Executive Summary
Choose marketing automation software by where your sales team works. Shortlist products whose own documentation describes a sync with that CRM, then test the sync on your own records before you sign.
Marketing automation software sends email and other messages on rules and schedules, scores and nurtures leads, and passes the qualified ones to sales through a CRM. B2B products are built around leads, accounts and the handoff to a salesperson. B2C products are built around individual customer profiles, high message volumes and channels such as SMS, push and in-app messages.
To buy marketing automation with sales integration, you have three options: buy it from your CRM vendor, buy a product that comes with its own CRM, or buy a separate product with a packaged connector to the CRM you already run. Salesforce describes Pardot as its B2B marketing automation platform for lead generation, nurturing and sales-marketing alignment, integrated with Salesforce CRM objects like Leads, Contacts, and Opportunities. HubSpot states that Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Service Hub, Content Hub, Revenue Hub and Data Hub are each part of its customer platform, and that data is automatically connected when two or more hubs are used together. Adobe lists Native CRM Integration (SFDC, MSD & Veeva) among the features on its Marketo Engage pricing and packaging page. Oracle states that Eloqua offers pre-built integrations with Oracle Sales and Salesforce through integration apps, and with Microsoft Dynamics and Oracle CRM On Demand through its native CRM integration.
This guide covers what the software does, how each of the eight vendors connects to a CRM according to its own pages, what mailbox providers and US law require of email senders, six approaches to buying, and what each vendor publishes about price.
What Is Marketing Automation Software, and Which Kind Do You Need?
Marketing automation software runs the repeatable parts of marketing. It captures leads from forms and landing pages, sends email sequences triggered by what a person does, scores leads on fit and engagement, segments audiences, and reports on what each campaign contributed. Most products now add AI features that draft content and build campaigns from a written description.
B2B and B2C products differ in the record at the center. A B2B product keeps people tied to the companies they work for, scores them, and routes the ones sales should call to the CRM. Lead scoring, account-based marketing and reporting on the opportunities a campaign influenced are its core features. A B2C product keeps one profile per customer, triggers messages from purchases and app events, and sends across email, SMS, push and in-app channels at consumer volumes. Its core features are real-time segmentation, journeys across channels, and connections to the data warehouse or customer data platform that holds purchase history.
Some products sit between the two. Small and mid-sized businesses often buy email, automation and a basic CRM in one subscription, and online retailers often buy a product built around their store platform. The approaches section below names a vendor for each.
B2B projects most often stall at the handoff to sales. Marketing and sales have to agree on what makes a lead qualified, which system owns each field, and what happens when the two systems disagree about a record. Write those rules down before you compare products. Every sync described in the next section follows rules someone on your team has to configure.
Which Marketing Automation Software Integrates with Your CRM?
Each fact below comes from the vendor’s own product pages or documentation. A listed integration tells you a connector exists. It does not tell you which records sync, in which direction or how often, so ask for the sync documentation and test it on your own data.
From the CRM vendor. Salesforce states that Pardot is the legacy product name for Marketing Cloud Account Engagement and that they are the same product. Oracle states that Eloqua is natively integrated with the Oracle CX suite, supporting a connected customer experience across marketing, sales, and service. Buying from the CRM vendor removes a connector to maintain. It also ties the marketing contract to the CRM contract, so check how the two renew.
With a CRM included. On an all-in-one platform, marketing and sales records live in one database, so there is no sync to configure between them. The customer platform described in the opening works this way. ActiveCampaign offers two add-ons to its CRM: Pipelines and sales engagement. Check whether the built-in CRM covers your sales process, or whether your sales team will keep a separate CRM and you will need a connector after all.
Through a connector to an enterprise CRM. Adobe states that the sync between Salesforce and Marketo is bidirectional only for leads, contacts and Salesforce campaigns, and that all other syncs are from Salesforce to Marketo only. Oracle states that it discontinued the native CRM integrations with Salesforce and Oracle Sales and replaced them with the Salesforce Integration app and the Oracle CX Sales Integration app. Oracle states that in Oracle Eloqua Marketing Automation, prospects who become highly qualified leads are pushed into your CRM system within minutes.
