10 Best Marketing Automation Tools to Bring More Sales

How do you ensure that your marketing efforts stay regularized and keep your audience engaged?

One of the best ways to do so is automating your marketing efforts, and marketing automation tools can assist you in the matter.

Being a part of the SaaS and marketing industry for the past almost a decade, I have seen a huge rise in marketing automation.

But which areas of marketing should you automate?

More importantly, what tools are best to ensure optimum ROI on your efforts?

Let me answer all these questions and more in this blog which has a detailed marketing automation tools comparison, along with information on their best features.

Let’s get started.

List of Best Marketing Automation Tools

1. Picreel– Best for Marketing Popup Automation

I have personally used Picreel for marketing popup automation and it is said to be a game-changer for conversion rates. With Picreel, marketers can design and implement highly targeted popups on their website, tailored to specific user behavior and demographics.

The tool provides a user-friendly interface with a wide range of customization options for designing visually appealing and attention-grabbing popups.

Besides, Picreel offers advanced targeting and segmentation features so you can display popups to the right audience at the right time. In fact, some of its popups are exclusively designed for e-commerce stores and aim to boost e-commerce conversion rates.

What You Will Like:

• A/B testing that ensures optimal performance and conversion rates.
• Incorporation of exit-intent technology for popups that capture user attention effectively.
• Real-time analytics provide valuable insights into campaign performance.
• Customizable popup templates, which cater to various branding needs.
• Easy integration with 700+ marketing and CRM tools such as MailChimp, Zapier, Salesforce, and more.

What You May Not Like:

• It does not not come with dark mode support.
• The software may refresh automatically if you do not have a stable internet connection.

Price: Forever free up to 5000 visitors. Paid starts at $9.99/month. Billed annually.

2. HubSpot Marketing Automation– Best for Workflow Automation

In my experience, HubSpot Marketing Automation has been the best tool for workflow automation. The platform offers a comprehensive set of features and tools that streamline all aspects of our marketing campaigns. With HubSpot, you can automate repetitive tasks and create custom workflows for different marketing processes.

The tool also provides a visual workflow editor that lets you easily map out and automate complex workflows, such as lead nurturing, email campaigns, and content management.

One of my favorite features is the email automation tool that lets you create beautiful and personalized emails with no coding required, and send them to the right leads at the right time based on triggers, conditions, and actions.

What You Will Like:

• Lead nurturing automation feature that aids in cultivating strong customer relationships.
• Multi-channel campaign management to enhance marketing reach.
• Smart personalization features that allow tailored communication with individual leads.
• Easy CRM integration that provides a holistic view of customer interactions.
• Advanced analytics and reporting tools that offer actionable insights into your marketing efforts.

What You May Not Like:

• Entry-level plans have very limited customization options.
• You need high-cost plans to remove HubSpot branding in your campaigns.

Price: Starts from $800 per month. Billed annually.

3. Ontraport– Best for Social Media Marketing Automation

I have used Ontraport for social media marketing automation and it has proven to be an excellent tool for businesses to manage their social media campaigns.

With this tool, you can schedule and publish posts across multiple social media platforms, saving valuable time and ensuring a consistent presence on social media.

The tool also offers robust analytics and reporting features, allowing marketers to track the performance of social media campaigns and make data-driven decisions.

Not only this, but it integrates seamlessly with other marketing tools to create cohesive and integrated marketing strategies.

What You Will Like:

• Lead tracking features to enhance the understanding of social media interactions.
• Social listening features that provide insights into audience sentiments.
• Combined CRM and marketing automation tools that offer comprehensive marketing solutions.
• Use ready-made templates or design your own campaigns from scratch, and track the performance of each element in real time.
• Check which sources, channels, and campaigns are driving the most leads, sales, and revenue, and use this data to make informed decisions.

What You May Not Like:

• Ineffective email automation control, which can result in spamming, low deliverability, and poor segmentation.
• Steep learning curve and a complicated user interface that can be overwhelming for beginners.

Price: Starts from $24 per month.

4. ActiveCampaign– Best for Third-Party Integrations

ActiveCampaign is a marketing automation tool that excels in third-party integrated automation. It allows you to connect and sync your marketing campaigns with over 300 other tools and platforms, such as WordPress, Shopify, Zapier, and more.

With this tool, you can automate various marketing tasks, such as email marketing, CRM management, and lead scoring, by connecting it to your preferred tools and systems.

It also has a visual marketing automation builder that lets you design your workflows with drag-and-drop ease, and see how your contacts move through each step of your automation

What You Will Like:

• Customer experience automation features which can help to enhance user engagement.
• Predictive sending options that optimize email campaign effectiveness.
• Machine learning features for segmentation which ensure targeted communication.
• Site and event tracking elements that provide comprehensive insights.
• Contains email split testing features which can assist in refining campaign strategies.

What You May Not Like:

• Limited social media integration and it requires additional tools for the purpose.
• It comes with design customization constraints that can limit creative expression.

Price: Starts from $29 per month. Billed annually.

