9 Top Marketing Automation Tools and Platforms For Your Business

If you’re an entrepreneur, you already know how vital marketing is to running a successful business. Without marketing, your business cannot achieve the kind of customer engagement it should, nor can it effectively communicate its offers to the target audience.  

However, you are also aware that marketing involves a lot of effort, and most of its tasks are manual and repetitive. From sending individual emails to manually tracking leads, managing customer data, and analyzing campaign results, the list of tasks is long and never-ending. If you decide to do all marketing tasks manually, it might hamper your team’s overall productivity.

Needless to say, you’d ideally want to avoid all the manual effort and time spent on marketing. But the question is, can you? If yes, then how?

Yes, marketing automation tools can help your business streamline workflows and automate most tasks, resulting in improved efficiency. These tools can help you automate repetitive tasks and make marketing more profitable for your business. More importantly, these tools can improve productivity by approximately 20%. 

In this blog, we will explore marketing automation tools in detail, understand their benefits and features, and know how they can add great value to your business. 

But first, let’s get started with understanding what exactly marketing automation tools are…

What are Marketing Automation Tools?

Marketing automation tools are software platforms that can automate various marketing tasks, processes, and workflows. These tools have advanced features for streamlining and optimizing marketing by automating repetitive tasks. Using these tools or systems, you can automate time-consuming tasks so that your marketing team can focus on other important activities and stay more efficient and productive.  

In addition, using an automation tool can empower your business to optimize various marketing activities and gain insights into the team’s performance. From nurturing leads to tracking customer interactions, these tools can add value to marketing on different levels and ensure better results with marketing efforts.  

A marketing automation tool typically offers a variety of features and capabilities, including Email Marketing Automation, Lead Management, Campaign Management, Personalization, Segmentation, Social Media Management Analytics, and Reporting. More so, they can be integrated with other third-party tools to boost your marketing inputs and results. 

Why Should Your Business Use a Marketing Automation Tool?

Marketing automation tools are vital to streamlining your marketing processes and workflows. They have a key role to play in delivering personalized experiences and gaining valuable customer insights. More importantly, more than 6 out of ten companies outperform competitors with the help of marketing automation. 

Here are the main reasons your business should get an automation tool for marketing:

• Time and Resource Efficiency – These tools can automate many repetitive and manual tasks of marketing, therefore leading to improved productivity and efficiency.   
• Improved Conversion Rates – Automation software can streamline lead management processes that can help you effectively move leads through the sales funnel and improve conversion rates.  
• Personalized Marketing – Automation software can enable you to offer targeted content to your audience based on their demographics and customer journey. With personalized marketing, there will always be enhanced customer engagement.
• Multi-Channel Marketing – The use of an automation tool for marketing facilitates marketing across multiple channels so that you can reach customers across touchpoints and maximize the impact.
• Data-Driven Decisions – When a business employs automation tools for marketing tasks, it gets tons of valuable data and insight, which helps it track and analyze customer engagement and make informed data-driven decisions.    
• Unified View of Customer Information – Marketing automation tools’ integration capabilities with other tools and systems ensure seamless data flow across different tools. It results in a unified view of customer information that proves beneficial in devising personalized campaigns. 

Different Types of Marketing Automation Tools 

For marketing, there are several types of automation tools available that a business can choose based on its specific needs. These tools can fit with the complexity of marketing operations on any scale, so a business of any size can find the right match for tasks.  

