MARTECH INTELL IGENCE REPORT
N I N T H E D I T I O N
A MARTECH TODAY RESEARCH REPORT
B2B
MARKETING
AUTOMATION
PLATFORMS:
A MARKETER’S GUIDE
Stay
Stay strong. Stay healthy. Stay home.
Stay informed. Stay connected. Stay hopeful.
Stay safe.
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MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Table of Contents
Scope and methodology ......................................................................................................... 2
B2B marketing automation overview ..................................................................................... 3
Figure 1. Marketing budget allocations across major resources by industry ................. 3
What role do MAPs play in today’s martech stack? ............................................................... 4
Figure 2: Marketing automation spending to top $25B by 2023 ................................... 4
Figure 3: The changing components of martech ecosystems ........................................ 5
How Marketing Automation Platforms integrate.................................................................. 6
Big mergers are done; plenty of smaller ones on the horizon ............................................. 7
Select marketing automation financial transactions ............................................................. 7
B2B marketing automation platform features ....................................................................... 8
Dynamic content creation ................................................................................................... 8
Figure 4: Select B2B marketing automation platform features ...................................... 9
Lead management ............................................................................................................ 10
Predictive analytics ............................................................................................................ 10
Mobile marketing .............................................................................................................. 10
Account-based marketing (ABM) ..................................................................................... 11
Social/lead profile integration ........................................................................................... 11
Native CRM integration ..................................................................................................... 11
Third-party software connectivity ...................................................................................... 11
Proactive recommendations based on AI .......................................................................... 11
Choosing an enterprise B2B marketing automation platform ............................................ 12
The benefits of using B2B marketing automation .............................................................. 12
B2B marketing automation platform pricing ...................................................................... 12
Recommended steps to making an informed purchase ..................................................... 13
Step One: Do you need a marketing automation platform? ............................................. 13
Step Two: Identify and contact appropriate vendors ......................................................... 14
Step Three: Scheduling the demo ...................................................................................... 15
Step Four: Check references, negotiate a contract ............................................................ 16
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 17
Vendor profiles ...................................................................................................................... 18
Acoustic .............................................................................................................................. 18
Acquia ................................................................................................................................ 21
Act-On Software ................................................................................................................. 23
HubSpot ............................................................................................................................. 25
Keap ................................................................................................................................... 27
Mailchimp ........................................................................................................................... 29
Marketo .............................................................................................................................. 31
Oracle Eloqua ..................................................................................................................... 34
Salesforce Pardot ................................................................................................................ 37
SharpSpring ........................................................................................................................ 40
Sugar Market ...................................................................................................................... 42
MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
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Scope and methodology
This report examines the current market for B2B marketing automation platforms, and the
considerations involved in implementing marketing automation software. It addresses the
following questions:
• What factors are driving B2B marketing automation platform use?
• What capabilities do B2B marketing automation platforms provide?
• Does my company need a marketing automation platform?
• Who are the leading players in B2B marketing automation?
• How do I evaluate which platform is best for my business?
If you are considering licensing a B2B marketing automation platform, this report will help
you decide whether or not you need to. The report has been completely updated to include
the latest industry statistics, developing market trends and new vendor profiles and product
updates.
For the purposes of this report, B2B marketing automation is defined as follows: The use of
software and web-based services to execute, manage and automate repetitive marketing
tasks and processes to more effectively market through multiple channels (i.e., email, mobile,
social media, and websites). Marketing automation focuses on the definition, scheduling,
segmentation and tracking of marketing campaigns, allowing the marketing and sales
organizations to nurture leads with highly personalized content aimed at attracting and
retaining customers.
The 11 vendors profiled in this report represent some of the choices available for B2B
marketing automation platforms; they are not a comprehensive list of B2B marketing
automation vendors. This report is not a recommendation of any marketing automation
platform or company and is not meant to be an endorsement of any particular product,
service or vendor.
This report was prepared by conducting in-depth interviews with leading vendors and
industry experts in November and December 2020. These, in addition to third-party
research, form the basis for this report.
Editorial Advisor:
Kim Davis, Editorial Director of MarTech Today
Writer, Editor and Analyst:
Pamela Parker, Research Director, Third Door Media
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MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
B2B marketing automation overview
Investments in marketing technology continue to be a priority for businesses across the
board, as they strive to meet increased demands for personalization and a need to collect,
authenticate and analyze rapidly increasing amounts of consumer data to improve the
customer experience (CX). For B2B players, this often means a marketing automation platform.
