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12 Marketing Automation Providers and 5 Best Practices to Follow

Find the right marketing automation provider for your business and make sure you’re following these 5 best practices. 

When done right, marketing automation can be your secret weapon. It can help you do more with the limited time you have and take your brand’s customer experience to the next level through improved insights and campaign management. 

But getting started can be a daunting process. Knowing what content to automate, how to connect and manage all of your campaigns, and finding the right provider are just a few of things you’ll need to consider. 

One of the most challenging parts is finding the right platform for your business needs. 

Choosing the right marketing automation provider can make a big difference when it comes to the success of your automation journey, When looking for a partner, you need to understand what capabilities each contestant has and how they can help you grow as a business.

In this article, we’ll take a look at 12 marketing automation providers that can help you reach your goals and 5 best practices to get you started. 

Looking to skip ahead? Here are the best practices we’ll cover in the section section of this article: 

  • Identify your buyer personas to better understand your customers
  • Use lead scoring to know what leads are more likely to convert 
  • Move customers through the buyer’s journey with the help of workflows
  • Send triggered messages based on real-time customer behaviors
  • Improve your marketing efforts through monitoring and analytics 

12 Marketing Automation Providers 

When it comes time to choose the marketing automation platform that is right for your business, you need to find a partner that will help you meet your business goals. 

Before getting too far into the process, you’ll want to outline your wants and needs. Then as you start to talk with providers and participate in demos, you’ll know exactly what you need. Whether that’s simply a provider to help automate your emails and SMS messages or one that provides more advanced technology — you’ll want to have a clear vision. 

Let’s take a look at a few different marketing automation providers and what they can offer you. 

1. EngageBay

EngageBay is an award-winning product for nurturing and engaging clients for their utmost customer satisfaction. The software provides a seamless experience for customers of small and mid-sized real estate agencies. This diverse package of solutions includes marketing automation, sales bay, live chat and helpdesk.

EngageBay makes it possible to automate manual tasks, track deals and sales pipeline, provide real-time assistance that easily converts visitors into customers and prioritize and solve customer support inquiries. Image courtesy of EngageBay.

Automation Capabilities: 

  • Powerful social media and email marketing automation to save time and build consistency
  • Integrate your marketing and CRM data together to improve campaign targeting, and customer segmentation, and lead nurturing
  • Use analytics and reports to improve future marketing efforts and learn more about what your customers are engaging with
  • 360° Customer Profile and advanced insights to help you better understand your customers on a personal level
  • Move users through their customer journey based on their real-time actions and engagements
  • Integrate forms on your website to increase lead generation and insights gathering

Quick Facts: 

  • One of the most affordable marketing automation platforms for growing businesses
  • Complete CRM integration with marketing, sales, and support features
  • A full-service automation platform that can provide you with a range of services

 

2. Listrak

Listrak is a full-service retail marketing automation provider. Whether you’re looking to automate your email, social, or provide your customers with a more personalized experience — Listrak is the perfect partner. 

Listrak is a marketing automation platform that allows you to save time and money by putting automation to work for you — while also better understanding your customers. From improving content served to know what they need next, you can have it all. Image courtesy of Listrak. 

Automation Capabilities: 

  • Email, social, and SMS automation to help save you time and improve customer interactions across channels
  • 360° Customer Profile and advanced insights to help you better understand your customers on a personal level
  • Predictive technology backed by artificial intelligence and machine learning to keep you ahead of your customer needs
  • Growth Xcelerator Platform that allows you to increase conversion rates by better understand who is visiting your site and engaging with your content

Quick Facts: 

  • A good marketing automation provider for companies of all sizes
  • Business needs determine platform pricing 
  • A full-service automation platform that can provide you with a range of services 

3. Act-On

Act-On is a marketing automation provider that aims to help you improve your brand experience and grow your business by better understanding and communicating with your customers. 

Act-On can help you manage several different automation capabilities. From your website and landing pages to lead scoring and customer segmentation — you can have it all. Image courtesy of Act-On.

