9 Best Marketing Platforms Your Organization Should Have

Many businesses invest in multiple tools to handle different marketing aspects. While it seems like a great idea, having a centralized marketing automation platform remains more convenient. It helps your marketing team handle tasks smoothly and understand the impact of their efforts through time-based reporting.

But choosing the best marketing platform requires a detailed analysis of thousands of available options. However, we have worked hard to uncover the top 9 platforms according to features, budget, and business sizes.

Let’s first start with the basic meaning of a marketing platform.

What is a marketing platform?

A marketing platform helps companies establish and nurture relationships with target prospects to convert them into loyal customers. It helps in sending personalized messages to target specific customer segments. Marketing covers a broad aspect and targets customers through varied platforms like email and social media. Therefore, the best marketing platform helps businesses effectively reach many customers and handle multiple tasks simultaneously.

How to choose the right marketing platform?

Taking your marketing efforts to the next level requires choosing the right marketing platform. But how to select the top marketing automation platform among 7000+ platforms? Here are some key areas you must focus on to make an efficient choice:

Identify the channels you need to target

Email marketing is one of the top channels you require to target your customers. But there are other ways to reach your prospects, including social media, ad retargeting, SMS, etc. Identifying the combination of channels suitable for your needs will help you make the right choice.

Integrations with other platforms

Businesses rely on multiple platforms to achieve their business goals. Smooth integration with other tools and limited restrictions become another priority. You will easily sync data and ensure a quicker connection with customers.

Easy setup and onboarding

A hassle-free setup ensures you get started with your marketing without any delay. Any platform you select must be free of long hours of training for successful implementation. Big companies often have marketing teams to handle all aspects. Training every individual requires time and effort, which hinders normal business functioning.

Customer support

The best all-in-one marketing platforms are often equipped with many different features. Your team might come across frequent issues that require customer support. Make sure you go through past user reviews of customer support services. Furthermore, the platform must have a resource center addressing common queries.

Top 9 All-In-One marketing platforms

Now that you know how to choose the best marketing platform, let’s go through the top 9 all-in-one marketing platforms to help you make an appropriate choice.

1. Hubspot

Price: ranging between $50-$3200 (small companies to larger enterprises). It also provides a free plan with basic features.

Feature highlight: powerful automation, reporting, and tracking ensures businesses make the most of their marketing investment.

Hubspot is an intuitive platform that eases the entire process of setting up in-depth reports containing complex marketing data. It helps modern marketers by providing a centralized location for handling complex marketing activities. Furthermore, sales alignment helps businesses scale and improve ROI.

Pros

The intuitive design help marketers quickly identify priority tasks and data.
The platform enhances productivity by effectively handling multiple projects simultaneously.
It offers easy integration with tools and platforms like Facebook ads, Google ads, etc.
Frequent feature updates help customers improve their campaign performance.

Cons

The platform provides limited customization ofin email templates.
It takes time to get acquainted with the platform as it handles many tasks simultaneously.
Many users complained about the inaccuracy of results in Hubspot for Social Media.
Contact, ticket, and deal data aren’t connected to give a complete view for enhanced understanding.
It lacks a multi-step form feature required to have complete user understanding.

2. Marketo Engage

Price: receive a custom quote by contacting the team.

Feature Highlight: pull lead data from various sources to inculcate personalization in the overall strategy for improved customer experience.

Marketo Engage is one of the top marketing platforms helping specialists increase engagement and conversions in every customer journey stage. It focuses on providing improved degrees of personalization based on customer understanding. With the complete alignment of marketing and sales teams, the platform delivers an enhanced user experience.

Pros:

The platform eliminates manual errors and provides complete automation and analytics.
It hHandles multiple tasks, including lead management, innovative program creation, real-time data syncing, etc.
The eEasy tracking and reporting of KPIs remove the requirement of referring to platforms like GA.
A scalable platform that helps beginners successfully run complex marketing programs.

Cons:

No data filter in action leads to accumulating junk data (leads).
Users experience difficulties during third-party integrations.
Revenue explorer takes a lot of time to load reports.
It lacks AMP script adoption required for better display and analytics of data.
It does not offer the necessary analytical data required for in-depth reporting.
The slow loading time of the platform also leads to poor customer experience.

