In the Market for Marketing Automation Software? Here’s How 7 Leading Tools Compare

Tom and Jerry. Teenagers and their parents. Jan and Marsha Brady. Of all the love-hate relationships out there, the one between marketers and their marketing automation platform is a classic—at least in the world of software.

While building and managing campaigns through these (often complex) platforms can be difficult and time consuming, these tools are also the bedrock of most marketing campaign activity. In a recent TrustRadius survey, 70% of marketers said that Marketing Automation software was very essential to achieving their marketing goals.

Most marketers would probably have a panic attack at the thought of trying to orchestrate a campaign without their marketing software. So it’s important to make sure your company invests in a Marketing Automation platform that is the best fit for your business. However, finding the right one isn’t always easy, especially when there are over 120 products to choose from.

Some important questions to ask that can help narrow down your list of products are:

• What type of marketing-channel access do different platforms provide?
• Which platforms are the best fit for your contact database, or list size?
• Which products are within your price range?
• Does the product allow you to achieve the degree of personalization you need?  
• Which vendors offer high quality pre-sale AND post-sale support?
• What type of learning & training resources does the vendor offer?

Wish there was a place you could go to get the skinny on some of the most used marketing software and compare things like features and ‘great-fit-for’ across products? Well then look no further, we have you covered. In order to help software buyers and marketers find the right Marketing Automation software for them, we’ve created a free Buyer’s Guide to Marketing Automation Software.

What’s in the Guide?

The guide gives a spotlight to 7 of the most used Marketing Automation platforms on TrustRadius, and provides buyers with an at-a-glance view of each product that includes:

• user demographics (e.g. company size, list size)
• most commonly mentioned pros and cons
• direct feedback from product reviewers
• candid feedback from marketers about how they feel about their Marketing Automation software

Curious to see which products made the cut? Here’s the list of the Marketing Automation products featured in the guide:

• Adobe Campaign  
• Oracle Eloqua
• Marketo
• Pardot
• Act-On
• HubSpot
• SharpSpring

The guide also includes a set of handy comparison charts and graphs that display things like reviewer marketing orientation (B2B vs. B2C), list size, and feature scores across products.

Here’s a sneak peek of some of the insights you can find in the guide:

Download the guide to find more metrics to compare across products and find the software that fits your company best!

Looking for some tips from first-hand software users to help with your software evaluation? Along with 7 individual product profiles, this guide includes feedback from marketers about what they love about their Marketing Automation software and what they’re currently struggling with.

Where to find more Marketing Automation resources

Looking for more resources to use in your product research? Our Marketing Automation software buyer’s guide is a great place to find more information about a specific product, compare products head-to-head, and hear what your fellow marketing professionals have to say about each of these products.

But it’s not the only resource out there. (And our research shows the average buyer consults 5.2 different sources of information during their software purchase process!)

Reading through product reviews can help provide a fuller picture of customer experience with the product. Reviews can also help you find first-hand experiences and advice from marketers who are working with a similar list size, work in the same industry, or are focused specifically on the B2B or B2C market. You can find more products and product reviews at TrustRadius.com.

Engaging with the vendor through their website, product demos, customer referrals, or sales reps can be another great source of product-specific information. And if you consult reviews first, you’ll be ready to read between the lines and ask the hard questions up front.

Got a tip for your peers based on your own experience with Marketing Automation software, or want to write a review of Marketing Automation platform you helped purchase? We’d love to hear from you!