Here are those tools –    

• Email Marketing Automation Tool – These tools are used for automating email marketing campaigns. A business can create, schedule, and send personalized emails by using these tools.
• Lead Generation Automation Tool – These tools are mostly used for capturing leads from landing pages, pop-ups, and forms. They also have features for lead nurturing and automated follow-ups.
• Social Media Marketing Automation Tool – These tools not only help automate various social media marketing activities but also offer features for tracking and monitoring social engagement. Your business can schedule, publish, and analyze social posts using these tools. 
• Content Marketing Automation Tool – These tools enable managing and automating content creation, publishing, and distribution. Using them, a business can plan content, and workflow management, along with optimizing content and getting analytics. 
• E-commerce Marketing Automation Tool – E-commerce enterprises can automate marketing activities using these tools. Some of the key features include product recommendations, personalized offers, and post-purchase follow-ups.  
• Automation Tool for Marketing Analytics & Reporting – Businesses can use these tools to gain insights into customer behavior, campaign effectiveness, and marketing ROI. They enable data tracking, reporting, and analytics.  
• Local Marketing Automation Tool – This type of tool can help with marketing efforts at the local level and has features such as Local Campaign Management, Localized Content Creation, targeted Local advertising, local SEO, and listing management.

Key Features of a Marketing Automation Tool 

Automation tools are growing in prominence for automating and optimizing marketing efforts on any scale. These tools come packed with a range of features and functionalities that enable seamless automation of various tasks.

Some of the key features include –  

• Email Campaign Management – These tools enable email campaign automation and management and have features like templates, A/B testing, performance tracking, etc.  
• Lead Management – Automation tools have features for lead management so that a business can capture and manage leads. Key features for lead nurturing include triggered emails, automated workflows, and drip campaigns.  
• Customer Segmentation – Top automation tools help businesses segment the audience based on demographics, browsing history, and behavior.   
• Workflow Automation – A business can use the features of automation tools to automate marketing tasks, workflows, and processes. Features like task assignment, and workflow builders ensure streamlining of marketing operations.  
• Landing Page and Form Builders – Top marketing automation tools often come with features for creating and optimizing landing pages and forms.  
• Insights into Key Metrics – These tools offer features for tracking and measuring the performance of marketing campaigns. Its features enable insight into key metrics such as conversion rates, click-through rates, and open rates.   
• Third-party Integrations – Most marketing automation tools can be integrated with third-party tools or software such as CMSs, CRMs, applicant tracking systems, etc. to enable seamless data synchronization across systems and platforms.

How to Choose the Best Marketing Automation Tool for Your Business?

It’s important to choose the marketing automation software that best fits your business needs and also contributes to maximizing your marketing efforts. If you’re able to find the right match, it will help achieve your marketing goals efficiently.  

Here are the tips to choose the best tool for marketing automation –  

• Define Your Goals and Objectives – Finding the best automation software for marketing is not possible unless you clearly define your marketing goals and objectives. Once you know what you want to achieve with the tool, you will be able to find the ideal tool easily. 
• Assess Your Budget and Needs – Before choosing the right marketing automation software, you should not only consider the upfront cost but also ongoing fees such as subscription changes. It’s equally important to prioritize the features that align with your marketing goals and business needs.   
• Compare Features and Options – Make sure you compare the features, pricing plans, ease of use, and other key aspects of the automation tool before choosing it for your business. You should also check the customer reviews and customer support for the software.  
• Request Demos and Trials – Requesting a demo or a trial of the software will help you explore and understand the user interface, usability, and intuitiveness of the software. This step will also give you the choice to ask questions and clarify any doubts regarding the product.   
• Consider Integration Capabilities – Check how well the marketing tool integrates with other tools such as CMS, CRM, analytics platforms, etc.  
• Consider Potential Limitations – Make sure you are aware of the potential limitations that come with the software, such as the number of emails allowed per month, total contacts allowed, or number of actions allowed in a month with a specific activity.
• Scalability – Check whether the software you choose can accommodate your future business needs.  

9 Top Marketing Automation Tools for Your Business 

Choosing the best marketing automation tool needs some research and analysis. With so many quality options available, you would be better served if you assessed your business needs first and then dived into the pool of those tools. 

