Marketing automation tools are essential for businesses aiming to streamline their marketing efforts, improve efficiency, and deliver personalized customer experiences.
With many options available in the market, choosing the right marketing automation tool can be difficult.
This blog aims to simplify the marketing process by exploring key factors to consider and highlighting the best marketing automation tools to elevate your digital campaigns.
- What Are Marketing Automation Tools?
- How To Choose the Best Marketing Automation Tool?
- 18 Best Marketing Automation Tools To Consider
- Which Is the Best Marketing Automation Tool?
By the end of this article, you’ll have everything you need to get rid of those pesky pencil-pushing marketing tasks and get more time to do what you do best: create and distribute killer campaigns that grow your business.
What Are Marketing Automation Tools?
Marketing automation tools enable businesses to automate repetitive tasks, manage complex workflows, and execute targeted campaigns across multiple channels.
These tools provide functionalities such as email marketing automation, lead nurturing, customer segmentation, social media management, and analytics
By automating these processes, businesses can save time, improve campaign precision, and drive better results.
How To Choose the Best Marketing Automation Software?
Choosing the best marketing automation tool for your business requires careful consideration of the following key factors:
- Integration capabilities with existing systems: Look for tools that seamlessly integrate with your existing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, email marketing platforms, social media channels, and other relevant systems. This ensures smooth data flow and eliminates manual transfers, saving time and effort.
- Ease of use and user interface: Opt for tools with an intuitive and user-friendly interface. A clean and accessible interface enhances user adoption and facilitates the efficient execution of campaigns. Look for tools that offer a visually appealing and well-organized dashboard, making it easy to navigate and access the desired features.
- Scalability and flexibility: Consider the scalability and flexibility of the marketing automation tool. As your business grows, the tool should be capable of handling increasing volumes of customer data, adapting to new marketing strategies, and accommodating evolving customer needs. Ensure that the tool can scale alongside your business without compromising performance.
- Customization options: Choose a tool that allows for customization and tailoring of automation workflows and campaigns to suit your business requirements. Flexibility in designing personalized customer journeys ensures a more engaging and relevant customer experience. Look for tools that offer advanced segmentation capabilities, dynamic content creation, and personalized messaging options.
- Reporting and analytics features: Comprehensive reporting and analytics capabilities are vital for measuring campaign effectiveness and making data-driven decisions. Look for tools that provide real-time analytics, in-depth performance metrics, and actionable insights to optimize your marketing efforts. Advanced reporting features like campaign ROI tracking and A/B testing analysis can provide valuable insights for continuous improvement.
Best Marketing Automation Tools To Consider
The following marketing automation software is our selection of the top contenders for being the best marketing automation tools.
| Marketing Automation Tool | Best For | Pricing |
|---|---|---|
| 1. OptinMonster | Website conversions and lead generation | $7–$49/month, Pro plan at $29/month |
| 2. WPForms | Form creation, lead capture, and surveys | $49.50–$299.50/year |
| 3. RafflePress | Viral giveaways, email list growth, and social engagement | $39.50–$199.50/year, Ultimate plan at $399.60 (one-time) |
| 4. MonsterInsights | Website analytics and performance tracking | $99–$399/year |
| 5. ActiveCampaign | Email marketing, CRM, and automation | Starts at $15/month, Pro plan at $375/month |
| 6. Adobe Marketo Engage | Enterprise-level automation and ABM | Contact sales for pricing |
| 7. Constant Contact | Email marketing, automation, and social media | Starts at $12/month, Premium plan at $80/month |
| 8. Keap | Small business CRM and automation | Starts at $249/month for 2 users |
| 9. Oracle Eloqua | Enterprise-level marketing automation | Contact sales for pricing |
| 10. Hootsuite | Social media automation and management | Starts at $99/month for 1 user and 10 accounts |
| 11. Buffer | Social media scheduling and engagement | Free plan available, paid plans start at $5/month per channel |
| 12. Mention | Social listening and brand monitoring | $41–$149/month, custom pricing available |
| 13. Twilio | SMS marketing automation | Pay-as-you-go, $0.0079 per SMS in the U.S. |
| 14. Omnisend | Email and SMS marketing for eCommerce | Free plan available, paid plans start at $11.20/month |
| 15. Brevo (Sendinblue) | Email, SMS, and CRM automation | Free plan available, paid plans start at $8.08/month |
| 16. HubSpot | All-in-one CRM and marketing automation | Free plan available, paid plans from $15 to $3,600/month |
| 17. Uncanny Automator | WordPress automation | Starts at $149/year for 1 site |
| 18. Salesforce MCAE | Enterprise CRM and marketing automation | $1,250–$15,000/month based on features |
1. OptinMonster
OptinMonster tops the list of the best marketing automation tools out there, and its goal is to help you get more conversions.
