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Automating key marketing strategies is a crucial part of scaling your business and making more money, especially if you’re not interested in expanding your team. We’ve used just about every marketing automation tool available over the last decade. Based on our experiences, ActiveCampaign outshines its fiercest competitors. It’s an all-in-one automation solution that comes with a drag-and-drop visual automation builder, advanced reporting, and a built-in CRM at one of the most affordable price points we’ve seen.
The Best Marketing Automation Software for Most
ActiveCampaign
Best for Most
ActiveCampaign is an all-in-one solution for marketing automation, email, and sales CRM to help you create better customer experiences. Includes an easy to use drag-and-drop visual automation builder, email segmentation, lead scoring, dynamic content, advanced reporting, and more. Paid plans start at $9 per month.
If you’re looking for something affordable, yet powerful, ActiveCampaign is the way to go. It covers marketing automation, email marketing, and sales CRM in one package to help you deliver exceptional experiences through the entire sales funnel while putting in less time and effort—and without expanding your team.
It’s one of the most affordable options on our list with plans starting at just $9 per month for basic features and up to 500 contacts.
The 7 Best Marketing Automation Software Options to Consider:
- ActiveCampaign – Best marketing automation for most
- Constant Contact – Best for B2B sales
- Keap – Best for growing service-based businesses
- Sendinblue – Most feature-rich marketing automation software
- Act-On – Best software for reporting and real-time analytics
- Campaigner – Best for advanced email automation
- Rejoiner – Best for e-commerce businesses
When It Makes Sense to Invest Into Marketing Automation Software
The main concept of marketing automation is simple; it takes mundane tasks and turns them into automated workflows that run 24/7 without you (or anyone on your team) lifting a finger.
By leveraging automation, you can make sure that every unique visitor, sees the most relevant information.
This is true regardless of their actions or where they’re at in your funnel.
With that said, any business with a website and email list can (and should) invest in marketing automation software.
And whether you’re selling tangible goods, digital products, or services, automation is the easiest way to move people through your sales funnel.
However, if you’re still in the early stages, or launching a startup, it might be too soon for marketing automation software. You should hold off until manual management becomes too much to handle.
With that said, you can still benefit from basic marketing automation features built into traditional email marketing software.
#1 – ActiveCampaign Review — The Best Marketing Automation Software for Most
ActiveCampaign
Best for Most
ActiveCampaign is an all-in-one solution for marketing automation, email, and sales CRM to help you create better customer experiences. Includes an easy to use drag-and-drop visual automation builder, email segmentation, lead scoring, dynamic content, advanced reporting, and more. Paid plans start at $9 per month.
ActiveCampaign is the best visual marketing automation builder on the market today. In addition to marketing automation, it also comes with tools for email marketing and sales CRM as well.
As such, it’s an excellent all-in-one automation platform built with growing small businesses in mind.
With it, you can automate more of your processes without the need to hire new employees to manage marketing and sales efforts for you.
Plus, its visual builder is incredibly easy to use so you can get your campaigns and sales pipelines up and running in just a few minutes (rather than days or weeks).
The visual builder leverages basic logic and visual symbols to help you create even the most complex marketing automations in just a few clicks with no technical skills required.
You can easily segment your email list, score leads based on user activities and behavior, and leverage dynamic content to send personalized messages at the right time.
The introductory plan includes access for up to three users, unlimited monthly emails, 500+ pre-built automation recipes, and 300+ integrations.
So, you get tons of functionality, even at the most basic level. As you grow and your automation needs expand, you can upgrade to higher plans for more advanced features, like SMS marketing and sales CRM.
On top of that, every plan comes with other powerful features, including:
- Site messaging
- Site tracking
- Engagement tracking
- Integrated signup forms
- Advanced reporting
- CRM app
You can also benefit from exceptional customer support, including free training, free chat/email support, and free migration from the software you’re currently using.
ActiveCampaign offers monthly, and annual pricing plans to suit businesses with varying needs. Their annual plans include:
- Lite — $9 per month
- Plus — $49 per month
- Professional — $129 per month
- Enterprise — $229 per month
These rates are valid for up to 500 contacts, so as your list grows, you’ll need to pay more every month.