Here are some of the best marketing automation tools:

1. Adobe Marketo Engage 

Marketo is a powerful marketing automation tool to automate and streamline marketing efforts on any scale. As a comprehensive tool, it offers a range of features and functionalities to not only make marketing efficient but also do lead management with ease. The software stands out for its scalability and integration options. More so, you can use it to attract, engage, and nurture leads, ultimately driving business growth.  

Key Features 

• Marketo helps in capturing leads from various sources and also enables tracking and managing leads throughout the customer lifecycle.  
• Engaging email content can be designed with its email editors, templates, and drag-and-drop features.  
• Tools are available for segmentation and campaign scheduling. 
• Key metrics such as ROI, engagement & conversion rates, and customer behavior can be tracked with this tool.  
• Its integration with CRM systems like Salesforce ensures seamless data synchronization between sales and marketing teams. 
• Features are available for account-based marketing strategies and social media marketing.  
• Tools are available for creating landing pages and forms without coding.  

2. Eloqua 

Eloqua, now part of the Oracle suite, is a robust marketing automation tool for automating and optimizing marketing efforts. It’s a comprehensive tool developed to cater to medium and large enterprises. One of the key highlights of Eloqua is that it can work with nearly every other tool and has around 700 integrations. More so, a business can rely on it to personalize and streamline every step of its marketing process. It’s an all-in-one tool with a major focus on B2B marketers and firms. 

Key Features

• It allows the planning, execution, and management of multi-channel marketing campaigns. 
• Advanced lead management capabilities help in prioritizing high-quality leads for sales teams.  
• Email campaigns can be better optimized through features such as email templates, an email editor, and dynamic content options.  
• Robust reporting and analytics features are available, along with customizable dashboards and reports for actionable insights.  
• Drag-and-drop landing page and form builder is available.  

3. GetResponse

GetResponse is a comprehensive email marketing platform with a range of powerful tools to automate marketing tasks and grow audiences. Using this tool, a business can effortlessly engage with its subscribers and turn them into paying customers. It’s a platform that goes beyond email marketing and offers tools like webinars and live chats to help businesses in their marketing journey.  

Key Features 

• It helps your business build personalized automation workflows and guide customers every step of the way to conversion.  
• A business can use prebuilt workflows for specific campaigns.
• Automated emails can be sent to all new subscribers to nurture them with relevant offers.
• You can automatically recommend products that your customers like and even reach cart abandoners quickly.  
• Build marketing automation workflows in tune with customers’ data and behavior.  

4. Drip

Drip is a powerful marketing automation tool that primarily focuses on e-commerce marketing automation. While email is one of its USPs, it also excels in analytics and personalization. For online retailers, Drip has some really cool features that help automate marketing efforts and ultimately drive revenue. Tons of integration options, coupled with customer segmentation and personalization features, make it a top tool.  

Key Features  

• Features like personalized product recommendations and abandoned cart recovery make it ideal for boosting conversation rates.  
• A business can track and analyze customer behavior across websites, email, and purchases.   
• The drag-and-drop visual editor helps with designing and customizing emails without coding knowledge.
• Automation workflows can be created for the entire customer lifecycle, from lead generation to post-purchase follow-ups.  
• It can be integrated with Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento.   

5. Selzy

Selzy is an all-in-one email marketing automation platform designed with small businesses in mind. Despite its affordable price and generous free plan, it’s a powerful tool that has all you need to start growing your business with email marketing. From a drag-and-drop email editor with free templates to cleverly visualized campaign reports, it’s so user-friendly that even a newbie can run their first ever campaign in under 15 minutes.

Key features:

• Drag-and-drop email builder with 100+ free goal-based templates
• Email automation with templates and a drag-and-drop sequence editor
• Analytics, including a click map
• Segmentation and personalization
• List hygiene tools
• Deliverability suggestions

6. Constant Contact 

It’s a robust marketing automation tool for automating various marketing tasks and processes of any complexity. A business can set up automated email sequences as per triggers such as sign-ups, dates, and user behavior. This tool is accessible to users of all skill levels due to its user-friendly interface, which is intuitive and easy to navigate. Creating and sending marketing campaigns without any coding knowledge is possible due to its customizable templates and email editor.  

