Marketing

8 Best Marketing Automation Tools

Shephalii Kapoor profile picture
By Shephalii Kapoor

Published
11 min read

Marketing software allows you to manage marketing campaigns from start to end.

Marketing is an important business function that helps drive growth and commercial advantage for companies. However, as marketing functions continue to diversify, chief marketing officers often find it difficult to balance multiple tasks, such as lead management, campaign monitoring, and email deliverability. If this sounds familiar, then it’s probably time to invest in marketing automation software.

Marketing automation tools allow marketers to develop personalized content for the targeted audience, keep track of the leads and their engagement, and nurture leads that are most likely to convert into customers. The tools allow you to automate repetitive marketing tasks, such as email and social media management, and save time. It also helps you amplify your digital marketing efforts through lead scoring and audience segmentation, which will eventually increase your revenue in the long run.

This article highlights eight of the best marketing automation tools for professionals (sorted alphabetically) based on user ratings and reviews from users like you. (Read the complete methodology here.)

this-is-a-graphic-showing-8-of-the-best-marketing

1. Mailchimp: Offers timewarp for time zone adjustments

Mailchimp is an online marketing automation platform that allows users to create engaging emails, manage mailing lists, and automate their entire marketing campaigns. The software offers over 100 customizable templates for designing campaigns and newsletters from scratch. Once you are finished with your campaign, you can run it on your mobile device to see how it works before the actual distribution.

Other than facilitating email marketing, Mailchimp also has analytical features to determine the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. The platform provides email campaigns, landing pages, automation, and ad reports to users.

Mailchimp, in its premium plan, offers advanced segmentation of the audience. The software allows you to target contacts on a granular level by using complex parameters, such as the customer’s purchase activities, personal details, email marketing status, campaign engagements, and website engagement.

The email marketing automation software has a timewarp feature in its paid account that allows you to schedule email campaigns to automatically deliver based on the recipient’s timezone. Mailchimp offers email and chat support to users.

Key Features

  • AB testing
  • Activity dashboard
  • Audience targeting
  • Behavioral targeting
  • Campaign management
  • Channel management

Trial/Free Version

  • Free Trial
  • Free Version

Starting price

$17 per month

Device compatibility

Screenshots

Mailchimp

Monitoring campaigns in Mailchimp

* Analysis accurate as of May 2022

2. Remarkety: Features product recommendation engine

Remarkety is an eCommerce marketing automation tool that enables users to segment customers based on their lifetime purchase history, marketing status, and website activities. The platform provides split testing functionality to test two or more variants of a message and compare what works best for your audience. You can use this feature to test and improve the subject line, content, conditions, and segmentation of your marketing campaigns.

The software comes with a product recommendation engine to embed product recommendation blogs into your marketing campaigns to increase cross-selling and upselling. There are several different recommendations that you can choose from Remarkety, including bestsellers, latest products, and randomly selected recommendations. Remarketey’s recommendations allow you to suggest products that are currently available and are based on customer purchase histories.

Remarkety’s dashboard offers you an overview of important metrics—such as open rate and click-through rate—that you can use to measure the effectiveness of your campaigns.

Remarkety’s integration with Magento can be used to generate dynamic coupons directly from the eCommerce platforms and share them with specific customers via email. For assistance with the software, you can reach out to the vendor via phone, email, and chat.

best functionality

Key Features

  • AB testing
  • Auto responders
  • Drip campaigns
  • Event triggered actions
  • Image library
  • Lead qualification

Trial/Free Version

  • Free Trial
  • Free Version

Starting price

$25 per month

Device compatibility

Screenshots

Tracking return on investment in Remarkety

* Analysis accurate as of May 2022

3. Sender: Employs SPF and DKIM for enhanced security

Sender is an online email marketing platform that allows users to create, automate, and send emails. The software features a wide range of pre-built email and newsletter templates that can be customized to your requirements and preferences. You can use the marketing automation solution to deliver promotional emails, follow-up emails, drip campaigns, newsletters, and surveys to customers. You can also create subscription forms and add custom fields to them. Sender employs Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) technologies to ensure email security.

The platform features a drag-and-drop template editor that allows even beginners to create engaging newsletters and customize emails using their own HTML code. It also comes with a built-in image editor to add and edit images in your email templates. As a Sender user, you can customize your emails for mobile and desktop views.

The email marketing platform allows marketers to measure and improve email marketing campaigns via open and click tracking, click maps, as well as date and time analysis.

Sender’s customer service team is available via email and chat.

Key Features

  • Auto responders
  • Contact management
  • Drip campaigns
  • Event triggered actions
  • Image library
  • Reporting/analytics

Trial/Free Version

  • Free Trial
  • Free Version

Starting price

$41.75 per month, billed annually

Device compatibility

Screenshots

Sender

Subscriber management in Sender

* Analysis accurate as of May 2022

4. Sendinblue: Creates bulk messaging campaigns

Sendinblue is an email marketing solution that allows small and medium-sized businesses to automate email marketing campaigns. The software also provides a free version to users with unlimited contacts and up to 300 emails per day.

