Top 18 Digital Marketing Automation Tools by Experts in 2020

The digital marketing concept has become a popular topic to discuss. Online business owners show their high interest in the digital marketing concept to position their website high on the searches. Not only this, but it is also followed by them to catch the eye of consumers. Here are the top 18 digital marketing automation tools by experts in 2020.

The big topic of automation tools on everyone’s mind.

Simultaneously, digital marketing is a vast topic that includes email campaigns, promotion on social media, content development & creation, and several concepts are still adding to reach the target audience.

Reaching your audience.

When you succeed in reaching the majority of the audience, then the next step is to analyze the efforts you have made to accomplish your desired set goals. After all, analyzing the overall performance of your webshop in terms of sales, rankings, reach and conversions, etc. are necessary.

This is the situation when several digital marketing automation tools come into play and give detailed information about sales and marketing activities.

What is digital marketing automation?

Digital marketing automation is those software platforms, specially designed for digital marketers and other marketing departments to promote on multiple channels online and track its performance as well.

Here is a complete list of digital marketing automation tools that can assist you in keeping an eye on your digital marketing efforts.

Marketo

The first tool on our list is Marketo. It is considered the best tool, flooded with few tools, including web personalization, email, and social marketing tools, email marketing tools, etc.

All these tools shape Marketo to give digital marketers a great experience measuring marketing engagement and other related activities. This renowned DMA tool is led by the software giant, Adobe to reshape the experience of a digital marketer.

Marketo also has the incredible potential to cover any digital channel.

Pros

• Easy to Use: This automation tool is easy to use, making it an ideal software platform to pick for DMA. Because every single thing is labeled properly, so you can easily find what you are searching for.
• Other Marketing Features: Yes, Marketo holds several tools that are known for their extensive marketing capabilities. You can rely on those tools to meet every business type’s needs. It declines the requirement for third-party tools to carry out a particular task.
• Salesforce Integration: Marketo very well incorporates the features of sales, making it easier for several organizations to taste success by getting accurate reports.

Cons

• Pricing: When it comes to Marketo’s pricing, then this is a significant point to consider as there are several other automation tools too that can perform similar tasks, even at a low cost. When it was first introduced in 2006, the price of Marketo has increased at a rapid rate.
• Missing CRM Feature: The list of Marketo features does not include the CRM feature (Customer Relationship Management) essential for the DMA. It’s a serious drawback that every marketer should consider.
• Weak Landing Page and Form Builder: Compared to other DMA tools, the landing page and form builder of the Marketo is relatively weak. It doesn’t deliver the desired results.

HubSpot

Our list of DMA tools couldn’t be completed without HubSpot. It’s advanced software that offers you tools for several marketing pursuits. Namely, it assists in landing pages, SMM, shoppers support, SEO, and many more to surprise you.

Although HubSpot reviewed as the “inbound marketing software,” it is also a pre-eminent tool that also comprises the features of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Salesforce.com, SugarCRM, adding more bonus points and giving reasons to choose this tool.

Pros

• Super-Easy to Use: It is designed in such a way that it gives the user a better experience. In short, it is user-friendly. All the technical terms in the tool are well defined in this software tool. You can even learn to use it efficiently with Hubspot Academy.
• Knowledge Hub: Hubspot is a knowledge hub that features a resource library along with several courses, video sessions, training, & more on a single platform. All the information in Hubspot is up to date as well.
• Three-In-One Tool: Hubspot provides you with CRM, marketing, & sales, all under a single roof, which makes this tool exceptional from others. Now you don’t need other tools to carry out the tasks related to all these three segments.
• Excellent Customer Support: When you say yes to the Hubspot, then be ready to serve with the best support and a team of marketing & sales experts to help you out in your matter. With a live chat or sending a text on Twitter or any other social platforms, you could easily connect with the team.

Cons

• On-boarding Fee: Besides the monthly fee of the Hubspot tool, one has to bear the on-boarding fee depending on the packages.
• Configuration Required: Hubspot requires you to configure it to help the business work properly.
• Sometimes, it’s tricky: In some cases, Hubspot is not just easy to use. There is always a need to use it correctly.