5. Omnisend– Best for SMS Marketing Automation

When it comes to SMS marketing automation, Omnisend is the best tool in my experience. With the platform, you can create automated SMS campaigns that deliver personalized messages to our target audience.

The tool allows you to segment our audience based on various criteria, such as purchase history or engagement level, and trigger automated SMS messages accordingly.

It provides a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to design and schedule SMS campaigns, while also offering advanced analytics to track and optimize campaign performance.

What You Will Like:

• Comes with a personalized messaging feature that enhances user engagement.
• Powerful marketing segmentation capabilities that allow precise audience targeting.
• Seamless e-commerce integration that facilitates seamless transactional communication.
• Smart abandoned cart recovery options that can help you boost conversion rates.
• Mobile-friendly design that ensures a seamless user experience on all kinds of devices.

What You May Not Like:

• Sending SMSs to clients costs extra, adding to overall campaign expenses.
• Entry plan has limited features and does not offer complete functionality.

Price: Starts from $16 per month.

6. Sender– Best for Email Marketing Automation

One of my industry colleagues recommended keeping Sender on my list because he used it extensively for email marketing automation and got good outcomes in his campaigns.

With this tool, you can create and automate highly personalized and targeted email campaigns. The tool offers a drag-and-drop editor for designing visually appealing emails and provides a range of automation features, such as drip campaigns, abandoned cart recovery, and dynamic content.

Even its comprehensive analytics and reporting capabilities have excellent features to monitor the performance of email campaigns and make data-driven decisions for optimization.

What You Will Like:

• It has autoresponders and triggers that enhance communication efficiency while marketing.
• Seamless A/B testing for emails that help you refine campaign strategies.
• Contact list management features that ensure organized communication.
• Plan and schedule your email and SMS campaigns in advance and send them at the optimal time.
• Create and automate complex workflows based on triggers, conditions, and actions to send personalized and relevant messages

What You May Not Like:

• Does not offer advanced features like lead scoring, CRM integration, and A/B testing.
• Limited email templates and design options compared to some of its competitors.

Price: Starts from $15.83 per month. Billed annually.

7. SendPulse– Best for Push Notification Automation

SendPulse is one of the top marketing automation tools when it comes to push notification automation. You can use it to send push notifications to your website visitors, engaging them and driving them back to our site.

The tool provides a user-friendly interface and offers various targeting options, allowing you to segment the audience and send personalized push notifications based on their behavior and preferences.

I personally recommend its automation features, such as triggered notifications and personalized recommendations, which are effective in boosting user engagement and increasing website conversions.

What You Will Like:

• Web push and mobile push notification automation features that maximize message visibility.
• Personalization features for messages so that you can facilitate tailored communication.
• Contains subscriber segmentation features that ensure targeted messaging.
• Automated drip campaigns, which can assist in communication workflows.
• Automation 360 feature to set up triggered email sequences based on user behavior and events.

What You May Not Like:

• Push notification opt-in challenges that affect audience reach.
• Does not offer a lot of fonts options for creating email templates.

Price: Starts from $6.40 per month. Billed annually.

8. ManyChat– Best for Chat Marketing Automation

ManyChat has been a game-changer for chat marketing automation in my experience.

This marketing automation tool helps to automate your chat interactions on websites and social media platforms, providing immediate and personalized responses to the customers.

I like its visual flow builder that makes it easy to create chatbots with custom messages and actions. Also, ManyChat integrates seamlessly with Facebook Messenger, allowing you to reach a wider audience and automate conversations on one of the most popular messaging platforms.

One of the most interesting features it has is Growth Tools, which are opt-in methods to capture leads and subscribers from various sources, such as websites, Facebook pages, or QR codes. You can even customize the appearance and behavior of your Growth Tools to match your brand and goals.

What You Will Like:

• Chatbot branding and customization options that allow personalized user interactions.
• Integration with popular messaging apps that ensure a cohesive messaging strategy.
• User segmentation features which can facilitate targeted communication.
• Live Chat feature that allows you to switch from automated chatbot responses to human interactions when needed and can be managed from the ManyChat dashboard or mobile app.
• Flow Builder, which is a drag-and-drop interface to design your chatbot flows and sequences.

What You May Not Like:

• The analytics tools are not powerful enough to give a deep understanding of the business’s issues related to the chatbot.
• Not suitable for large businesses that need more advanced features and customization.

Price: Starts from $15 per month.

9. LeadSquared– Best for CRM Marketing Automation

When it comes to CRM marketing automation, LeadSquared has been an excellent option, particularly as a marketing automation tool for small businesses.

You can use this to automate your customer relationship management processes, from lead generation to conversion and beyond.

I like its robust lead scoring and nurturing features that allow marketers to prioritize and engage with the most promising leads. It integrates seamlessly with other marketing tools, such as email marketing and landing page builders, enabling the creation of a comprehensive and automated marketing system.

What You Will Like:

• It has several sales automation features that streamline the sales process.
• Customizable CRM that is capable of accommodating diverse business needs, such as sales automation, marketing campaigns, customer support, and reporting.
• Email and SMS campaign automation features that facilitate targeted communication.
• Workflow automation to enhance the overall operational efficiency.
• Detailed analytics and reports that provide actionable insights for continuous improvement.