Automation Capabilities: 

  • Grow your business by adding lead generation tactics to your marketing strategy
  • Improve the customer experience through automated customer journeys and improver personalization
  • Create customer profiles by tracking customer behaviors to understand what your customers need in real-time 
  • Segment and score leads based on their interactions to identify visitors who are ready to make a purchase

Quick Facts: 

  • A good marketing automation platform for both B2B and B2C companies
  • Pricing is based on the number of active contacts,, and there at two plan options: Professional starting at $900 per month and Enterprise $2,00 per month
  • A full-service automation platform that can provide you with a range of services 

4. Hubspot

Hubspot is a well-known marketing automation provider that can provide companies with a wide range of automation capabilities, including blogging, social media, digital ads, email, and more.

With Hubspot’s help, you can manage all of your customer interactions in one easy to use platform. From email, social, to custom landing pages and forms — it’s all there for you. Image courtesy of Hubspot.  

Automation Capabilities: 

  • Integrate your website to create engaging blog posts, boost SEO, and generate leads through custom landing pages
  • Manage and automation social media and email marketing efforts to save time and build consistency
  • Track and manage your leads then create custom segments and campaigns to engage and nurture them into becoming purchasing customers
  • Use analytics and reports to improve future marketing efforts and learn more about what your customers are engaging with

Quick Facts: 

  • A good marketing automation platform for businesses of all sizes
  • There are multiple plans available: a Free plan, the Starter plan starts at $40 per month, the Professional plan starts at $800 per month, and the Enterprise plan starts at $3,200 per month

5. dotdigital

dotdigital is a marketing automation provider that will allow you to manage all of your channels and create fully integrated campaigns that use real customer insights. 

Create automated campaigns that move customers through the buyer’s journey based on real-time actions and behaviors. Image courtesy of dotdigital. 

Automation Capabilities: 

  • Improve lifecycle marketing and lead nurturing by automating various stages of the customer journey
  • Create omnichannel campaigns with email, SMS, chat, retargeting, and more
  • Easily create, send, and manage all of your email marketing efforts to save time and focus on new tactics
  • Use customer behaviors to initiate automated real-time messages through trigger campaigns

Quick Facts: 

  • A good marketing automation platform for businesses of all sizes
  • Business needs determine platform pricing 
  • A full-service automation platform that can provide you with a range of services 

6. Insightly

Insightly is a marketing automation provider designed to help you improve your customer experience by better understanding the wants and needs of your customers. 

Manage everything you need from one central marketing dashboard. From monitoring your campaigns performance to understanding who your prospects are and how your audience is growing — Insightly covers it all. Image courtesy of Insightly. 

Automation Capabilities: 

  • Integrate your marketing and CRM data together to improve campaign targeting, and customer segmentation
  • Use reporting and testing to better understand the effectiveness of your campaigns while improving future plans
  • Move users through their customer journey based on their real-time actions and engagements
  • Integrate forms on your website to increase lead generation and insights gathering

Quick Facts: 

  • A good marketing automation platform for businesses of all sizes
  • There are multiple plans available: the Plus plan starting at $299 per month, the Professional plan starting at $599 per month, the Enterprise plan starting at $1,299 per month
  • A full-service automation platform that can provide you with a range of services 

7. Upland Adestra 

Upland Adestra is an enterprise-level marketing automation provider that will help you better understand your customers and simplify all of your marketing efforts. 

Know exactly how your campaigns are performing with easy to use report dashboards. From this insight, you can learn and adjust to improve future campaigns. Image courtesy of Upland Adestra.

Automation Capabilities: 

  • Email marketing capabilities to get your messages out easier with an email editor
  • Better understand your customers and create automated journeys to ensure the right content is sent at the right time
  • Use dynamic content to pull in additional personalization features such as product recommendations and relevant articles
  • Create cross channel campaigns to reach your customers whenever, wherever they are and build a consistent image

Quick Facts: 

  • A good marketing automation platform for enterprise companies
  • Business needs determine platform pricing 
  • A full-service automation platform that can provide you with a range of services 

8. Marketo

Marketo is another enterprise-level marketing automation provider that allows you to manage all of your marketing needs while integrating with your sales teams.

Marketo is a full service marketing automation platform that will provide you with everything you need to grow your business. From automating your outreach channels to improving lead scoring to better qualify leads — it’s all there for you. Image courtesy of Marketo. 

