses organize the data their prospects share online, and to use it to send the right content to the right prospect at the right time. To make things a bit simpler, we’ve compiled a few basic marketing automation aspects in a buyer’s guide that can help you make informed comparisons to choose the best Marketing Automation Software for small business or enterprises.

A good course of action is to sign up for at least a few free trial plans or demo from leading providers of marketing automation tools. With that method you will have the opportunity to test the list of important elements and you will get a good comparison of the capabilities of different platforms. The best thing to do is to try programs that currently have the highest SmartScore rankings and Customer Satisfaction Rating in the Marketing software category to discover the best Marketing Automation software for your company: Infusionsoft reviews, HubSpot, Emma, LeadSquared, Firecart, ActiveDEMAND, and Salesboom CRM.  

When it comes to your first marketing automation system, you’re probably already somewhere between “It can save me” and “I don’t really need it,” but don’t worry. Had it been one extreme of the two, you would already know that.

Instead, let’s take a look at MA software as a desirable addition to your work line. It will be a big arrival and just like every arrival, it will require you to solve a few critical dilemmas in advance. Marketing automation software is welcome in almost any company, but works best in one of the following scenarios:

• Small Businesses automating marketing for the first time. Small companies want to generate a higher return on investment, which is why they are the ones that can recognize the success of such software the most. These systems simplify their strategies and streamline campaigns to reach customers at a fraction of what they’re currently investing.
• Medium Businesses looking to improve efficiency. Medium companies are in a constant development process, and they need to improve lead management by nurturing buyers to a sales-ready position, and by scoring them to examine which ones are more willing to buy. They need marketing software to automate the process, and to let agents focus on more attention-demanding aspects.
• Large Businesses in need of marketing analytics. Large companies have long surpassed initial marketing automation, and are looking to upgrade their software with powerful analytic features. Accurate analytics will accelerate and improve lead management, allow them to track ROI and optimize their fractional attribution models.

• Infusionsoft: A powerful marketing automation tool for beginners and small companies, which helps them organize and grow their sales in every niche.
• Marketo: One of the leading marketing automation platforms that simplify the marketing process and streamline most marketing-automation tasks.
• HubSpot: A functional tool for creating compelling marketing content that can easily be connected to similar marketing and sales tools.
• Pardot: A popular marketing automation system that enables marketing teams to boost revenue and to improve efficiency.
• Freshmarketer: A leading conversion rate optimization platform that helps marketers create targeted customer experiences.
• iContact Pro: A smart and cost-effective business solution loaded with advanced marketing automation features, CRM functionalities, and high-end segmentation tools.

Our marketing automation software reviews show that there are many different types of solutions in this category, varying from free and basic tool suites to ultra costly and accurate programs. Features can also act as categorization criteria, as certain programs do nothing but summarize contact lists, while others are more robust and allow marketers to automate all marketing-related tasks, track and compare customer behavior and conversion rates, and even do some custom branding. Deployment is also an important factor based on which there are:

• On-premise marketing automation systems. These are covered with a single license and hosted on the client’s local server. They qualify as the most expensive ones, due to the fact that they require complex setup and occasionally some hardware installation.
• Software-as-a-service (SaaS) marketing automation systems. These are usually paid per month and are hosted on the vendor’s server. The business owner is not responsible for installation, updating, and maintenance.
• Cloud-hosted marketing automation systems. Most of these offer free basic plans and qualify as the most affordable ones due to their universal access and the fact that the client doesn’t need to update them or pay for maintenance.

Had you decided that you need a MA system to handle your marketing tasks, the next thing you need to do is to find one that has the right features to do it. These are the most common features to look for in your MA system:

• Email Marketing. Your marketing automation system is supposed to allow you to compile a contact list from the various sources you’re using, send targeted messages, onboard customers, and share both informative and promotional content.
• Online Marketing. This feature refers to the possibility for companies to produce, launch, compare, measure, and optimize automated and personalized marketing strategies, ideally via both desktop and handheld devices. Advanced management automation systems also allow for brand resource management and create landing pages templates.
• Lead Management. Great marketing automation systems are also empowered to handle lead management, to generate, onboard, nurture, and automate their leads. Some of them will even forecast lead generation and measure the ROI impact of your marketing automation strategy.
• Analytics and Reports. When choosing a marketing automation system, check the analytics and reporting suite, and look for features, metrics, and key performance indicators that can help you generate accurate reports, and use them when prioritizing tasks and creating management campaigns.
• Resource Management. Features related to resource management are supposed to facilitate marketing resources management with the main purpose of making and executing smarter marketing decisions.
• Social Marketing. A good marketing automation platform is expected to revolutionize the way your social marketing efforts generate ROI. Nowadays, marketing platforms are imperative for companies to make the most of their social media presence.
• Lead Generation (common, not compulsory). In some of the cases, marketing automation platforms empower businesses to schedule resources depending on their lead generation capacity, to use dynamic landing pages, SEO, and automated lead scoring in order to attract new customers.
• Landing Pages. Marketing automation software empowers the development of entirely email-based marketing strategies and therefore, offers a variety of dynamic landing pages to attract and retain customers. Businesses can also create their own landing pages, and convert visitors in a highly-personalized way.
• A/B Testing. A/B split testing is one of the essential marketing automation software features, which enables companies to use advanced email segmentation to compare results and to optimize the effects of their marketing strategies.
• Mobile Optimization (ideally both iOS and Android). Ideally, your marketing automation system should be mobile-optimized, and allow you to use it from all possible devices even when on the go.
• API. Marketing automation platforms have inbuilt developer APIs that allow users to integrate them easily with their existing software architecture. Open APIs, in fact, guarantee that the platform can blend with any system/app you’re planning to use in the future.

We could sum up information in a single word, and say “revenue.” And there will be nothing wrong about it. Still, marketing automation is one of those B2B spheres where one can be overwhelmed by false promises, and our “revenue” statement will certainly sound like one. So, let’s be more precise and see how you could benefit from a proper MA system:

• It will keep your marketing strategy consistent. It’s true: nurturing automation is not the first stage of the marketing cycle, but it is still the one where consistency matters the most. Namely, how often can you rely on a person to keep business active in the online world, and to post content according to schedule? Obviously, you could hire somebody for the task, but it will cost more automating the process.
• It will personalize customer relationships. Reaching out to every customer individually sounds like a fairytale, but it is more than possible. You won’t be struggling to categorize customers according to their preferences, and there will be no risk of approaching any of them with something they don’t like. The system will be following them and will promote only content that is relevant to their needs.
• It will help you make the most of your resources. Imagine how amazing it would be to have every agent optimally engaged, providing great content, and connecting to all users he possibly can? That’s another fairytale made true, and it is probably the strongest pro for choosing an MA system.
• It will save you time. You will not be on time; you will be ahead of it! MA systems make it possible to prepare content in advance and post it ahead of your schedule. Needless to say, manual tasks will stay far in the past.
• It will save you money. When you optimized resource planning, you’re on a good way to manage budget more efficiently and distribute money knowing exactly what you’re about to achieve.
• It will facilitate reporting. As you saw, marketing automation is all about gathering data and making use of it, so a proper system wouldn’t make sense without a reporting capacity. The detailed statistics, graphs, and charts will help you track multiple campaigns at a time, and to use the information for the next ones.

• AI evolution. As AI becomes further advanced, we can expect to see its application on marketing. No longer used solely to improve chatbots and email, AI is now being applied in content creation and influencer marketing. It also helps project campaign success and gather customer insights.
• Rise of the Omnichannel. Because marketing tools can now integrate the common channels used in marketing (social media, email, chat, webpage, search engine), delivering the customer needs and providing a consistent customer experience have now become the standard.
• Predictive Lead Scoring. As not all leads have the same propensity levels to make a purchase, qualifying leads further is needed prior to making that push. Predictive lead scoring replaces the traditional salesperson call and, instead, measures a customer’s demographics and online behavior in order to determine the next step.

While marketing automation solutions offer many benefits, it is not without its shortcomings. Here are some of the potential issues that you may encounter when implementing a platform for your business:

• Underutilization.  Most marketing automation software comes with so many bells and whistles, but users only go for the main functions like mass mailers and content posting.
• Cost. Related to the above issue, advanced marketing automation software can cost thousands of dollars, so the burden of getting your money’s worth depends on how well you utilize the program.
• Content drought. With automation, you’ll only need to provide content to keep the momentum going. However, if you don’t have a well-defined campaign for the season, you may find yourself needing material every now and then.