Through a connector, for smaller teams. HubSpot states that Marketing Hub has a bi-directional sync with Salesforce, so changes made in one system are automatically synced to the other. HubSpot states that to connect its Salesforce integration you need a Salesforce edition with API access, or Salesforce Professional, and that the integration does not support Salesforce Group Edition. ActiveCampaign lists its Salesforce integration as built by ActiveCampaign and bi-directional. ActiveCampaign states that its Salesforce integration lets you automatically send marketing qualified leads to Salesforce and map and sync custom fields on lead records.
B2C engagement platforms. These connect to customer data more than to a sales CRM. Braze states that it connects to data warehouses and backend systems through SDKs, APIs and cloud data ingestion. Iterable states that it ingests data directly from a data warehouse through a no-code visual interface. Klaviyo states that its free plan supports its standard library of integrations, for example ecommerce platforms, CRMs and data sources. If your sales team also works these customers in a CRM, check that the platform can read the fields your messages need and write back the engagement data sales wants to see.
| Route | What you get | What to test |
|---|---|---|
| Marketing automation from your CRM vendor | Marketing and sales on one vendor’s platform and contract | Which CRM records marketing can read and write, and how the two contracts renew |
| A product with its own CRM | Contacts, deals and campaigns in one database | Whether the built-in CRM covers your sales process, or whether you will still run a separate CRM |
| A packaged connector to your CRM | Leads, contacts and campaign data synced between two systems | Sync direction for each record type, sync frequency, custom objects and conflict rules |
| A warehouse or CDP connection | Profiles and events loaded from the data warehouse or customer data platform | How often data loads, which fields can drive segments, and what is written back |
Which Capabilities Matter, and What Must Email Senders Do?
Deliverability decides whether a campaign is seen at all, and mailbox providers now publish rules for bulk senders. Google states that starting February 1, 2024, email senders who send more than 5,000 messages per day to Gmail accounts must set up SPF and DKIM email authentication for their domain and DMARC email authentication for their sending domain. Google states that email senders who send more than 5,000 messages per day to Gmail accounts must keep spam rates reported in Postmaster Tools below 0.30%. Google states that marketing messages and subscribed messages must support one-click unsubscribe and include a clearly visible unsubscribe link in the message body. Yahoo requires bulk senders to honor unsubscribes within 2 days. Yahoo advises senders not to send bulk or marketing email from the same IPs they use to send user mail, transactional mail and alerts.
Ask each vendor how the platform signs mail with your domain, whether it adds a one-click unsubscribe header to every marketing message, how quickly an unsubscribe reaches every list, journey and connected system, and whether marketing and transactional mail can go out from separate domains or IP addresses.
US law applies to business email too. The FTC states that the CAN-SPAM Act makes no exception for business-to-business email. The FTC states that a recipient’s opt-out request must be honored within 10 business days. The FTC states that a company that hires another company to handle its email marketing cannot contract away its legal responsibility to comply with the law. Of the two deadlines above, two days is the shorter, so configure opt-out processing to meet it.
Beyond sending, test the features your motion depends on. For B2B, that means lead scoring sales agrees with, routing rules, account-level views and reporting on opportunities. For B2C, it means how fast a purchase or app event can trigger a message, how many channels one journey can use, and how often segments refresh. For both, ask how AI features are switched on and billed, and whether marketers can see why a contact entered a segment or journey.
| Capability | What it does | What to test |
|---|---|---|
| Lead capture | Forms, landing pages and chat that create or update contacts | Whether new leads land in the CRM fields sales uses |
| Lead scoring and routing | Points for fit and engagement; assignment to a salesperson | Whether sales agrees with the scores on last quarter’s leads |
| Journeys and nurture | Multi-step programs triggered by behavior | Branches, waits, and exits when a lead converts or unsubscribes |
| Channels | Email, SMS, push, in-app messages and ads | Which channels are included and which are billed separately |
| Segmentation | Audiences built from profile, behavior and CRM data | How often segments refresh, and whether marketers can build them without SQL |
| Deliverability and consent | Domain authentication, unsubscribe handling and suppression | One-click unsubscribe on every marketing message, and the time an opt-out takes to reach every system |
| Reporting and attribution | Campaign results and their influence on pipeline or revenue | Whether the reports match opportunity data in the CRM |
Vendors in Marketing Automation Software
Representative vendors include ActiveCampaign, Adobe Marketo Engage, Braze, HubSpot Marketing Hub, Iterable, Klaviyo, Oracle Eloqua and Salesforce Marketing Cloud (Account Engagement, formerly Pardot). The list is alphabetical, is not a ranking, and is not for sale. How we choose vendors
The approaches below follow two questions: is the product built for B2B or B2C marketing, and where does the customer record live? Two approaches have two vendors each. Ask every vendor to name in the order form the edition, the contact, user or profile volume, and the add-ons the quote includes.