Customer.io

When it comes to strengthening the relationship between consumers & businesses, then Customer.io is the right tool for you. This tool has an impressive feature of flexibility, letting you customize the specific mails or text messages to forward it to the shoppers or consumers when it recognizes any customer behaviors. Such ease of customization makes this DMA tool good enough to use for companies who are wandering for a light-weight user interface.

Pros

• Customization in mails: Customer.io provides the ease of customizing the emails that have been sent to consumers. It gives you a massive benefit to the marketer.
• Newsletter builder & their Campaign builder: Yes, Customer.io offers the special tools of newsletter builder and their campaign builder on a single platform. It’s also easy to use.
• Automated Marketing Campaigns: Additionally, it also embraces the features of automated marketing campaigns, helpful at distinct marketing stages.

Cons

• Limited Mails: Customer.io only allows the marketer to send only 50 emails at one time. So, in case of a large customer base, this tool will take time to send mails.
• Missing WYSIWYG Editor: It’s a beneficial editor, especially for your marketing counterparts and event-based filters in your workflows. Its absence can disappoint you a little.

Sendpulse

Next on our list is Sendpulse, which lets you boost your marketing endeavors in both small and mid-size webshops & assist you in achieving the set desired conversions and leads. This tool also grants you to interact with customers via various communication channel tools that include email, chatbots for Facebook and an Instagram, push notifications, and text or SMS.

Pros

• Simple and Easy: Sendpulse tool is simple and easy to use as you are provided with detailed information about its features on the platform.
• Cheap: When it comes to the pricing factor of Sendpulse, it is one of the cheapest autoresponders in the market. Choosing this tool will help you to save more.
• Impressive Features: The tool is loaded with ultimate features, including the AI too.
• Awesome Support: Sendpulse offers the best support, allowing you to interact with other customers via emails, text, SMS, social media platforms, etc.

Cons

• Need more templates: Sendpulse offers a less number of pre-loaded template ideas for designing campaigns. Such minimum numbers of designing templates allow the marketer to think one more time.

SharpSpring

Like Sendpulse, SharpSpring is very popular because of its impressive features, making it the right tool to choose. Because it offers assistive marketing instructions and case studies, and on-the-spot training for digital marketers, so it is also the most chosen tool by the experts. This tool is considered the ideal pick for those companies who want built-in CRM as it incorporates the capability of social CRM too. So, it is undoubtedly the best DMA tool to choose from.

Pros

• Low-Cost: Yes, SharpSpring is a budget-friendly tool. If we say clearly, then its cost is 3-10X less costly than other similar DMA tools.
• Monthly Contracts: SharpSpring offers no long-term contracts or any boarding fees. All you need is a 30 days notice to switch users.
• Perfect for Agencies: SharpSpring is a popularly used by digital agencies. This tool holds the features, including user management, that meet the needs of agencies very well.

Cons

• SharpSpring is not ideal for non-marketers because of its complexity.
• The tool also shows the occasional bugs & slowdowns that ruin the user experience.
• SharpSpring doesn’t hold the advanced features. Hence, marketers have to depend on third-party tools to meet advanced needs.

Pardot

Pardot is a Salesforce product that offers the ease of tracking and measuring the efficacy of the communication with the users and customizes the content across several campaigns.

Such ease makes this B2B tool good enough to choose for DMA. It’s a modern gen technology that makes sure that you’re communicating with the equitable person in the ideal language at the right time.

It’s expensive.

Pros

• Lead Deck: Pardot tool has the lead deck that gives updates on the activity of the prospects. Whenever the candidate visits the page of your website, you will receive an updated push notification on your screen, and then, you can easily send them an email in a few clicks.
• Easy to Customize: Pardot allows you to personalize and customize the tools as per your needs,
• Good Customer Support: Users appreciate Pardot as it provides the best consumer support and practical training.

Cons

• Fewer Integrations: Although Pardot has several tools like CRM and several other third-party apps, it is less than other tools such as Marketo.
• No access to A/B testing and API for General Users: Another major drawback of the Pardot is that it allows only pro users (customers paying $2000 per month for the tool) to access the API. Not only this, but features such as A/B testing is not available for general users. Only pro users can take advantage of it.