Though the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in budget cuts midway through 2020, CMOs
surveyed by Gartner in its annual survey are optimistic about a return to normalcy. Fully 73% of
CMOs surveyed expect the negative impacts of the pandemic to be short-lived. More than half
(57%) of the respondents expect business performance to return to normal in the next 18 to 24
months.
Martech spending has stayed strong over the past year, continuing to command 26.2% of
marketing budgets, even through uncertain times. Digital channels in general accounted for
nearly 80% of marketing budgets in 2020, perhaps partly reflecting the shift to digital we’ve
seen due to widespread working from home and social distancing.
In most industries, Gartner found that marketers are prioritizing martech over other resources
(agencies/services, paid media, labor), spending the largest chunk of their budget on
technology. Only in financial services, where martech receives the lowest priority, and in retail,
where paid media gets precedence, is martech spending not equal to, or higher than, the
allocations made to other areas.

Figure 1: Marketing budget allocations across major resources by industry
n = 420 marketing leaders (excludes ”don’t know”): base sizes vary by industry
Q. How is your total marketing expense budget for the current fiscal yearbeing allocated to or spent on each of the
following major resource categories?
Source: 2020 Gartner CMO Spend Survey
Note: Does not include percentages for ”other.”
Financial
services
High tech
CP
Manufacturing Media
Retail
Travel &
Hospitality
Healthcare
IT and
business
services
30%
15%
0%
Mean percentage of budget summary
Agencies/services Paid media Labor Marketing technology
Martech spending
has stayed strong
over the past
year, continuing to
command 26.2% of
marketing budgets,
even through
uncertain times.
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MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
What role do MAPs play in today’s
martech stack?
In May of 2019, Forrester’s Laura Cross, VP and principal analyst on demand and account-based
marketing, speculated in a blog post: “Will Marketing Automation Platforms Go Extinct or
Rapidly Evolve to Keep Up With Demand Marketers’ Needs?”
In the post, she noted that MAPs became the “center of the universe” for many B2B marketers
after their debut in the early 2000s, but since have “not evolved to keep up with the needs of the
modern demand marketer.” Indeed, marketing automation platforms are so well-established as
to be rarely discussed. For example, it’s difficult to find independent projections on marketing
automation spend, with the latest numbers from Forrester projected global spend to reach $25.1
billion by 2023, up from $11.4 billion in 2017, and that was published in April of 2018 as its
Marketing Automation Technology Forecast, 2017-2023 (Global) (see Figure 2).
Figure 2: Marketing automation spending to top $25B by 2023 ($ billion)
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
$11.4
2017
2023
$25.1
Source: Forrester Data: Marketing Automation Technology Forecast, 2017-2023 (Global), Forrester.
Perhaps instead of going extinct, players have begun encroaching into categories like
“multimedia marketing hubs” or “CRM lead management” or “account-based marketing.”
Meanwhile, the must-have much-hyped platform, the customer data platform (CDP), has
its eyes on B2B marketers, promising to handle vast amounts of data to deliver highly-
personalized customer experiences. Adobe’s Real-time CDP announced new features aimed
at B2B brands in November 2020, which include a pre-built connector to its B2B Marketing
Automation Platform, Marketo Engage. Dun & Bradstreet, with its D&B Lattice CDP, also
understandably has a primarily B2B focus.
Meanwhile, the
must-have much-
hyped platform,
the customer data
platform (CDP),
has its eyes on
B2B marketers,
promising to handle
vast amounts of
data to deliver
highly-personalized
customer
experiences.
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MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Though CDP platforms are still relatively new, adoption has been rapid and these tools could
eventually pose a threat to marketing automation platforms as they provide some of the same
tools and functionalities.
All that said, to some companies B2B Marketing Automation Platforms are still the center
of the universe, so businesses must decide for themselves. At Gartner’s recent Marketing
Symposium/Xpo, analysts highlighted the martech practices of what it calls “Genius” and
“Gifted” (high-performing) brands, noting that: “No single technology product, save web
analytics and digital marketing tag management, was adopted by 100% of Genius and Gifted
brands. Instead, brands with high digital intelligence and complex martech stacks combine
some of the core marketing technologies for analytics, data management, advertising,
personalization and multichannel marketing.”
The analyst firm also asked marketers about the technologies they were most likely to cut,
keep and buy if faced with a budget decrease. Interestingly, B2B Marketing Automation
showed up in both the “Keep” and the “Cut” columns, as some respondents found them
essential and others thought they could do without them. Senior Director Analyst Colin Reid
noted that this split was largely along B2B versus B2C lines, with companies focused largely on
B2B putting the technology in the “Keep” column.
