The Top Marketing Automation Tools

Marketing automation is more than just a buzzword – it is a proven way to increase revenue and conversions. By automating your marketing, you can better find and target qualified leads, while decreasing time and effort overall.

If you are ready to add automation software to your company arsenal, I have you covered. There are many tools out there to help, but I have put together a list of the top 20 options (sorted by category) to get you started:

Landing Pages and Lead Capture Forms

Unbounce
If code is not your strong point, this is the program for you. Unbounce helps you build landing pages on your site without a background as a developer. Along with building and publishing landing pages, you can also use Unbounce to handle A/B testing.

Ion Interactive
An alternative to Unbounce. Ion Interactive helps you create beautiful landing pages that are also very effective – with some converting at over 50 percent. This program features testing and analytics tools.

Wishpond
The final option, Wishpond offers a variety of pre-built templates for your landing page needs. This program also features a form builder to easily add lead capture forms to your new landing pages.

Blog/Content Management

WordPress
A personal favorite, WordPress has an active user community of bloggers and business owners and large amount of plug-ins available. You can use WordPress to turn your website into a full-scale publishing platform, and be sure of technical support the whole way.

Drupal
Drupal is an open-source CMS which can be used to create anything from blogs to enterprise applications. With an active and supportive user base, Drupal is used for the back end by some of the most popular sites.

Joomla
This is an extremely powerful and flexible management system. Joomla also offers a wide variety of modifications to help turn your site into anything you desire, as well as an active and supportive community base to help answer any questions you might have.

Contact Management and Lead Nurturing

SalesForce
SalesForce, the biggest name in contact management, could be yours for as little as $5 a month, per user. This platform is ideal for tracking sales opportunities, monitoring the social media content of contacts, and innumerable other extensions that automate common tasks.

Eloqua
Eloqua allows you to rank the leads generated by your sales team and website according to buying interest, improving conversion rates by allowing you to follow up on the most promising possibilities.

Nimble
The best tool for tracking interactions with current customers. Nimble provides a view of all your interactions with a contact, past and present. All you need is a name and email address to complete a contact record automatically. It also integrates with a variety of other apps.

Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM is a wonderful choice for the small business owner or freelancer, as it free version (for up to three users) comes stocked with a variety of tools. Similar to SalesForce in organization, it is an excellent low-cost choice for contact storage.

Social Media Updates and Supervising

HootSuite
If you use more than one social media platform, HootSuite is the perfect tool. You can easily view feeds from all your social media sources, schedule future posts, and even manage multiple accounts on the same social media platform.

SocialMention
Best for keeping an eye on social media for mentions of your company, what your competitors are up to, and what is happening in your field in general.

Scoop.it
Scoop.it is a curation platform that helps put together content for your social media posts. You can use it to find content, customize for your business needs, and publish to multiple social media platforms with one click.

Sprout Social
Sprout Social helps you manage multiple accounts and respond to public interactions from a single source. It provides analytics, collaboration tools, and helps keep your whole team on the same page.

Email Blasts

Aweber
Aweber makes it easy to send targeted email blasts and automated messages to your business leads. Easily import existing contacts, and sign new ones up with built-in form builder.

MailChimp
MailChimp is a favorite among small businesses, and similar to Aweber. Includes automation features, manual email blasts, and basic analyst program.

All-in-One

Marketo
For the truly serious marketing automators. With several plans available depending on price point, Marketo offers everything.

Hubspot
An excellent program offering all-around marketing automation tool, with integrated management systems to help you run everything you need from a single source. Includes a strong analytics system.

ThriveHive
If you need additional guidance, this program is for you. A single-platform system that lets you run all your marketing efforts and website, ThriveHive also offers additional subscription levels that include marketing coaching and outsourcing of paid campaigns.

InfusionSoft
Another robust marketing platform that helps simplify your marketing day. Includes all the tools needed for a variety of capabilities, from managing and building automated email campaigns to managing an online storefront.