One approach buys B2B marketing automation from the CRM vendor. Salesforce states that Account Engagement+ allows Account Engagement customers to access Marketing Cloud Next. Its published prices are in the next section.
Two vendors sell B2B marketing automation that connects to more than one CRM. Adobe describes Marketo Engage as an AI-powered enterprise marketing automation solution built to scale personalized buyer engagement and grow predictable pipeline and revenue. Oracle states that Eloqua has more than 500 prebuilt integrations. Their CRM connections are described in the CRM section above.
The all-in-one customer platform described in the opening is the third approach: marketing, sales and service applications that share one database, with a connector for buyers who keep another CRM. Its prices and onboarding fees are in the next section.
Another approach packages email, automation and a CRM for smaller teams. ActiveCampaign describes itself as a privately-held email marketing, marketing automation, sales automation, and CRM software platform for small-mid-sized businesses, founded in 2003.
Customer engagement platforms for consumer brands send across many channels and price by active users. Braze states that it became a publicly traded company in November 2021 (Nasdaq: BRZE). Iterable describes itself as the AI customer engagement platform built for enterprise scale. Iterable publishes migration playbooks for Braze, SFMC and Klaviyo.
The last approach is a B2C CRM built around ecommerce data. Klaviyo states that it was founded in 2012 and describes itself as the autonomous B2C CRM. Its pricing by active profiles is in the next section.
| Vendor | Approach | Where it fits |
|---|---|---|
| Adobe Marketo Engage | B2B automation for several CRMs | Growth, Select, Prime and Ultimate packages; native CRM integration (SFDC, MSD and Veeva) |
| Oracle Eloqua | B2B automation for several CRMs | Salesforce and Oracle Sales by integration app; Microsoft Dynamics natively |
| Salesforce Marketing Cloud (Account Engagement, formerly Pardot) | B2B automation from the CRM vendor | Growth+ at $1,250 to Premium+ at $15,000 USD/Org/Month, billed annually |
| Klaviyo | B2C CRM built around ecommerce | Free plan to 250 active profiles; paid plans priced by active profiles |
| Braze | Cross-channel engagement priced by active users | Priced by monthly active users; no free plan; Nasdaq: BRZE |
| Iterable | Cross-channel engagement priced by active users | No-code ingest from the data warehouse; pricing estimates from sales |
| ActiveCampaign | Email, automation and CRM for smaller teams | Privately held; Salesforce integration on the Enterprise plan |
| HubSpot Marketing Hub | Marketing on an all-in-one customer platform | Professional from $800/mo, Enterprise from $3,600/mo, plus onboarding; bi-directional Salesforce sync |
Eight vendors across six approaches; Adobe Marketo Engage and Oracle Eloqua share one, as do Braze and Iterable. The approaches were written before any vendor was selected, and a row in this table cannot be bought. The roster check for this edition also covered Mailchimp, Brevo, Customer.io, Zoho Marketing Automation and Act-On, and any marketing automation vendor can make its own case in the Spotlight below.
What Does Marketing Automation Software Cost?
Vendors price in different units: per organization, per contact and seat, per monthly active user or per active profile, often with a separate charge for SMS and other paid channels. Convert each quote to your own volumes for this year and next before you compare them.
Salesforce lists the Account Engagement Growth+ edition at $1,250 USD/Org/Month, billed annually. Salesforce lists Premium+ at $15,000 USD/Org/Month, billed annually. Salesforce states that all per month products require an annual contract.
