Marketing Automation Software: How Top Solutions Stack Up

Marketing automation software is an integral component within an organization’s tech stack, as it supports core business goals, such as optimized marketing and sales alignment, improved lead-to-sale conversion and an enhanced customer experience. 

But the landscape can be hard to navigate, especially with variances in business size, legacy systems and processes, budget, functionality requirements, and more.

Comparing marketing automation solutions is a job in itself, from keeping tabs on mergers and acquisitions to funding and new players entering the marketplace. Whether the decision comes down to the CMO, CTO or the entire executive team, ensure your team has compiled a thorough assessment of available solutions, and rated them against your organization’s pre-defined goals and expectations.

Below is a breakdown of leading marketing automation software solutions, and what to consider when selecting a solution for your business.

Marketing Automation Software Comparison

Below is a quick snapshot of the market’s leading solutions that provides insight into the typical monthly licensing fees, intended user and industry/consumer reviews.

Act-On

• Price: $600 - $6,800+/month
• Designed for: Small and mid-size businesses, as well as departments of large enterprises, with marketing team staff of one to 10. Customers include Progressive, JLL, Apex Learning and more.
• Reviews: Rated 4.6 out of 5 stars on G2 Crowd; placed #245 on Inc. magazine’s 2014 Inc. 500|5000.

Adobe Campaign (part of the Adobe Marketing Cloud)

• Price: Not listed (consumer-based pricing model released in 2014)
• Designed for: Enterprise organizations. Marketing Cloud customers include redbox, Scotttrade, Southwest Airlines, Travelocity and more.
• Reviews: Rated 4.0 out of 5 stars on G2 Crowd; mentioned in the Forrester Wave: Cross-Channel Campaign Management Q3 2014 report and Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Multichannel Campaign Management (MCCM). 

Eloqua

• Price: $2,000 - $4,000+
• Designed for: Mid-size and large companies, as well as enterprise and global organizations. Customers include Eaton, McAfee, DocuSign and more.
• Reviews: Rated 3.9 out of 5 stars on G2 Crowd.

HubSpot

• Price: $200 - $2,400+/month
• Designed for: Small and mid-size businesses with 1 to 2,000 employees, as well as departments of enterprise organizations. Customers include Care.com, ShoreTel and Century Interactive.
• Reviews: Rated 4.6 out of 5 stars on G2 Crowd; #1 in Marketing Automation by VentureBeat Marketing Automation Index.

Infusionsoft

• Price: $199 - $379/month
• Designed for: Small businesses. Customers include 24,000 small businesses including Blue Chip Athletic, Optibike and The Rocket Company.
• Reviews: Rated 3.6 out of 5 stars on G2 Crowd.

Marketo

• Price: $895 - $3,195+/month
• Designed for: Small and mid-size businesses, as well as enterprise and global organizations. Customers include Citrix, HootSuite, OpenTable and more.
• Reviews: Rated 4.0 out of 5 stars on G2 Crowd; mentioned in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for CRM Lead Management. 

Pardot

• Price: $1,000 - $3,000/month
• Designed for: Small to large B2B organizations.  
• Reviews: Rated 4.3 out of 5 stars on G2 Crowd. 

SAS®

• Price: Request a quote (DestinationCRM.com article notes $227,000+ annual subscription.)
• Designed for: Enterprise-level customers.
• Reviews: Rated 3.8 out of 5 stars on G2 Crowd. 

Silverpop

• Price: Not listed (2012 Comparz.com review notes between $15,000 and $20,000.)
• Designed for: Small and mid-size businesses. More than 2,000 global customers that represent more than 5,000 brands, including Honda, Mint.com, TRX and more.
• Reviews: Rated 3.1 out of 5 stars on G2 Crowd.

For more robust assessment and comparison, dedicate time to walking through product demos. Also, consider investment in additional research from platform assessment tools, like Software Advice, TrustRadius, Raab Associates’ B2B marketing Automation Vendor Selection Tool (VEST) or G2 Crowd.

VEST and G2 Crowd are both paid options. G2 Crowd has done a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of product assessment and comparison, and offers a fairly intuitive user experience. Or, you can peruse the free user reviews, product descriptions, pricing information and FAQs.

Regardless of how you come to select the marketing automation solution for your company, make sure your team is in agreement on the features, functionalities and ways in which the solution is expected to help you reach your marketing and sales goals.

What marketing automation solution does your marketing team use? What process did you go through to research, compare and select your final product?

Image Source: HubSpot