What Is Automation Marketing And How Does It Work [+tools]

Automation marketing is a type of software that automates repetitive marketing tasks. For example, marketing departments can automate routine processes like email marketing, social media posting, and even ad campaigns, not just for efficiency’s sake but also to give their clients a more personalized experience.

Marketing automation uses technology to make these processes go faster and easier.

What Is Marketing Automation

Marketing automation is software that automates the management of marketing operations and multipurpose campaigns across many channels. Businesses can use marketing automation to send automated messages to customers via email, online, social media, and text.

What You Can Do With Marketing Automation

Businesses can use marketing automation to send automated messages to customers via email, online, social media, and text. Workflows can be specified by templates, constructed from the ground up, or changed mid-campaign to improve results.

The major benefit of automation is that it saves time and money. This is because to improve income and maximize productivity, marketing, and sales departments utilize marketing automation to automate online marketing campaigns and sales activities. Employees are freed to tackle higher-order problems when automation is employed successfully to perform repetitive activities, and human error is decreased.

Automation marketing aids in the production, nurturing, and scoring of leads, as well as the measurement of total campaign ROI. Good marketing automation tools are built to grow with your company.

Importance Of Marketing Automation

1. Streamlined Processes

Streamline operations that keep your clients at the center of everything will bring your entire company together. Automation marketing creates processes that span several functional teams to reduce customer effort at every stage of the experience. It breaks down barriers and collaborates to deliver a consistent client experience from the initial contact through the final sale.

Because everything is automatically kept in your central data storage and internal processes can help you prioritize jobs as they’re needed, there’s no need for elaborate hand-off procedures with effective marketing automation.

2. Personalized Workflows

With automation marketing, each of your prospects’ actions is a new data point for your marketing plan, giving you exactly what your customers want right now. This information is really useful, but manually tracking these actions is impossible. 

Businesses, on the other hand, can use these inputs across many channels with marketing automation software to better understand their customers’ needs and offer the correct content at the right time.

These processes assist in directing qualified prospects to relevant information, resulting in warm leads that can be nurtured into customers with care. However, marketing automation does not end there. Businesses can continue to engage customers with tailored processes that lead to loyal, repeat customers who refer their friends and family when the customer is at the heart of the flywheel.

3. Integrated Data And Analysis

Each of your prospects’ actions is an additional data point for your marketing plan, quickly revealing what your customers want. Data is really useful, but manually tracking these actions is impossible.

Businesses may, however, combine these inputs across many channels to gain a deeper understanding of their consumers’ needs and offer the correct content at the right time using marketing automation software. These processes direct qualified prospects to relevant material, resulting in warm leads that may be nurtured into customers with care. 

The benefits of marketing automation don’t end there. You continue to engage customers with tailored processes that lead to loyal, repeat customers who refer friends and family when the customer.

How Marketing Automation Works

Customer data is collected through a variety of activities, including emails, website visits, app usage, social media interactions, and so on. This information contributes to the creation of a 360-degree view of each customer.

From there, marketing automation takes over, automating segmentation and targeting processes so that the relevant audiences may be identified fast and at scale. Messages are automatically tailored to each consumer based on their profile. 

With a few simple clicks, you can create relevant and personalized messaging across email, mobile, social, site experiences, and more, providing tailored experiences for your consumers swiftly and effectively.

Marketing Automation Tools

Let’s go over some of the tools you can use for automation marketing.

1. Eloqua

Eloqua isn’t worth considering unless you’re looking for enterprise-level software and have the funds for it. Eloqua is an excellent choice if you like a lot of help from your IT service providers. If strong CRM connectivity is vital to you, you should also consider Eloqua.

Eloqua can be compared to the Ferrari of marketing automation. It’s fully loaded, offers outstanding service, and comes with a price tag to match. The amount of time Eloqua spends teaching and assisting its customers in getting the most out of the platform is one of the company’s primary differentiators. Eloqua, like Marketo, has a robust marketplace with a plethora of third-party integrations.

The pricing starts from $2,000/month

2. Customer.io

Customer.io is ideal for two types of businesses: 1. those looking to get started with marketing automation and appreciate a simple user interface; and 2. those looking for more advanced functionality that requires flexibility and customization and is willing to commit developer resources to implement it. 

The versatility of Customer.io is one of the reasons it is popular. It is a tool that will allow you to get exactly what you want from automation marketing. While it’s not fully out of the box, you can truly customize your Customer.io experience if you’re prepared to put in some programming work. 