3. MailChimp

Price: ranging between $11-$299. It also provides a free plan to users with basic features.

Feature Highlight: the platform provides many integration options to make it a fully-fledged marketing platform (not restricted to email marketing).

Mailchimp remains one of the most preferred email marketing and automation platforms by businesses of varied sizes. Its data-driven recommendations have helped companies improve their email campaign efficiency. But the platform doesn’t remain limited to email marketing as it successfully handles multi-channel marketing campaigns.

Pros:

It generates detailed reports of key metrics, including open rate, bounce rate, CTC, etc.
Users love the option of automatically resending newsletters to people who didn’t open them the first time.
Provides segregation of customer segments to send specific emails.
It has a clean user interface with frequent introduction of new features.
Teams require limited training to get acquainted with the tool.

Cons:

Users experience a great deal of difficulty in editing newsletters.
It’s one of the most expensive email marketing tools in the market.
Rigid templates refrain users from adding more than three columns.
Customer support often suggests relying on third-party tools for common issues.
It does not allow any affiliate marketing.
Limited automation features are provided in the trial version.

4. SharpSpring

Pricing: ranging between $399-$699 per month (special package for agencies)

Feature Highlight: helps small businesses thrive in their inbound marketing strategy at an affordable price and systematic workflows.

SharpSpring is a revenue growth platform that combines marketing, sales, and customer relationship management to help small businesses thrive. It focuses on improving marketing investment returns through enhanced engagement and lead generation. Timely tracking of engagement help businesses modifies strategies accordingly.

Pros

A budget-friendly pricing model makes it suitable for small businesses.
Many different integration options with commonly used tools allow users to handle complete digital marketing.
A plethora of email templates and customized reports help in easy analysis.
Adequate representation of sales funnels helps in making informed decisions.

Cons

Limited analysis options in custom reporting as users cannot click on metrics to know more.
Users need help in building landing pages and emails due to limited usability.
Users aren’t happy with the recent billing changes introduced by the platform.
Many restrictions in the social media domain and delays in receiving notifications make it less preferable.
Useless specifications often need help in performing basic tasks like landing page creation.

5. Keap

Pricing: two monthly plans costing $169 and $199, respectively.

Feature Highlight: audience segmentation helps provide the required degree of personalization to increase responses.

Keap is an all-in-one marketing, sales, and customer support platform helping businesses improve conversions through efficient lead management. It’s also known for the community of dedicated entrepreneurs providing training and tips to grow.

Pros:

A wide variety of integrations help businesses run efficient campaigns.
The community helps in simplifying complex tasks like inculcating endless email automation.
Customer segmentation based on specific campaigns allows businesses to inculcate personalization.
A budget-friendly pricing model suits beginners or users with limited budgets.
Keap academy workshops help beginners get acquainted with the platform.
It replaces the complex manual burdens with fully automated workflows.

Cons:

It provides no option for importing multiple emails into a specific campaign. Users have to build individual emails, which costs unnecessary time.
Limited customization optionsoption in double opt-in emails hinders implementation.
It fails at keeping up with basic functionalities like importing data, adding emojis for improved engagement, managing mailing lists, etc.
You need hours of training and implementation to learn the platform.
Users keep coming across streams of new and complex issues at every point.

6. SendinBlue

Pricing: lite and premium monthly plans cost $25 and $65, respectively (the enterprise plan provides a custom quote). The platform also provides a free plan with basic features.

Feature Highlight: unlimited contacts or no limitation on adding contacts in the paid plans makes it better than the competitors.

Source

SendinBlue remains one of the most trusted email marketing platforms, with many customization options and user-friendly dashboards providing systematic analytics. Complete automation of campaigns ensures less burden on marketing teams, and they are free to focus on other areas of improvement.

Pros

A seamless data importing ensures users run smooth campaigns.
Ease in sending customized bulk emails to various customer segments.
A user-friendly interface makes it suitable for beginners.
Users can easily insert affiliate links within emails.
Quick email preview help users view their email to find room for improvement.
Detailed email analytics help improves future campaigns.

