The 10 Best Marketing Automation Tools For Startups

Manually executing a digital marketing campaign can be time-consuming, especially for startups that are already working with a shoe-string budget and a small team. 

You can accomplish a lot by investing in a marketing automation platform, especially if you don't have a dedicated team for marketing.

Marketing automation software automates the process of launching email campaigns, capturing and nurturing leads, and monitoring social media, based on specifications you set. This creates a much better workflow for your team and reduces their need to manually look over every project and campaign. Overall, it helps your team do a better and more effective job when it comes to aligning all your marketing efforts and sales operations. 

We compiled a list of the ten best marketing automation software for startups based on reviews from users just like you.

Software is listed in alphabetical order. Learn how we shortlisted these ten best marketing automation tools at the bottom of this page.

ActiveCampaign is a customer experience automation platform that combines email marketing, marketing automation, and CRM (customer relationship management) for powerful segmentation and personalization across social media, email, and live chat.

The software helps you grow your relationship with your audience with the help of targeted messaging and find your most engaged contacts. You can create multiple versions of the same email marketing campaign to analyze which version performs better. 

You can also use the event tracking feature to analyze your website visitor's behavior and create audience segments based on events you track, such as watching a specific video on your website, clicking CTA buttons, etc. 

ActiveCampaign offers chat, email, and phone support. The software is web-based and has a mobile app for Android and iOS devices.

Contact dashboard in ActiveCampaign (Source)

ClickFunnels is a sales funnel builder and automation platform for small businesses. The software helps you guide your website visitors step-by-step through the entire customer journey. 

With ClickFunnels, you can help your audience navigate through your products and services on your website and follow up later for feedback. The software provides a drag-and-drop webpage editor to create website pages.

You can add CTA buttons and embed sign-up forms to generate leads. Once a visitor signs up, you can send targeted emails designed to help convert them into paying customers. 

ClickFunnels offers chat, phone, and email support. The software is web-based.

Calculating ad earnings in ClickFunnels (Source)

Constant Contact is an email marketing automation solution for small businesses. 

Constant Contact lets you create an email campaign with the help of a drag-and-drop editor. You can either create a custom template from scratch or use a pre-designed email template from the library. 

The software also lets you upload contact lists from third-party tools and segment them based on parameters you set. 

You can track who is opening, clicking, and sharing your emails with the analytics dashboard. Based on the data you receive, you can create more targeted digital marketing campaigns that increase conversion rates. 

Constant Contact offers chat, phone, and email support. The software is web-based and has a mobile app for Android and iOS devices.

Contact management in Constant Contact (Source)

Encharge is an email marketing and sales automation platform that lets you use data from your website to specifically target certain audiences in an email campaign and automate the marketing process across the customer journey.

The software helps you convert, onboard, and retain customers with automated flows. Encharge collects user data from your website, segments users by page views, product behavior, and feature use, and sends automated targeted messages to your audience. 

With the visual flow builder, you can create a customer journey that helps you plan out your sales and marketing strategy. Additionally, Encharge helps with lead scoring and lead management; it can find leads that are a good fit for your products and services by measuring website, email, and product engagement and proactively reaching out to people most likely to convert. 

Encharge offers chat and email support. The software is web-based.

Visual flow builder in Encharge (Source)

HubSpot Marketing Hub is an all-in-one inbound marketing platform that helps track and measure the impact of online marketing activities such as blogging, email, and social media marketing. 

The software can also help you create landing pages to convert website visitors into customers. You can automate scheduled tasks such as sending emails and scheduling meetings with new and existing customers.

HubSpot also helps keep track of ad spend and manages your ad campaigns on third-party social media platforms. You can create custom reports to measure the overall performance of your marketing campaigns.

HubSpot offers chat, email, and phone support. The software is web-based.

Sales pipeline in HubSpot Marketing Hub (Source)

Mailchimp is a marketing automation platform that allows you to create, send, and analyze email and ad campaigns. 

The software offers complete campaign transparency, email tracking, view success, click-through rates, and custom reports. The software also helps you manage subscribers and segment them based on parameters such as interests, geography, and buyer journey stage.

You can create custom templates for your marketing campaigns or choose from a library of pre-designed templates. The software automates campaign emails, follow-ups with customers, and personalized notifications to subscribers. 