In addition to email marketing, Sendinblue also offers SMS marketing features to users. You can create and send SMS campaigns and transactional messages for different occasions, such as order confirmation and updates. You can also personalize messages by adding individual contact attributes, send bulk messages to contacts, and monitor SMS campaigns.

Sendinblue provides a chat feature that facilitates one-on-one communication with clients. You can use the feature to organize a chat with customers, assign agents to different customers, and even know which page the customers are visiting at any given point of time.

You can use Sendinblue for marketing automation. It allows you to send emails, newsletters, and messages automatically at a specified time. Sendinblue offers phone, email, and chat support to customers.

Key Features

  • AB testing
  • Auto responders
  • Campaign analytics
  • Channel management
  • Content management
  • Customer segmentation

Trial/Free Version

  • Free Trial
  • Free Version

Starting price

$25 per month

Device compatibility

Screenshots

Brevo

Creating newsletters in Sendinblue

* Analysis accurate as of May 2022

5. SharpSpring: Enhances lead nurturing abilities

SharpSpring from Constant Contact is a marketing automation platform that allows small businesses to generate leads, as well as to track website visitors, create landing pages, automate content marketing strategies, and send push notifications to potential mobile leads. You can automate these notifications based on specific triggers, such as onsite customer browsing and abandonment carts.

SharpSpring offers behavior-based email automation that automatically segments leads and sends information to relevant clients. You can also create custom tags for emails, leads, accounts, and campaigns for search purposes.

As a member of the marketing team, you can use SharpSpring to mark specific pages of a website as important and set up lead nurturing campaigns for people who visit those pages. The marketing automation tool offers a visitor ID feature to identify users visiting your site. The feature offers you access to their contact details, including names and phone numbers. You can send real-time notifications to your team in case a visitor revisits your website to check on pricing or other details.

The system also sends you a daily email, consisting of the list of website visitors and regular customers who have recently visited your site. SharpSpring provides phone, email, and chat support to users.

Key Features

  • AB testing
  • Behavior analytics
  • Campaign analytics
  • Channel management
  • Drip campaigns
  • Email marketing

Trial/Free Version

  • Free Trial
  • Free Version

Starting price

$449 per month, billed annually

Device compatibility

* Analysis accurate as of May 2022

6. Thryv: Utilizes a centralized inbox for communication

Thryv is an online marketing and CRM software solution that enables users to run marketing campaigns and manage customer data and interactions. It allows you to create and schedule trigger-based campaigns using the in-built templates. You can also create your own template to create custom campaigns. The platform also features a library of ready-to-send messages and emails that can be customized as per your requirements.

Thryv provides you with detailed analytics about the success of your marketing campaigns. You can use the platform to monitor important metrics, such as views, opens, and clicks for conversion tracking. The software also offers document storage and sharing capabilities. It allows you to edit documents and track the changes to ensure you always have the most recent version.

The software features a centralized inbox that shows customer interactions from multiple sources, including WebChat, email, and text messages. The inbox displays all your contact requests, meeting requests, payment details, and shared documents so that you do not have to jump from tool to tool. You can use your Thryv inbox to initiate a new client request, respond to incoming requests, and set reminders to follow up with a client.

In addition to marketing automation, Thryv offers billing and invoicing, appointment scheduling, reputation management, and social media management capabilities. Phone, email, and chat are available as customer support options.

Key Features

  • Activity dashboard
  • Automated scheduling
  • Billing portal
  • Calendar sync
  • Campaign management
  • Client database

Trial/Free Version

  • Free Trial
  • Free Version

Starting price

$59 per month

Device compatibility

Screenshots

Thryv

Responding to customers in Thryv

* Analysis accurate as of May 2022

8. Zoho CRM: Assigns lead scores

Zoho CRM is an online customer relationship management solution that can be used to automate the entire sales and marketing process. The software enables marketing teams to create and manage targeted campaigns. The software provides pre-designed templates to help you get started with your campaigns. You can use the tool to segment prospects and customers based on their requirements, region, and even the level of responsiveness to your campaigns.

As a marketing manager, you can use Zoho CRM to assign lead scores to prospects based on different criteria, such as demographics and user behavior. This is especially useful if you are focusing on leads from a specific sector or a tradeshow. Zoho’s lead scoring feature helps you prioritize prospects that are most likely to close.

Zoho’s campaign module allows you to associate sub-campaigns to your main campaigns and track them by measuring details, such as the actual cost, the budget required, expected revenue, and the duration of the campaign. This gives you a detailed understanding of the effectiveness of the campaigns and the return on investment from them.

