Table of Contents
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign offers advanced email marketing automation with features like automatic responses, segmentation, integrations with other platforms, customizable email templates, and more to help businesses connect with their audience effectively.
Keap
Keap is a marketing automation platform focused on helping small businesses grow through automated email campaigns, customer management, and technological solutions tailored for entrepreneurs and small teams.
Act!
Act! allows you to manage contacts, schedule appointments, and send emails all from one platform. It simplifies engaging with prospects at different stages in their customer journey, making communication more efficient.
Hubspot
HubSpot excels in inbound marketing and automation, offering a comprehensive suite of tools including sales, customer support, and CRM systems, making it one of the top choices for modern marketing strategies.
Omnisend
Omnisend is a widely-used ecommerce marketing automation tool that leverages multiple communication channels to craft a comprehensive omnichannel marketing plan for your business.
Automating and tailoring your marketing messages is a key aspect of digital marketing. Whether you operate a SaaS, run an e-commerce store, manage an agency, or create content as a blogger, delivering the right message at the right moment is essential. With over 480,000 websites utilizing marketing automation today, personalized emails achieve six times higher transaction rates compared to generic ones. To effectively implement automation, you need the right tools—top marketing automation software that can streamline these processes. However, choosing and using this software can be challenging.
Here’s what you need to do:
- Gather customer data
- Follow up with potential leads
- Integrate your CRM system
- Select email marketing software
- Create targeted marketing campaigns
- Generate leads
- Segment your email list effectively
- And much more
Let’s explore some of the best options available now.
What is the Top Marketing Automation Software?
Below are my recommendations for the leading marketing automation platforms to consider this year:
1. ActiveCampaign.
The Best Choice for Marketing Automation.
Expert’s Tip
I prefer ActiveCampaign because it’s very easy to use. It allows quick creation of automated email sequences, and the drag-and-drop editor simplifies designing attractive emails. The platform’s segmentation feature also helps target specific groups of subscribers with precision.
Pricing Our plans range from $9 to $149 per month, with options that scale based on the size of your email list, ensuring affordability for various business sizes.
$9/month to $149/month
Annual Savings Opt for the annual plan and save 21%, making it a cost-effective choice for long-term marketing automation needs.
Yes – Save 21%
Special Offer Enjoy a free 14-day trial to test out the features and see how the software can boost your marketing efforts before committing.
ActiveCampaign stands out as top-tier marketing automation software. It offers advanced email automation features such as auto-responders, contact segmentation, integrations with third-party apps, personalized email templates, and more. The platform enables you to send tailored emails to specific audience segments, which helps nurture leads automatically with messages like birthday wishes, welcome emails, or other professional communications. Additionally, it provides real-time analytics on website traffic, customer activities, and campaign performance, allowing you to measure your marketing success precisely.
Key Features:
Here’s a quick overview of some important features of ActiveCampaign:
- Robust sales automation: It automatically collects prospect information, including contact details and custom triggers, then imports this data into your CRM system.
- Customer experience tools: Send targeted, personalized campaigns based on specific events and customer actions.
- Dynamic content creation: Customize content dynamically based on customer interests, behavior, social data, and other insights.
- 24/7 support: Access round-the-clock assistance via live chat, phone, email, or online help resources.
Pricing Plans:
The basic plan starts at just $9 per month, covering up to 500 contacts, with prices increasing on a sliding scale based on your total number of email subscribers.
Get a 14-day free trial of ActiveCampaign and explore its powerful marketing automation capabilities.
Learn more about Keap
Expert’s Advice
If you’re looking to improve your email marketing skills, Keap is an excellent company to learn from. Their team of experts can guide you in creating compelling email campaigns, tracking their effectiveness, and optimizing strategies for better performance.
Keap (previously called InfusionSoft) is a private email marketing platform tailored for small and medium-sized businesses.
If your goal is to boost your revenue, attract more customers, and better manage your leads, Keap offers comprehensive solutions to help you achieve these aims. It mainly focuses on supporting small business growth through automation and advanced marketing tools, reducing the need for manual work like billing, follow-ups, and contact management.
