8 most used B2B Marketing Automation systems for 2022

1. Salesforce Account engagement (Pardot)

Pricing: from $1,250 - $15,000 per month

Salesforce Account engagement (Pardot) is a Marketing Automation system tailored to the needs of B2B marketers, supporting features such as scoring, lead assignment, B2B analytics, and account-based marketing. Account engagement (Pardot) is now an integral part of the Salesforce platform for effective collaboration between sales and marketing teams.

Key features

• Build and optimize marketing campaigns
• Create campaigns without HTML coding requirements
• Grading based on demographic information
• Scoring based on behavioural & demographic information
• Trigger-based scoring and dispatch
• Integration with Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter via trackable links
• Get analytics and reporting for businesses and individuals
• Built-in integration with Salesforce & Salesforce IQ
• Third-party integrations with WebEx, GoToWebinar, ReadyTalk, EventBrite, Google Adwords, Google Analytics, Wistia, Vidyard, WordPress, SurveyMonkey, SnapApp, Microsoft Outlook, Twilio, Olark
  

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2. HubSpot

Pricing: from €46 - €2,944 per month

HubSpots Marketing Hub focuses on inbound marketing (including content and search marketing). HubSpot is a system designed for marketers and is perceived as a user-friendly platform and stands out in terms of popularity with marketers. The platform also offers Sales and Service hubs that facilitate collaboration between departments.

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Key features

• Capture, manage, score and warm up leads
• Manage & A/B test campaigns and assets
• Start email marketing and paid advertising campaigns
• Deliver a personalised website experience with Hubspot CMS
• Publish and monitor social media content with Social Inbox
• Track channel performance, conversion assistance, time to completion and reverse funnel analysis
• Integrations with third parties
• Salesforce AppExchange Partner
• Integrate with Zoom, Shopify, Slack, Stripe, YouTube, Workplace by Facebook, Vidyard, Wistia, Zendesk, SlideShare and GoToWebinar

3. Upsales

Pricing: from 499 sek per user per month

Upsales is a suitable platform for smaller companies looking for an integrated Marketing Automation & CRM solution in a slightly lower price range. Upsales offers a strong CRM built for simplicity that makes the platform popular with salespeople. The Marketing Automation module offers a range of features and is strong on Account based advertising amongst other things. 

Key features

• Scoring and assigning leads
• Target communication based on customer journey status 
• Built-in event module
• Identify companies that are anonymous website visitors with reverse IP search
• Sales and marketing board that gives a good overview 
• Bisnode integration that enriches data
• English/local support free of charge
• Third-party integrations with 3växel, Bisnode, Fortnox, Gmail, Getaccept, Goava, Harvest, Oneflow, Slack, Tölve, Trello, Visma, Zendesk, etc.

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4. Adobe Marketo Engage

Pricing: Marketo does not offer official prices online, you are encouraged to contact the sales department. According to other sources like this one, prices start at $895 per month for 10,000 contacts/posts.

Marketo Engage is similar to HubSpot in that it began by focusing on supporting the generation of leads through online marketing activities. It is often used by mid-sized companies and packages tools for lead management, email marketing and marketing automation. Marketo is a very powerful system but is more difficult to use, resulting in slightly lower user satisfaction, among the middle of the pack in G2's list of best software for Marketing Automation. But if you work in a larger company that operates in many different markets, need to use advanced dynamic communications, or are already in the Adobe ecosystem, Marketo Engage is a natural choice to at least evaluate. Marketo also fits both the B2B and B2C segments and can be a good option for companies working towards both segments.

Key features

• Track customer interactions across touch points
• Automate conversations based on demographic, firmographic and behavioural information
• Create emails and landing pages with automated A/B testing, progressive profiling and social login
• Identify, target and measure accounts (companies) with the highest potential for revenue
• Provide content recommendations to customers on the web, mobile and email
• Features that enable advanced dynamic content
• Prioritise leads based on behavioural intelligence
• Target ads on Facebook, Google and LinkedIn
• Built-in integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365, Salesforce and SAP C4C.

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5. SharpSpring

Pricing: from $399 per month for 1000 contacts

SharpSpring is an integrated CRM and Marketing Automation system, or as they themselves call it a "Revenue growth platform". The platform covers some of the most common necessary marketing and sales tools such as email, landing pages and blogs, forms, social media, CRM, bots, meetings and analytics. Like its modern counterparts, it is also built for easy integration with other tools and platforms.