Mailchimp offers chat, email, and phone support. The software is web-based and has a mobile app for Android and iOS devices.

Measuring analytics in Mailchimp (Source)

MailerLite is an email marketing software solution that helps create professional and personalized marketing campaigns for small businesses. 

The software helps you connect with your audience by sending targeted messages in email campaigns and as popups on your website. You can also create landing pages and sign-up forms using a drag-and-drop editor. 

MailerLite integrates with third-party applications such as social media, website development, and eCommerce platforms. You can also connect it with external databases to migrate contact lists.

You can improve customer retention with MailerLite. The software integrates with eCommerce platforms, anticipates customer behavior, and sends them perfectly-timed emails to keep them engaged. You can send abandoned cart emails to potential buyers and follow up on a purchase for a review. 

MailerLite offers chat and email support. The software is web-based and has a mobile app for iOS devices.

Popup templates in MailerLite (Source)

Semrush is an online visibility management software solution that helps with keyword research, on-page SEO, competitor analysis, content marketing, and social media management. 

The software helps you target the right keywords for your business to bring more targeted traffic to your website and help you rank better on search engines. Additionally, Semrush also audits your web pages to assess your overall website health and SEO performance. 

You can also manage content strategies and plan out an editorial calendar with your team. With post tracking, every external publication gets measured for performance and engagement. Additionally, automated publishing can help you schedule your posts for later.

Semrush offers chat, email, and phone support. The software is web-based.

Performance analytics in Semrush (Source)

Sendinblue is a marketing solution that helps you build and grow relationships with your customers through email campaigns, transactional emails, and SMS messaging.

The software helps you design targeted email marketing campaigns that you can schedule and send to your audience at the right time. Sendinblue also offers SMS marketing to communicate directly with customers for urgent messages and time-sensitive offers. 

A built-in CRM platform helps you store all your customer data in one place, and you can automate the process of segmenting your audience and sending personalized order confirmation and welcome messages.

You can also schedule ads on social media platforms using Sendinblue, and measure their performance with the help of a built-in analytics dashboard.

Sendinblue offers chat, email, and phone support. The software is web-based and has a mobile app for Android and iOS devices.

Contact management in Sendinblue (Source)

Zoho CRM is an omnichannel customer relationship management and email marketing tool that helps you take control of your marketing operations and build relationships with your customers. 

Zoho CRM helps you reach your customers across every channel, including telephone, email, live chat, and social media. The software gives you real-time notifications whenever customers interact with your business. 

You can keep track of sales calls to measure the effectiveness of your team's communication and find the best time to reach out to your customers. Zoho CRM helps automate every aspect of your business and cut out any time-intensive and repetitive task such as sending welcome emails and moving leads through the sales pipeline.    

The software also provides real-time reports and insights into sales performance and tracks key performance indicators for your business. 

Zoho CRM offers chat, phone, and email support. The software is web-based and has a mobile app for Android and iOS devices.

Built-in analytics in Zoho CRM (Source)

How to choose the right marketing automation software for your startup

Marketing automation can help your startup become more efficient and increase audience engagement. However, you need to make sure the tool you choose will meet your specific business needs. Here are a few considerations to keep in mind when choosing a solution for your business:

• Check whether the tool complies with spam compliance rules: An ideal marketing automation software should stay updated with the latest online consumer protection regulations and sender policy framework (SPF) to be email spam compliant.

• Check its integration capabilities with other tools: You want your marketing automation tool to integrate with whatever platforms or software you already use to ensure seamless data sharing.

• Assess the level of control the software offers for automation: The ideal solution will let you control the level to which you want automation with your marketing flows. For instance, if you wish to schedule meetings yourself, the software should allow it.

Common questions to ask software providers when selecting marketing automation software for your startup:

These are some common questions you can ask software providers before making your final purchase: 

• Can the software manage entire customer lifecycles or only leads or prospects? The software you select should be capable enough to handle entire customer lifecycles to cater to loyal and long-standing customers and improve relationships with them. A tool that only works with singular leads and prospects does half a job.

• How customizable is the software? Your software should help you create custom reports to measure team performance and custom marketing flows for specific audiences.

• Does the software have integration support? No marketing automation tool is complete without integrational capability. The software you select should integrate with third-party applications to migrate data easily.