Marketing automation tools help teams to efficiently manage campaigns across several platforms, including social media and email, among others. It streamlines repetitive and time-consuming tasks to free up team members to do more important duties for the company. An efficient marketing automation tool reduces human error, so the company also saves money and time.

This article tackles why you should consider having marketing automation tools and the factors you must take on-point before purchasing an automation tool for marketing. Most importantly, this article showcases a comprehensive list of marketing automation tools suited to every need.

Why Use Marketing Automation Tools

Marketing automation tools can do so many things for your company. Mostly, such tools are often associated with email automation. Instead of manually adding their emails and posting the same email to everyone, marketing automation tools can send specific ones based on user action, ranging from a simple newsletter sign-up to informing the user about abandoned shopping carts. You can also nurture your audience through drip email marketing. Drip marketing aims to foster your audience by sending them a series of emails that entice their interests.

You can also use these tools with your CRM system to boost your sales campaigns and target specific user profiles. When you integrate your CRM with your marketing automation tool, you don’t allow any lead to slip through any crack.

Common Types of Marketing Automation Tools

There are several types of marketing automation tools available in the market. Knowing your marketing needs or where your marketing placement is, moving forward, would help you determine the kind of marketing automation tool to use.

All-in-One Automation

All-in-One automation tools are those tools that cover more than one marketing channel. Such tools are standard when the company has successfully scaled one or more channels, already invested in improving its marketing activities and campaigns, or exploring more avenues to improve their marketing campaigns.

Email Marketing Automation

When one talks about marketing automation, it’s email automation that first pops up on one’s mind. It’s not surprising because this aspect of marketing automation is considered much cheaper than having the entire plethora of marketing automation tools.

Email marketing automation tools are for you if you have some degree of success in marketing.

Here are some email marketing features you should for in a marketing automation tool:

  • Segmentation
  • Template designs
  • Behavioral trigger emails
  • Forms
  • Mobile Optimization
  • Split Testing

Social Media Marketing Automation

Social media marketing automation tools, as its name connotes, encompasses all automation needed for social media marketing. These automation tools are perfect for companies that outsource content or have several admins handle their social media accounts. Your brand is also active on several social media platforms and uses social media not just to publish but also to provide customer support.

Marketing Automation Tools That Concentrate on Social Media Should Have:

  • Social Analytics Tools
  • Poll Creation
  • Referral Programs
  • Scheduling Features
  • Social Interactions

Customer Journey Automation

When you want to automate a customer journey, we are not just talking about a single buyer experience aspect. We are referring to all stages, from lead generation to lead scoring and down to lead nurturing.

Lead Nurturing Marketing Automation Tools Should Have the Following Features:

  • Lead Database
  • Drip Campaigns
  • Task Notifications
  • Segmentation
  • Lead Scoring

B2B companies that wish to improve their sales and marketing campaigns could greatly benefit from these automation tools. Suppose you have already created a buyer’s journey for your leads, and your sales and marketing teams often collaborate, or you are using the accounts-based sales model. In that case, you should consider having customer journey automation tools.

Pricing Automation

Pricing automation tools are needed when your company is ready to be more price-competitive and make your pricing strategy an advantage. Such automation tools are often used in eCommerce businesses.

Loyalty and Referral Automation

Loyalty and referral automation tools may not be the most popular set of marketing automation tools, but it sure does tap the most powerful marketing tool of all time, word of mouth. It would help if you used such tools when you have successfully used your products using the word-of-mouth strategy.

These tools are also ideal when buyers don’t negotiate when buying the products, or the former don’t need to research a lot about your products. However, make sure that the lifespan of your products is long enough for such an investment. In other words, if you’d want to take advantage of your product’s popularity, invest in these types of automation tools.

Here’s the List of the Best Marketing Automation Tools

These can be used as marketing automation tools for small business companies or those who want to expand their horizons.

Act-On

One of the benefits of marketing automation tools is it can guide your buyers in every stage of their buyer journey. If you want to take your marketing automation to the next level, Act-On might be the right tool for you. With this tool, you can nurture your loyal audience and attract new leads and clients. You can integrate your existing CRM to Act-On to improve sales conversions.

Features:

  • Automated Journey Builder
  • Web and Landing Page Creation
  • WebForms
  • Multiple Scoring Sheets for Prospects and Customers

Why It’s Included:

It provides lead scores for prospects and customers to understand their needs and behaviors further. Act-On also allows you to track your buyers individually through their score sheets. This tool focuses on active use and the number of contacts rather than the size of data.

