Pricing: From $1,250 - $15,000 per month
Salesforce Account engagement (Pardot) is a Marketing Automation system tailored to the needs of B2B marketers, supporting features such as scoring, lead assignment, B2B analytics and account based marketing. Account engagement (Pardot) is now an integral part of the Salesforce platform for effective collaboration between sales and marketing teams.
Build and optimize marketing campaigns
Create campaigns without HTML coding requirements
Grading based on demographic information
Scoring based on behavior & demographic information
Trigger-based scoring and mailing
Integration with Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter via trackable links
Get analytics and reporting for businesses and individuals
Built-in integration with Salesforce & Salesforce IQ
Third-party integrations with WebEx, GoToWebinar, ReadyTalk, EventBrite, Google Adwords, Google Analytics, Wistia, Vidyard, WordPress, SurveyMonkey, SnapApp, Microsoft Outlook, Twilio, Olark
Pricing: From €46 - €2,944 per month
HubSpot's Marketing Hub focuses on inbound marketing (including content and search marketing). A system designed for marketers, HubSpot is perceived as a user-friendly platform and stands out in terms of popularity with marketers. The platform also offers Sales and Service hubs that simplify collaboration between departments.
Capture, manage, score and warm up leads
Manage & A/B test campaigns and assets
Launch email marketing and paid advertising campaigns
Deliver a personalized website experience with Hubspot CMS
Publish and monitor social media content with Social Inbox
Track channel performance, conversion assistance, time to completion and reverse funnel analysis
Integrations with third parties
Salesforce AppExchange partner
Integrate the solution with Zoom, Shopify, Slack, Stripe, YouTube, Workplace by Facebook, Vidyard, Wistia, Zendesk, SlideShare and GoToWebinar
Pricing: From 499 SEK per user per month
Upsales is a suitable platform for smaller companies looking for an integrated Marketing Automation & CRM solution in a slightly lower price range. Upsales offers a strong CRM that is built to create a simplicity that makes the platform popular with salespeople. The Marketing Automation module offers a range of features and is strong on Account based advertising.
Score and assign leads
Target communication based on customer journey status
Built-in event module
Identify companies that are anonymous website visitors with reverse IP search
Sales and marketing dashboard that gives a good overview
Bisnode integration that enriches data
Swedish/local support at no cost
Third-party integrations with 3växel, Bisnode, Fortnox, Gmail, Getaccept, Goava, Harvest, Oneflow, Slack, Tölve, Trello, Visma, Zendesk, etc.
Pricing: Marketo doesn't offer official pricing online, you're encouraged to contact sales. According to other sources like this one, prices start at $895 per month for 10,000 contacts/records.
Marketo Engage is similar to HubSpot in that it started by focusing on supporting lead generation through online marketing activities. It's widely used by mid-sized businesses and packages lead management, email marketing, and marketing automation tools. Marketo is a very powerful system but is more difficult to use, resulting in slightly lower user satisfaction, among the mid-range of G2's list of best Marketing Automation software. But if you work in a larger company that operates in many different markets, need to use advanced dynamic communication or are already in the Adobe ecosystem, Marketo Engage is a natural choice to at least evaluate. Marketo also fits both B2B and B2C segments and can be a good option for companies that work towards both segments.
Track customer interactions across touchpoints
Automate conversations based on demographic, firmographic and behavioral information
Create emails and landing pages with automated A/B testing, progressive profiling and social login
Identify, target and measure accounts (companies) with the highest potential for revenue
Provide content recommendations to customers on web, mobile and email
Features that enable advanced dynamic content
Prioritize leads based on behavioral intelligence
Target ads on Facebook, Google and LinkedIn
Built-in integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365, Salesforce and SAP C4C
Pricing: from $399 per month for 1000 contacts
SharpSpring is an integrated CRM and Marketing Automation system, or as they themselves call it a "Revenue growth platform". The platform covers some of the most commonly needed marketing and sales tools such as email, landing pages and blogs, forms, social media, CRM, bots, appointments, and analytics. Like its modern counterparts, it's also built for easy integration with other tools and platforms.