Driving tons of traffic to your site is great, but growing your email list is the secret to a successful business.
OptinMonster helps you turn your website visitors into subscribers and customers with:
With OptinMonster, you can create any of these campaigns in minutes. Start with one of 700+ professionally designed templates and customize it with the easy drag-and-drop builder:
But the next steps are where the automation comes in.
OptinMonster offers in-depth Real-Time Behavior Automation that lets you set exactly who will see your campaigns and when.
You can target your campaigns based on:
- What page your visitor is viewing
- Their geographic location
- Whether they’ve visited your site before
- How they’ve interacted with previous offers on your site
- and more
You can set your campaigns to display:
- When your visitor tries to leave your site with powerful Exit-Intent® technology
- When they’ve scrolled a percentage of your content
- When they’ve spent a specific amount of time on the page or your entire site
- When they click a button
- and more
With OptinMonster’s Display Rules, you can set up your targeting and triggering rules in a few clicks.
Once your visitor has given you their email address, OptinMonster integrates with almost any email marketing tool, including Constant Contact and Brevo. You can automate the process of adding emails to the correct list, and you can even automate segmentation tagging.
Also, everything is trackable with OptinMonster’s real-time conversion analytics, so you can rely on data to make adjustments and improve your workflow.
Pricing
OptinMonster’s pricing plans range from $7/month to $49/month. The most popular plan is the Pro plan, which includes Exit-Intent®, at $29/month.
2. WPForms
WPForms allows you to build smarter forms and surveys for your site. With WPForms you can build contact forms, payment forms, surveys, newsletter forms, and more.
With these forms, you can capture new leads, along with important information about each lead. WPForms integrates with major CRMs and email marketing platforms, so you can use each lead’s answers for in-depth segmentation.
Plus, you have over 2,000 templates to work from, saving you tons of time. All forms are 100% mobile-friendly and you can easily embed forms into your site (meaning you don’t need to work with expensive developers).
These forms are excellent for getting feedback from your visitors. And to make sure that your form submissions aren’t SPAM, WPForms allows you to activate reCAPTCHA. That way, you know that your form entries are from interested people and not form-filling bots.
Plus, WPForms offers other cool features like the Form Abandonment addon, which allows you to capture partial form entries and get more leads. There’s also the User Journey addon, which lets you easily see the pages and posts a user visited before they submitted the form.
If you’re looking to add beautiful, custom forms to your site, WPForms is definitely your best bet.
Pricing
WPForm’s pricing begins at $49.50 per year for individual accounts and goes up to $299.50 per year for the Elite package.
3. RafflePress
This tool is perfect for growing your email list, driving traffic to your website, and engaging followers on social media. RafflePress lets you easily create online contests that are bound to go viral.
With its drag and drop technology, you can create contests or surveys that are 100% tailored to your brand and ridiculously easy to share on social media platforms (especially with their “Refer-A-Friend” feature).
RafflePress has tons of integrations for all the major social media platforms. And since social is mostly viewed by mobile devices, you can be sure that all your contests and giveaways are totally mobile-friendly.
Plus, there’s built-in protection to prevent one user from providing multiple entries (to keep your contests fair).
Finally, everything is trackable so you can watch your leads, traffic, and followers grow. When you get new emails or leads, you can seamlessly integrate them with your favorite email marketing service or CRM.
Pricing
RafflePress pricing plans start at $39.50 per year and go up to $199.50 per year for the Growth plan. Their Ultimate package is a one-time payment of $399.60 and gives lifetime access.
4. MonsterInsights
There’s an old saying, “knowledge is power.” Well, that’s not quite right. It turns out knowledge isn’t power.
Knowledge is profit. And MonsterInsights has all the knowledge you need to boost those profits.
When it comes to compiling key metrics to make data-driven decisions for your marketing strategy, MonsterInsights is your best bet. With MonsterInsights, you can get real-time data from multiple channels, so you always have the most current customer data at your fingertips.
You can also have reports sent directly to your MonsterInsights dashboard, which is conveniently located right in your WordPress dashboard. That means you no longer need to go to 20 different sources to compile 20 different reports.
Instead, you can have everything ready and waiting for you in WordPress.
Finally, MonsterInsights integrates with all of WordPress’s most popular plugins. Far from just getting data from Google Analytics and Google Search Console (though they have those, too), you can compile reports for all your KPIs with WooCommerce, WPForms, All in One SEO, PrettyLinks, Google Optimize, AMP, and more.
If you want to know something about anything, MonsterInsights can tell you everything.
Pricing
MonsterInsight’s pricing begins at $99 per year and peaks at $399 per year for the Agency package.
5. ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is a robust marketing automation tool offering a comprehensive set of features, including email marketing automation, lead scoring, behavioral tracking, and CRM integration.
