7 Best Marketing Automation Software
Automation is one of the main trends in modern business, affecting its various directions and aspects. Of course, it has not bypassed marketing, where it helps to effectively speed up and optimize many tasks and processes. Automation tools significantly improve the performance of marketing campaigns and relieve specialists from tedious routines. Another key advantage of this approach is versatility. You can automate literally all common channels of interaction with your audience: websites, email, social networks, SMS, and so on.
Today, users no longer need to look for separate software solutions for certain tasks, since there are a number of specialized platforms on the market that provide comprehensive marketing automation. Each of them offers a range of services and capabilities for online marketers. We invite you to familiarize yourself with our marketing automation software comparison. From it, you will learn about the key features and prices of the 7 best services in this segment.
ActiveCampaign
Let's start our review of the best marketing automation software with the ActiveCampaign platform. It was launched in 2003 as a SaaS for small and medium businesses. Provides a wide range of tools for online marketing, sales management and customer service. Supports many online stores and has a number of e-commerce features.
Key features:
- Users can interact with the audience through different communication channels (email, SMS, and social networks) using a single service dashboard.
- The functionality of the platform allows you to set up and track campaign goals. Using ActiveCampaign, you can automatically launch various triggered email campaigns based on customer actions. Audience segmentation improves the effectiveness of campaigns.
- Dynamic content makes it possible to deliver ads that are more relevant to customers. You can create multiple versions of an email with different content and set up automation to send them to the right audience at the optimal time.
- Mapping helps track the interaction of the automation systems used and identify bottlenecks in the customer journey. With its help, you will observe the overall picture on a special panel map, manage existing tools and generate detailed reports.
You can link the ActiveCampaign service with other tools you use in your work. This will allow you to create an effective ecosystem of services and automate work processes as much as possible. Setting up integrations for ActiveCampaign is available in no code mode through the interface of our service.
Email marketing automation software ActiveCampaign has three tariff plans: Lite (from $29/month), Plus (from $49/month), and Professional (from $149/month). A 14-day trial period is available.
Brevo
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is a popular marketing automation software for small and medium-sized businesses that has been on the market since 2007. Like other similar systems, it offers a number of B2B tools, including those for managing online marketing, sales, customer relations and other aspects of the business.
Key features:
- The service allows you to flexibly automate marketing campaigns through different channels: email, SMS and WhatsApp.
- You can organize advertising campaigns on Facebook, and also effectively collect leads through subscription forms and landing pages.
- Brevo provides a number of advanced email marketing automation features. One of them is the A/B testing of several automatic mailing options.
- Another useful tool is personalized chatbots. They can be created and added to the site in seconds. After implementation and activation, the chatbot begins to automatically respond to visitors’ requests, providing them with the information they need online. Setting up triggers to redirect dialogue to support staff based on specific requests improves customer interaction.
- Brevo allows you to create professional newsletters of different types without coding or design skills. To achieve this, you can use a block editor or ready-made templates.
The service belongs to the free marketing automation tools. Its free plan allows you to send up to 300 emails per day. Paid plans start at $25 per month. This platform is also present in our catalog. You can set up integrations for Brevo in minutes.
GetResponse
GetResponse is a B2B platform with a full cycle of functions for marketing and sales and is considered one of the top marketing automation software. It offers tools for email and SMS marketing, autoresponders, a website and landing page builder, an AI newsletter generator, and much more.
Key features:
- Predefined workflows help you optimize your campaigns, and the visual builder gives you the ability to design automations from scratch.
- With GetResponse, you can automatically send relevant emails to your customers, flexibly segmenting your audience through numerous filters and tags that make targeting even more precise and effective.
- The service allows you to automate the process of sending letters to new subscribers and warm them up with specially selected offers.
- The functionality of the platform makes it possible to instantly send notifications about items left in the cart or recommended items.
- Software algorithms personalize campaigns based on collected data about users and their actions.
- Marketing automation tools for small businesses of this service allow you to track and evaluate audience actions to create custom segments based on selected data and criteria.
- The drag-and-drop interface greatly simplifies and accelerates the process of creating automation with a complex, extensive structure.
GetResponse offers a 30-day trial period for new users. Platform prices depend on the size of your subscriber base. For example, if it includes 1,000 contacts, you will have to pay from $48 per month when purchasing an annual subscription.
Drip
Drip is small business marketing automation software. Initially, it was focused on e-commerce, but has now become available for other areas of activity. With its help, you can effectively automate and launch dynamically updated marketing campaigns across different channels on autopilot without the tedious daily routine.
Key features:
- Tools for creating and customizing behavioral trigger messages allow you to automatically send messages to customers based on how they interact with your site, application or product: when they visit a page, view certain products, place an order, and so on.
- Sending emails or SMS on a schedule makes newsletters more relevant and timely. When setting up campaigns, you can specify the exact time they will launch, considering the different time zones in which your customers are located.
