Find your ideal marketing automation platform! Compare and contrast top picks like HubSpot, Salesforce, and Adobe Marketo to make an informed decision.
What is marketing automation? - Examples are seen in your everyday life, like when you purchased this morning's coffee through your Starbucks app and you were automatically emailed your receipt. No, the Starbucks employee didn't email you that, it was triggered through automation.
Marketing automation platforms have become indispensable tools for businesses looking to streamline their marketing efforts, increase efficiency, and drive better results. From what started for many as email marketing automation, platforms have evolved to become all-in-one marketing machines.
But, which Marketing Automation Platform is the best? More importantly, which is the best Marketing Automation Platform for YOU and your marketing team? We created this article to help you find out.
The marketing tech landscape is ever-growing and its multitude of tools and platforms can easily cause confusion or an overwhelming feeling trying to navigate them all to make a purchase.
According to Martech, the total number of solutions in the marketing technology landscape has seen 7,000% growth over the last 12 years!
With so many options, it can be hard to narrow down your choice. This article aims to be your trusted guide by narrowing down the options to just 10 marketing automation platforms.
Our goal? To provide you with a starting point, not the finish line, for your research journey.
So, read on to explore our frontrunners in marketing automation, compare them side by side, watch their demo videos, and lay the groundwork for your informed decision.
Here's what's covered in this article - just click to jump to the section you're most interested in:
- HubSpot
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Salesforce MCAE)
- Adobe Marketo Engage
- ActiveCampaign
- Keap
- Act-On
- GetResponse
- Brevo
- Klaviyo
- Oracle Eloqua
1. HubSpot:
Overview: HubSpot is an all-in-one inbound marketing, sales, and CRM platform designed to empower businesses in their customer acquisition journey. This cloud-based software not only aids in attracting visitors, converting leads, and closing customers but also seamless collaboration across teams and devices. With a comprehensive suite of marketing automation tools, such as email marketing, lead nurturing, and content optimization, HubSpot provides a unified solution for companies seeking to enhance their marketing and sales efforts.
Why It Made the List: HubSpot is known for its user-friendly interface, robust automation capabilities, and extensive integration options making it a top choice for businesses of all sizes. If you’re doing inbound marketing, we highly recommend HubSpot as your marketing automation platform.
What do users think about HubSpot Marketing Hub? See their Pros and Cons here.
Best For Inbound Marketing: HubSpot is an excellent fit for businesses looking to scale – voted the #1 customer platform for scaling businesses by G2. It’s also the best choice for companies doing Inbound Marketing. HubSpot wrote the book on inbound and is renowned for its comprehensive inbound marketing tools, making it ideal for businesses looking to attract, engage, and delight customers through content and engagement strategies.
2. Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Previously Called Pardot):
Overview: Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (MCAE), previously called Pardot, is Salesforce’s B2B marketing automation platform. It specializes in lead generation, nurturing, and scoring.
Why It Made the List: MCAE stands out for its integration with Salesforce to nurture leads, making it an ideal choice for businesses heavily invested in the Salesforce ecosystem.
Best For B2B Marketing with Salesforce: Best for B2B companies heavily invested in the Salesforce ecosystem, seeking lead management and automation tools.
Learn more about Marketing Cloud Account Engagement/Pardot
How does Salesforce MCAE compare to HubSpot Marketing Hub? Find out with this head-to-head comparison.
3. Adobe Marketo Engage (Previously Called Marketo):
Overview: Marketo, now part of Adobe, is the world’s largest marketing automation platform. This all-in-one solution offers marketing automation, account-based marketing, lead management, email marketing, multi-touch attribution, and more – everything you need to attract, segment, and nurture your customers and customer relationships — “from discovery to biggest fan.”
Why It Made the List: Marketo offers advanced marketing features and customization options, making it a solid choice for large businesses with complex marketing needs. Like Salesforce’s MCAE, a major strength of Marketo is its seamless integration with other Adobe Marketing Cloud solutions, like Adobe Analytics. If your company is already invested in other Adobe solutions, Marketo could be the perfect addition.
Best For Enterprise: Adobe Marketo Engage is a top choice for large enterprises seeking sophisticated marketing automation, analytics, and lead management capabilities.