Its user-friendly interface, powerful automation features, and detailed reporting make it an excellent choice for businesses of all sizes.
Pricing
ActiveCampaign pricing starts at $15/month for the Starter plan with up to 1,000 contacts. The price increases based the plan level and number of contacts. For example, The Pro plan with 10,000 contacts is $375/month
6. Adobe Marketo Engage – Marketing Automation
Adobe Marketo Engage is an enterprise-level marketing automation software that caters to complex marketing campaigns.
It offers advanced features such as lead scoring, predictive analytics, account-based marketing, and multi-channel campaign management.
Marketo’s scalability, customizable options, and deep integration capabilities suit large organizations.
Pricing
You must request a quote from the sales team
7. Constant Contact
Constant Contact is a user-friendly marketing automation tool which comes with features such as email marketing automation, contact management, event management, and social media marketing.
The tool allows you to create tailored sequences for welcome emails, drip campaigns, and other automated email campaigns to choose from over 200+ email templates.
Constant Contact’s simplicity and affordability make it a popular choice for businesses starting with marketing automation.
Pricing
Constant Contact starts at $12/month and goes up based on features and list size. For example, the Premium plan starts at $80/month.
8. Keap
Keap, formerly Infusionsoft, is a comprehensive marketing automation tool for small businesses and solopreneurs.
It provides CRM, email marketing automation, lead generation, and e-commerce capabilities.
Keap’s all-in-one platform simplifies managing customer relationships and executing targeted campaigns.
Pricing
Keap pricing tarts at $249/month for 2 users and 1500 contacts.
9. Oracle Eloqua Marketing Automation
Eloqua, part of the Oracle Marketing Cloud, is an enterprise-level marketing automation platform known for its robust features and scalability.
It is packed with advanced marketing automation features, including lead management, campaign orchestration, personalized experiences, and deep analytics.
Eloqua is suitable for large organizations seeking comprehensive marketing automation solutions.
Pricing
You must request a quote for a custom plan.
10. Hootsuite
Regarding marketing automation for social media, Hootsuite is one of the more popular software. With Hootsuite, you can automate your social strategy for over 35 social platforms.
Plus, this is more than an automatic post scheduler. You can also find and manage other resources to share on social, track your social metrics, monitor topics of interest to your brand, and much more.
Pricing
Hootsuite pricing starts at $99/month for 1 user and 10 linked social accounts. The price increases based on features, number of users, and number of linked accounts.
11. Buffer
Buffer is an excellent resource for both small and medium-sized companies because their pricing is flexible. They have a perfect free version that allows you to automate your post’s scheduling. On the free plan, you can work with up to 3 social media channels to schedule up to 10 posts simultaneously for each platform.
Their paid versions are more extensive though.
You can connect to more social channels and have unlmited scheduled posts per channel.
This is particularly useful if you’re working with a marketing team who needs to be able to respond to social comments.
Finally, the paid plan offers advanced analytics that gives detailed information about your social media campaigns and how to improve them. That means you can fine-tune your posting strategy to find the best time to post for your audience.
The free plan is perfect for small businesses, but as your social media strategy gets more involved, the features in the upgraded plan help you continue to scale.
Pricing
Free plan available. Buffer pricing for the Essential plan is $5/month per channel, and the Team plan is $10/month per channel. For example, the Team plan with 15 connected channels is $150/month.
12. Mention
This exciting marketing automation tool allows you to monitor trends across various social media channels. With Mention’s Listen feature, you can keep your finger on the pulse of conversations in your business field to make sure you’re driving the conversation rather than following it.
One of the great things about this marketing automation tool is that you can compile reports on current trends in your field. Then, you can use that data to create content to respond to what is currently engaging your audience.
They also have a Publish service that allows you to plan, schedule, and post across all the major social media platforms.
Pricing
Mention’s paid plans fall between $41 – $149 per month. They also have a custom Company plan you can get a quote for.
13. Twilio
Though Twilio has many features, we will focus on its SMS marketing automation today. If you’ve ever used SMS marketing in the past, you’re likely familiar with the brand.
Twilio allows businesses to use SMS to build better, longer-lasting client relationships. And considering SMS campaigns can have a 98% open rate, it’s easy to see why it’s appealing to marketers.
But, if you’ve ever gotten overwhelmed receiving texts from 20 people at the same time, then you can only imagine how hard it would be to handle 20,000 of those conversations.
Twilio helps manage all of that. And not just with one channel. Twilio’s artificial intelligence can create chatbots to accurately handle customer interactions via mobile chat, SMS, or WhatsApp.
Their goal? To get the right message to the right people to improve sales.
If your business relies heavily on mobile campaigns, Twilio may be worth checking out.