Sendinblue

Sendinblue is a digital agency and became a prominent tool that can enhance your marketing relationships.

Sendinblue tool is a communication tech that gives the ease of doing several activities. From email marketing to SMS marketing, CRM to transactional email, Facebook ads to retargeting ads, a lot more on a single platform.

At present, the tool has become an efficient, effective and on-budget tech to use for DMA.

Pros

• Sendinblue offers a numero of SMS campaigns
• There are several free plans that you can use to lead digital marketing automation.
• Responsive design templates are also available.
• The tools also include features like transactional and autoresponder email options.

Cons

• Sendinblue has fewer templates.
• The setting up of accounts on this tool is confusing—the user experience into a little annoying.

Oracle Eloqua

If you are interested in monitoring clients across different levels of the purchasing process, then you should say yes to the Oracle Eloqua, which serves both B2C and B2B marketer needs.

The good thing about this modern tech is that it lets you plan and personalize the automated campaigns. It holds the features of Marketo, too, allowing you customize every walk of the marketing process.

With the assistance of this Oracle Eloqua tool, it’s easy to integrate several emails, landing pages, etc. into a particular campaign with complete ease and accuracy.

Pros

• Visual Campaign Builder: Yes, this tool features a user-friendly visual campaign builder that is ideal to use.
• Integrations: Over 100 third-party platforms are united with this tool of Oracle Eloqua.
• Hyper-Site Builder: Oracle Eloqua gives access to create personalized microsites with the assistance of productive user content. It’s the best feature of Oracle Eloqua.
• Reputation: When it comes to the reputation, then Oracle Eloqua is a popular and powerful DMA tool, highly used by business enterprises.

Cons

• High-Price: Expensive – Yes, it is highly expensive. The starting price of this tool is around $2000/ month, which is not just easy to afford by small online traders or businesses. Not only this, but a marketer also has to sign a long term contract as well.
• Takes Implementation Time: Oracle Eloqua takes a long time in the implementation process. Hence, it makes it a little time consuming, as well.
• Oracle Doesn’t Incorporate Google Adwords: The major drawback of this tool is that it has no incorporation with Google Adwords. It has no feature to track PPC ROI.

ActiveCampaign

Next on our list is the ActiveCampaign tool, which is also known as a “three-in-one” tool, incorporating the features of email marketing, DMA, and small business CRM.

ActiveCampaign also calls your attention to distinct aspects of marketing. Now, tracking out the happenings in your automation has become more comfortable with the assistance of a VMA (visual automation editor.)

Simultaneously, ActiveCampaign has a strict approach or policy to follow on advertising many emails related to the affiliated products. ActiveCampaign is not just limited to tracking the email workflows but also a lot more things to allow your webshop to earn good points in the world of digital marketing.

Pros

• Easy to Afford: ActiveCampaign is an ideal tool for those small businesses that have a tight budget and don’t want to spend much on marketing automation. It only costs $9 / month, that any small or medium-sized business can easily afford with no boarding charges.
• Zapier Integration: ActiveCampaigns is loaded with over 2000+ tools with their Zapier integration. So, with ActiveCampaign, you can take advantage of all those tools with the paid subscription of Zapier.
• Automation split testing: The tool also offers the ease of A/B testing the entire sequences against each other instead of testing the mail individually.

Cons

• CRM: Although the ActiveCampaign tool is considered as a powerful tool to use as it has the in-built CRM system. But at the same time, a CRM system is not as reliable as the standalone platforms. The tool is not used for advanced purposes.
• Reporting: ActiveCampaign is very well-known for providing fair insights on sales and conversion rates. The reporting of this tool is crowded, making it difficult for users to understand and navigate.

Autopilot

Another point on our list is Autopilot, another perfect example of modern advancement, which boosts DMA with its impressive features.

One can easily conclude with the word “autopilot” that the tool is made to automate the consumer experience. Bring this tool in use to different marketing channels, including the most popular one, i.e., email, text, or SMS, in-app communications.