#2 – Constant Contact Review — The Best Marketing Automation for B2B Sales
Constant Contact
Best for B2B Sales
Give your B2B sales team a valuable time-saving tool that also improves their email-based lead nurturing with Constant Contact. Between its list-building features, powerful segmentation, and deeply customizable automation, your sales efforts will become more efficient as each email campaign lands better with recipients.
A full email list is the lifeblood of any good B2B sales operation. Well-timed emails with effective segmentation and targeting play a crucial role in moving people from prospect to qualified lead to purchase.
Thus, if your sales team could use a potent tool for setting up email triggers and drip campaigns, you’ll find a powerful ally in Constant Contact.
With this platform, it becomes so much easier to nurture leads from the get-go.
Constant Contact allows you to easily embed signup forms on your webpages that can even be tailored to only appear based on behavioral triggers (like when a visitor is about to leave your landing page, for example).
You can set up a detailed, tailored welcome sequence so that these new additions to your list are automatically greeted and warmed up for the next stage in their sales journey. Segment out any series based on initial circumstances like where they signed up, their job title, their location, or any other piece of information.
At any point, set triggers to activate drip campaigns—which, of course, can also be finely segmented—and get prospects more interested in making a purchase. Set the timing of sends and use dynamic content in your emails to lend extra personalization to messages so they land perfectly with each recipient.
Basically, Constant Contact allows you to build a Rube Goldberg machine of sorts that automatically handles email sends at any stage of your sales funnel. That frees up your sales team to monitor progress and then strike when the iron’s hot.
All of this comes in Constant Contact’s Email Plus plan, which starts at $45/month for up to 50 contacts. With it, you get all the automation capability the platform has to offer, plus pop-up web forms, A/B testing tools, and dynamic content.
Pricing scales upward for larger lists. It’s $70/month for up to 2,500 contacts, $95/month for a list of 5,000, $125/month for up to 10,000 contacts, and so on. Constant Contact can also create a custom plan for list sizes over 50,000.
Put your routine email tasks on autopilot while also improving them with powerful customization and segmentation by using Constant Contact.
#3 – Keap Review — The Best MA Software For Growing Service-Based Businesses
Keap
Best For Service-Based Businesses
Marketing automation and sales CRM designed for growing service-based businesses. Includes a robust visual automation builder, automated appointment scheduling, invoicing, lead capture forms, and more. Plans start at $79 per month for up to 500 contacts.
Keap is a marketing automation tool specifically designed for growing service-based businesses with at least one employee and a growing list of leads.
It’s a comprehensive solution that delivers advanced automation features for marketing, sales, and CRM.
As such, you can start creating automated systems and processes to help you get more done in less time, freeing up more time to scale your business.
With it, you can create custom automated campaigns built to move leads through the funnel, develop nurturing welcome sequences, send automated reminders, and utilize powerful logic-based automations.
On top of that, you also get various features designed specifically for service-based businesses, including:
- A real-time activity stream
- Automated campaign builder based on user actions
- Automated appointment scheduling
- Quotes, invoices, and online payments
You can also automatically assign tasks to various team members based on customer actions or other triggers at your discretion. This makes it not only possible but incredibly easy to follow up with leads, regardless of where they come from.
Plus, you get the added benefit of built-in CRM features and sales pipeline management so leads flow seamlessly from one department to the next.
Pricing is based on the number of contacts in your database, with introductory plans for up to 500 contacts starting at:
- Keap Grow — $79 per month
- Keap Pro — $149 per month
- Infusionsoft — $199 per month
While the price might initially seem steep for small businesses, it’s important to remember you’re getting CRM, sales, and marketing automation features.
These tools separately could easily cost hundreds of dollars a month. So, packaging them together is actually a great deal.
For a limited time, Keap is offering 30% off your first three months. Sign up for a free 14-day trial to see if it’s right for you!
#4 – Sendinblue Review — Most Feature-Rich Marketing Automation Software
Sendinblue
Best Automation Features
Regardless of your experience level or the number of contacts you have, Sendinblue offers a wealth of automation features and unlimited users on every plan. Get everything you need to start automating your email, SMS, live chat, and advertising campaigns in one place, complete with drag-and-drop visual builders.
Sendinblue is a marketing automation tool with multiple communication methods, including email marketing, SMS marketing, live chat, landing pages, ads, and more. The software doubles as a full-blown CRM solution to build stronger relationships with your customers.