Automation Capabilities: 

  • Create cross channel marketing campaigns to improve targeting, nurture leads, and increase conversion rates
  • See a holistic view of your customer stat to identify new opportunities and improve their experience
  • Use lead scoring capabilities to help provide your sales team with more reliable prospects 
  • Analytic and reporting data to help you know what is working, what isn’t, and how each campaign is impacting your business 

Quick Facts: 

  • A good marketing automation platform for enterprise companies
  • Business needs determine platform pricing 
  • A full-service automation platform that can provide you with a range of services 

9. Drip

Drip is an ecommerce marketing automation provider that can help take your customer experience to the next level through better data and personalization efforts. 

With Drip, you can test campaigns to see what path is most successful with your audiences. Having this insight will result in higher performing campaigns and can help you improve future messaging. Image courtesy of Drip.  

Automation Capabilities: 

  • Gather customer data from campaign engagement to purchasing behaviors to help improve your marketing efforts 
  • Create personalized experiences through segmentation, behavioral automation, and personalized content
  • Bring your channels together to create a multichannel campaign using email, social, SMS, and more
  • Use reporting and analytics to see how well your campaigns are performing 

Quick Facts: 

  • A good marketing automation platform for businesses of all sizes
  • Pricing is based on the number of contacts you have and pricing starts at $19 per month with custom plans available for larger accounts
  • A full-service automation platform that can provide you with a range of services 

10. Iterable

Iterable is a growth marketing provider that automated your tedious tasks while improving the customer experience to build stronger relationships. 

Easily create and automate lifecycle journeys that move users from one stage to another. You’ll see higher engagement rates and improve campaign metrics by targeting customers based on their personal journey. Image courtesy of Iterable. 

Automation Capabilities: 

  • Gather and understand customer data on a deeper level to improve segmentation and provide more relevant content
  • Create triggered campaigns to target customers based on their real-time interactions with your brand
  • Build cross channel marketing experiences that move customers through their journey from email to social to SMS and more
  • Learn how your users engage with your mobile apps to help increase engagement and send the right messages at the right time

Quick Facts: 

  • A good marketing automation platform for businesses of all sizes
  • Business needs determine platform pricing 
  • A full-service automation platform that can provide you with a range of services 

11. Sendinblue

Sendinblue is a marketing automation provider that provides you with everything you need to integrate your sales and marketing efforts. 

Sendinblue allows you to create automated workflows to automatically move customers through their journey. From identifying exactly what emails to send and the next steps to follow, you can move customers towards making a purchase. Image courtesy of Sendinblue.

Automation Capabilities: 

  • Automate marketing tactics including email, SMS, and chat to make reaching your customer easier than ever before
  • Create and send transactional messages based on real-time customer interactions and behaviors
  • Improve targeting and get the right message to the right people through better segmentation 
  • Grow your network with campaign landing pages, social media ad, and retargeting messaging

Quick Facts: 

  • A good marketing automation platform for businesses of all sizes
  • There are multiple pricing plans available: the Free plan, the Lite plan starts at $25 per month, the Premium plan starts at $65 per month, the Enterprise plan that is based on business needs
  • A full-service automation platform that can provide you with a range of services 

12. Acoustic

Acoustic is an enterprise marketing automation provider that will help you manage all of your digital needs and improve your brand experience. 

Create automated workflows to help move customers through their journey based on real-time interactions. With the backing of AI technology, you’ll know the messages sent to your customers are relevant to their needs. Image courtesy of Acoustic. 

Automation Capabilities: 

  • Manage all of your digital marketing efforts from you website, email, social, SMS, and more from one centralized platform
  • Gather customer data and use this insight to improve personalization in every interaction
  • Identity and convert leads across multiple channels with an AI-powered platform
  • Create cross channel campaigns to ensure the right content hits the right person at the right place and time

Quick Facts: 

  • A good marketing automation platform for enterprise companies
  • Business needs determine platform pricing 
  • A full-service automation platform that can provide you with a range of services 

13. Omnisend

Omnisend is a marketing automation provider that focuses on ecommerce businesses grow their business through relevant content. 

The better you know your customers, the better you can provide them with content that’s relevant to their needs. Segmentation is a great way to group like minded customers to more effectively target them. Image courtesy of Omnisend. 