Though CDP
platforms are still
relatively new,
adoption has
been rapid and
these tools could
eventually pose a
threat to marketing
automation
platforms as they
provide some of
the same tools and
functionalities.
Figure 3: The changing components of martech ecosystems
What marketers said they’d keep, cut and buy if faced with a budget decrease.
Keep
Cut
Buy
1
Customer Data Platform
Employee Advocacy Tools
Multitouch Attribution
2 Web Analytics
Multitouch Attribution
Social Marketing Management
Platform
3
Email Marketing Platform
Account-Based Marketing Platforms
Employee Advocacy Tools
4
Data Management Platform
Influencer Marketing Platforms
Personalization Platform
5
Social Marketing Management
Platform
Personalization Platform
Digital Asset Management
6 B2B Marketing Automation including
Lead Management Platforms
Social Marketing Management
Platform
Social Analytics Platform
7 Multichannel Marketing Platform
B2B Marketing Automation including
Lead Management Platforms
Mobile Marketing Analytics
8
Digital Commerce Platform
Digital Asset Management
Customer Data Platform
9
Social Analytics Platform
SEM/SEO Tools
Distributed Marketing Platform
10 Digital Asset Management
Work or Project Management Platform SEM/SEO Tools
11 SEM/SEO Tools
Loyalty or Advocacy Marketing
Platform
Loyalty or Advocacy Marketing
Platform
n = 387 Marketing technology leaders. Base sizes vary by segment
Q. KEEP: What are the top marketing technologies you will prioritize keeping in your martech stack because if faced with a budget decrease?
Q. CUT: What are the top marketing technologies you will prioritize cutting in your martech stack because if faced with a budget decrease?
Q. BUY: Thinking about the totality of the capabilities made available by each of the following Data and Analytics solutions, what level of utilization currently exists within your company
Source: Gartner 2020 Marketing Technology Survey
© 2020 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and its affiliates.
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MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
At the companies that depend on them, marketing automation platforms form the backbone
of marketing operations, increasingly serving as sophisticated marketing orchestration
platforms. A range of platforms is available to marketers depending on their firm’s size, budget
and level of digital marketing sophistication.
The more basic functions of marketing automation have become somewhat commoditized,
so platform vendors mostly look to differentiate their platforms based on the ability to scale,
usability, ease of implementation, machine learning capabilities to suggest audiences or
messaging, and customer experience.
Platform vendors are also looking to differentiate themselves by offering more support for
increasingly sophisticated customers who have adopted the software and who are looking to
justify the investment by proving ROI.
Vendors continue to expand training programs, as well as add-on professional services
available to customers, to improve platform use. Online communities – for both customers
and developers – have also become increasingly important to strengthen platform support,
advocacy and market penetration.
Many marketing automation platform vendors have roots in email marketing, which continues
to be a core function and is often the only function that customers use. However, many
platforms offer an evolving range of features, including advanced lead management, account-
based marketing (ABM) tools, predictive analytics and open architectures to support the
growing martech ecosystem.
Marketing automation platform users have become more tech savvy, as marketing skill sets
have evolved significantly in recent years. As marketing becomes ever more tech- and data-
centric, this has led to the rise in prevalence of the Marketing Operations specialist, combining
business operations and IT skills to clean, harness and democratize data.
How Marketing Automation Platforms integrate
Account-based Marketing is increasingly replacing persona-based marketing, leading the way
for greater demand of ABM capabilities among marketing technology platforms, and driving a
convergence of marketing and sales. Sales and customer service professionals frequently use
marketing automation platforms to better understand how customers are reacting to products
and service.
Most marketing automation platforms now have native integrations with CRM platforms, which is
essential for ABM, as these three departments (sales, marketing, customer service) work together
more to look at the entire customer experience.
At the same time, with marketing automation platforms in general prioritizing user experience
and scalability, there has been less of a focus on building out new technology than previously
predicted.
For example, personalization is one of the biggest trends driving marketing today. But while
some marketing automation platforms do provide personalization capabilities, this is not an
essential feature, and can be achieved using point solutions. B2B marketers should therefore not
necessarily be put off if a marketing automation platform does not provide personalization as
part of the platform.
Marketing
automation
platforms form
the backbone
of marketing
operations,
increasingly serving
as sophisticated
marketing
orchestration
platforms.