Zoho CRM integrates with other marketing automation platforms, such as GetResponse, Constant Contact, and Unbounce. You can get in touch with the customer support team via phone, email, and chat.

most affordable

Key Features

  • AB testing
  • Calendar management
  • Call management
  • Campaign management
  • Client management
  • Collaboration tools

Trial/Free Version

  • Free Trial
  • Free Version

Starting price

$14 per user, per month (billed annually)

Device compatibility

Screenshots

Analytics tool in Zoho CRM

* Analysis accurate as of May 2022

9. ZoomInfo: Features FormComplete for auto-filling forms

ZoomInfo is an online lead generation platform that enables sales and marketing teams to identify and prioritize prospects. ZoomInfo’s marketing operating system helps you identify leads that are looking for relevant topics or keywords on the web. The system features an automation tool that facilitates marketing and sales automation.

The tool offers a website visitor tracking feature for marketing professionals that tracks all anonymous visitors to your website or landing pages and converts the IP addresses from the traffic into lead profiles for the sales team.

The software also offers a FormComplete feature to fill customer data using ZoomInfo’s B2B contact database. Once a customer enters his email address in the form, the platform automatically fills up the other details by finding the correct match within a database of 130 million business contacts. In case a visitor does not submit the form after filling up the email address, the form is considered to be abandoned.

ZoomInfo offers a chatbot functionality to facilitate real-time engagement with prospects and customers. Users can reach out to the vendor for assistance via phone, email, and chat.

Key Features

  • B2B lead generation
  • Content marketing
  • CRM
  • Customer segmentation
  • Lead capture
  • Lead notifications

Trial/Free Version

  • Free Trial
  • Free Version

Starting price

Customized quote

Device compatibility

* Analysis accurate as of May 2022

How to choose the best marketing automation tools for your business

  • Select a tool that offers audience segmentation: Segmentation helps you target the right audience for your content and increase the chances of customer conversion. Before you invest in a marketing system, make sure that it allows you to divide your customers into groups based on common factors, such as their age, location, buying patterns, and requirements.

  • Look for visitor tracking feature: A great marketing tool allows you to track the number of visitors on your websites, their profile, the time spent by each visitor on your page, and the type of content the visitor engages with. This helps you identify potential leads for the business and understand the type of content that is working best for your organization.

  • Assess the analytics and reporting capabilities: Select a marketing software solution that provides you essential insights with respect to what is and isn’t working for your business. The best marketing automation software available in the market provides you with detailed reports to track conversion, open rate, bounce rate, click rate, and subscribe rate. An ideal solution should also provide you with live dashboards that help you analyze the performance of your marketing campaigns and track customer engagement.

Common questions to ask while selecting the best marketing automation tools for your business

As the owner of a small business, you need to ask the software providers the right questions before deciding to invest in a marketing automation solution.

Does the software offer a template library?

An efficient marketing solution allows you to build campaigns and newsletters right from the scratch. If you are the owner of a small business or a marketing agency, select a tool that offers in-built templates that can be edited and customized as per your needs and preferences.

Does the software offer AB testing functionality?

Before shortlisting the best marketing automation software, make sure to ask the vendor whether the tool offers AB testing functionality or not. AB testing or split testing allows you to compare two or more versions of the content or a marketing campaign and determine what works best for your audience. An ideal marketing tool should allow you to test and analyze the results of the marketing campaign and automatically share the better-performing version with the customers.

What are the support options available?

Marketing software solution providers offer multiple resources to address customer queries, including phone calls, live chat, emails, social media support, and a knowledge base with solution articles and how-to guides. This information can help your time in the future.

Thinking about hiring a marketing analytics company for your business needs? Browse our list of top marketing analytics companies and learn more about their services in Capterra’s hiring guide.


Methodology

For this article we selected the top eight products from the 'Top Performers' Quadrant’ in Capterra's Shortlist report for the marketing automation software category as of May 13, 2022. Read more about the Capterra Shortlist methodology here.

The final products selected had to meet the following criteria:

The “Best functionality” tool is identified based on the highest user ratings for functionality that a vendor received based on publicly available reviews as of May 13, 2022.

The “Most affordable” tool is identified based on the lowest pricing a vendor offered on their website in terms of cost to upgrade on May 13, 2022.

Disclaimer: We conducted this analysis based on reviews and ratings data as of May 13, 2022. In order to present the most up-to-date information, the product cards show real-time ratings. Please note that this means the ratings value in the product card may not reflect the ratings value at the time of analysis.

Sources

  1. Meet our market definition for marketing automation software category:"Marketing automation software helps businesses automate marketing processes and allows for end-to-end management of marketing campaigns including campaign design, tracking, content publishing, customer segmentation, and marketing analytics.”

  2. Have these core features as part of the software: Campaign management and Marketing automation.


Looking for Marketing Automation software? Check out Capterra's list of the best Marketing Automation software solutions.

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About the Author

Shephalii Kapoor profile picture

Shephalii Kapoor is a writer at Capterra. She helps small businesses identify the right software for their needs by analyzing user reviews for top-rated software products. Prior to Capterra, she worked as an assistant content manager at InfoEdge India Ltd. She has also worked in company law, aviation, and real estate. She is a published author and has contributed to various magazines and websites. During her free time, she enjoys reading.

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