HubSpot lists Marketing Hub Professional as starting at $800/mo with 3 Core Seats and 2,000 marketing contacts, and Enterprise as starting at $3,600/mo with 5 Core Seats and 10,000 marketing contacts. HubSpot states that the costs shown for Professional and Enterprise do not include required, one-time onboarding fees of $3,000 and $7,000 respectively. Contacts and seats both move the price, so price the edition at the contact count you expect next year.
Adobe lists four Marketo Engage packages, Growth, Select, Prime and Ultimate, and shows Get pricing for each. ActiveCampaign lists premium CRM integrations like Salesforce among the features of its Enterprise plan. If your sales team uses that CRM, price the plan that includes the connector, not the entry plan.
Braze states that its pricing scales with Monthly Active Users (MAU), the customers who actively interact with a brand across its digital experiences. Braze states that a Braze contract comprises a Platform Edition, Monthly Active Users and Profiles, an allotment of Action Credits for messaging and AI features, and CX Services. Braze states that it does not offer a free plan, and that companies can explore the platform through trials, startup programs and other tailored entry plans. Iterable says its team can help people evaluating cross-channel marketing platforms get a pricing estimate.
Klaviyo states that it prices Profile & Email plans on active profiles, with email send capacity included. Klaviyo states that its free plan is limited to 250 active profiles and 500 email sends per month, and includes $5 of mobile messages per month. Klaviyo states that text messaging (SMS, MMS, WhatsApp and RCS) is separate from the email plan, billed as committed spend that burns down as you send.
| Pricing unit | You are charged for | Grows with | Where it goes wrong |
|---|---|---|---|
| Edition per organization | One edition for the whole company | Edition upgrades and add-ons | A feature you need sits one edition up |
| Contacts and seats | Marketing contacts stored, plus users | List size and team size | Old, unengaged contacts kept on the bill |
| Monthly active users | Customers who interact in a month | Engagement and audience growth | A successful campaign raises next year’s tier |
| Active profiles | Profiles you can reach | List growth | Suppression rules that differ from your assumptions |
| Credits or committed spend | SMS, other paid channels and AI features | Message volume and AI use | Text messaging budgeted as if it cost the same as email |
How long does implementation take for Marketing Automation Software?
Most of a marketing automation rollout is data and sending setup: cleaning the contact list, mapping fields to the CRM, authenticating the sending domain, and warming it with engaged contacts before the first large send.
Plan for the first sync. Adobe states that the very first Salesforce sync may take hours or even days because Marketo is copying the entire database from Salesforce. Run the first sync against a CRM sandbox, and schedule the production sync away from a campaign launch.
Time a migration to the contract you are leaving. Iterable states that it plans a migration around the customer’s current renewal, so the customer does not pay for two platforms longer than needed. Whoever you buy from, ask what the vendor will migrate (templates, journeys, scoring rules and unsubscribe history) and what your team must rebuild.
Agree the lead definition and handoff rules with sales. Clean and deduplicate contacts, decide which fields sync in which direction, and set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC for the sending domain.
Connect a CRM sandbox, run the first sync, and check records, field mapping and conflict handling. Move unsubscribe and consent history before any send.
Launch one nurture program and the scoring model, warm the sending domain with engaged contacts, and watch spam complaint rates.
Add channels and programs, compare scores with sales outcomes, and check contacts, users or credits against the pricing unit before renewal.
What should you ask vendors about Marketing Automation Software?
Send these questions to each finalist and ask for written answers.
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Is your sales team settled on one CRM?Yes Shortlist that CRM vendor’s own marketing product and products whose documentation describes a sync with that CRM.No Decide the CRM first, or consider an all-in-one platform with a built-in CRM.
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Do you sell mainly to businesses?Yes Weight lead scoring, account views and the CRM sync.No Weight real-time triggers, channels beyond email and the connection to your customer data.
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Will you send bulk marketing email?Yes Confirm SPF, DKIM, DMARC and one-click unsubscribe support before you sign.No Set up the same authentication now, so the domain is ready as volume grows.
Marketing Automation Platforms RFP package: 139 questions, 10 demo scenarios and a vendor scorecard
RFP packages are a separate paid product. Vendors do not pay to appear in buyer guides.