KEY FEATURES:
Some of the main features offered by Keap include:
– Improved website tracking: This tool lets you visualize and analyze user behavior, providing detailed reports on metrics such as conversion rates, purchase frequencies, first-time visitors, total online customers, and time spent on pages.
– Sales automation: Keap streamlines your sales and marketing processes by automating follow-up and engagement tasks, saving time and increasing efficiency.
– Enhanced capacity: The platform can send up to 29 billion emails, manage 396 million contacts, and run over 450,000 campaigns, showcasing its scalability.
– Dedicated customer support: Keap offers 24/7 live support along with continuous online assistance to resolve any issues quickly.
CONS:
However, Keap does have some limitations:
– It lacks native integrations with other software systems.
– Despite claiming an email deliverability rate of 98%, actual performance may fall short of this goal.
PRICING PLANS:
This section details the various subscription plans available, with prices ranging from $59 to $199 per month. There is also an option for an annual discount, allowing users to save 20%. Additionally, a 14-day free trial is available to test the platform before committing.
The starting plan costs $59 per month, with options going up to $199 monthly. You also have the chance to test the software with a free 14-day trial before committing to a purchase.
Get started with Keap.
3. Act!.
Expert Guidance
Act! is a versatile CRM and marketing automation tool designed for businesses that need high flexibility. Setting up personalized user experiences is straightforward, allowing you to quickly create campaigns, capture leads, manage contacts, assign tasks and reminders, monitor sales opportunities, and more.
Act! provides businesses with unparalleled flexibility through reliable CRM and marketing automation tools available today.
This software features user-friendly functions like drag-and-drop editors and live previews, making it simple to customize your setup exactly as you need. Additionally, it offers advanced personalization options including custom fields and segmented lists to enhance your marketing efforts.
All plans include secure cloud hosting and unlimited users, making it effortless to manage customer information from anywhere. Act! also excels at lead management, allowing you to create customizable forms and surveys, automate follow-up emails, segment contacts, score leads, and much more. Designed with small-to-medium business needs in mind, every aspect is optimized to help you focus on achieving results. Support is always available around the clock via phone or chat, ensuring you can get assistance whenever necessary. Whether your business is large or small, on a tight or abundant budget, Act! offers solutions tailored to your requirements.
Key features include a detailed history of relationships revealing interactions among companies, contacts, and users. The powerful search capability enables rapid retrieval of customer information from anywhere within the system. Offline and mobile access allow you to update customer data on the go. Centralized data integration provides a single, reliable source of information across departments, boosting cooperation and insight into customer needs. Opportunity tracking helps identify sales prospects and monitor progress in real time, while sales process management ensures everyone stays aligned and no opportunities slip through the cracks. Lastly, actionable insights offer a comprehensive view of customer engagement and performance, empowering you to make smarter, data-driven decisions.
However, there are some drawbacks. The web version doesn’t quite match the full feature set of the professional desktop edition. Offline access can sometimes be limited, preventing quick data updates when internet connectivity is unavailable. Additionally, software upgrades may introduce changes or hide features users had grown accustomed to.
Pricing options include:
– Act! Premium Cloud at $30 per month
– Act! Premium Desktop at $37.50 per month
Both plans include CRM and marketing automation capabilities.
HubSpot focuses on providing powerful built-in marketing tools, making it a top choice for inbound marketing strategies. The platform allows you to create calls-to-action, landing pages, and forms, all trackable with integrated analytics to measure content performance. If you’re aiming to boost lead generation and improve website conversions, HubSpot can be an excellent resource.
Expert advice suggests that HubSpot equips users with all essential tools needed to develop inbound marketing campaigns effectively, increasing website engagement and conversion rates.
Overall, these tools are designed to support your growth, whether you’re just starting out or scaling up.
Marketing Tools
Price
$45/month to $3,200/month
Annual Discount
Yes – Save 10%
Promotion
When it comes to inbound marketing, HubSpot is one of the top tools available for marketing automation. In addition to automation features, HubSpot provides extensive functionalities such as sales management, customer support, and customer relationship management. It includes features like landing pages, web analytics, search engine optimization, social media marketing, and content management, among others.