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MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Many marketing automation vendors offer “app marketplaces” that
provide information and support for integrating with third-party
software partners. This can be an important area of differentiation
for vendors, because cultivating relationships with developers who
create add-ons and integration tools adds to the overall utility of the
software without requiring the vendor to develop such integrations
themselves. If you’re considering licensing a marketing automation
platform, be sure to assess potential vendors’ efforts in this arena.
Big mergers are done; plenty of smaller ones
on the horizon
The enterprise B2B marketing automation market is concentrated
among a few cloud vendors, including Salesforce, Oracle and
Adobe. Acquisitions by these players, Adobe and Salesforce in
particular, have now been largely integrated and were aimed at
consolidating their positions at the top of the market and broaden
their offerings for B2B firms.
Adobe’s biggest recent deal of was its 2018 purchase of rival
marketing automation platform Marketo in September for $4.75
billion; the firm also bought Magento Commerce for $1.68 billion
in May of that year. Meanwhile Salesforce acquired integration
platform Mulesoft that May for $6.5 billion, analytics provider
Datorama in July for $800 million, as well as interactive email outfit
Rebel in October and CloudCraze in May for undisclosed sums
(see sidebar).
Among independent martech providers, we’ve seen the acquisition
of Mautic by open-source cloud platform Acquia for an undisclosed
sum in May of 2019, only to have the parent purchased by Vista
Partners in September for $1B. Also in May, SugarCRM picked
up Salesfusion and re-branded it Sugar Market, in a deal in which
terms were not publicly disclosed.
There has been less deal-making activity among vendors serving
the small and mid- sized business (SMB) market. CRM company
Pipedrive purchased Mailigen for an undisclosed sum in March
of 2020. Facebook picked up Kustomer, largely described as a
CRM firm but also boasting messaging automation functionality,
in November 2020 for a reported $1 billion. December 2020 saw
marketing automation/attribution player Springbot acquire Matcha,
which will give it content management capabilities.
There will likely be more acquisitions to come in 2021, as
marketing automation capabilities are combined with categories
like CRM, lead management and campaign automation.

Select marketing automation financial
transactions
December 2020
• Springbot buys Matcha. Deal terms weren’t
disclosed.
November 2020
• Facebook acquires Kustomer for a reported $1B.
March 2020
• Pipedrive buys Mailigen for an undisclosed sum.
May 2019
• Acquia acquires Mautic (terms not disclosed).
Vista Equity Partners later (Sept 2019) buys
Acquia for $1B
• SugarCRM buys Salesfusion (for undisclosed
amount); rebrands it to Sugar Market . The
acquisition followed the company’s buy of
Collabspot and preceded its purchase of
Corvana. These units are now called Sugar
Connect and Sugar Discover, respectively.
February 2019
• Mailchimp acquires Sawa (undisclosed sum)
January 2019
• Infusionsoft rebrands as Keap. Expands
product lineup with new editions
• j2Global acquires iContact for $49M
October 2018
• Salesforce acquires Rebel (undisclosed sum)
September 2018
• Adobe acquires Marketo for $4.75B
July 2018
• Salesforce acquires Datorama for $800M
May 2018
• Adobe acquires Magento Commerce for
$1.68B
• Salesforce acquires Mulesoft $6.5B and
CloudCraze (undisclosed sum)
Source: Third Door Media, Crunchbase
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MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
B2B marketing automation
platform features
Virtually every B2B marketing automation vendor profiled in this report provides tools for email
campaign development and execution (including landing pages), as well as lead capture,
scoring and nurturing. The platforms also typically provide centralized marketing databases
and a basic level of reporting on web traffic, visitor behavior and campaign results.
Combined, the core features offered by most B2B marketing automation platforms profiled in
this report include:
• Email marketing and landing page development;
• Lead management (i.e., capture, scoring and nurturing);
• Native CRM integration; and
• APIs or app marketplaces for faster martech system access.
The market is quickly evolving, as B2B marketers demand integrated marketing functionality
that rapidly translates into bottom-line return. Vendors continue to add more advanced
features to provide marketing end-users with the ability to build, track and manage campaigns
across channels and/or devices, and monitor the flow of leads as they move from marketing to
sales.
These features include, but are not limited to:
• Dynamic content generation (email, landing pages and/or website);
• Email deliverability tools;
• Account-based marketing (ABM);
• Mobile marketing;
• AI-based predictive analytics; and
• Social/lead profile integration.
The following section discusses several of these core and advanced marketing automation
capabilities in more depth (see Table 3).