Another benefit of this tool is its simple user interface and quick, personal customer service. Customer.io is one of the newer companies, but they’re gaining traction quickly and is a firm to keep an eye on. Customer.io, unlike other earlier solutions, is designed to send emails based on events rather than just pageviews.

Their paid plan starts from $75/month (and they offer a free plan)

3. Hubspot

HubSpot, like Constant Contact, is wonderful for small business owners. However, HubSpot outperforms Constant Contact in terms of additional features beyond email marketing. HubSpot is an excellent alternative if you’re searching for an “all-in-one” platform that gives you the fundamental capabilities of several distinct marketing systems.

The benefits and drawbacks of using HubSpot are the same: the system performs a little bit of everything but doesn’t specialize in any one area. 

HubSpot calls itself “inbound marketing software,” which means it provides a number of capabilities, including marketing automation. This all-in-one strategy has the potential to be quite useful. The pricing starts from $200/month.

4. Userfox

Userfox primarily works with IT firms. Userfox, like Customer.io, has a simple UI and is designed to send emails based on events rather than pageviews. 

Userfox is a newcomer to the automation marketing game, having recently been acquired by AdRoll. We’re hoping that the combined strength of the AdRoll and userfox teams bodes well for their product’s future. The pricing starts at $49/month.

5. Marketo

Marketo is ideal for businesses that want to take advantage of all of the tool’s features, which go beyond basic marketing automation. It isn’t the most expensive tool, but it isn’t the least expensive either. 

If you won’t be using the system’s advanced features, you can accomplish equivalent results using one of the less expensive tools. However, if you want to start with the fundamentals and go to more extensive capability in the near future, it could be a smart idea to start with a platform like Marketo so you don’t have to migrate all of your data and campaigns afterward. 

Marketo has an extensive and updated knowledge base, which serves as a valuable resource for new users.

Marketo is, without a doubt, the most well-known marketing automation solution. It’s one of the most established tools, with a comprehensive set of features that not only assist marketers in managing email campaigns but also provide fantastic sales tools. 

Marketo also offers a marketplace called LaunchPoint, which features dozens of integrations. The pricing starts from $1,195/month.

6. Constant Contact

Constant Contact is a well-known small business email marketing platform. It performs an excellent job of presenting fundamental capabilities in a way that even non-technical users can understand. Its main distinguishing features are its ease of use and low cost.

Constant Contact is designed for small business owners that want to get started with organized email marketing fast and don’t anticipate using additional features in the future. If you meet these criteria, the tool is a wonderful fit for you. However, if you expect to grow your marketing automation efforts in the near future, this isn’t the tool for you.

The pricing starts from $15/month.

7. ExactTarget

ExactTarget is for businesses who want to go above and beyond with their automation marketing, but don’t have the means to do so. It’s for businesses that want to interact with customers across several channels and are looking to the future of marketing automation.

ExactTarget’s ability to target messaging across many channels is one of the features that stuck. ExactTarget goes beyond other marketing automation systems by allowing you to target mobile app notifications or even messaging to a customer’s automobile dashboard.

FAQs

How do marketing automation tools work?

Marketing automation is a type of software that automates repetitive marketing tasks. Marketing departments can automate routine processes like email marketing, social media posting, and even ad campaigns, not just for efficiency’s sake, but also to give their clients a more personalized experience.

Which tools are used for marketing automation?

• Marketo
• Eloqua
• Customer.io
• Constant Contact
• HubSpot
• ExactTarget/Pardot
• Userfox etc.

What is marketing automation in simple words?

Marketing automation is a form of software that allows businesses to produce sales leads by sending automated marketing communications to clients via email, websites, social media, and text messages.

What is an example of marketing automation?

An example of automation marketing is when a company sends out surveys to solicit input on products, services, and upgrades. 

What is automation CRM?

CRM automation is a means of streamlining procedures and increasing productivity by automating important but repetitive manual tasks in customer relationship management. Many B2B and B2C organizations utilize CRM solutions to streamline business processes and make difficult activities easier to complete.

Final Words

The marketing automation industry has grown from a $500 million market to a $6.4 billion market by 2024. According to Salesforce’s State of Marketing Report, 67 percent of marketing executives are already using a marketing automation platform, with another 21% planning to do so soon.

At the same time, the number of marketing automation systems continues to rise year after year, and your brand shouldn’t be missing out on the benefits.