Some of its most appealing features include an easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor for creating attractive web pages, blog posts, and email templates. The platform also simplifies formatting and publishing content directly to your website. HubSpot seamlessly integrates with popular tools like Netsuite, Salesforce, and SugarCRM. Its automated email marketing capabilities allow you to use pre-designed templates while personalizing subject lines and content to suit your target audiences automatically.
However, the automated marketing tools come with a relatively higher price point, which can be a consideration for smaller businesses. The pricing plans range from $45 per month to $3,200 per month, with onboarding fees for professional and enterprise packages that can be between $3,000 and $6,000. There’s also a 30-day free trial available.
Get started with HubSpot Marketing Automation today.
Learn more about HubSpot Marketing Automation here.
5. Omnisend
Known as one of the best ecommerce marketing automation tools, Omnisend specializes in helping online stores automate marketing processes effectively. It offers user-friendly features tailored for ecommerce businesses and streamlines email and SMS campaigns, cart abandonment recovery, and audience segmentation. The platform’s branding and visual elements are recognizable through its logo, seen below.
Expert’s Advice
If you’re searching for a marketing automation platform to streamline your ecommerce efforts, I recommend trying Omnisend. As ecommerce competition intensifies, automation tools become essential for achieving success. Omnisend simplifies repetitive tasks, freeing you up to focus on strategic initiatives and growth.
Omnisend is one of the most well-known ecommerce marketing automation tools available today. It leverages multiple marketing channels to develop a seamless omnichannel marketing strategy tailored for your business.
It’s an all-in-one solution that supports every aspect of ecommerce marketing, from collecting email addresses and contact information, to sending targeted campaigns, conducting A/B tests, creating personalized emails, and more. Additionally, it offers comprehensive data analytics and detailed reports, helping you understand your campaign performance and make data-driven decisions.
The best part is that Omnisend offers a free version, allowing you to explore its features and get comfortable with the platform before committing to paid plans that include more advanced capabilities.
Key Features:
– Flexible Content Editor: Easily create and customize campaign content using a wide variety of templates, drag-and-drop elements, and visual editing tools. You can craft both regular and automated emails that incorporate impactful visuals and keywords to engage customers effectively.
– Extensive Integrations: Seamlessly connect with popular ecommerce platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, WooCommerce, Yotpo, and others. If Shopify doesn’t suit your needs, numerous alternative platforms are available to choose from.
– Campaign Booster: Resend your emails to recipients who didn’t open them initially, significantly increasing your open rates and click-through rates, which can boost your sales by up to 30%.
– Dynamic Forms: Use customizable sign-up forms and pop-ups to gather contact details without feeling intrusive, enhancing your subscriber list organically.
– Automation: Utilize powerful automation tools like smart triggers to reach customers at optimal moments. The cart recovery automation specifically analyzes retargeting data, abandoned cart details, and cookies stored on users’ devices to identify and engage hesitant buyers.
Apart from the free option, there are two paid plans available. The ‘Standard’ plan is priced at $16 monthly, while the ‘Pro’ plan costs $59 per month. All of these plans include a 14-day free trial, allowing you to test the features before committing.
6. MoEngage.
The Leading AI-Powered Automation Platform.
Founded in 2014, MoEngage is an AI-based platform that helps businesses analyze customer actions, engage them effectively across multiple channels, and personalize interactions for a smooth customer journey. The platform has been shown to boost website click-through rates by up to eight times and is especially popular in industries like ecommerce, travel, telecom, banking, and insurance. In 2019, MoEngage was recognized in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for mobile marketing platforms, highlighting its industry significance.
Key Features include content optimization with Sherpa AI engine, allowing automatic identification of top-performing messages based on user interactions, saving manual effort and time. The platform’s NATIV app enables the creation of highly personalized content within hours instead of weeks, significantly boosting ROI. MoEngage also offers robust data visualization tools for detailed insights, easily integrable with platforms like Tableau, Qlik, Looker, and Redash. Its push amplification feature enhances push notification campaigns by maximizing reach, with a focus on KPIs like 30-day retention and monthly active sessions, enabling users to connect with 40% more prospective customers. Additionally, MoEngage integrates seamlessly with popular SMS providers such as Nexmo, Twilio, Solutionsinfini, and Gupshup, allowing for comprehensive tracking and merging of SMS campaigns within a unified omnichannel strategy.