Pricing

  • The Professional Plan starts at $900 a month.
  • The Enterprise- starts at $2000 a month.

Suitable For: Lead-Focused Automation

ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign doesn’t just automate. It includes a human touch to automation, making the entire buyer experience more credible. Being the first to use the visual automation sequence builder, ActiveCampaign can create complicated workflows without any training needed.

Features:

  • Automation Map
  • Email Automation
  • Market Segmentation
  • Pre-Made Engagement Automation
  • Site-Tracking
  • Migration Services
  • Advanced Marketing Reporting
  • Lead Scoring

Why It’s Included

It’s the no-frills approach in setting that makes people gravitate to this tool. This tool can also visually show how each of your automation connects. This allows you to easily check each automation or adjust any campaign to suit your general purpose. With regular updates to the tools, you know that you stay on top of your game. This tool can easily manage your time, allowing you to focus more on doing the tasks rather than on creating the tasks.

Pricing:

You can try ActiveCampaign for free for 14 days. You can pay yearly with a minimum of 500 contacts.

  • Lite: starts with $9 per month, billed annually; up to 3 users
  • Plus: starts with $49 per month, billed annually; up to 25 users
  • Professional: starts at $129 per month, billed annually, up to 50 users.
  • Enterprise: starts with $229 per month, billed annually; up to unlimited users

Suitable For: Email Marketing for intermediate users

AdRoll

Adroll is a well-known email marketing automation tool that allows you to create compelling emails that can be easily personalized according to your audience’s needs. With AdRoll, you can reach out to your clients and customers at the right time with the right message,

Features:

  • Drag-and-Drop Email Builder
  • Built-in Templates
  • Integration with Popular eCommerce Apps
  • AI-Driven Product Recommendations
  • Cross-Channel Measurement

Why It’s Included

If you want to retarget and re-engage past customers and followers, AdRoll is the best bet for you. It has cross-device and cross-platform capabilities that help in customer segmentation for better targeting and check your ad campaigns across all social media.

You can also retarget campaigns that can put you up on the lead or maintain your status against your competitors. These features can also improve your marketing campaigns by providing your customers with personalized buying experiences.

AdRoll is one of the more popular digital marketing tools in the market. You’d find it easy to manage. It also allows you to check all your ad campaigns across all social media platforms. It has a built-in and customizable template that can assist your email marketing campaigns.

Pricing:

You can try AdRoll for free.

  • Starter: starts free with 5k emails cap a month.

Basic Inclusions:

  • Ads
  • Email templates,
  • On-Demand email sends
  • AI-Driven Carousel
  • Insights
  • List Management
  • Shopify Integrations
  • Campaign Marketing
  • Conversion Attribution
  • Support
  • Essentials: starts at $9 (annual billing) or $12 (monthly billing) with a 10k emails cap a month and a 30-day trial; Inclusions are similar to the Starter Plan with add-ons such as removal of “powered by AdRoll” branding, advanced and custom audience selectors such as CSS selector and Impressions
  • Growth: starts $19 (annual billing) or $25 (monthly billing) with 20k emails cap a month and a 30-day trial; Inclusions are similar to the Essentials Plan with add-ons such as Performance Benchmarks, customized data segment reports
  • Advanced Tracking: starts at $450 (annual billing) or $499 (monthly billing), which includes advanced channel contribution analysis, spend tracking, market mix modeling, and automated spend and deliveries ingestion

Suitable For: customer retargeting and re-engagement

Aritic PinPoint

Aritic PinPoint has advanced customer engagement features that are suitable for B2B companies. It can easily identify which among your leads can become potential customers. With a comprehensive list of third-party integrations, Arctic PinPoint stands out from its competitors.

Features:

  • Landing Pages
  • Forms
  • Contact Segmentation
  • Email Campaigns
  • Lead Scoring
  • Account-Based Accounting
  • Mobile Marketing
  • Social Media Marketing
  • Marketing Analytics

Why It’s Included

You can fully customize your landing pages and forms. Apart from this, Aritic can easily connect you to your audience on various social media platforms. It has robust lead scoring features such as responses, engagement, and likes. These can pinpoint which among your leads would most likely to convert.

