13 Best Marketing Automation Tools for Startups

ActiveCampaign is a comprehensive platform for customer experience and marketing automation. It integrates email marketing, marketing automation, and CRM to enable effective segmentation and personalization across social media, email, and live chat channels. This software facilitates audience engagement and allows you to identify your most active contacts. It also provides the ability to create and compare multiple versions of email marketing campaigns to determine the most effective approach.

ClickFunnels is an automation platform designed for small businesses to build sales funnels. It assists in guiding website visitors through the customer journey. With ClickFunnels, you can easily create website pages using a drag-and-drop editor. It allows you to add CTA buttons and sign-up forms to generate leads. By sending targeted emails, you can convert these leads into paying customers.

HubSpot Marketing Hub is a comprehensive inbound marketing solution that enables efficient monitoring and evaluation of online marketing efforts, including blogging, email, and social media marketing. Additionally, this software facilitates the creation of conversion-focused landing pages to effectively convert website visitors into customers. It also offers automation capabilities for tasks like email sending and meeting scheduling with both new and existing customers. Furthermore, HubSpot aids in ad spend tracking and the management of ad campaigns on various social media platforms. Custom reports can be generated to assess the overall performance of your marketing campaigns.

Mailchimp is a marketing automation tool for creating, sending, and analyzing email and ad campaigns. It provides campaign transparency, email tracking, success metrics, and custom reports. The software also assists in subscriber management and segmentation based on interests, geography, and buyer journey stage. It offers customizable templates and automates campaign emails, customer follow-ups, and subscriber notifications.

Brevo, previously known as Sendinblue, is an excellent tool for email marketing and SMS marketing. It offers a wide range of customizable email templates for creating effective email marketing campaigns. With Brevo, you can easily create automated workflows that send out emails automatically. You can also utilize your website visitors' behavior to trigger specific emails. For example, if a customer adds items to their basket but doesn't complete the checkout process, you can set up an automated email using Brevo.

OptinMonster, the leading conversion optimization software, excels in converting website visitors into subscribers and customers effortlessly. With its seamless integration of lightbox popups, slide-in forms, welcome mats, coupon wheels, landing pages, and other features, OptinMonster stands out as the ultimate solution. Moreover, OptinMonster seamlessly integrates with all major email marketing services, enabling you to rapidly expand your subscriber base.

Zapier is a user-friendly tool that enables you to integrate various apps, offering a wide selection. It simplifies the process of transferring content from one platform to another. For example, you can create a "Zap" to automatically generate a new story on Medium whenever you publish a new post on WordPress. Moreover, Zapier allows you to automate numerous marketing activities such as sharing fresh content on social media, adding new leads to a spreadsheet or database, or generating a Trello card when a new WooCommerce order is received.

ManyChat allows you to automate Facebook messages, enabling customers to make purchases directly through Facebook Messenger. The bot assists customers in selecting the right product and processing payments within Messenger itself. Furthermore, you can customize product recommendations based on conversations and customer responses. ManyChat can send customers coupons to encourage purchases. It seamlessly integrates with popular payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe, and can be connected to over 2,000 apps through Zapier.

Tailwind provides convenient scheduling tools for Pinterest and Instagram, allowing you to plan and schedule posts in advance. For Instagram, Tailwind offers hashtag suggestions to enhance your posts. With Pinterest, you can easily schedule 10 pins with just one click. Additionally, Tailwind's analytic tools enable you to monitor the effectiveness of your content and schedule it at optimal times to maximize engagement. Furthermore, Tailwind offers Power-up features that enhance your social media accounts. The SmartLoop Power-up enables you to reshare pins, including seasonal content, at the appropriate moments.

HootSuite is a widely-used social media management platform that allows you to consolidate all your social content within a single application. It offers features such as automated post scheduling, monitoring of public and private messages, and much more. For small businesses with a social media marketing team, HootSuite provides valuable team management and permission settings. Additionally, HootSuite's analytics feature provides in-depth reports on the performance of your posts across various networks.

Buffer is a well-established social media scheduling tool that allows you to schedule content in advance for various social networks, including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. In addition to scheduling, Buffer also provides features for planning and organizing hashtags on Instagram, evaluating content performance, and more. It offers separate 'Publish' and 'Analyze' tools (with separate billing). If you have a social media team, you can assign different individuals with different access levels and permissions.

Act-on is a comprehensive marketing automation tool that caters to every phase of the sales cycle. It empowers you to craft multichannel experiences across diverse platforms and effectively engage leads at the most opportune moments.

Marketo is a powerful marketing automation tool that empowers startups to streamline their entire marketing process. It offers features such as personalized email campaigns, efficient contact management in a comprehensive CRM, and the ability to convert warm leads into loyal customers.