Dynamic content creation
Virtually all marketing automation platforms provide the ability to create, send and measure
personalized email campaigns. Where they differ is in how email, landing page and website
content created and personalized. Some vendors offer wizard-based campaign design or
content templates, while others provide a more customized approach.
There are also differences in static vs. dynamically generated content, which adjusts on the
fly as prospects interact with a website or form. Progressive profiling is often offered to pre-
populate forms with known data and use a drip approach to capture additional prospect
information each time they interact with campaigns.
Message deliverability is also an important factor to consider. Some B2B marketing automation
vendors offer dedicated IP addresses to improve deliverability, and/or monitor deliverability by
including their own email deliverability services or those from partners. Email previewing is an
advanced function but may be critical to marketers that want to reach their audience through
mobile devices and see what their message will look like on smaller screens.
The market is quickly evolving, as B2B marketers demand integrated marketing functionality
that rapidly translates into bottom-line return.
Virtually every
B2B marketing
automation vendor
profiled in this report
provides tools for
email campaign
development and
execution (including
landing pages),
as well as lead
capture, scoring and
nurturing.
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MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Platform
Dynamic
content
creation
Lead
management
Predictive
Analytics
(AI/ML)
Mobile marketing
ABM
Social
integrated w/
lead profiles
Native CRM
integration
Third-party software connectivity
SMS/
Push
In-app
notifications
Remote
platform
access
API
App
marketplace
Acoustic
Email /landing
pages/site
personalization
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
MD, NS, SF,
SU
4
4
Acquia
Email/landing
pages/site
personalization
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
CW, HUB,
MS, PD SF,
SU, VT, ZH
4
4
Act-On
Email/landing
pages
4
4
4
8
4
4
4
IN, MS, ONS,
SF, SU,
4
4
HubSpot
Email /landing
pages/site
personalization
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
HUB, SF
4
4
Keap
Email/landing
pages
4
4
8
8
8
4
8
Built-in CRM
4
4
Mailchimp
Email
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
BA, PD, SF,
SU, TG, VT
4
4
Marketo
Email/landing
pages/site
personalization
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
MD, SF
4
4
Oracle Eloqua
Email/landing
pages/site
personalization
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
IN, MS,
OCRMOD,
ONS, OSC,
SF, SU
4
4
Salesforce
Pardot
Email/landing
pages/site
personalization
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
SF
4
4
Sugar Market
Email
4
4
8
4
4
4
4
BH, MD, SG,
IN, NS, SF, SU
4
4
SharpSpring
Email/landing
pages
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
SF
4
4
CRM abbreviations: Batchbook (BA), BH (Bullhorn), CW (ConnectWise), HUB (HubSpot), IN (Infor), Microsoft Dynamics 365 (MS), OCRMON (Oracle CRM On Demand), ONS (Oracle
NetSuite), OSC (Oracle Sales Cloud), PD (Pipedrive), SF (Salesforce), SG (Sage CRM), SU (SugarCRM), Teamgate (TG), VT (VTiger), ZH (Zoho).
Source: Third Door Media
Figure 4: Select B2B marketing automation platform features
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MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Lead management
Lead management comprises three functions: lead capture, lead scoring and lead nurturing.
Leads are captured from a variety of sources that feed the marketing automation database,
including (but not limited to) website visitors, social media, paid digital campaigns, email
marketing respondents, trade show attendees and purchased third-party lists. Platforms will
vary based on the ease with which additional lead sources can be captured, such as through an
open API, or whether the platform offers landing page optimization.
Lead scoring assigns a value to each lead based on a predetermined set of rules or criteria.
Traditional lead scoring models are generally based on two sets of data values: behavior (i.e.,
site purchases, browsing, social posts) and demographics/firmographics. Many B2B marketing
automation platforms now offer predictive scoring driven by machine learning, which can
incorporate hundreds of data points by sourcing websites, social networks and internal systems
such as the CRM and marketing database itself to calculate scores.
Lead nurturing is the process of keeping prospects engaged with the brand through periodic,
personalized communications or campaigns until they are ready to buy. Marketing automation
platforms may offer a number of pre-built nurturing steps or actions, as well as allow users to
customize their content and process. These efforts are meant to build a relationship between
the brand and its prospects, and drive interaction with sales if and when the prospect is ready.
Predictive analytics
Virtually all of the B2B marketing automation platforms profiled in this report provide a
standard set of analytics that track quantifiable data such as website visitor activity, pages
viewed, time spent on site, emails opened, content downloaded and campaign responses.
More vendors are offering predictive analytics and models based on machine learning, which
uses algorithms to process data and surface trends or insights that enable marketers to
customize visitor experiences and marketing campaigns.
