List of the Top Marketing Automation Tools, Uses, and Importance

Did you know more than 40% of digital marketers use digital marketing automation tools? In this blog, we discuss the best marketing automation tools and how they can benefit your business and generate sales.

What is marketing automation? 

Marketing automation is used to empower marketers to upscale, manage, monitor, and grow inbound marketing campaigns with the aim of increasing conversions and also reducing and streamlining workload. Let’s have a look at the best marketing automation tools and their meaning.

Simply put, marketing automation is the use of software to automate certain marketing efforts. Marketing automation involves automating repetitive tasks such as email marketing, ad campaigns, social media posting, and more. It not only improves efficiency but also makes communications much more personalized, therefore, improving the overall experience of customers. 

It is a technology that manages, monitors, and builds processes across multiple channels. Businesses can target customers through automated messages using email, SMS, search engines, social media, and more. 

Benefits of Marketing Automation

The best marketing automation tools will help you not only ease the marketing process but also improve the quality of marketing. 

• Improves Efficiency

With marketing automation, you skip the many marketing steps and can focus your energies on more important tasks. Marketing automation improves the overall performance of your team as they can focus on strategy, nurturing leads, and growing the business. 

• Increased Conversions

You can easily align your sales and marketing efforts using some of the best marketing automation tools for a more synergistic approach. According to a survey, marketing automation can increase sales by about 15%.  

• Personalized Messaging

With marketing automation, personalized messaging is much easier. Your team does not need to change every entry with personalized tools. 

• Automated Reports

Automated reports will lift the responsibility of the cumbersome task of creating reports for your team, making the process more simplified. These reports give an accurate overview of the entire process, hence making you aware of the improvisations needed.

These analytics are spot on and can give you suggestions to fix errors as well. 

• Lead Scoring 

Marketing automation can notify your team with real-time alerts when a lead goes from a qualified lead to a sales qualified lead. This means that there is little scope for time to be wasted as your team will be able to reach out to prospects immediately. 

• Data Management is Easier

Marketing automation keeps a record of your leads and also the kind of engagement they have with your website. This makes managing data easier and it will automatically update the data processes.

Use of Best Marketing Automation Tools

Source: SingleGrain

If you’re wondering where you can apply marketing automation, we’ve listed the uses of marketing automation tools in different areas of digital marketing –

• Social Media Marketing

Automation for social media goes beyond just scheduling your content. With the latest social media marketing automation tools, you can plan, manage, and bulk upload content. It also provides you with sales improvement suggestions, and lead generation.

• Lead Generation

Automated lead generation is completely automating the process of generating leads in digital marketing. It involves signup forms, popup forms, syncing contact data, and many such innovative services. 

• Lead Nurturing

Lead nurturing is much easier with marketing automation tools as they can help with a number of tasks such as lead scoring, and tracking consumer behaviors and preferences. With these tools, you will be able to generate better quality leads and also gain insights into their consumer needs.

• Analytics

Marketing automation tools also provide users with automatic reports and analytics with an in-depth analysis of overall performance. This eliminates one more tedious task for the marketing team and improves their efficiency. 

• Email Marketing

Email marketing automation tools have really simplified the task of sending out personalized emails to marketing segments.  This means sending out the right message, at the right time, to the right people using automation leading to increased open rates, leads, and ultimately, conversions.

10 Best Marketing Automation Tools

1. Leadfeeder

This tool helps you identify your best leads and also any new leads. It is best for B2B businesses and marketing teams who need a way to get new leads and target their marketing. 

Pricing: The starting fee is $55 per month for basic features

Alternative: ZoomInfo

2. LeadSquared

LeadSqaured is a tool to enhance the lead nurturing phase of the customer journey process. You land with more customers in less time as it moves leads faster through the purchasing funnel.

It provides you with real-time alerts so you never miss an opportunity to convert a lead into a customer.

Pricing: The fee is $150-$2,500 per month

Alternative: Act-On

3. Hootsuite

is one of the best comprehensive social media automation tools out there. From scheduling, planning, curating, and monitoring content it does a great job as an automation tool.

Pricing: The starting fee is $55 per month for basic features

Alternative: Buffer

4. Sprout Social 

If you’re looking for tailored solutions for your brand on social media, then Sprout Social is your best bet! Customer care, social media management, marketing – the platform offers tailored experiences in all these areas. 

Pricing: The fee is $99-$249 per month 

Alternative: Mention

5. MailChimp

Not just an email marketing tool! Mailchimp has grown into an automated email marketing solution. It is known for its user-friendliness and also for its useful free features.

Pricing: $15 – $300 per month 

Alternative: Automizy

6. Constant Contact

Constant Contact is an email marketing automation tool for small businesses. It is simple and easy to use without the additional complicated tools some tools have to offer. You can create segmented emails and send follow-ups as well. 

Pricing: $20 – $335 per month 

Alternative: Customer.io

7. Marketo

Marketo, an Adobe company, is one of the best email marketing software in the industry. It is great for larger marketing operations as well as it offers holistic services from social media to email marketing. 

Pricing: $895 onwards per month 

Alternative: Omnisend

8. Marsello

An interesting feature of Marsello is how they help brands build loyalty programs with automation and are completely AI-driven. You can also automate Google Reviews apart from other features. 

Pricing: $99 onwards per month

Alternative: Marketo

9. Shoelace

Shoelace aims at displaying the right ad to the right customer, using customer journey retargeting techniques. It pushes leads towards a sale efficiently. They offer hyper-targeting through segmentation. 

Pricing: $80-$1500 per month 

Alternative: AdRoll 

10. Revealbot

Revealbot is a great tool for advertising automation for Facebook and Google Ads. It is known for its data analytics reports and auto-boosting posts to simplify tasks for the marketing teams. 

Pricing: $49-$2,999 per month

Alternative: Zalster

Have some more tools that you’ve used and would recommend? Feel free to add to our marketing automation tools list in the comments below!

FAQs

Q. What is an example of marketing automation?

Transactional emails are an example of marketing campaign automation tools. This order acceptance email, shipment details, and delivery confirmation. 

Q. What is an automation tool in digital marketing?

Marketo is one of the best marketing automation tools in the market. 

Q. What are marketing automation features?

Some of the key features of marketing automation are –

• Customer relationship management (CRM) integration
• Web analytics
• Lead scoring and management
• Personalized messaging
• Trigger responses
• Real-time notifications 

To Conclude, 

We hope you enjoyed reading this blog on marketing automation and it added value to your marketing strategy. Let us know in the comments below which ones are your favorite from the top digital marketing automation tools.

Marketing automation is a vast field and there’s a lot to learn. If you want to upskill and dive deeper into marketing automation and other digital marketing hacks, register for this Post Graduation Course in Digital Marketing curated for working professionals and graduates. 

In case you’re looking for a shorter course, this 3-month online comprehensive digital marketing course will give you adequate knowledge related to marketing and sales automation tools as well.