Autopilot tool is loaded with extremely functional features like Activity Streams, Performance Tracking, etc. making it an ideal tool to choose. Talking about its price, then its pricing relies on its plans. Silver plans may cost around $49, and Platinum $249, etc.

Pros

• Autopilot tools allow you to use social media in our digital marketing automation. Several tools usually fail to do this.
• The tool also features the visual customer journey builder that is super easy to use.
• Because Autopilot doesn’t hold unnecessary functions & features, so it’s not heavy software and performs faster than other apps.

Cons

• Undoubtedly, Autopilot is working on several integrations, but still, it misses those advanced features that are important to help you to reach your goal.
• Pricing factors can put you in deep thought to go for this tool or not. Yes, it’s a little high.
• Although it has the impressive feature of email builder, it has its limits in customization.

GreenRope

GreenRope is another DMA tool, a complete CRM tool that holds all the features that businesses always strive to evolve at any cost.

The reason behind such an interest shown by the companies is that it provides you with an array of features that no other tool offers. The dashboard of this tool allows the user to customize the items to add points to the productivity. One can easily customize the color, size, and even icons too.

GreenRope tool grants you to cope with all the automation stuff, like the sales, operations, and marketing, from one dashboard. It is not just limited to this extent. It also displays your performance and provides assistance to come up with the best business decisions.

Pros

• GreenRope is an all-in-one solution that incorporates the features of sales, marketing, and operations.
• It provides the best customer support and several other training, making it an ideal tool to choose from.

Cons

• GreenRope is a complete solution, but simultaneously, it also holds a steep learning curve.

Jumplead

Jumplead is an impressive tool on our list that is perfect in serving you with the top automation results. It meets the requirement of small, intermediate businesses and B2Bs as well.

The key feature of LiveChat makes this tool pretty popular among digital marketers, which lets you interact with webshop visitors and resolve their queries or answer their questions. Besides this LiveChat feature, it also has contact management functionality.

This is a superb feature that helps you to manage the contact profiles. All these tasks can be easily accomplished by collecting the updated data from analytical tools, etc. Its pricing differs as per their plans. If we say clearly, it is $49 for Solo, $99 for Starter, and $299 for Enterprise.

Pros

• Jumplead is an affordable DMA tool with no long term contracts or commitments. You simply have to pay every month.
• The tool doesn’t hold the crowded reports and unnecessary functions to confuse you. So you can conclude that it is easy to use.
• Jumplead is considered an all-in-one solution that includes marketing automation, CRM, and live chat.

Cons

• One of the drawbacks of the Jumplead is that it offers limited flexibility in the contact management dashboard. It’s challenging to modify contacts.
• It doesn’t hold the daisy chain automation sequences.

Drip

For B2C companies, Drip is the ideal tool as it gives the ease to send data to customers at particular intervals. Drip is loaded with the latest features that allow the user to build set off onboard campaigns that rely on the actions taken in the dashboard of the consumers.

Drip encompasses email marketing and other automation features, making it an ideal choice for B2C organizations or businesses.

From automation workflows to email builders, the tools hold everything a business requires to meet the DMA needs.

Pros

• It offers the best customer support.
• The tool features a powerful visual automation builder.
• Integration with Zapier.
• Drip tools can also work together with several third-party software when the need arises.
• It’s a simple, easy-to-use, and affordable solution that provides the marketer with several automation services.

Cons

• Improper functioning of the form builder.
• Limited template library.
• Occasional bugs and slowdown affect the performance of this tool, and automation started failing.
• Restricted split-testing ability
• Limited template library

Ontraport

Looking for a tool that holds the features of DMA and business solutions for all small-sized businesses, solopreneurs, and entrepreneurs? Then you should choose the Ontraport tool, comprises email marketing solutions, lead scoring, and a lot more to abet you in your business marketing.

The additional benefit of choosing the Ontraport tool is that it propounds the e-commerce facets, including cart abandonment, automatic credit card payment collection.