Learn more about Adobe Marketo Engage
How does Adobe Marketo Engage Compare to HubSpot Marketing Hub? Find out with this head-to-head comparison.
4. ActiveCampaign:
Overview: ActiveCampaign is a versatile platform that combines email marketing, marketing automation, and CRM capabilities.
Why It Made the List: ActiveCampaign’s affordability and broad set of features make it an attractive choice for small to mid-sized businesses. One of the big things that set ActiveCampaign apart from the competition is its focus on Customer Experience, enabling organizations to collaborate through a single holistic view of the customer through its Customer Experience Automation (CXA) platform.
Best For Small to Midsized Businesses (SMBs): ActiveCampaign’s user-friendly interface and affordable pricing make it an excellent option for SMBs looking to automate their email marketing campaigns and customer engagement.
Learn more about ActiveCampaign
5. Keap:
Overview: Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) caters to small businesses and offers a robust set of marketing automation tools, including lead management and CRM.
Why It Made the List: Keap’s user-friendly interface and automation features make it an excellent choice for small business owners. Keap is specifically designed with small businesses in mind, offering “Simple.Consistent.Repeatable” results.
Best For Small Businesses with CRM Needs: Keap offers a CRM integrated with marketing automation, making it a solid choice for small businesses seeking to manage contacts, sales, and marketing in one place.
6. Act-On:
Overview: Act-On provides comprehensive marketing automation with features like lead nurturing, email marketing, and analytics.
Why It Made the List: Act-On is known for its ease of use and scalability, making it an excellent option for businesses in various stages of growth. Priding itself on customer support, Act-On continually invests in content and expert help as well as offers some great support packages.
Best For Scalability: Act-On is a versatile platform suitable for businesses of all sizes, providing tools for lead generation, nurturing, and marketing automation that can grow with your company.
7. GetResponse:
Overview: GetResponse offers a range of marketing solutions, including email marketing, automation, and more.
Why It Made the List: GetResponse’s affordability and user-friendly approach make it a great choice for small businesses. As a 2023 Martech Breakthrough Award Winner, GetResponse is quickly gaining attention.
Best For Email Marketing: GetResponse shines in email marketing and offers a user-friendly platform for your landing pages and marketing assets.
8. Brevo:
Overview: Brevo focuses on lead generation, email marketing, and automation, primarily designed for B2B marketing.
Why It Made the List: Brevo offers advanced automation features, making it a suitable choice for businesses seeking B2B marketing solutions. Billing itself as “the most approachable CRM”, this all-in-one marketing automation platform, enables you to create campaigns over Email, SMS, WhatsApp, or chat – with an easy-to-use interface.
Best For Ease of Use: Brevo is known for its simplicity and ease of use, making it an excellent choice for businesses seeking a straightforward marketing automation solution.
9. Klaviyo:
Overview: Klaviyo is a marketing platform that focuses on email and SMS marketing, specifically tailored to e-commerce businesses.
Why It Made the List: We’ve included Klaviyo on our list because of its specialized focus on e-commerce. This platform was built to integrate with popular platform stores such as Shopify, BigCommerce, and Magento. Plus, it offers a suite of advanced features like email segmentation, automation, pre-built reports, and campaigns.
Best For E-Commerce: With features like automated e-commerce flows, including abandoned cart, real-time customer data, and 300+ pre-built integrations, Klaviyo is a great choice for e-commerce companies.
10. Oracle Eloqua:
Overview: Eloqua, part of Oracle, is an enterprise-level marketing automation platform known for its scalability and integrations.
Why It Made the List: Eloqua is an ideal choice for large enterprises requiring advanced marketing automation solutions. Also, an excellent choice for businesses using other Oracle Cloud solutions.
Best For Integrating with Oracle Ecosystem: Eloqua is Oracle’s marketing automation platform, well-suited for businesses already using Oracle products, as it seamlessly integrates with the Oracle Cloud ecosystem.
What’s Next?
Choosing the right marketing automation platform depends on your business’s unique needs, goals, and budget. Hopefully, this article has helped narrow your research focus to a few of the most popular ones. From here, we encourage you to take your shortlist and dig deeper into the ones that appear to be a good fit.