Pricing:

There are no setup fees for Aritic PinPoint. You can pay per month, per year, or every two months, with a minimum of 1K contacts. All plans except for the Enterprise have free trials.

  • Lite: starts at $19 per month for monthly billing
  • Starter: starts at $79 per month for monthly billing
  • Professional: starts at $99 per month for monthly billing
  • Enterprise: needs to have at least 10k contacts.

Suitable For: B2B companies

Automizy

Automizy is equipped with a drag and drop editor that makes email creation more exciting. If you have difficulty creating catchy subject lines to hook your email leads, this tool can be suitable for you. With its AI functionality, Automizy can predict which of your subject lines would work best for your campaigns.

Features:

  • Visual Automation Builder
  • Website Behavior Tracking
  • Interest Tagging
  • Personalization
  • Contact Management
  • Scheduling

Why It’s Included

Automizy has new integrations with Elementor for lead generation. You can also transfer data from your apps to Automizy using Pabbly Connect. Automizy is also integrated with Shopify.

Pricing:

Automizy has a free trial with 14 days of free usage, with a minimum of 200 contacts. It starts at $9 per month.

Suitable For: email marketing strategy for opening and increasing rates

Autopilot

Autopilot combines fun and functionality. Don’t be fooled by Autopilot’s visuals. The platform is jam-packed with features that are also easy to use.

Features:

  • Integrated with Popular Software, Apps, and Programs
  • No-coding Marketing Automation Software
  • Template Directory
  • Personalized Customer Journey
  • Native CRM Integrations
  • Website Tracking
  • Visitor Data Capturing
  • Proactive Headsup

Why It’s Included

Autopilot is easy to the eyes- and they claim that they are the easiest to use. You can create personalized messages for your leads. Repetitive tasks can be automated, making your goals quicker to achieve. You can have add-ons such as setups and training by specialists, VIP support, Salesforce CRM integration, and custom IP. It even makes these integrations much easier to use.

Pricing:

Autopilot has a free 30-day trial. You can either pay month to month, monthly for one year or one-time payment annually.

  • Silver: $49 per month with 2K contacts, unlimited emails, chat, and email support
  • Gold: $149 per month with 5K contacts, unlimited emails, chat, and email support.
  • Platinum: $249 per month with 10K contacts, unlimited emails, chat, and email support

Suitable For: email marketing automation

Aweber

Aweber is one of the more popularly known email marketing automation tools. This automation tool can be used to target specific audiences at a particular time. Since Aweber does not outsource your emails, you’re assured that the tool has full control of your emails, so each of the latter is assured of hitting the inbox and not the junk folder.

Features:

  • Email Newsletters
  • Email Automation
  • AI-Powered Email Template Designer
  • Landing Pages
  • eCommerce
  • Free Account Migration Service
  • Sign-up Forms
  • Subscriber Segmentation
  • 24/7 Customer Solutions
  • Free Template LIbrary

Why It’s Included

It’s a pretty simple tool, but it packs a punch. You can target specific people for a particular message, be it email or other kinds of content.

Pricing:

You can get Aweber for free.

  • Pro: $16.15 a month, billed annually, with 500 maximum subscribers. It also includes email split testing, behavioral automation, sign-up form split testing, advanced message analytics, webpage tracking, sales tracking, and cart abandonment.
  • Free with a maximum of 500 subscribers

Suitable For: email marketing automation

Buffer

Buffer is an automation tool suited for your social media marketing. It can help you publish your posts on several social media platforms at a given schedule, even if you have to do so simultaneously.

Features:

  • Direct Scheduling
  • Shop Grid
  • Preset Publishing Schedule
  • Custom-tailored
  • Social Media Performance Reports

Why It’s Included

Buffer is not just a social media scheduling tool. Buffer can help you build your online reputation through better engagement. You can post to all major social platforms from the Buffer dashboard. Your team can have better collaboration for your social media campaigns because this tool can be acquired through a browser or a mobile app.

Pricing:

You can try Buffer with no credit card provided for a 14 days trial period. The great thing about Buffer, you can cancel anytime.

Suitable For: Social Media Automation

BuzzBuilder

People behind BuzzBuilder understand how important following up with leads is. They also understand that manually doing so can be a pain in the neck.

Features:

  • Advanced Email Automation
  • WebForm Builder
  • Web Tracking
  • Analytics
  • Lead Scoring
  • Social Media Marketing
  • Lead Alert
  • LinkedIn Lead List

Why It’s Included

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