By automating tasks and campaigns with Sendinblue across multiple channels, you can essentially put your marketing process on autopilot.
Sendinblue allows you to grow your contact list with signup forms, retargeting campaigns, social media ads, and more.
At such an affordable starting price point, Sendinblue is the most feature-rich marketing automation solution on the market today. Some of the top features and benefits include:
- Unlimited contacts
- A/B testing
- Sales CRM
- Advanced segmentation
- Custom signup forms
- Workflow editor
- Page tracking
- Real-time reporting
- Email heat maps
- Send time optimization
- API integration
Here’s a look at the plans and pricing for Sendinblue’s automation software:
While Sendinblue is one of the only solutions on our list that doesn’t charge you based on the number of contacts on your list, the plans do come with a monthly email cap. So just keep that in mind when you’re selecting a plan.
Full marketing automation features aren’t available on all plans either. You need to sign up for the Premium subscription, starting at $65 per month, to access those automation tools.
#5 – Act-On Review — The Best For Marketing Insights
Act-On
Best For Marketing Insights
Starting at $900 per month. Advanced marketing reports and real-time analytics for SMEs. Automatically track digital KPIs for marketing.
Act-On is a bit unique compared to the other solutions on our list. The software specializes in lead generation and nurturing using marketing automation.
In addition to traditional automation tools, you’ll also benefit from features for email marketing, social media marketing, account-based marketing, website lead generation, CRM connectors, and martech integrations.
But marketing analytics and reporting is the area where Act-On truly shines above the competition.
The software automatically tracks digital KPIs across different categories, such as email performance, landing page conversions, traffic conversions, social media engagement, content downloads, and more.
You’ll also benefit from custom campaign reports to gain deeper insight into the impact of your automations.
Act-On delivers real-time data snapshots related to your marketing funnel and leads. The reports include information related to potential revenue, generated revenue, and bottlenecks in your process.
With all of this in mind, Act-On is not for everyone. Beginners and small businesses will likely find the software a bit too complex for basic needs. Plus, the price point is definitely geared towards larger organizations and SMEs with more room in their marketing budgets.
Act-On has two plans, starting at $900 and $2,000 per month, respectively. Each plan includes 2,500 active contacts, and the price increases as your list grows.
Basic customer support is included, which gives you access to knowledge base posts, community forums, and technical support during business hours. Advanced customer support costs $6,000 or $15,000 per year, depending on your needs.
Overall, Act-On’s software is exceptional, but it’s expensive. Startups, small businesses, and even companies on the smaller side of the SME spectrum should probably look elsewhere.
#6 – Campaigner Review — Best For Advanced Email Automation
Campaigner
Best For Advanced Email Automation
Starting at $40.95 per month. Create custom email campaigns based on customer data. Build conditional workflows with behavior triggers.
While most marketing automation solutions include email marketing, Campaigner specializes in this category. It’s an ideal solution for marketers that want to use customer data to build personalized and automated interactions via email.
Campaigner has all the tools you need to capture new subscribers, nurture your leads, and convert them into paying customers. The software even has features to help you upsell along the way.
The best part about Campaigner is the visual builder. Even for advanced email automations, it’s surprisingly easy to use.
Use Campaigner to create conditional workflows based on behavioral triggers such as purchase conditions, historical engagement, clicks, opens, and more. You’ll also be able to trigger workflows based on different types of conversion data.
Campaigner supports conditional content, dynamic content, and custom fields for your subscribers. It integrates with ecommerce platforms like Shopify and Magento, as well.
Pricing and plans for Campaigner:
- Starter — $59 per month
- Essential — $179 per month
- Advanced — $649 per month
- Ecommerce — $79.95 per month
The plans support up to 5,000, 25,000, and 100,000 contacts, respectively. The ecommerce plan integrates with most ecommerce platforms and up to 30,000 emails per month with other more advanced plans available. All of the rates shown above are based on an annual contract. Month-to-month rates are about 20% more expensive.
Unfortunately, not all of the top features are available in the entry-level plan. To access complete automation workflows and all 60+ features, you’ll need to sign up for the Advanced plan.
#7 – Rejoiner Review — The Best For Ecommerce Businesses
Rejoiner
Best For Ecommerce
Starting at $95 per month. Drag-and-drop editor and visual workflows for email automations. Ideal for targeting abandoned shopping carts.