Pros

• Pricing: One of the best pros of Ontraport is its pricing, which does not put a load on your budget. The affordability of their service makes this tool the best one to choose for automation.
• Unified System: Ontraport acts as the engine behind the overall working of your marketing campaigns and integrating the emails and a lot more with the CRM system so that you can achieve the targeted goals (or leads) and increase the conversion rate.
• Custom Objects: The term custom objects allow you to create a relationship between different databases. Ontraport tools can build custom objects that are only available in Salesforce, Marketo, and other enterprise systems.
• E-Commerce Features: From automatic credit card payment collections to card abandonment, credit card expiration to adding upsells ability, Ontraport is known for several e-commerce features.

Cons

• Dashboard User Interface: With the Ontraport tool, you can easily create any metric virtually. But at the same time, it’s dashboard doesn’t include any graphs or charts, making it less appealing and ruins the user experience.

Exponea

Here’s another tool on our DMA tool list, namely Exponea, which is undoubtedly the best tool that amalgamates the consumer data from different sources, including online and offline sources. The whole data is consolidated in a customer data platform, which further assists the other tools in marketing campaigns, customer analytics, etc.

Pros

• Exponea is easy to understand, as well as provides accurate reporting in real-time.
• The tool is loaded with many features allowing you to compare distributions, how they convert, and result in conversion and to know which one will receive the most activity.
• Exponea is a modern approach that is always ready to assist you at any time.
• It also helps in improving the analytics approach and order numbers of online stores.

Cons

• Exponea is a little complicated for a beginner who doesn’t know its working.
• The tool lacks the essential feature of API, which helps to access the data inside the Exponea from other systems.

LeadSquared

Another cloud-based CRM tool, also designed for DMA, is LeadSquared. With the word “LeadSquared,” one could develop its features for which it is known for. It moves the leads via the funnel faster.

Capturing the leads via different communication tools like inbound mails, chat, website, etc. has become easier by using this LeadSquared tool. Along with this, LeadSquared is also very well-known for offering analytics tools and many more, like LiveChat, GoToWebinar, Zopim, etc. on a single platform.

Pros

• Simple & easy to use tool for many solutions.
• It offers multiple data points to trigger autoresponders.
• Fantastic customer support is always ready to make the user experience a great one.

Cons

• There are no limits mentioned for email and landing pages on their pricing page.
• LeadSquared offers limited services of customization and flexibility for advanced users.

SalesFusion

When it comes to finding a tool that comprises the flexible set of features that would assist in campaigning and more, choose SalesFusion.

The tool is readily available on a standalone basis. Not only this, but several other aspects of marketing also correlate to it, offering more ease to the marketers for better business performance. Some of them are media planning tools, marketing analytics, etc. SalesFusion has everything to meet the digital marketer needs.

Pros

• The email builder in SalesFusion is relatively easy to use.
• The pricing structure in this tool is based on contacts.

Cons

• The tool doesn’t allow you to use dynamic fields in text. Only email builders are permitted.
• The major drawback of SalesFusion is its limited reporting, which makes it difficult for the user to track link clicks or downloads unless.

Omnisend

Last on our list is the Omnisend tool, which offers several benefits like pre-created workflows of DMA and tools to capture the consumer data.

E-commerce businesses can boost up their marketing with tailored messaging. In simple words, it allows you to send a personalized message to the ideal person at the right time.

For consumers, it helps to provide them with a better shopping experience as well. On the other hand, for marketers, the main motto of this tech tool is to create a promotional noise.

Pros

• With the assistance of the Omnisend tool, template/Email creation becomes easy.
• Follow-up campaigns are easy and effective.
• The overall set up of triggered email/automation also turns out easy and effective with the Omnisend tool.
• It carries out effective reporting.

Cons

• Initial set-up is not just easy.
• There are a fewer number of sample templates and campaigns.

Final Words

Now you possess a complete bucket list of tools for DMA. Good marketing drives you to better outcomes, like good ranking, better reach, and more consumer-engagement. But sometimes, the tricks or tips of digital marketing don’t work effectively.

Hence, you require proper tools to direct your efforts in the best direction to increase the company’s success. Bring the tools into your digital marketing. It will push your business to the path of success.