No one sticks to one app or device for long. One minute they are on Instagram, next YouTube, then they are texting and then checking emails on their laptop. While, as a consumer of apps and devices, the ability to switch within seconds provides for a great experience, as a marketer this creates a problem.

This constant switching is making attention, something every marketer aims to capture, a scarce commodity. So, how do we deal with this? – With the technology that’s causing this problem.

To catch your target audience’s attention in the split of a second, you need to make use of marketing automation. As the name suggests, marketing automation uses technology to automate repetitive, but necessary, marketing tasks. It can help perform various tasks like finding new customers, increase brand loyalty, improve communication with different groups of customers, etc.

Here is a list of the top 7 tools for marketing automation that will make your task of catching customers’ attention easier.

The top 7 marketing automation tools

HubSpot Marketing Hub

HubSpot is probably the most famous marketing automation tool. HubSpot describes itself as an inbound marketing software. (If you are not sure what that is, you can check out HubSpot Academy. There you will find free videos on inbound marketing and how you can make the best out of their software.)

Now, HubSpot has a ton of features and does at least a little bit of everything but on the downside, HubSpot is expensive. The starter version is $50 per month but doesn’t offer most of the features. If you want to take full advantage of the software, you will have to choose between the Professional or Enterprise options. These cost $800 and $3,200 respectively.

If you are not sure about making such an investment, you can use their free version. This will help you figure out if HubSpot is really what you need and if the investment will be worth it. Just note that, as usual, the free version will have the least number of features, and everything done using HubSpot will have HubSpot’s branding on it.

Features:

1. Email Marketing
2. Online Marketing
3. Lead Management
4. Reporting and Analytics

If you want to read about the features in detail, you can visit https://www.g2.com/products/hubspot-marketing-hub/features.

Ratings:

*Data was taken from g2.com on 3 September 2021.

Marketo

Marketo is a cloud-based tool by Adobe. It helps companies sustain customer relationships but not build these relationships. However, this is the case as of now. Marketo was acquired by Adobe in 2016, and since the number of features has only grown. So, Marketo should also be getting customer building tools soon.

As for who should use this tool, if you plan to use advanced features of a marketing automation tool in the near future, then this is a good option as you wouldn’t have to shift all your data from one system to another.

To get the pricing, you will have to contact the sales team. However, Marketo does have a free trial, so you don’t have to make a commitment unless you are sure about it.

Features:

1. Email Marketing
2. Online Marketing
3. Lead Management
4. Campaign Management
5. Reporting and Analytics

If you want to read about the features in detail, you can visit https://www.g2.com/products/marketo-engage/features.

Ratings:

*Data was taken from g2.com on 3 September 2021.

Active Campaign

Active Campaign is an email marketing, marketing automation, and small business CRM. It has a lot of features and is one of the most powerful marketing automation tools out there. However, Active Campaign is not very beginner-friendly. You will have to put in the effort to understand how to use the software to do what you want. But, once you know how to use it properly, it will all be worth it.

Active Campaign is also one of the cheaper marketing automation tools. The lite starts at $9/month paid yearly. This will give you access to all the basic features but not the CRM. If you want to use the CRM, you will have to at least buy the plus package which costs $49/month paid yearly. Apart from that, there is a professional and an enterprise package, both of which offer advanced features. The professional package costs $129/month paid yearly, and the enterprise package costs $229/month paid yearly.

Features:

1. Email Marketing
2. Online Marketing
3. Lead Management
4. Reporting and Analytics

If you want to read about the features in detail, you can visit https://www.g2.com/products/activecampaign/features.

Ratings:

*Data was taken from g2.com on 3 September 2021.

Constant Contact

Constant Contact is an email marketing automation tool designed for small businesses. It performs all the basic functions and can be a huge help in getting started with marketing automation. With Constant Contact your can create and handle even very small segments of customers easily. This will help in sending the right message to the right person. This in turn will increase chances of conversion as the messages will be extremely relevant to the customer.