Several platforms have invested in artificial intelligence (AI) to go a step beyond machine
learning and use technology to “mimic” human intelligence and recommend marketing
actions or outcomes. These may include highly personalized website content or product
recommendations based on analysis of consumption trends, on-site behavior, firmographics
and CRM data. Other vendors rely on plug-and-play integration with predictive analytics tools
to offer greater analytics and personalization capabilities.
Mobile marketing
Creating an engaging experience for mobile prospects and customers is a must-have capability.
As a result, many B2B marketing automation platforms include responsive templates for email,
landing pages and web forms. Several vendors integrate with email testing tools such as Litmus,
to allow users to preview email marketing messages across email clients and devices.
More advanced mobile marketing features include SMS/texting, in-app marketing and remote
platform management from mobile devices. In-app marketing features can include “push”
notifications or ads based on geography (i.e., geo-fencing or beaconing) or during events. B2B
marketing automation vendors have also expanded platform access to mobile users, moving
beyond automated alerts and remote data collection to full platform management.
Virtually all of the B2B marketing automation platforms profiled in this report provide a standard
set of analytics that track quantifiable data such as website visitor activity, pages viewed, time
spent on site, emails opened, content downloaded and campaign responses.
Lead nurturing is the
process of keeping
prospects engaged
with the brand
through periodic,
personalized
communications or
campaigns until they
are ready to buy.
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MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Account-based marketing (ABM)
Aligning marketing initiatives with sales teams has become a leading ABM priority for
marketers. The goal is to target marketing programs to prospect or customer buying teams,
rather than individuals (who may have moved into new positions or firms.) Most of the time,
a B2B buyer is not a single person but a buying group. The larger the purchase, the more
people and departments are involved. B2B marketing automation vendors continue to add
new ABM features to their platforms to enable marketers to address the buying group as
well as individual members, including enhanced account nurturing and predictive scoring
capabilities.
Social/lead profile integration
Most of the B2B marketing automation vendors profiled in this report provide some level
of social media publishing, sharing and tracking within the platform for networks such as
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. Some platforms provide more advanced social
media tools to monitor social posts and add social behavior to lead profiles, often using social
engagement as a scoring factor. Other platforms enable the use of social media sign-on to
capture social profile data and build lead profiles.
Native CRM integration
With more businesses seeking to align marketing with sales, native or out-of-the-box
integration with CRM systems has become a critical feature for B2B marketing automation
platforms. Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Oracle NetSuite and SugarCRM are some of
the most commonly available connectors.
Data is synchronized between the two systems and shared in both directions at frequent
intervals. For example, data that is added by a sales rep to an account record in the CRM will
be automatically added to the record in the marketing automation platform for marketing end-
users to view and act upon, as well.

Third-party software connectivity
B2B marketing automation vendors continue to open their platform architectures through APIs
and app marketplaces to offer customers access to an expansive array of third-party martech
software systems. The app marketplaces provide faster “plug-and-play” access between the
systems, although there may be additional fees to purchase the marketplace apps.
If a preferred martech app is not available on a marketing automation vendor’s marketplace
it doesn’t mean that the two systems won’t connect – it means that some customization will
be required. API use does incur additional charges, generally on a per-call basis for each data
download
Proactive recommendations based on AI
Martech vendors in many categories, including B2B marketing automation, are working to
incorporate functionality that smooths the workflow for marketers using their software. One
significant focus is providing users with proactive recommendations or suggestions for best
next steps based on aggregated data and historical usage patterns.
With more
businesses seeking
to align marketing
with sales, native
or out-of-the-box
integration with CRM
systems has become
a critical feature
for B2B marketing
automation
platforms.
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MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
The proliferation
of digital channels
and devices has
made it difficult for
B2B marketers to
accurately target
prospects with the
right messages, on
the right devices, at
the right times.
Choosing an enterprise B2B marketing
automation platform
The benefits of using B2B marketing automation
The proliferation of digital channels and devices has made it difficult for B2B marketers to
accurately target prospects with the right messages, on the right devices, at the right times.
The rapid shift to all-online interactions sparked by the COVID pandemic also raised the level
of competition in the inbox, making relevant messaging more important than ever before.
Prospects are managing more of the buying process themselves, creating decision short lists
by researching brand websites and social channels without ever speaking to a sales rep. To be
effective, B2B marketers must be creative, targeted and aligned with sales goals; they must
also have greater visibility into buyer attributes and behaviors.