7. Moosend
Excellent All-in-One Email Automation Solution.
Moosend is an email marketing platform designed to automate many repetitive tasks, allowing marketers to focus more on building strong relationships with their prospects and clients.
Creating emails with Moosend is straightforward. Its drag-and-drop editor makes it simple to add text, images, social media icons, links, and other elements. Plus, users can choose from a wide selection of professionally designed email templates that look great on both desktops and mobile devices, making campaign creation quick and easy.
What truly sets Moosend apart are its automation capabilities. The platform features pre-made automation templates, called “Recipes,” categorized to help you connect with your audience through activities like upselling, new customer onboarding, and loyalty programs. Every automation includes three main components: a trigger, conditional or control steps, and actions. Combining these elements allows you to filter your audiences and set up automated sequences that trigger based on specific events, ensuring targeted and timely communication.
KEY FEATURES:
Some of the core features of Moosend include:
- Advanced List Segmentation: Easily divide your email list into segments such as engaged subscribers or cart abandoners to send targeted campaigns to different groups.
- Custom Opt-In Forms: Design attractive subscription forms that can be placed anywhere on your site to grow your email list effectively.
- Pre-Built Automation Workflows: Use ready-made templates to send personalized, automated emails without needing coding skills, streamlining customer engagement.
- Drag-and-drop Landing Page Builder: Quickly create fast, optimized landing pages with customizable templates aimed at increasing conversions.
- Customer Support: Access live chat, email, or phone support. Each enterprise plan includes a dedicated account manager, alongside extensive knowledge bases and tutorial videos for self-help.
PRICING PLANS:
Moosend offers flexible pricing that scales with your subscriber count. The free plan is available for accounts with fewer than 1,000 subscribers, providing unlimited emails, access to sign-up forms, and detailed reporting and analytics. Paid plans start at $8 per month for up to 2,000 subscribers, including landing pages, SMTP servers, and transactional email services. Larger enterprises can opt for customized plans that include onboarding, migration services, single sign-on (SSO), and SAML security features.
Get started with Moosend.
8. Prospect.io.
Ideal for Modern Sales Automation.
Prospect.io is a powerful tool for automated marketing, mainly tailored towards enhancing sales activities and lead generation activities across businesses of any size. It is especially useful for automating prospecting, outreach, and follow-up processes, making it a valuable asset in sales funnels.
KEY FEATURES:
Major features include: prospecting tools that help find and verify email addresses to reduce bounce rates, automation of personalized outreach campaigns, and tracking important metrics like email open rates and responses to optimize your sales efforts.
- Analytics: Track key metrics like email open rates, link clicks, responses, and more. It utilizes your campaign data to generate detailed reports.
- Integration: Prospect.io offers real-time synchronization with tools like PieSync, Zapier, Slack, and various CRM systems, helping your sales team stay connected and efficient.
Cons:
- The user interface can sometimes feel slow and laggy.
- Occasionally, the accuracy of sent emails may be imperfect.
Pricing Plans:
The basic plan for Prospect.io starts at $35 per user each month, with a 30-day money-back guarantee included. This allows you to evaluate the platform risk-free.
9. Ontraport
Launched in 2006, Ontraport serves solopreneurs, small businesses, and entrepreneurs. It’s known for its powerful insights and detailed reporting capabilities, making it a popular choice for managing marketing campaigns. The platform enables you to create automation workflows and synchronize various marketing tools to enhance your efficiency. Plus, it provides in-depth analytics to help optimize your results.
Key Features:
- Advanced Campaigns: Automate your marketing efforts across both online and offline channels in a unified way.
- Multiple Actions: Support for SMS, email, digital advertising, and more within your campaigns.
- Auto-Emailing: Compose and send emails automatically based on user interests and behaviors.
- Customer Tracking: Create personalized customer journeys and monitor their interactions.
- Performance Insights: View detailed reports on both online and offline marketing outcomes through visual dashboards.
Cons:
- No built-in social media integration.
- Does not include traditional sales modules.
- Missing visual sales funnel representations.