- Drip has a separate set of features for automating SMS marketing. This allows you to automate it as carefully and efficiently as email campaigns.
- There is integration with CRM (you can also use our service to connect integrations for Drip).
New users of the Drip platform have a 14-day free trial. Prices for its services depend on the size of your subscriber base. For example, for an unlimited number of automated email campaigns to a base of 2,500 subscribers, you will need to pay $39 per month.
ManyChat
ManyChat is a universal platform for automating online marketing that is easily integrated with different communication channels. It is mainly focused on launching chatbots for Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, SMS and so on.
Key features:
- With ManyChat, you can collect the phone numbers and email addresses of up to 80% of potential customers, and then automatically add them to your database.
- The system's algorithms help identify promising leads and re-engage them without costly retargeting campaigns.
- Chatbots running on the service will give you the ability to automatically respond to every message, mention or reaction. The speed and effectiveness of your interaction with your audience will increase significantly.
- The platform allows you to effectively automate answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs). You will be able to optimize communication and provide users with prompt responses 24/7.
- No coding skills are required to connect and configure ManyChat chatbots. An AI assistant and a catalog of ready-made templates will help you quickly and easily prepare the system you need. Templates or conversations created by artificial intelligence can be edited with a couple of clicks.
Free marketing automation software ManyChat offers free automation of communication with 1000 contacts via Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp. The paid Pro plan with an unlimited number of contacts and advanced functionality starts at $15 per month.
HubSpot
The HubSpot platform takes a well-deserved place in our selection of the best marketing automation tools and sales automation software as well. It is suitable for both small and large businesses, providing powerful functionality for running full-scale marketing campaigns. The service offers everything you need to manage sales and operations, customer service, a CMS and an e-commerce module.
Key features:
- HubSpot allows you to automate the generation and scoring of leads, launch personalized email campaigns, and process and analyze large amounts of data.
- The visual editor makes it possible to effectively manage automation processes and track information about your clients.
- The precise and detailed contact segmentation feature helps make your email campaigns more relevant and effective.
- By using an online form builder, users can generate more leads from their website.
- Online chat supported by AI-based chatbots allows you to quickly and efficiently automate communication with your audience without any special skills.
HubSpot is a powerful sales and marketing management platform. However, it can be even more effective in conjunction with other services. Use our system to set up integrations for HubSpot without any special training or coding.
The free HubSpot service plan includes a full set of basic tools, including email campaigns, forms, chat, a landing page, and blog builder. The paid Starter tariff plan (from $20 per month) contains all the features of the Free plan, as well as insights on email campaigns, call-to-action, and multi-currency support. In addition, the platform offers Professional (from $800 per month) and Enterprise (from $3,600 per month) plans with advanced features.
ApiX-Drive
To conclude our review of the best marketing automation software for small businesses and more, we’ll share the ApiX-Drive platform, which has been successfully operating since 2019. It is used to automatically transfer data between different systems and automate routine work tasks.
Key features:
- ApiX-Drive has a wide selection of ready-made integrations. You can launch each of them with a couple of clicks in no-code format.
- All integrations are conveniently sorted into thematic categories: popular, CRM, chatbots, instant messengers, website builders, CMS, and so on. A clear organization and search bar help you find a specific system instantly.
- The testing mode allows you to flexibly configure and debug the necessary communication by transmitting a small amount of data through it for testing purposes.
- Integrations come with a training video with step-by-step instructions for setting them up.
- ApiX-Drive makes it possible to change the data format during the transfer process. Users can correct dates and contact information, replace numbers with letters, and calculate values directly on the platform.
- The platform is ideal for quickly and efficiently sending notifications and reminders to your leads and clients via email or SMS.
ApiX-Drive offers a wide range of tariff plans. Among them, there is also a free TEST-DRIVE plan, on which you can connect one integration with a limit of 100 actions and an interval of 15 minutes. The most budget-friendly plan, Start ($19 per month, subject to an annual subscription), provides up to 25 integrations, a 4-minute interval, and 5,000 actions. All new users of the platform have a 14-day trial period.
Conclusion
The services presented in our selection are in demand among Internet marketers. And this is not surprising because each of them contains many valuable tools for automating work processes and tasks. As for marketing automation software pricing, here you can find suitable options for literally any budget.
Some of the platforms (ApiX-Drive, HubSpot, ManyChat, and Brevo) offer free plans – you will be able to use their basic services without any costs. The most affordable paid plans include ManyChat (from $15 per month), ApiX-Drive (from $19 per month), and HubSpot (from $20 per month). All of these systems allow you to try their capabilities without paying, thanks to a test period lasting from 14 to 30 days.
Apix-Drive will help optimize business processes, save you from a lot of routine tasks and unnecessary costs for automation, attracting additional specialists. Try setting up a free test connection with ApiX-Drive and see for yourself. Now you have to think about where to invest the freed time and money!