Faced with these challenging market dynamics and increasing ROI pressure, B2B marketers at
companies of all sizes can gain these benefits from a marketing automation platform:
• Increased marketing efficiency. Automating time-consuming, manual tasks around content
creation, management and personalization; campaign scheduling and execution; data
hygiene (i.e. duplicate or inconsistent data residing in various silos); communication with
sales; and lead nurturing saves time and improves productivity.
• Enhanced ability to generate more and better qualified leads. Marketing automation
can combine multiple criteria, including demographic, firmographic and behavioral data
(pages visited, downloads, filled out forms) with a lead scoring system to generate and
identify sales-qualified leads.
• A multichannel view of prospect behavior. Today’s marketing automation platforms are
integrating multiple channels and devices – including social media and mobile -- to create
more comprehensive prospect profiles and holistic views of prospect behavior.
• Better alignment of sales and marketing goals. Marketing automation software can help
align sales and marketing efforts to ensure that sales reps are working with sales-ready
leads. By working cooperatively to set scoring parameters and define qualified leads, sales
and marketing become one team. Marketing works on building relationships with early
stage leads to enable sales to focus their efforts on the most highly qualified prospects.
• Improved lead conversion and ROI. Numerous studies have found that using a marketing
automation system can increase conversions. Forrester found that B2B marketers
implementing marketing automation experience a 10% increase in their sales-pipeline
contribution. Marketing automation can result in a 15% increase in sales productivity as well
as a 12% decrease in marketing overhead, according to tech research firm Nucleus Research.
B2B marketing automation platform pricing
Virtually all marketing automation platforms offer SaaS-based pricing, meaning software is
licensed by the customer and hosted by the vendor. Several vendors targeting the enterprise
market also offer on-site installation and implementation services.
Pricing is often based on the number of contacts in the marketing database, the number of
email marketing messages sent each month and/or the number of users. Many vendors require
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MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Understanding
your current
marketing processes,
knowing how to
measure success
and being able to
identify where you
are looking for
improvements, are
all critical pieces
of the marketing
automation platform
decision-making
process.
annual contracts (although some offer month-to-month pricing) and may offer discounts in
exchange for longer-term commitments.
Recommended steps to making an informed purchase
Understanding your current marketing processes, knowing how to measure success and being
able to identify where you are looking for improvements, are all critical pieces of the marketing
automation platform decision-making process.
The following section outlines four steps to help your organization begin that process and
choose the marketing automation platform that is the right fit for your business needs and goals.
Step One: Do you need a marketing automation platform?
Deciding whether or not your company needs a marketing automation platform calls for the same
evaluative steps involved in any software adoption, including a comprehensive self- assessment of
your organization’s business needs, staff capabilities, management support and financial resources.
Use the following questions as a guideline to determine the answer.
1. Have we outgrown our current marketing system? Marketing automation is often a solution
for companies that are growing rapidly and need to scale their efforts. If you have data in
multiple databases that cannot be consolidated or are using an email system that can’t deliver
the level of behavioral targeting you need, it may be time for marketing automation.
2. What marketing automation capabilities are most critical to our business? Identify and
prioritize your software requirements and the key capabilities you’ll need from the new
system. Do your sales reps need real-time access to marketing data? Then native CRM
integration is a must have. Do you have a sophisticated social media presence? Then social
marketing management and integration will be important. By knowing what you need,
you’ll be in a better position to control the selection process and choose the platform that
will most benefit the organization.
3. What kind of marketing automation platform do we need? Marketing automation is not
a one-size-fits-all solution; it’s important to find the right fit. Nearly all companies offer the
same basic capabilities for email, website tracking and a marketing database. Additional
capabilities vary, however, so it’s important to identify what you need. Is inbound marketing
(social media, blogging, SEO) more important than outbound (email)? Are reporting
and analytics the key features you need? Is lead scoring a crucial part of your marketing
process? Do you need greater capabilities in audience segmentation and personalization?
4. What are our goals? It is critical to know up front what your goals for the marketing
automation system will be. Do you want to improve the quality of leads handed off by
marketing to sales? Or increase revenue by increasing conversion at key stages in the
buying cycle? Do you want to improve visibility into the buying and sales cycles to optimize
marketing engagement? Or do you want to reach the growing portion of your leads that
are mobile users? Bring key stakeholders together to establish the organization’s goals.
5. How will this platform integrate with our existing martech stack? The odds are that
you already have a martech stack in place, (e.g., several standalone tools for social media
management, SEO, webinar hosting, etc.). You’ll need to identify them all so you can ask
the marketing automation vendor about integration. Many vendors offer app marketplaces,
which provide faster access to the participating systems. Virtually all marketing automation
vendors offer APIs, but they may be an add-on to the price of the platform.