What You May Not Like:

• Limited social media integration that can restrict some marketing strategies.
• Most advanced features are available only in higher-tier plans.

Price: Starts from $1200 per month.

10. Snov.io– Best for Outreach Automation

In the list of marketing automation tools, Snov.io probably ranks on the top when it comes to outreach automation.

I remember discussing this with one of my close business friends about how they are able to streamline their marketing outreach campaigns by automating the process of finding and contacting potential leads.

This tool offers powerful lead generation features, allowing you to find email addresses and contact information of relevant prospects. It also provides personalized email outreach templates and automated email sequences, making it easy to engage with the target audience at scale.

Even the tracking and analytics features are good enough to measure the effectiveness of outreach campaigns and make data-driven adjustments for better results.

What You Will Like:

• Email finder and verifier feature to enhance lead acquisition and data accuracy.
• Drip email campaigns that facilitate automated and targeted outreach.
• LinkedIn integration feature which can help to streamlines professional networking efforts.
• CRM and Google Sheets integration, which ensures seamless data management.
• Seamless team collaboration features that enhance workflow coordination.

What You May Not Like:

• Does not allow you to send emails to unverified addresses, which can reduce your deliverability and increase your bounce rate
• Does not offer A/B testing with its basic paid plan, so you cannot optimize your email campaigns based on data and feedback.

Price: Starts from $30 per month.

Evaluation Criteria

The evaluation of products or tools chosen for this article follows an unbiased, systematic approach that ensures a fair, insightful, and well-rounded review. This method employs six key factors:

1. User Reviews / Ratings: Direct experiences from users, including ratings and feedback from reputable sites, provide a ground-level perspective. This feedback is critical in understanding overall satisfaction and potential problems.
2. Essential Features & Functionality: The value of a product is ascertained by its core features and overall functionality. Through an in-depth exploration of these aspects, the practical usefulness and effectiveness of the tools are carefully evaluated.
3. Ease of Use: The user-friendliness of a product or service is assessed, focusing on the design, interface, and navigation. This ensures a positive experience for users of all levels of expertise.
4. Customer Support: The quality of customer support is examined, taking into account its efficiency and how well it supports users in different phases – setting up, addressing concerns, and resolving operational issues.
5. Value for Money: Value for money is evaluated by comparing the quality, performance, and features. The goal is to help the reader understand whether they would be getting their money’s worth.
6. Personal Experience / Experts’ Opinions: This part of the evaluation criteria draws insightful observations from the writer’s personal experience and the opinions of industry experts.

Ready to Pick the Best Marketing Automation Tool?

After a detailed marketing automation tools comparison and analysis, it’s time to pick the best software.

So, which one of the above marketing automation tools appears the best?

It’s still so confusing, right? Let me make it a bit easier.

Here, I have picked three good tools out of my list above and let’s see a recap of each:

Option 1: Picreel

Picreel is an excellent marketing popup automation with its user-friendly interface and extensive customization options to create targeted, visually appealing popups. It has advanced automation features to ensure precise audience targeting, especially beneficial for e-commerce stores to boost their conversion rates.

Option 2: ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign stands out in marketing automation with its seamless third-party integrations and it can integrate with 300+ tools like WordPress and Shopify. With this, you can simplify tasks like email marketing and CRM management through automated workflows.

Option 3: SendPulse

SendPulse excels in push notification automation, which can re engage website visitors. With a user-friendly interface, it allows precise audience segmentation for personalized notifications. It has triggered notifications and personalized recommendations features, which increase user engagement and website conversions.

So, did you already pick one of these tools?

If you ask me, I would go for Picreel with its advanced popup automation features. This automation tool makes it super-easy to create the most alluring marketing popups which can be added to any website and they ensure user engagement and conversions.

Sounds like a good strategy to me.

Learn More About Marketing Automation Tools

How can marketing automation tools help improve lead generation and conversion rates?

Marketing automation tools allow businesses to automate various marketing tasks, such as lead nurturing, email campaigns, and social media marketing. By using these tools effectively, businesses can improve lead generation by identifying and targeting qualified leads, tailoring personalized communication, and tracking their engagement throughout the buyer’s journey.

What are some best practices for using marketing automation tools effectively?

To use marketing automation tools effectively, it is important to follow some best practices. Firstly, businesses should ensure that they have a well-defined marketing strategy. This includes identifying clear goals, defining target audience personas, and understanding the buyer’s journey. Secondly, it is crucial to segment the audience and personalize communication based on their interests and behaviors. Thirdly, regularly analyzing and optimizing automation workflows and campaigns is essential to maximize results.

What are some common mistakes to avoid when using marketing automation tools?

While marketing automation tools offer great benefits,one common mistake is over-automation, where businesses automate too many processes without considering the impact on the customer experience. Another mistake is neglecting to continually update and optimize automation workflows. Also, not monitoring and analyzing campaign performance is also a common mistake that can lead to missed opportunities for improvement. Tracking key metrics and regularly analyzing results is important.