The Best Marketing Automation Tools to Use in 2020

Marketing is a must-have tool for your business. It doesn’t matter what you sell or what kind of services you offer: you simply can’t do without digital marketing automation tools that can save your precious time and allow you to keep up with the latest marketing trends.

In this review, we’ll analyze the main reasons why you need to use the best marketing automation tools for small businesses and list the most widely used programs that will help you be more effective when dealing with marketing.

What is Marketing Automation?

Before we move on to discussing the best examples of marketing automation tools, let’s cover the basics. So what do marketing automation tools do? The main mission of this technology is to control marketing processes and multiple campaigns across different channels. With the help of these programs, business owners can target clients using automated messages.

Modern sales departments always use marketing automation tools to speed up their productivity and automate some ad campaigns. When automation is effectively set, it allows users to handle repetitive duties. Moreover, the chance of human error is reduced.

Why You Can’t Do Without Marketing Automation Tools

Most businesses buy automation tools without even thinking of how they will be using them. However, some still don’t understand why they need to invest in marketing automation.

Here are a few reasons to use the best marketing automation software:

• You have a big marketing team and want to streamline your business processes.
• Such programs can help scale your marketing.
• Marketing tools will help save your precious time. You can do more and spend less time.
• They can decrease your staffing costs.
• Such programs allow you to be more creative because you won’t be spending time on repetitive tasks.
• You’ll be able to target your potential clients through different channels.

The Main Features to Look for in the Best Marketing Automation Tools 2019

You are probably wondering what features you need to pay attention to when choosing the program. However, there’s no exact answer to this question because a lot depends on your needs, the number of channels you wish to scale and the goals you wish to achieve.

Here are a few things to pay attention to:

• See what features the program offers.
• A good marketing automation program should handle digital advertising and social media.
• It should allow you to implement your marketing strategy automatically (you shouldn’t have to manually send each email or message).
• Such programs should offer options that allow you to gather customer data through different interactions.
• It should help define and visualize your goals using data gathered by this tool.

What Are the Main Evaluation Criteria?

The modern market is overloaded with a variety of options. There are lots of marketing automation software comparison articles online, but you should know what key elements to consider when choosing the best item:

• Total costs. The pricing policy of such programs is not always clear. Some of them may ask you to pay a setup fee. Moreover, some companies charge more for a higher number of leads. So you should double-check this information before you sign a contract.
• Scalability. You should know that the majority of options are scalable because they run on a SaaS model. This means that a user has to make a monthly payment to get access to these tools. As a result, you’ll get a browser-based software.
• The number of features. When analyzing this section, you need to know that marketing automation programs fall into a few categories, such as full-funnel (multi-featured solutions), middle funnel (they are the right solution for capturing leads) and channel-specific (they are mostly focused on different activities such as email creation).
• Ease of use. You shouldn’t spend hours to understand how to use the program. It should have a clear interface and run without any bugs or glitches.

A Brief Overview of the Best Marketing Automation Programs to Use in 2020

Now, it is time to be more specific and compare marketing automation tools. We hope that this review will help you make the right choice.

All-in-one marketing automation solutions

If you are currently looking for one program that can be used for a variety of marketing purposes, these solutions might be the best options:

• Nimble CRM – powerful, multi-featured software that runs directly inside your Office 365. With the help of this tool, you can manage company insights and control all the deals from the existing workflows. The main mission of Nimble CRM is to help you build relations with your customers and create more targeted contact lists using social insights and business data. Moreover, with the help of this program, you can control calendar appointments, sales pipeline, and action items.

• Prisync – pricing software that allows you to optimize prices and increase revenue. This digital marketing automation tool allows you to properly identify your competitors and product assortment. You can see your competitors’ pricing policies and maximize your profits.

The best email marketing automation tools

Need a powerful solution to work with emails? Keep in mind these programs when developing your marketing automation strategy:

• Eloqua. This solution features a variety of marketing planning canvas to target your prospective clients. The main goal of the software is to track customer activity and visitor behavior through the website. With the help of this tool, you can easily send ads to mobile devices or search result pages.
• Wiser. You can use this marketing automation to display compliance and MAP monitoring. The software can simplify omnichannel retail data analysis. As a result, you’ll know for sure what measures you need to take to boost sales.