Pricing Plans:
Ontraport offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card required. Paid plans start at $79 per month for 1,000 contacts and go up to $497 per month, depending on your needs.
For over 20,000 contacts, consider this platform.
10. SendinBlue
SendinBlue started as a digital agency platform but quickly evolved into a comprehensive email marketing tool. Today, it is recognized as one of the leading marketing automation services available, offering features such as lead scoring, detailed analytics, email campaigns, segmentation, and more. Additionally, it supports SMS marketing campaigns, enhancing multi-channel communication strategies.
A notable feature is their free plan, which allows sending up to 300 emails daily, making it accessible for small to medium-sized campaigns.
KEY FEATURES:
Major features of SendinBlue include:
- Enhanced services: Besides basic email marketing, it provides advanced options like transactional emails, comprehensive email marketing tools, SMS API access, and campaign management.
- User-friendly design: No special skills are required to create templates or email layouts. The platform offers numerous pre-designed templates and an intuitive drag-and-drop editor to simplify campaign creation.
- Tracking and management: Features include customized contact searches, contact importing, campaign analytics, mobile-responsive email templates, and automated marketing email triggers.
CONS:
- SMS marketing can become costly as your list grows.
- The interface sometimes does not fully comply with modern GUI standards.
PRICING PLANS:
The free plan allows sending up to 300 emails daily. The Lite package is priced at $25 per month for sending up to 40,000 emails, while the Premium plan costs around $66 monthly for more advanced features and higher volume limits.
11. Pardot
Recommended for B2B marketing automation.
Pardot is a key component of the Salesforce ecosystem, having entered the automation market in 2006. This cloud-based platform is particularly well-suited for large organizations, though it may require some time to fully learn and utilize its features.
It provides a rich set of tools to enhance your marketing efforts, such as automated email campaigns, integration with customer relationship management (CRM) systems, lead scoring, nurturing processes, and detailed ROI reports. The platform also monitors visitor activity on your website and supplies valuable analytics, assisting you in engaging prospects more effectively.
Pricing starts at $1250 per month for the basic plan, which offers core functionalities. For advanced options like A/B testing, social media integration, and more, you’ll need to opt for higher-priced plans, which can be significantly more costly.
Key features include advanced campaign creation with a customizable dashboard, pre-launch campaign analysis to identify potential issues, detailed B2B marketing analytics similar to Google Analytics, and compatibility with platforms like SugarCRM, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Netsuite, e-commerce solutions, content marketing tools, and multi-channel marketing platforms.
Some disadvantages include that certain features may have a steep learning curve, and the basic subscription is limited in functionality. Pricing ranges from $1250 for the basic package up to $4000 for more comprehensive capabilities, with a 30-day free trial available to test the system.
The pricing details are illustrated in the image below, where the basic plan starts at $1250 per month, with options to upgrade for additional features.
The next notable platform is Marketo, which is often recommended for Salesforce users and is considered one of the best enterprise-grade marketing automation tools. It was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in California, with offices in Dublin, Sydney, Tel Aviv, and other global locations.
Designed for small to medium-sized organizations, Marketo provides reliable automation tools without the hefty price tag of over $2000 per month. It’s popular for its user-friendly interface, robust support services, and seamless integration with Salesforce.
Key features of Marketo include versatile automation functions, an all-in-one dashboard for managing campaigns, and extensive integration capabilities, making it suitable for organizations with over 100 employees. The platform offers a variety of features aimed at streamlining marketing workflows and enhancing productivity—all at a competitive price point that makes it accessible for many businesses.Your marketing toolkit includes a variety of features such as customizable webpage templates, automatic email campaigns, web analytics, lead nurturing tools, social media marketing options, and much more.
The software adds a personal touch by delivering customized, laser-focused emails that resonate directly with your audience, making your automated marketing efforts more effective. It also helps you increase your revenue by identifying your target audience’s problems and needs, enabling you to engage them better and convert prospects into paying customers. Additionally, customer support is available around the clock via online chat, providing quick and efficient assistance whenever needed.
The drawbacks include the significant increase in cost when upgrading to higher plans with advanced features and the relatively limited capabilities in social media management. Pricing starts at $895 per month and can go up to $3,195 monthly, with no free trial options mentioned on the website.