However, on the downside, if you plan to use any advanced marketing automation features, this software won’t cut it. Constant Contact really only meets the basic ‘email’ marketing needs.

The basic plan starts at $20/month. But the price depends on the number of email contacts in your account. For 0-500 contacts, the price is 20$/month and then it increases as the number of contacts increase. To get the most of this tool though, you should opt for the email plus plan which starts at $45/month.

Features:

1. Email Marketing
2. Integration
3. Reporting and Analytics

If you want to read about the features in detail, you can visit https://www.g2.com/products/constant-contact/features.

Ratings:

*Data was taken from g2.com on 3 September 2021.

Pardot

Pardot by Salesforce is a B2B marketing automation tool. Pardot has a ton of features like CRM integration, email automation, lead nurturing etc. What stands out about this software is that, unlike most marketing automation tools which focus more on email, Pardot allows you to connect with customers in other ways too. An example of this would be notifications. If you have an app, you can use Pardot to manage notifications sent to your customers. You can also send notifications to your customer’s car’s dashboard. This kind of feature is extremely useful for a car manufacturer, an auto repair shop, and the like. With Pardot, they are catching their audience’s attention at the right place.

Now, while Pardot has a lot of features, one thing missing is lead generation ability. Pardot is also one of the expensive options, which means it’s not a great choice for small businesses and start-ups.

The growth plan, which is the starter plan, costs $1,250/month and lets businesses handle up to 10,000 contacts. The plus plan is $2,500/month, and the advanced plan is $4,000/ month. Both these plans also allow the business to handle up to 10,000 contacts only. The premium plan, costing $15,000/month, has a limit of 75,000 contacts. Note that all these plans require you to pay annually and not monthly.

Features:

1. Email Marketing
2. Online Marketing
3. Lead Management
4. Reporting and Analytics

If you want to read about the features in detail, you can visit https://www.g2.com/products/pardot/features.

Ratings:

*Data was taken from g2.com on 3 September 2021.

Omnisend

Omnisend is a marketing automation tool best suited for e-commerce businesses. It has pre-built automation templates, which will help in setting up channels quickly. To make things easier, the software also allows people to integrate several channels into the same workflow. For example, you can group together your channels for emails, SMS, Facebook messenger etc.

Omnisend is one of the most beginner-friendly automation software as it has a What You See Is What You Get or WYSIWYG visual builder.

The pricing starts from $0 but, this plan comes with limitations on the number of emails you can send in a day. Next is the standard plan, which costs $16/month. Then there is the pro plan at $99/month, and lastly, there is the enterprise plan which is $2,000/month.

Features:

1. Email Marketing
2. Online Marketing
3. Lead Management
4. Reporting and Analytics

If you want to read about the features in detail, you can visit https://www.g2.com/products/pardot/features.

Ratings:

*Data was taken from g2.com on 3 September 2021.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is one of the oldest email marketing automation software. With this, you can send sent up triggers to send personalized emails. This makes the task of sending welcome emails easier, it helps you in behavioural targeting and engagement monitoring etc.

Mailchimp is also in the process of expanding to become a complete marketing automation software. While the expanded features available now have great responses and reviews, the system is still not at the level of some other software mentioned here. But, if all you want is to automate your emails, this is a solid tool.

Mailchimp prices are based on the number of contacts you have. If you only have 2,000 contacts, you can use the tool for free. However, you can’t use all the features. The essential plan starts at $10.45, the standard plan starts at $15.61, and the premium plan starts at $312.11.

Features:

1. Email Marketing
2. Integration
3. Reporting and Analytics

If you want to read about the features in detail, you can visit https://www.g2.com/products/mailchimp/features.

Ratings:

*Data was taken from g2.com on 3 September 2021.

If these tools do not meet your needs, or you want in depth information about these tools, you can visit g2.com, which is a directory of software.

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