Automation Capabilities: 

  • Capture new leads and continue to grow your subscriber lists through customized forms
  • Convert new subscribers into purchasing customer by automating sales funnel workflows and providing incentives to complete a purchase
  • Nurture leads and identify what customers you can cross-sell and up-sell to directly increase sales
  • Quickly create emails with an easy-to-use drag and drop editor to catch the attention of your subscribers 

Quick Facts: 

  • A good marketing automation platform for businesses of all sizes
  • Pricing is based on the number of contacts you have and there are multiple plans available: the Free plan, the Standard plan starting at $16 per month, the Pro plan starting at $99 per month, and the Enterprise plan that is based on business needs
  • A full-service automation platform that can provide you with a range of services 

5 Marketing Automation Best Practices to Follow

Once you’ve made the decision on what provider you’re going to invest in, you need to determine how to best utilize your new platform.

Jumping in and getting started can take some time and if you dive in without a plan in place, you may find yourself overwhelmed and disappointed. Trying to do too much right away can leave you with lackluster campaign performance, but taking it too slow won’t provide you with the results you want to see either. 

So, to set yourself up for success, you’ll want to get to know some best practices. By integrating these best practices into your process, you’ll be on track to make the most out of your marketing automation platform and see the results you want. 

Let’s take a look at the best practices that you’ll want to keep in mind when getting started with your new marketing automation platform.

1. Build Buyer Personas

Before you can start marketing to your customers, you need to understand who they are — and that’s where buyer personas come in. 

A buyer persona is simply a detailed description of who your target audience is. Personas provide you with a quick snapshot of details such as demographics and career details. 

Here are a few different types of data that are valuable to include in your buyer personas: 

  • Age
  • Geographical location
  • Gender
  • Education
  • Hobbies
  • Job title
  • Income 
  • Relationship status 
  • Challenges
  • Behaviors 

The point of taking the time to research and learn about your target audience is to gain a better understanding of their wants, needs, and interests. Having a better understanding of who you are talking to will help you create content and campaigns that are more appealing and fulfil their specific needs. 

Depending on who your target audience is, you may find that you need to create multiple personas to capture the full picture. Having more than one persona will allow you to create different campaigns for each of your target audiences. 

Multiple personas will result in more personalized experience for your customers and more effective campaigns for you. 

There are a number of ways that defining your buyer personas can help improve your current marketing efforts. Higher click through rates, increased website interactions, and more effective ads are just the starting point. Image courtesy of CustomLogoCases. 

Buyer personas are an effective way to improve your marketing campaigns across the board. From improving website interactions to creating more targeted ads — defining your buyer personas will set your marketing efforts up for success. 

2. Score Your Leads and Know Your Lead Stages

Lead scoring is used by companies to identify what subscribers are more likely to make a purchase and which are not. 

For most companies, lead scoring is designed to help identify hot leads to send forward to the sales team. But it can be used for B2C focused companies as well — and could provide you with a competitive advantage. 

Lead scoring is a very valuable tool that many companies aren’t taking advantage of yet. When you consider that only 44% of organizations are using it, you could be ahead of the curve by making the investment now. Image courtesy of Business2Community. 

While you may not be scoring leads in an effort to prep them for sales, you can use it to identify what customers are more likely to engage with your content and make a purchase. This is valuable information because you can then target those customers more frequently and effectively based on their previous behaviors. 

Not sure how to score your leads? Here are a few examples of data points that can help you start scoring your leads: 

  • Email opens
  • Email subscriptions
  • Web page visits
  • Free trial requests
  • Form submissions
  • Content downloads
  • Social media engagements
  • Webinar registrations 

Once you’ve identified what actions or engagements are relevant to your lead scoring strategy, you then need to set values for each. To do this you can simply identify what actions are weighted higher. If someone registers for a webinar, they may receive a higher score than someone who simply visited a page on your website. 

As your customers continue to engage with your content, they will then start to build up a score. This score will let you know how likely they are to make a purchase in the near future. With this information, you can create emails, digital ads, or full campaigns around the higher ranking leads with the goal to increase sales. 