13. GetResponse
Known as one of the top alternatives to Mailchimp, GetResponse offers a comprehensive marketing automation platform suitable for businesses of all sizes. The platform streamlines tasks such as automation workflows, email list segmentation, traffic and lead generation, and recovery strategies like cart abandonment follow-ups, enabling users to accomplish more in less time.
Key features include support for 21 languages, making the platform accessible to a diverse user base. Its user-friendly drag-and-drop editor simplifies creating complex campaigns and designing workflows and funnels. The autoresponder feature automates follow-ups without manual input, while split testing allows you to run A/B tests to optimize campaign performance. The platform also supports webinar hosting, expanding your engagement capabilities.
However, the drag-and-drop editor may not meet all users’ expectations, and accessing advanced automation features requires a higher-tier subscription. Pricing plans start from $15 for up to 1,000 contacts, scaling up to $1,999 as your contact list grows.
14. Autopilot
AutoPilot is praised for its visually engaging automation tools that make marketing campaigns stand out. Its intuitive, clutter-free editor simplifies creating appealing marketing content. The platform enables quick automation for key tasks such as prospect follow-ups, email campaigns, and billing processes.
Here are some quick insights into what the software offers.
- Sales funnel design: Build comprehensive sales funnels without any coding skills—it’s as straightforward as sketching on a whiteboard.
- Team collaboration: One of the few marketing tools that allow seamless teamwork and collaboration.
- Multiple integrations: Connect effortlessly with popular marketing platforms like Salesforce, LiveChat, and Pipedrive.
- Smart analytics: Gain detailed insights by analyzing the entire customer journey with comprehensive performance reports.
- Limited template options available
- Few app integrations compared to other tools
- The interface could be made more user-friendly
A free trial lasting 30 days is available, requiring no credit card details. The paid subscription plans start at $49 per month and go up to $249 monthly. Larger contact lists—over 10,000 contacts—can get a custom quote for pricing.
H3 class=”wp-block-heading”>15. Mautic
Mautic is a standout open-source marketing automation platform. It offers a range of powerful features like automated drip campaigns, website visitor tracking, detailed analytics, email segmentation, and more to streamline your marketing efforts.
Highlights of Mautic include:
- Quick automation: Manage opt-in forms, email workflows, audience segmentation, text messaging, social media monitoring, web notifications, CRM integration, and more.
- Visitor tracking: Easily monitor website visitors’ behaviors and base follow-up actions on specific triggers.
- Campaign management: Create complex workflows and outcomes driven by custom triggers and response actions.
- Initially prone to bugs and glitches
- Some features are challenging to configure and implement
- Installation and setup can be somewhat complicated
The software offers a free basic plan suitable for most users. If you need more features, paid plans begin at $100 per month.
Note: Additional tools that are not yet reviewed or included on this list include Act-On, Eloqua, and Microsoft Dynamics 365.
For more information on consolidating customer data, check out this article on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing.
Overview of Marketing Automation Software
Utilizing marketing automation tools and database marketing techniques can make your marketing efforts more targeted and boost your revenue. However, keeping up with ever-evolving marketing trends and managing everything without assistance can be overwhelming. This is why marketing automation platforms are increasingly popular among marketers today.
The internet hosts a vast array of marketing tools, making it challenging to pinpoint the right fit for your business.
For small to medium-sized companies, ActiveCampaign stands out as an ideal choice. It offers a combination of affordability and robust features that can compete with more expensive options. If you’re considering investing in enterprise-grade tools, options like Marketo, HubSpot, or Pardot are preferable, especially for larger organizations. Meanwhile, if your primary goal is lead generation and expanding your outreach, Prospect.io could be the best match.
Ultimately, your decision should be guided by your budget, specific needs, business objectives, and company size. Remember, instead of manual effort, it’s smarter to automate your marketing activities today.
What marketing automation platform are you planning to implement? Did I overlook any notable options? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Explore More Resources on StepThroughThePortal.com: For further insights, visit my guides to the top email marketing services, the leading webinar software, and the best landing page builders for this year.