Marketing Automation Solutions
View the Gartner Quadrant for Marketing Automation below and comparisons between: Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Pardot, Marketo, Hubspot, Eloque (Oracle), ZenDesk Connect, Active Campaign, Mailchimp, Zoho CRM, Constant Contact, and Adobe Marketo Engage.
Gartner Quadrant Marketing Automation Platforms
Gartner defines marketing automation platforms as software that supports lead generation, lead management, lead scoring, and lead nurturing activities across multiple marketing channels.
The core capabilities of marketing automation platforms include: 1) Ability to input, synchronize, and cleanse first-party data while augmenting existing contact data with third-party data sources 2) Lead scoring functionality supporting the creation and management of lead qualification processes using business rules and/or AI and machine learning. 3) Lead workflow functionality enabling organizations to manage the lead life cycle from collection to conversion and retention/upsell, using a graphical UI suitable for nontechnical users. 4) Ability to deploy and manage a customer engagement program across multiple channels. 5) Ability to track, measure and report on strategic and operational KPIs to monitor and guide revenue generation, including revenue guidance and insight based on current lead and account volumes/quality. 6) Access to preconfigured, out-of-the-box reports and data visualization/dashboarding capabilities appropriate for marketing, sales and executive users
Optional capabilities of B2B marketing automation platforms include: 1) Predictive analytics supporting automation of marketing activities, such as journey design, content and next-best-action recommendations and autonomous campaign optimization. 2) Prescriptive analytics that specify a preferred course of action for the end-user organization. 3) Customer journey analytics supporting the ability to track and analyze the way customers and prospects use a combination of available channels to interact with an organization over time.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Build customer relationships for life with data-first digital marketing with Salesforce Marketing Cloud. When you power marketing with Salesforce and Slack you can adapt quickly, get to know your customer, humanize every moment, and optimize your impact from anywhere.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud is well-suited for large, complex data sets. Flexibility is the real benefit here, but with this comes extra responsibility. For many tasks, intermediate knowledge of data management principles is needed.
The Journey Builder feature provides various touch-points in the marketing pipeline and facilitates cross-channel campaigns well.
Marketing Cloud serves as the framework, with other Salesforce products fitting in as the building blocks.
With separate modules for email management, automation, data and more, this also makes the platform's user interface more complex than other solutions.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud comes at a higher cost than other marketing automation solutions.
impressive budget to put behind it.
Pardot
Pardot is a highly popular B2B marketing automation solution offered by Salesforce. Pardot does it all—from form design to landing pages, drip campaigns to 3rd party integrations. The software is best known for the following features: 1) Simplicity: Not only is the interface visually appealing (i.e. clean and fairly intuitive), it also provides step-by-step instructions for creating new content. 2) B2B Friendliness: Pardot specifically markets itself as a B2B platform. It offers robust features for lead nurturing, qualification, and segmentation, including: identifying interest levels with personal scoring, notification of dormant leads for re-engagement, and using data to personalize the customer experience.
PROS: Native integration with Salesforce; Template, custom design, and A/B testing email features; Integrates with popular Web apps (e.g. Gmail, GotoWebinar, Wistia); Beautiful reporting and visual tools for analytics; Easily analyze reports for both individual channels and full campaign life cycles.
CONS: Important features like API access, A/B testing, AdWords integration, and dynamic email are only available to "Pro" and "Ultimate" users paying $2,000 and $3,000 per month, respectively; Limited social media scheduler (doesn't automatically pull images from content); Some users have expressed skepticism over the accuracy of form views; Building landing pages without HTML/CSS knowledge may be challenging, No built-in CMS option.
PRICE: Three pricing tiers unlock different features, ranging from $1,000 to $3,000 per month.
BEST FOR: Mid-level to enterprise-level B2B companies, who have the budget to go beyond Pardot's Basic Plan.
Marketo
Marketo was originally founded as a B2B enterprise solution. Although many B2C and mid-level companies use the software today, its B2B roots are still visible in the technical nature of the UX. Marketo requires more IT knowledge to unlock advanced features and capabilities. The software is on the cutting-edge of mobile marketing engagement, targeted social media advertising, and smart list subscriptions. It allows customers to mix and match applications by choosing one or several pre-packaged bundles including: Lead Management, Email Marketing, Consumer Marketing, Customer Marketing and Mobile Marketing.
PROS: 1) An extremely engaged "Marketing Nation" user community for troubleshooting. 2) Mobile Marketing Engagement platform with location-based features that allow companies to make decisions based on opt-in consumer-behavior data.
Ad Bridge offering that allows companies to connect behavioral data to Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, and other ad platforms for more personalized experiences. 3) More robust A/B email testing (e.g. subject lines, from addresses, date and times). 4) Deeper analytic capabilities
CONS: 1) Marketo's more advanced capabilities require IT knowledge smaller companies might not have. 2) The bundled pricing options mean getting everything you need will cost a pretty penny. 3) With constant innovation, documentation sometimes trails availability of new features.
PRICE: While no longer listed on their website, the last figures published include pricing ranging from $895-$3,195 per month.
BEST FOR: Mid-level to enterprise-level companies looking to align prospect engagement with business goals.