3. Move Customer Through the Buyer’s Journey With Workflows

Most marketing automation platforms will provide you with the ability to create customized workflows. These can be used for a number of different things, but one of the most effective uses is to automate the buyer’s journey. 

The buyer’s journey starts when a customer identifies a problem and leads them through the entire purchasing process. Knowing where you customers are in the journey provides you with a unique marketing opportunity. Image courtesy of Ink House.

If you’re not familiar with what the buyer’s journey is, here is the condensed version: 

    • Awareness: when someone has identified a problem and needs to find a solution to this problem
    • Consideration: at this point, they are now looking at multiple different solutions to their problems and considering what is the best option for them
    • Decision: the decision has been made and they are ready to make a purchase to resolve their problem
  • Post-Purchase: the purchase has been made, but they may be looking for complementary or add-on products

Creating workflows allows you to move customers through these stages of the buyer’s journey without manual intervention. By understanding the journey your customers will take, you can send relevant content based on the stages they are in and move them along based on specific actions. 

Here’s an example of how you can move a new subscriber from awareness to decision and beyond. 

    • Awareness: A user visits your website and fills out a form to learn more about a specific product. You now have their email and know what content they are interested in, so you send them an article discussing the benefits of the product they’re interested in. 
    • Consideration: The new subscriber reads the article about the product, but is still shopping around and comparing prices. 
  • Decision: Knowing that the subscriber has read the product and maybe even visited your site again, you send another email with a coupon for free shipping. At this point, the customer has made their decision and the free shipping encouraged them to complete their purchase. 
  • Post-Purchase: Shortly after the subscriber converted to a customer, you send accessory recommendations based on the product the customer just purchased. 

And the cycle continues to play out over and over again. Having the ability to market to your customers based on where they stand in the buyer’s journey will ensure a relevant experience that will result in more sales.  

4. Send Triggered Messages Based on Customer Behaviors

Automation platforms are a great tool when it comes to creating and managing triggered message campaigns. 

Trigger messages are sent to customers based on a specific action or behavior. In most cases, trigger emails are welcomed by customers because they are relevant to an action the customer recently took.

Marketing automation platforms make creating and sending these types of messages simple. You can identify the actions that qualify for a triggered message and the platform takes it from there. No need to pull data and manually enroll customers into a program — it’s all done for you.

Trigger messages can encourage customers to come back or welcome new subscribers to your email list. Whatever the case, they are sent to customers based on their personal interactions with your brand. Image courtesy of Wishpond.

You’ve likely received or even sent triggered campaigns in the past. These are a few of the most common types of trigger messages: 

  • Welcome messages
  • Onboarding
  • Early activation
  • Reactivation
  • Transactional
  • Account notifications
  • Milestones
  • Real-time triggers
  • Time sensitive triggers

Trigger messages are an extremely effective way to reach your customers and provide them with timely and relevant content. You’ll find that these messages can make a big impact on your overall marketing strategy. 

5. Improve Through Monitoring Analytics 

Last but not least, you should be continuously reviewing and monitoring your campaign analytics. This will provide you with insights into what is working and what might need some adjusting. 

An automation platform will allow you to track metrics across platforms and campaigns. This means you can quickly see how well your most recent email performed and how an SMS messaging campaign performed all from one central location.

Marketing automation platforms allow you to easily see all of your campaign and customer data in one central location. With easy to use and customizable dashboards, you can put your most important information front and center. Image courtesy of Technology Advice.

When tracking campaign analytics, you’ll want to consider things such as: 

  • Time saved
  • Email open and click-through rates
  • Frequent interactions and trigger messages sent
  • Site traffic
  • Conversion rates 
  • Revenue generated 
  • Customer changes

While the metrics you track may vary based on the channels and campaigns you are using — your marketing automation platform will still provide you with the data you need. With an easy to use dashboard, you can quickly monitor performance and identify any potential issues.

Monitoring your analytics will help you continue to grow your business by learning and adjusting your efforts as your customer changes. 

Find the Perfect Marketing Automation Mix for You

Marketing automation is a great option for companies looking to invest in a new marketing tool. You’ll have the ability to improve your messaging and better understand your customers through advanced insights. From there, you can create custom campaigns designed with your customers in mind. 

While it can be daunting to get started, by following these best practices and finding the right provider will set your company up for success.