Engage leads using flexible triggers and logic
Create dynamic content with drag-and-drop templates and WYSIWYG editors
Track lead behavior on multiple devices
Identify anonymous website visitors with reverse IP lookup
Schedule posts and create social listening feeds for Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter
Measure campaign ROI and track marketing or sales performance
Get detailed information on how emails, forms and workflows are performing
Built-in integration with Salesforce, Google AdWords, WebEx, GoToWebinar, ShutterStock
Pricing: $30-$323 per month
ActiveCampaign calls itself "the #1 automation platform", and for B2B specifically, it focuses on the automation of marketing and sales activities; scoring leads, creating business opportunities, assigning a deal/tasks to sales reps, and automating important internal messaging within the team. The platform offers marketing features such as newsletters, landing pages, etc. In G2's list of best Marketing Automation systems, Active Campaign is ranked second by users after HubSpot.
Nurture, score, and segment leads with point-and-click lead management software
Deliver responsive emails and landing pages with a drag-and-drop user interface
Warm up and measure daily social media activities
Get real-time insights on customer engagement
Visualize and export data to business intelligence tools
Track visitors' time on site, pages viewed, top referral sites, emails, webinars, landing page visits and forms completed
Built-in integrations with Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, SugarCRM, Oracle NetSuite and Infor
Pricing: from $900 for 2500 contacts
Act-on is designed to deliver customizable, scalable, and evolving Marketing Automation for marketers and teams of all sizes, industries, and growth projections. Act-on therefore suits both B2B and B2C companies. The system gets good ratings for lead scoring and lead segmentation. However, CRM integration is an area where Act-On has some weaknesses compared to its competitors. Unlike solutions like SharpSpring and HubSpot, it doesn't provide any built-in CRM.
Powerful tool for creating dynamic segmentation lists based on prospect criteria such as job title, lead score, engagement, etc.
A new and improved flow builder for mailing, nurturing, etc.
Good basic analytical and social listening software, as well as advanced add-ons like Data Studio.
Ability to include social posts as part of campaigns
Event function
Drag and drop and WYSIWYG email builder
Pricing: from $1,500 per tenant/month ($750/month if already using Dynamics 365)
Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing offers automation and other digital marketing tools that complement the Dynamics 365 platform's integrated CRM, ERP, and business intelligence services. The platform provides Marketing Automation features such as lead scoring and customizable email templates, and allows you to create personalized customer journeys. The Core Marketing module covers a comprehensive customer profile, email management, forms, landing pages, customer segmentation, customer journeys, lead management, and marketing analytics. The system can be a good alternative if you already use the Dynamics 365 platform as ERP and/or CRM. However, there are not many cases for using the system in Sweden today, and expertise in the system in the market is somewhat limited, which means that many companies want to wait and follow the development before making a decision.
365 customer view as the Marketing module is integrated with other solutions within Dynamics 365.
Visualized customer journey planner (from the first contact a lead has with the company all the way through to purchase)
Fully customized emails and landing pages
Dynamics has an event module to handle everything from initial planning to evaluating and analyzing results, even managing speakers, sponsorship and accommodation.
Comprehensive survey app called Voice of the Customer (VOC) to design and publish online surveys that can be integrated with events, emails and customer journeys
Here are some other systems that might be of interest to those working in B2B:
Eloqua
Agillic
Zoho
IBM Watson Campaign Automation
It's not an easy task to evaluate which tool can best facilitate your daily work and create added value for your business.
In this complex landscape, it's more important than ever to make informed decisions about new technologies, and Marketing Automation is no exception.
It is therefore important to start with your organization's current situation, needs and level of ambition. Different systems suit different types of organizations, have different needs for technical expertise and require different levels of external support, e.g. from the supplier or consultants. We have produced a guide to choosing Marketing Automation which you can download here. If you want help with procurement and want to hear how we at Leadfront help our customers with the choice of Marketing Automation, you can contact us here.