Hey, you’re here! That must mean you are interested in comparing some marketing automation platforms. When you Google “marketing automation” there are 300 million results (as of February 2020) so it can definitely be overwhelming to sift through information to find what you need. That’s why I wanted to share my no B.S. thoughts on different marketing automation platforms.

Why am I qualified to give you my opinion on these tools? Well for one, I have used a lot of them. And adding my team members experiences, we’ve gotten more experience than the average marketer with marketing automation platforms - about 28 combined years of using tools like these every workday. Let’s get down to the nitty gritty.

Mailchimp

Price: $

Probably the first thing you think of as a start up if you want to send emails (this was our go-to when we started a newsletter). Mailchimp is really good at sending emails, and it’s easy for the average person to do it with little to no training.

If you’re looking for something more complex that will grow with your company, Mailchimp probably isn’t going to cut it. It doesn’t allow for all the data processing that you’re going to need to manage marketing campaigns.

Mailchimp has recently redesigned things so campaigns revolve around lists, which isn’t very intuitive, and can make it difficult to send the same email to multiple segments.

An area where Mailchimp exceeds other platforms is it’s HTML email editor. It is very easy to make a pretty, templated email with no HTML coding experience.

The bottom line: it sends emails.

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ActiveCampaign

Price: $$

I would put this one notch up from Mailchimp but a notch down from Hubspot. We use this at CS2 because we want to grow our audience for content we are producing, and it allows us to create lists and forms, and get nosy about who exactly is filling out forms (something that was a little more challenging with MailChimp).

It also has some great integration abilities - we integrate it with our website on Squarespace, as well as Wistia. If you’re a smaller B2B tech company with straightforward lists, this might work for you, but you will mostly likely need something a little more powerful as campaign complexity increases.

They have just raised $100 million in capital, so we expect them to do big things.

The bottom line: it’s a great option for the price, but you may miss the more advanced features of other MAPs.

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Hubspot

Price: $$$

Hubspot almost makes me feel like I am playing a game, because of it’s sleek user interface and the little animations that pop up when you’re doing things. It all feels very intuitive.

For basic workflows and email sends, it’s pretty nice. But what bugs me is how when you start creating more stuff, it all just seems to pile up and is not organized. This is only going to work for you if you have a process in place to organize things, because if you don’t it will be impossible to find things later.

I do really like its visual workflow builder, because it lays everything out on a map, which makes it easy to understand.

I’d recommend this if you have a fairly simple marketing  process, and want your team to be able to use something with little training required.

The bottom line: it’s a pretty face with average intelligence.

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Pardot

Price: $$$

This is similar to Hubspot, where it’s pretty but not as powerful as other options.

Since it’s a Salesforce product you’d think the integration would be seamless, but the Marketo/SFDC integration is actually better than this one.

There’s not a ton of flexibility, but that’s not always a bad thing. It’s relatively easy to pick up and understand the basics of the system.

The price is not bad for what you get, especially if you’re already a Salesforce customer.

The bottom line: It gets things done, but Marketo users may find it very limiting.

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Eloqua

Price: $$$$

Some people have lovingly referred to this as Helloqua because it looks and feels ancient.

Eloqua is apparently pretty powerful (I have never had issues with it being slow), but it’s not intuitive at all. You have to set up things in 3 different places just to send 1 email.  

Syncing to SFDC is a 5-step process. I really don’t know why people still use this.

It’s hard to find good consultants who work within Eloqua, and Eloqua’s support itself is not the best.

The bottom line: it’s your grandma’s marketing tech if your grandma knew how to do marketing tech.

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Marketo

Price: $$$$

Marketo is my favorite out of the group, because of its flexibility, but it can be painfully slow and isn’t the most intuitive interface in the world. It’s pretty much the only platform where I feel like you can organize everything really well, since everything goes into programs.

You can also easily turn those programs into templates that can be cloned, which helps with consistency.

With Marketo, if you can dream it, you can do it (for the most part). We’ve seen things set up in Marketo a million different ways, from the straightforward and simple down to the almost comically complex. It can get to be a beast if you don’t manage it properly, but in the right hands it’s probably your best bet for B2B marketing.

It’s expensive, but you likely will not outgrow it. The integration with Salesforce is the best amongst alternatives, but still not perfect.

If you need Marketo support, it’s easy to find consultants who specialize in Marketo. We have high hopes that with the recent Adobe acquisition, Marketo’s flaws will be improved.

The bottom line: Marketo, you’re slow and aging, but I still love you.

I hope this honest comparison is helpful for getting that “behind-the-scenes” information you may not be able to find in your standard technology reviews. We would love to hear your thoughts on which vendor you prefer as well, so feel free to comment here or tweet us @fwd_thoughts.