15 essential software for marketing automation

According to recent studies, marketing automation on average drives up to 14.5% increase in sales productivity and a 12.2% reduction in marketing overhead.

Ayat Shukairy

What marketing areas are worth automating?

In order to properly implement the marketing automation process, you need to realize what marketing areas you want to automate and then choose the appropriate software with specific capabilities.

Hence, the most crucial marketing areas that should be automated are:

• email marketing – using emails as a means of communication by sending commercial messages to the target group in order to increase sales, build a relationship with customers and inspire trust,
• lead nurturing – developing relationships with customers through the whole buyer journey and at every stage of the sales funnel,
• social media marketing – using social media platforms to connect with the audience and promote products or services,
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – increasing the quality and quantity of the website traffic through organic search,
• advertising – delivering promotional messages to the target audience.

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What are the top marketing automation software features?

Email marketing

According to Hubspot, “86% of business professionals prefer to use email when communicating for business purposes”.

Truth be told, email marketing is a highly popular digital marketing tool and there is a large number of email marketing platforms to choose from. Nevertheless, you should check whether the one you select has marketing automation capabilities such as:

• email list segmentation – creating segments and sending relevant messages to each of them,
• mobile optimization – creating visually appealing emails not only for desktops but also for mobiles and tablets,
• dynamic personalization – a possibility of message personalization based on users’ behavior,
• split testing – checking the effectiveness of emails and adopting different strategies, putting different content, or adding elements.

Social media marketing

Since there are around 3,5 billion social media users worldwide, social media marketing is a must-have for every decent digital business these days.

In order to automate your social media actions, you should check whether the software you have selected allows you to:

• set up posts schedule and automatically publish them at a predefined time and day,
• implement social listening – tracking your social media platforms for mentions and conversations related to your brand or business,
• use messaging automation – sending multiple pre-determined messages.

Search Engine Optimization

SEO is an integral part of every stellar marketing strategy. Therefore, you should use appropriate software to know which keywords to use on your website, landing page (created with Landingi) or in advertising in order to reach new clients through organic search.

When choosing the software to perform SEO analysis, you should check whether it provides you with information such as:

• keywords research volume – both primary and secondary,
• related keywords,
• keywords difficulty
• keywords mapping,
• competitors’ websites checking,
• Google Analytics testing,
• meta tags analysis,
• link suggesting.

Usually, SEO tools offer even more features, but the list above is a solid set that you should focus on.

Landing Pages

Having a separate page for a specific goal or product can yield great results, but it's all about the tools and features you use to make sure your work translates into tangible actions. And we're not just talking about WordPress landing pages here. Time is money, and no one likes wasting either of the two. Here is what you should be on the lookout for when finding the right platform.

• A/B Testing
• Integrations
• Landing page templates – the more, the better
• Lead export
• Automated scheduling

These features are key in reducing the amount of workload you need to perform manually. Some of them are more time-saving than others, but all of them are useful. Any decent landing page builder should have at least the features listed above.

Advertising

These days, advertising usually encompasses multiple channels. Nevertheless, once you select the best one for advertising management, you should take into consideration marketing automation features such as:

• customer targeting – re-engaging existing customers in order to drive sales,
• account-based marketing – focusing sales and marketing resources on a clearly defined set of target accounts on the market and implementing highly personalized campaigns to resonate with each of them,
• landing page – once a visitor completes a lead generation form, their information is automatically sent to your email or CRM platform,
• lead database and lead activity.

What are the best examples of marketing automation software?

Since we have already gone through the marketing automation features list, now it’s about time to show you some real-life examples of great software you can find online.

Email marketing automation software

• The most popular email marketing platform is Mailchimp. It’s an affordable option that comes with all the features you need.
• Another economical solution is using Hubspot. It is not solely an email marketing platform, but a high-quality tool with all the necessary capabilities.
• Zoho is also a useful and user-friendly email marketing platform that focuses on delivering personalized messages through segmentation. You can also measure and analyze your performance.

Lead nurturing automation software

• Marketo is a cloud-based tool that assists you in building relationships with customers as well as nurturing them. The tool offers a free trial period so you are able to check it out before you decide whether to purchase the full version or not.
• Act-On is another cloud-based platform that allows you to connect your inbound and outbound leads in order to manage your lead nurturing campaigns.
• Net-results is a multitasking tool assisting you in automating multiple marketing tasks, including lead nurturing. It aims at saving your time while enabling you to nurture your leads and let your revenue grow.

Social media marketing automation software

• Sprout Social is a platform allowing you to easily manage your social media marketing campaigns and improve their performance. There is an option of a free trial period for every plan offered.
• Another social media management platform is Hootsuite. It allows you to easily plan and publish your social media posts and measure their results.
• Smartly is also a high-quality social media platform that enables you to automate your social media marketing campaigns in an easy and effective way.

SEO software

• Ahrefs is said to be one of the top-class SEO tools. It provides you with an accurate and detailed analysis of keywords research and extracts data from the most popular search engines (like Google, Bing, Amazon).
• Keywords Everywhere is another high-quality SEO tool that provides information about keywords search, cost per click, or competitors comparison.
• DataForSEO is also an interesting and powerful SEO tool that provides users with comprehensive SEO data via API.

Advertising automation software

• Pardot is an extremely useful platform that comes with CRM integration, email marketing, lead nurturing, lead scoring, and ROI reporting.
• AdRoll is a useful tool especially for retargeting customers using re-engagement on social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter and the Web what can assist you in improving your marketing efficiency.
• Genoo can also turn out to be beneficial for the success of your marketing campaigns. Using the tool, you can effortlessly create a lead database, landing page designs, lead activity tracking, or perform an SEO analysis.

As you can see, the marketing automation features list that you should take into consideration while selecting the right software for your business is extensive. Luckily, all the software mentioned above is already verified, highly efficient, and can truly automate your marketing actions, steering your efforts to digital marketing success.