Best marketing automation tools your rivals don't want you to use
The marketing automation industry is booming. It is anticipated that by 2024, the industry will hit $6.4bn. Tell me, isn't that cool money? The aggressive adoption of marketing automation can be rightly traced to the efficiency and speed it brings to your marketing, far trumping natural human capacity.
An insightful marketing report from Salesforce reveals that 67% of leading marketers globally already leverage at one marketing automation tool. The report further predicts the automated marketing bandwagon swelling by another 21% of marketers who plan to begin integrating marketing automation soonest.
Truth is, there has been an enormous swell in the marketing automation platform options you have today. Amidst this overflowing pool of available platforms, it becomes overwhelming making your pick. What parameters should guide your choice of a platform?
Crucial considerations when selecting a marketing automation platform?
When selecting marketing automation platforms, there are some critical factors you should look out for. Let us explore some.
What is the cost?
If you are like me, who habitually flips the price tag thrice, you should be very mindful of pricing when procuring automation software. The generality of marketing automation tools has costs climbing up when you add extras like add-ons and even training.
My two cents? Don't be drawn into the impulsion of buying software that is immediately financially gratifying. Best adopt a longer-term perspective of your investment. Would it be an economical purchase in 3-4 years?
How usable is the software?
Marketing automation software are not decorative. They are meant to be used. Therefore, you should be keen on the functionality of what you are paying for. Does it give you maximal value for your bucks, specifically considering your precise marketing needs?
Here, you should be looking at the intuitiveness of the platform. Lesser intuitive software are a hard nut to crack, typically requiring you painfully parting with more dollars for training.
Lastly, how diverse is the integration?
Ideally, you want a platform that isn't extremely selective of the software it is compatible with. Your best bet is to go with an automation platform that harmoniously works with the suite of software you are already using.
Trust me, you don't want the headache of having to go externally to a dedicated platform simply to perform the slightest of tasks. It is best to go with a unified platform that accommodates a vast collection of CRM systems (in the form of 3rd-party apps).
Best marketing automation platforms for your money
ActiveCampaign
How on earth were we going to miss out on Active Campaign? Active Campaign is a marketer's darling, with more than 89,000 small businesses (scattered across the world) leveraging Active Campaign. Active Campaign was a pacesetter, rolling out the then-unprecedented visual automation sequence builder.
Building comprehensive automation is incredibly simplified with Active Campaign, thanks to its remarkable user-friendliness. Its intuitive design means you will be paying far less for team training or support.
We are head over heels in love with Active Campaign's functionalities like predictive sending. With automation split tests, Active Campaign leverages machine learning in executing the automatic optimization of your automation sequence.
For all these, you would expect Active Campaign to cost an arm and leg. However, you will struggle to find an automation platform that gives you the volume of functionalities Active Campaign lavishes you with at the ridiculously affordable pricing Active Campaign offers.
The generality of alternative automation software like Hubspot – which appreciably measure up to the capacities of Active Campaign – start affordably, but the expenses pile you scape up. Alternatively, for Active Campaign, the price falls down as you grow.
Active Campaign is also famous for its innovative dynamism in that they are always bringing one delicacy to the table in terms of fresh features.
Omnisend
Well, it is arguable that Omnisend doesn't have as much "heritage" as some of the eminent automation platforms around, given that it was launched just 6 years ago in 2020. While Omnisend is a relative newcomer, its wealth of innovation makes up for its late-coming.
Omnisend has been able to strategically position itself as a leading automation platform dedicated to eCommerce companies. Again, Omnisend may not have the most spectacularly designed interface, but its wealth of integrations make us easily forgive it.
C'mon, you are not going to find many platforms (as Omnisend does), giving you integration as far as Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp. Omnisend – true to its name – stands out for its multichannel marketing automation.
By favoring specialization over diversity, Omnisend is able to boast some of the best ecommerce-dedicated email templates. This is immensely beneficial for the crowds of marketers who have been precisely suffering from substantial cart abandonment.
Omnisend's versatility – regarding its capacity to natively integrate with lots of ecommerce platforms – is a game-changer. From Magento to Shopify, Omnisend readily slides in, giving you a valuable cache of reports on your impact sales. Agreeably, this goes a long way in enabling you to optimize your campaigns around customer persona accurately.
The only major thing that could put you away from Omnisend is the pricing. Admittedly, Omnisend's monthly $199 for 10,000 contacts is not the coolest you get. However, looking on the bright side, Omnisend's pricing doesn't ridiculously shoot up as you scale up.
Autopilot
Alright, we admit; a first glance at Autopilot may do so little to convince you of its functional elegance. Impulsively, you would jump off like "nahhh, just another copycat software". Well, a lot of your skepticism (about the excellence of Autopilot) begins to wear off – and speedily at that – when you see its Autopilot's canvas for building automation sequences.
Arguably, you will struggle to see a canvas that delectably designed from other software. Email marketers will agree that building email automatic sequences can turn out pretty tricky at times. Well, Autopilot puts this challenge to bed by introducing automation sequences annotation.
This way, you can specifically tag (or add further explanatory excerpts) to your automation sequences via stickers and eye-catching emojis. This is extremely helpful if you are working with a team in building your automation sequences.
By annotating them, you guide your fellow collaborators along, enabling them to keep up with your trajectory. This way, months and even years later, you can readily come back to your automation sequence and quickly pick up the whole idea like yesterday.
You will also love Autopilot's reporting feature. With this feature, you can easily nail your objectives for each automation sequence. Consequently, you can accurately measure your sequence's performance in terms of how well it is hitting targets.
Another standout point about Autopilot is its capacity to trigger actions in other software encompassed within Autopilot. Of course, you know the labor you were going to be grilled through if you were to configure each tool inside Autopilot manually. Altogether, your sequences become remarkably easier to comprehend.
Autopilot is less discriminatory regarding cost, with pricing coming very affordably at a monthly $49 for 2,000 contacts. No mincing of words, but this is one of the cheapest marketing automation tools you can get for value.
That is it! We have explored how to select the best marketing automation software and have gone ahead to make some top picks for you. At Eula Blue, we are strong proponents of marketing automation. Leveraging cutting-edge automated marketing software, we can thrill our clients with overwhelming results, giving them top value for their dollar. You deserve better; reach out to us today, let us garnish your marketing with more automation and precision, and aggressively accelerate your growth in your industry.