Hubspot
Benefits: HubSpot's inbound marketing software is well-developed, encompassing landing pages, email, social media, analytics, marketing automation, lead management, and more.
HubSpot offers marketing via blogs, with helpful tools for publishing conversion-optimized and search-optimized content with a consistent style. HubSpot has codeless page and email builders with testing modules and SEO suggestions. The basic platform is free, or pay for up to four times as many features.
Drawbacks: HubSpot does not offer very many customization options. Its focus on marketing automation and contact records might be limiting if you’re seeking deeper relationship-based marketing.
Pricing: HubSpot CRM is free, and the number of users is unlimited. Marketing Hub add-on package is $50 per user/per month, billed monthly. HubSpot CMS starts at $300 per month, billed monthly. All-inclusive Starter Growth Suite starts at $113 per user/per month, billed monthly.
Eloqua (Oracle)
Eloqua is a marketing cloud solution provided by Oracle. Eloqua does everything you need to execute first-class marketing activities, including feature-rich campaign building, real-time data collection, and multiple lead scoring models. Where Eloqua really excels is with its dynamic reporting capabilities. The program's integration with Oracle Business Intelligence has enhanced the effectiveness of Eloqua' dashboards and reports.
Users can quickly analyze campaign engagement, identifying the channels generating the highest interest, engagement, and conversion levels. Another bonus: It integrates seamlessly with several other software programs. With more than 500 partners representing more than 700 integrations, Eloqua provides an unparalleled level of flexibility.
PROS: 1) Drag and drop style campaign-building on a canvas type layout. 2) Synchronization with WebEx, SalesForce, and more than 500 other partners. 3) Advanced Listener Framework that allows users to listen for changes on lead score models, forms, and new contact creation for enhanced responsiveness. 4) Real-time insights that allow for customized and timely sales responses. 5) Predictive analytics make it possible to score accounts based on actions and intent.
CONS: 1) Users say it's "kinda buggy" sometimes. 2) Reporting could be more user-friendly. 3) Requires some HTML knowledge to get the most out of the product.
PRICE: $2,000 to $4,000 per month, with scaling features.
BEST FOR: Medium to large-sized companies wanting to execute full-fledged marketing campaigns; Companies with in-house technical resources.
ZenDesk Connect
Benefits: Zendesk Connect is geared firmly towards building relationships and customer satisfaction and offers targeted marketing with personalized notifications, based on tracking of user preferences and behavior over time. With Zendesk Connect, you can segment customers, trigger campaigns in-app, and boost engagement and activation of your product/service add-ons.
Drawbacks: Zendesk grew its brand with excellent customer support, not marketing. This is apparent in the way Zendesk Connect has been retooled from its marketing-centric Outbound.io origins towards scaling and designing customer engagement and support.
Pricing: 2,000 monthly messaged users is $153 per company/per month, billed annually. 50,000 monthly messaged users is $918 per company/per month, billed annually. 500,000 monthly messaged users is $3,094 per company/per month, billed annually. Pricing is on a sliding scale according to a number of monthly messaged users.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is one of the most popular email marketing services in the world. With Mailchimp, create emails, ads, and landing pages. Get built-in audience management, creative tools, automation features, and more.
Mailchimp offers a free plan with limited features.
With Mailchimp for Salesforce, you can sync your Mailchimp subscribers and Salesforce leads across platforms, so you can manage your contacts, view campaign stats and more.
Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM helps your marketing teams efficiently run campaigns and pass on quality leads to Sales. Get the best ROI from every campaign you create using Zoho CRM's marketing automation tools.
Active Campaign
Unlike other SaaS options, Active Campaign is built exclusively for creating email campaigns. The program comes with a variety of templates, list segmentation options, and reporting analytics that are delivered quite beautifully.
For businesses on a tight budget, Active Campaign paired with a website that enables forms and landing pages could be a good choice. For only $17, the lite plan delivers a pleasing level of functionality that beats significantly higher priced competitors like InfusionSoft, Marketo, and Eloqua.
PROS: Simple CRM with an easy-to-use marketing automation system; Super affordable price point for solid lead nurturing and automated outreach; Numerous options for controlling details of email sales funnels; User-friendly interface that requires virtually zero training to understand.
CONS: Only for email marketing; Does not include landing page creation, social media integration, blogging, or ad management; No native integrations with third-party tools. However, optional apps can be acquired for additional ongoing costs.
PRICE: Four price tiers with scaling features, ranging from $17 to $149 per month.
BEST FOR: Budget-conscious, small businesses with simple marketing needs.
Constant Contact
With Constant Contact, create branded emails, sell products, build a website, and make it easy for people to find you—all from a single platform.
Adobe Marketo Engage
Adobe Marketo Engage provides end-to-end engagement for modern demand marketing. Deliver exceptional experiences across every stage of the customer journey to drive efficient growth in concert with Sales.
With Marketo Engage, attract and convert prospects, grow customer relationships, scale up your marketing, and master account-based marketing. Enrich and segment AI-powered audiences using integrated profiles and engagement history. Combine Marketo Engage with Adobe Experience Cloud for everything from AI-driven analytics to content optimization at scale.