Pricing
Twilio’s SMS pricing plan is pay-as-you-go in the United States. For example, SMS messages begin at $0.0079 per message sent or received.
14. Omnisend
Omnisend is a multi-channel marketing platform that focuses on email marketing and SMS. They also create push notifications, interact on Facebook Messenger, and chat via WhatsApp. Messages can be personalized and work with most eCommerce platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, and more.
One of the coolest features of Omnisend is how marketers can segment their audience to tailor their messaging to specific customers.
This segmentation is automatic and done in a clean dashboard, so everything is located in one convenient place.
They also boast a high open rate for their campaigns and suggest that 95% of their SMS messages are read within 5 minutes of being received.
Pricing
Omnisend offers a limited free plan. Paid plans start at $11.20/month and increase based on features and number of contacts. For example, the Pro plan with 6,000 contacts is $80.50/month.
15. Brevo (Formerly Sendinblue)
With Brevo, you have all your most powerful tools in one place. It’s a customer relationship management software (CRM), a marketing automation tool, and a transactional email software wrapped up in one. You can track where your customers are in your sales funnel, easily collaborate on team projects, send email newsletters or SMS campaigns, and a ton more.
They also have a lot of resources to help you convert traffic into warm leads. You can build landing pages, track your Facebook ads, and target your banner ads to the right people at the right time.
When it comes to finding a comprehensive marketing automation tool, we highly recommend Brevo. It has a competitive entry price point with enough features to get you the results you’re after quickly.
Pricing
Brevo offers a limited free plan. Paid plans start at $8.08/month. Brevo bases pricing on the chosen plan and the total number of emails sent, rather than number of contact. For example, the Business plan with 20,000 emails per month is $62.08/month.
16. HubSpot
HubSpot is one of the most popular marketing automation tools choices for businesses because of the number of tools they offer (and their competitive price point).
HubSpot offers everything from inbound marketing, contact management to sales, but it’s their automation service that we’re interested in. They have some cool technology that allows you to rotate leads through different sales reps and automate some of the more tedious tasks that come along with it.
For the marketers on your team, you can automate your follow-up email campaigns to warm up your cold leads into potential buyers. The goal is to use the marketing automation tools to push these leads a little further down the pipeline.
Finally, your customer support team has everything they need to simplify their lives (or at least their jobs). Customer questions or comments are turned into ticket requests and sent to the right person rather than floating from desk to desk.
The great thing about HubSpot is that it really does have a little bit of everything for your company. The only downside is, again, Hubspot marketing plans can be intimidating for small businesses.
Pricing
HubSpot offers a limited free plan. Starter plans start at $15/month per seat. Their Professional package jumps to $800/month, and their Enterprise package peaks at $3,600/month.
17. Uncanny Automator
With Uncanny Automator, you can put your entire WordPress website on autopilot. It works by connecting your existing plugins so they can perform mundane tasks automatically, which can drastically slash admin time.
You can create automation “recipes” easily, no coding required. Simply select your triggers, choose your actions, and let Uncanny Automator do the work.
For example, you can create a recipe so that when a user fills out a form, they’re automatically registered for a training session. Or, when a new blog post is published, automatically send it to your email marketing list.
It integrates with over 50 popular plugins like WPForms, MemberPress, WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, and more. And with Zapier support, you can connect to over 2,000 apps. Billions of automation recipes are possible.
Pricing
Uncanny Automator starts at $149 per year for 1 site, including all triggers and actions. To use Uncanny Automator on up to 10 sites costs $249 per year. And for unlimited sites, Uncanny Automator is $399 per year.
18. Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Formerly Pardot)
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (MCAE) is a powerful marketing automation tool that integrates seamlessly with the Salesforce CRM platform. It offers email marketing automation, lead nurturing, lead scoring, and ROI reporting.
The tool’s integration capabilities and strong CRM functionalities make it an excellent choice for businesses already utilizing Salesforce.
Pricing
Salesforce MCAE pricing ranges from $1,250 – $15,000 per month, based on features and number of contacts.
Which Is the Best Marketing Automation Tool?
As per the expert and popular opinions, OptinMonster is the best marketing automation tool.
With a Pro Plan at just $30 per month, you can build incredible lead-capturing campaigns that are proven to boost conversions, generate traffic, and increase sales. And your success is 100% tracked so you can make smarter, data-driven decisions.
Plus, OptinMonster gives you features to reduce shopping cart abandonment, share discounts, run contests, and so much more!
There’s a reason why OptinMonster is the world’s #1 conversion optimization kit.
We hope you liked this post, and if so, you may also want to check out our comparison of the Best Push Notification Tools for WordPress.
And if you’re ready to grow your leads and skyrocket your profits, don’t wait another minute, join OptinMonster today!
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