Key features

• Engage leads using flexible triggers and logic
• Create dynamic content with drag-and-drop templates and WYSIWYG editors
• Track leader behavior on multiple devices
• Identify anonymous website visitors with reverse IP lookup
• Schedule posts and create social listening feeds for Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter
• Measure campaign return on investment (ROI) and track marketing or sales results
• Get detailed information on how emails, forms and workflows work
• Built-in integration with Salesforce, Google AdWords, WebEx, GoToWebinar, ShutterStock

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6. ActiveCampaign

Pricing: $30-$323 per month

ActiveCampaign calls itself "the #1 automation platform", and for B2B specifically they focus on the automation of marketing and sales activities; scoring leads, creating opportunities, assigning a deal/task to sales reps and automating key internal communications within the team. The platform offers marketing features such as newsletters, landing pages etc. In G2's list of best Marketing Automation systems, Active Campaign is ranked number two by users after HubSpot.

Key features

• Nurture, score and segment prospects with point-and-click lead management software
• Deliver responsive emails and landing pages with a drag-and-drop user interface
• Warm up and measure daily social media activity
• Get real-time insights on customer engagement
• Visualize and export data to Business Intelligence tools
• Track visitors' time on site, pages viewed, top referral sites, emails, webinars, visits to landing pages and forms filled out
• Built-in integrations with Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, SugarCRM, Oracle NetSuite and Infor

7. Act-on

Pricing: from $900 for 2500 contacts

Act-on is designed to deliver adaptable, scalable and scalable Marketing Automation for marketers and teams of all sizes, industries and growth projections. Act-on therefore fits both B2B and B2C companies. The system gets high marks for lead scoring and lead segmentation. However, CRM integration is an area where Act-on has some weaknesses compared to its competitors. Unlike solutions such as SharpSpring and HubSpot, it does not provide a built-in CRM.

Key features

• Powerful tool to create dynamic segmentation lists based on prospect criteria such as job title, lead score, engagement, etc.
• A new and improved flow builder for mailing, nurturing etc.
• Good basic analytical and social listening software, as well as advanced add-ons like Data Studio.
• Ability to include social posts as part of campaigns
• Event function
• Drag and drop and WYSIWYG email builder
  
  

8. Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing

Pricing: from $1,500 per tenant/month ($750/month if already using Dynamics 365)

Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing offers automation and other digital marketing tools that complement the Dynamics 365 platform's integrated CRM, ERP and business intelligence services. The platform provides Marketing Automation features such as lead scoring and customizable email templates, and lets you create personalized customer journeys. The Core Marketing module covers a comprehensive customer profile, email management, forms, landing pages, customer segmentation, customer journeys, lead management, and marketing analytics. The system can be a good option if you are already using the Dynamics 365 platform as ERP and/or CRM. However, there are not many cases for using the system in Sweden today, and expertise in the system in the market is somewhat limited, which makes many companies want to wait and see how it develops before making a decision.

Key features

• 365 customer view as the Marketing module is integrated with other Dynamics 365 solutions.
• Visualised customer journey planner (from the first contact a lead has had with the company all the way through to purchase)
• Fully customized emails and landing pages
• Dynamics has an event module to handle everything from initial planning to evaluation and analysis of results, including management of speakers, sponsorship and accommodation.
• Comprehensive Voice of the Customer (VOC) survey app for designing and publishing online surveys that integrate with events, emails and customer journeys

Here are some other systems that may be of interest to those working in B2B:

• Eloqua
• Agillic
• Zoho
• IBM Watson Campaign Automation 

Are you facing the choice of Marketing Automation? 

Evaluating which tool can best facilitate your daily work and add value to your business is no easy task.

In this complex landscape, it's more important than ever to make informed decisions when it comes to new technologies, and Marketing Automation is no exception.

It is therefore important to start from the organisation's current situation, needs and level of ambition. Different systems suit different types of organisations, have different needs in terms of technical expertise and require different levels of external support, e.g. from the supplier or consultants. We have produced a guide to choosing Marketing Automation which you can download here. If you would like help with procurement and would like to hear how we at Leadfront help our clients with their choice of Marketing Automation, you can contact us here.