Cons

The platform lacks the live chat support required for effectively resolving queries.
Limited options are available in the free plan.
Users need help understanding the automation feature. The platform must simplify it or make more tutorial videos.
The platform immediately stops providing service if there’s no money on the credit card.
Many users need help with the autosave feature working from time to time. It leads to losing a ton of work and starting from scratch.
It can have more email templates based on specific user requirements.

7. Zoho

Pricing: provides custom pricing based on business requirements.
Feature Highlight: a scalable solution that can adapt to your business’s growing needs.

Source

Zoho provides various tools and platforms for businesses to handle marketing, sales, and customer support. You can either purchase the required apps or opt for their all-in-one suite. It provides all the features and functions your business requires at a comparatively low fee. Teams can successfully collaborate, access customizable email templates, integrate with commonly-used platforms, and more.

Pros

Zoho allows effective collaboration with team members, updates work statuses and provides features like GIFs and emojis to make connecting fun.
It provides an increased amount of customization in survey forms.
Zoho Show allows easy presentation creations for simplifying a campaign/project for customers or team members.
The scalability feature helps businesses expand their current customer base effectively.
It remains a budget-friendly option providing seamless integration with all Zoho platforms.

Cons

Poor integration with elementor and no option for personal reCAPTCHA.
Lack of support after introducing new features makes it difficult to understand them.
It exercises customization restrictions during bulk uploading on social platforms like Instagram.
It takes an ample amount of time to move content between various pages.
No desktop or mobile apps make it difficult to access at all times.
Slow-loading interface makes it frustrating for customers.
It only provides limited theme options with basic customization.
The platform often crashes when you upload a big presentation file.

8. Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot)

Pricing: ranging between $1250-$15000 per month
Feature Highlight: Shortens sales cycles through effective lead generation and nurturing for companies with a B2B customer base.

Source

Salesforce Account Engagement, formerly known as Pardot, is one of the best CRM platforms helping companies exercise smooth marketing and sales alignment to improve conversions. It’s highly preferable for companies with a B2B customer base.

Pros

Help companies maintain solid customer relationships through efficient landing pages, email marketing, custom forms, etc.
A solid landing page creation improves lead generation.
It provides seamless integration with other Salesforce platforms.
Admin access ensures proper team management and collaboration.
The frequent updates and quick implementations make it preferable among users.

Cons

The platform needs to be more suitable for companies with a limited budget.
It needs a user-friendly interface and needs crucial features like drag-and-drop functionality.
Users face complexities while running email campaigns as the platform demands a fair knowledge of HTML.
A lack of formatting and styling makes the platform frustrating and time-consuming.
It needs to be more efficient in generating reports with relevant data and insights required for decision-making.
Only people from a technical background make the most of the landing page builder.
Poor storage capacity often becomes an issue when storing large files.

9. ActiveCampaign

Pricing: ranges between $9-$229 per month (yearly payments).
Feature Highlight: one of the best marketing platforms for creating, sending and tracking engagement of personalized email campaigns.

Active Campaign is a trusted automation platform helping businesses of all sizes improve conversions with powerful personalization and customer segmentation. It remains suitable for users tired of managing different funnel aspects in one place. One can make the most of this investment with proper tutorials and customer support help.

Pros

Plans ranging from small businesses to enterprises make it suitable for companies, irrespective of size.
The email design tool helps improve campaigns with enough personalization.
It’s an easy-to-use platform with active customer support to address queries quickly.
Automatic data display while browsing through the customer profile page eases analysis.
Simplified automated flows make it suitable for beginners to advanced-level professionals.
A variety of data points make analysis detailed based on specific requirements.
Free webinars assist users in setup and business growth.

Cons

Users often need help with site loading speed. The websites hang up quite often, which becomes frustrating.
It provides limited feature availability in the enterprise plan.
Automations are challenging to learn for people with limited technical knowledge.
Saving changes remains time-consuming.
There’s no option of viewing scheduled email campaigns without opening the email editor (as provided in platforms like Hubspot).
The menu layout needs to be more intuitive.
An array of features often makes learning a gradual and time-consuming process.

Wrapping up

All-in-one marketing platforms reduce the burden and investment in different tools. If you still need clarification, begin by focusing on the significant goals and functionalities you need. We have covered almost all platforms depending on business size and budget. Many of them provide free trials to help you make an informed decision. Experiment with two or three platforms to choose the one that suits all your requirements.