Key Features  

• Metrics like open rates, CTR, and conversions can be measured.  
• Integration options include platforms such as CRMs, e-commerce platforms, and social media platforms.  
• Extensive resources like webinars, tutorials, and a knowledge base are available. 
• Different pricing plans are available in tune with the size of your contact list.

7. SendPulse Email Automation 

Marketing automation platform that helps businesses automate communication with their customers by incorporating good old email marketing campaigns, SMS notifications, or even automated messenger flows. Lead generation and nurturing capabilities allow users to manage their promotional campaigns on a single platform that significantly simplifies business processes, especially for small businesses and start-ups.  

Key Features

• Customizable subscription forms and smart pop-ups automate lead generation 
• The built-in CRM helps manage customer contact information 
• Drag-and-drop email template builder with responsive design capabilities 
• Dedicated SMTP server for transactional emails: order confirmation, cart abandonment
• Email verifier help improve deliverability rates

8. HubSpot Marketing Automation

It’s rated among the best marketing automation tools due to its wide range of features and capabilities for streamlining and optimizing marketing efforts. It’s highly regarded for its user-friendly interface, integration options, and support resources. As an all-in-one platform, it combines various marketing tools and features, including CRM, analytics, lead generation, email marketing, and social management.   

Key Features 

• It has multiple tools packed together and therefore eliminates the need for different tools for different functions. 
• Seamless integration and data synchronization are possible.
• Drag-and-drop functionality and customizable templates are available.   
• Complex automation workflows can be created based on triggers, conditions, and actions.  
• Personalized marketing is possible due to the segmentation of the audience based on demographics, interests, and behavior.  
• Integrated CRM enables robust lead management and lead nurturing capabilities. 
• Key metrics like conversions, CTR, and website traffic can be measured.   

9. Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement 

It’s a powerful B2B marketing automation solution to empower your marketing and sales to win more customers and keep them for life. It can help your business align marketing activities with sales goals so that you can sell more efficiently and build a loyal customer base. As a robust solution, it has all the information and tools that are often required to streamline marketing and win more customers. Using this tool’s rich customer insights, it’s easy to nurture B2B connections.

Key Features 

• Leverage templates, drag-and-drop builders, and a visual editor to create customer landing pages and forms. 
• Feature to integrate SEM and SEO programs into campaigns.
• Automatically score and grade leads, and let potential leads be prioritized. 
• Get real-time alerts about prospect activity. 
• Set up assignment triggers, sales alerts, and business rules for streamlining the marketing-to-sales handover.
• Build dynamic campaigns in tune with a prospect’s buying signals and show content that can get them through the pipeline faster.
• Create beautiful emails and develop seamless nurturing campaigns using the intuitive email editor.

Automate Various Tasks Across Marketing With REVE Chat 

In the digital and data-driven age, automation is key to success in marketing. A business that is able to automate repetitive tasks can optimize marketing efforts and drive growth.

We, at REVE Chat, are familiar with the rising automation trends that are happening around the marketing landscape, and so we strive to contribute to them. We have a variety of engagement and support tools and software that can add value to your marketing and sales efforts.

Our AI-powered chatbot can automate most of your tasks and save time and resources with your effort. You can also leverage our video chat software and co-browsing software for visual engagement. 

Similarly, the live chat software we offer can be paired with the bot to offer hybrid support and ensure value through engagement.  

Final Thoughts 

Automation is now integral to various aspects of running a successful enterprise, and marketing is no exception. With strategic marketing automation, a business can strengthen customer communication and also economize on resources.

With REVE Chat, you stand to benefit a lot as we have a variety of tools for engagement and support. Some of these tools could also help automate various marketing activities.

You can sign up with us and check how our tools can add value to your business’s marketing efforts.