Social media automation

If you need a reliable tool that can help create meaningful online connections, these solutions will come in handy:

• Pardot. The purpose of the tool is to help users close more sales. Simply put, Pardot can help streamline lead marketing, create seamless sales alignment and more insightful ROI reporting.
• AdRoll. The program can provide marketers with sophisticated marketing tools. It allows you to get to know your clients better before you actually meet them. With the help of its extensive range of features, you can create a more personalized experience with clients. You’ll know how to make them come back and buy your products or services.

Customer journey automation programs

• Customer.io. This is one of the best ones on our marketing automation platform list because it enables you to create a bigger database of clients. Its main mission is to help you segment your audience on the basis of real-time events. As a result, the real-time data about your clients will be at your fingertips. An integration with Customer.io can give your company lots of benefits. You’ll know everything about your clients, what they do online, what pages they visit, their subscription history, etc.
• Metadata.io. With the help of this tool, you can execute organic account-based marketing campaigns. You can monitor your target accounts’ engage and the effectiveness of your sales cycle.

The best pricing automation tools

• Hootsuite. This is probably one of the best online platforms to control your social networking accounts. Simply put, you can manage multiple networks and profiles remotely. If your company has accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or other social networking sites, you can add all of them to this program and post remotely. You can also plan posts and answer comments from here.
• Referral Rock. The software allows you to track how many clients want to refer you and how many clients you miss.

Advertising automation platforms

• Buffer – a powerful tool that allows you to build your audience and make your brand more popular on social media. Its features allow you to plan and publish engaging content that can drive meaningful engagement and help make your brand recognizable!

• TapMango – a multi-featured solution that can help keep your customers coming back to your company. This tool is a great solution if you want to build loyalty with your clients.

Loyalty and referral marketing automation programs

• Coschedule. The main goal of this tool is to help you properly organize your marketing. They offer a powerful marketing suite that can help organize your work and content in one place.

Things to Consider When Choosing Your Marketing Automation Tool

We all want to deal with the best CRM for marketing automation platforms. However, the range of products is wide today, so it is really hard to make the right choice. Here are a few aspects you should pay attention to when choosing CRM with marketing automation:

• Ease of use. The best tools are those that require less than 3-4 hours of training and offer comprehensive guides on how to use them.
• The number of users you can scale. You are probably hoping that your business will grow. So make sure you choose a platform that can handle an increase in users without increasing the prices.
• Make sure it stays on top of new spam compliance rules.
• Personalization. It goes without saying that impersonal messaging is not good for your clients. Make sure your marketing automation platform comes with personalization features.
• Integration with third parties. Being able to connect to other external systems is critical for the performance of any company.
• Simple list management. You probably know that managing multiple lists is crucially important for increasing engagement. Make sure your marketing automation platform allows you to do this.
• Tracking conversions. You need to know everything about your leads. So the platform that you choose should provide you with an in-depth analysis of your clients’ behavior.

How to Choose the Best Tool

Before you purchase the best platform for your needs, follow these steps:

• Create a comprehensive plan. Some business owners buy a few solutions before they actually develop a plan to follow. It’s a common mistake. First, you need to decide what steps you need to follow to create and control your campaigns.
• Develop your marketing funnel. Check your sales funnel; it is full of valuable information that might help develop the right strategy.
• Choose a platform that can serve a few departments. When you use one program, you’ll keep every team member on the same page. 

If you are currently looking for a simple CRM tool that can meet the needs of the whole marketing team, we recommend considering Nimble CRM – a smart CRM platform that is built inside Office 365. With the help of this tool, you can prospect smarter and faster.

Nimble CRM comes with a broad selection of features that can meet the needs of the most demanding users. It allows you to take smarter actions, organize your pipeline, appointments and social signals. You can automatically combine social media connections, calendar appointments, and inboxes.

With this tool, you’ll know everything about your clients. You can easily locate contact information and interaction history. All in all, it is the best marketing automation solution that can help boost the productivity of your marketing department!