Rejoiner is an email marketing solution with automation features designed for ecommerce shops. The software is trusted by well-known brands like Hydro Flask, Guess, and Titleist.
The tool has a drag-and-drop editor that allows you to create beautiful emails and custom automation campaigns. Rejoiner is perfect for ecommerce websites that want to leverage automated emails to target abandoned shopping carts.
Create multi-dimensional segments based on elements like browsing behavior, email engagement, purchase history, custom tags, shopping frequency, and more. Behavioral scoring is another top marketing automation feature of Rejoiner.
Use this software to create visual workflows, map customer journeys, and optimize engagement with email templates and A/B testing.
Rejoiner seamlessly integrates with your ecommerce platform. You won’t need developers to get started either.
Pricing for Rejoiner is based on the number of contacts in your list. Rates start at $95 per month, which includes 2,000 contacts and 20,000 emails.
One of my favorite parts of Rejoiner is that all of the features come standard out of the box. Pricing is solely based on the number of contacts. Since the features are all-inclusive, the starting rates are a bit higher than other entry-level plans that we’ve reviewed.
Methodology For Choosing The Best Marketing Automation Software
Finding the best marketing automation software for your business can be challenging if you don’t know what to look for. But certain factors allow you to make an informed decision as you’re shopping around.
This is the methodology that we used during the research process to come up with the best software on our list. I’ll explain how you can weigh these factors according to your personal needs below.
Type of Software
Not every marketing automation solution is created equally. Some software is branded as an email marketing tool, others specialize in CRM, and some are a combination of the two.
To be clear, marketing automation, CRM software, and email marketing software are not the same. Marketing automation falls within the general scope of managing customer relationships. Some email marketing tools have automation features.
If you’re looking for an all-in-one marketing solution, make sure you find a tool that has all three of these features.
But not every business needs an all-inclusive solution for automation. Some of you will be just fine with a basic email tool for marketing automation.
Business Needs
The size and type of your business will play a significant role in your search for marketing automation software. Some solutions are designed for smaller businesses, while others are better for larger organizations and SMEs.
Ecommerce businesses will also have unique needs, such as setting up triggers for abandoned shopping carts.
Are you targeting website visitors or just email subscribers? Does the solution help you build custom forms? What about social media ads or SMS communication?
When you’re evaluating a prospective solution, make sure that it accommodates the needs of your business type and marketing goals.
Automations
Obviously, automation is a critical component of marketing automation software—that goes without saying. But some automations are more complex than others.
You need to find a solution that makes it easy for you to set up and build your automations with custom rules. For the most part, user behavior or some type of action will trigger an automated sequence. But the best software allows you to dig even deeper to personalize that campaign based on multiple rules and segments.
There’s a fine line between building the best possible automations for personalized campaigns and confusing yourself during the process.
I always recommend starting with a free trial or demo. This is the best way to get a feel for which platform you like the most when building custom workflows.
Price
Marketing automation software ranges anywhere from $10-$2,000+ per month. In most cases, the price is based on how many contacts or subscribers you have on your list.
However, $10 won’t give you many automation tools, and $2,000 will likely be more than you need. The vast majority of you will benefit from software starting in the $60-$200 range for full automation features.
Small businesses and startups will typically fall on the lower end of this spectrum. Larger organizations can expect to pay a bit more.
Just remember, the price is rarely fixed. It will usually change as your list grows. For those of you paying a fixed rate that isn’t based on the number of contacts, you might be limited to how many messages or campaigns can be run in a month.
ActiveCampaign
Best for Most
ActiveCampaign is an all-in-one solution for marketing automation, email, and sales CRM to help you create better customer experiences. Includes an easy to use drag-and-drop visual automation builder, email segmentation, lead scoring, dynamic content, advanced reporting, and more. Paid plans start at $9 per month.
Summary
Marketing automation makes your life easier. Not only does it automate basic marketing tasks, but it allows you to generate leads, nurture them, and drive conversions at scale.
ActiveCampaign and Constant Contact are our top recommendations for most users. However, choosing the best marketing automation software depends on what you need.
Regardless of your business size, industry, or unique needs, you can find what you’re looking for using the reviews and methodology in this guide.
This article was written by today’s Daily Eggspert.
