Most marketing automation platforms are each designed so that marketing, sales and customer service activities can be meaningfully linked. This can bring departments closer together and create synergies where "silo thinking" previously dominated. The improved connectivity and more efficient exchange between departments in turn leads to relevant customer experiences at various touchpoints and thus to a customer journey that, in the spirit of inbound marketing, builds long-term loyalty and turns customers into brand ambassadors.

Want to learn more about the benefits of marketing automation?

In our insight "Benefits of Marketing Automation", we explain what marketing automation means – and how you need to proceed so that you can later work in a resource-efficient and effective way.

All about Marketing Automation

Is Salesforce Pardot/MCAE, HubSpot Marketing Hub™, Evalanche, Adobe Marketo Engage or ActiveCampaign the right choice for your B2B company? We've compared the tools for you and summed up the benefits for B2B companies.

The browser-based cloud solution from HubSpot includes various tools such as the Marketing Hub™ and the Sales Hub™, which let you create, manage and track campaigns and customer interactions. The tool also offers a wide range of functions, including lead generation and lead scoring, segmentation, social media marketing and more.

Hubspot Marketing Hub™ convinces with following advantages: 

1. Ease of use: HubSpot Marketing Hub™ is an easy-to-use marketing automation solution, even for inexperienced users. The focus is on quick implementation – you can be up and running within minutes.

2. Features: HubSpot Marketing Hub™ delivers diverse marketing automation solutions, offering features such as contact management, pipeline management, live chat, meeting scheduling and prospect tracking. In addition, over 1,000 applications can be integrated.

3. Value for money: Hubspot's basic features are free to use. For an extended feature set, though, you should expect additional costs.

4. Assistance and support: when problems arise, Hubspot offers fast help via customer service or the Hubspot Community. Hubspot also provides extensive free training through Hubspot Academy.

Evalanche is a German marketing automation software, ideally tailored to the needs of marketing departments at mid-sized and larger B2B companies and agencies.

Evalanche stands out with the following benefits:

1. Professionalism made in Germany: Evalanche has won multiple awards and, among other things, is certified to ISO 27001 by TÜV.

2. GDPR compliance: a major advantage of Evalanche is its outstanding security architecture and its guarantee of high data protection standards. The system servers and data processing are based in Germany.

3. International scalability: Evalanche was developed for companies operating worldwide: all common languages and character encodings can be used in Evalanche. Thanks to multi-tenancy capability, you can create as many accounts as you like for different departments or branches under a single company account.

4. German support: when problems arise, Evalanche shines with fast, competent help. For companies whose communication is primarily in German, German-language support can be especially valuable.

Marketo Engage from Adobe helps you automate lead management, email marketing, existing-customer marketing and mobile marketing. Social media activities can also be integrated into Marketo via third-party providers.

Due to the large functional scope, the software can become noticeably slower when executing certain processes and comes with a long onboarding process.  

Adobe Marketo Engage offers these advantages: 

1. Features: the tool brings numerous features for automating email marketing, lead generation and lead nurturing.

2. Integration into the existing IT landscape: Marketo Engage integrates easily with Salesforce CRM and numerous apps.

3. Scalability: Marketo Engage was built for growth-oriented mid-sized to large companies with globally distributed teams.

ActiveCampaign is a US-based provider, particularly well-suited for smaller and mid-sized companies. ActiveCampaign combines email marketing and marketing automation with CRM elements.

The tool offers the following benefits: 

1. Affordable entry price: ActiveCampaign offers many core features at a relatively low price. However, for more contacts, more complex automations and further features, such as the CRM function, you must expect higher costs.

2. Integration capability: ActiveCampaign can be connected to over 850 applications, including Salesforce, WordPress, Shopify, PayPal, Stripe, Gmail, Calendly, Slack and Facebook.

3. Tracking: with ActiveCampaign you get access to detailed interest-tracking features and precise marketing options through segmentation.

⇒ Small B2B companies with no budget or only a small budget and access to only limited technical resources may get on best with HubSpot Marketing Hub™. That's because HubSpot CRM and Marketing Hub™ offer free basic versions and excellent usability for core functions.

⇒ For medium and larger B2B companies with a higher need for customisation and more IT resources in-house, we recommend Salesforce Pardot/MCAE or Evalanche. Pardot/MCAE offers particularly powerful features and a comprehensive platform for managing campaigns and customer interactions across the entire customer journey. Evalanche stands out especially on data protection aspects.

According to Forbes, Pardot/MCAE will also be the right tool for you if you're looking for a “complex marketing automation tool that helps you plan sophisticated customer journey workflows” (Forbes, 2023). And: if you already use Salesforce CRM, Pardot/MCAE is, according to Forbes, the right choice.

Bring strategy, content and technology together!

Create synergies by connecting different task areas, teams and perspectives – and help everyone involved pull together towards an outstanding customer experience.

Choosing the right marketing automation solution is an important step – but lasting effective marketing automation needs, besides the technological foundation, capable people who drive forward the automation project, bring together different departments and sensibly evaluate the vast amounts of data with company goals in mind.

Want to know what your automation solution could look like?

We support you holistically – from strategic consulting through content creation to technical implementation. For results that pay visibly and sustainably into your company's success. We'd be glad to take a look at your individual case together – simply arrange a free consultation by email or give me a call!