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MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Some marketing
automation
platforms are all
inclusive, while
others feature add-
on tools and services
that can significantly
increase costs.
6. Does management support this purchase? Every marketer should have an executive
sponsor to secure support at the C-level. If you are not the ultimate decision maker for this
purchase, you will need management to buy into the idea before you go any further. Present
a compelling case that the benefits of new software vastly outweigh the costs. This could
include converting more leads, making sales more efficient and improving campaign ROI.
7. Do we have the internal skillset and staff necessary? To maximize your ROI, staff will
need training and a willingness to develop and execute new business processes. You
may also need to consider several new hires. If your marketing and sales organizations
have been operating in silos, they will need to work more cooperatively on lead scoring
and routing systems, lead qualification definitions and more effective marketing collateral
and communications. Identify someone in the organization who will take the lead on the
selection process, as well as who will be using the system once it has been adopted.
8. How will we measure success? This is one of the toughest questions, and ties in directly
to understanding why you are adopting a marketing automation platform. If your goal is to
increase conversions, you’ll need to know what your conversion rate is before automation
in order to measure its impact. If it’s to improve email efficiency, be prepared with metrics
on open rates, clicks, etc. In addition to measuring against your marketing goals, it’s wise
to measure the depth and breadth of platform usage. Many marketers only use basic email
capabilities, which ends up being a costly investment.
9. Have we realistically assessed the cost? Some marketing automation platforms are all
inclusive, while others feature add-on tools and services that can significantly increase
costs. In addition to the cost of the software license itself, consider the costs of ongoing
services and training, as well as the indirect costs associated with getting staff up and
running on the new system (i.e., more cooperation and data sharing between marketing
and sales). If you don’t have your own IT or design staff, be sure to ask questions about
what these services cost on an hourly basis. For example, if the platform offers templates,
find out how many, and how much it costs to customize template design.
Step Two: Identify and contact appropriate vendors
Once you have determined that marketing automation software makes sense for your business,
spend time researching individual vendors and their capabilities by doing the following:
• Make a list of all the marketing automation capabilities you currently have (i.e., email
blasting), those that you would like to have (i.e., predictive scoring or recommendations)
and those that you can’t live without (i.e., plug-and-play CRM integration). This last
category is critical and could help you avoid a costly mistake.
• Take your list of capabilities and then do some research. Narrow your list down to the
vendors that meet your criteria. Submit your list of the marketing automation capabilities
you’ve identified and set a timeframe for them to reply.
• Decide whether or not you need to engage in a formal RFI/RFP process. This is an
individual preference but be sure to give the same list of capabilities to each vendor to
facilitate comparison.
The most effective RFPs only request relevant information from the vendors and provide ample
information about your business and its marketing automation needs. Let the vendor know how
you plan to use marketing automation, including your high-level strategic goals and KPIs and
how you will evaluate the success of your marketing automation efforts. Include details about
timelines and the existing digital technology you have deployed.
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MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
The most effective
RFPs only request
relevant information
from the vendors
and provide ample
information about
your business
and its marketing
automation needs.
When written properly, an RFP will facilitate the sales process and ensure that everyone involved
on both sides come to a shared understanding of the purpose, requirements, scope, and
structure of the intended purchase. From the RFP responses, you should be able to narrow your
list down to three or four platforms that you’ll want to demo.
Step Three: Scheduling the demo
Set up demos with your short list of vendors within a relatively short timeframe after receiving
the RFP responses to help make relevant comparisons. Make sure that all potential internal
users are on the demo call, and pay attention to the following:
• How easy is the platform to use?
• Does the vendor seem to understand our business and our marketing needs?
• Are they showing us our “must-have” features?
• If we ask a specific question, can they demonstrate the answer on the call?
Other questions to ask each vendor include:
• How easy is it to integrate this software into my organization?
• What is the onboarding process?
• How long does implementation take?
• What kind of support and training are included in the base price?
• What does your partner and developer community look like?
• How do I maximize adoption in my organization?
• Will we have a dedicated account rep available to us?
• Do current customers utilize the full functionality?
• What new features are you focusing on for the coming year?
• Can we do a test run for a few days on our own (i.e., a free trial)?
• How do you protect and secure customer data? Do you have a roadmap for what you
would do in the event of a hack?
Don’t hesitate to ask for a demonstration of the specific capabilities that you have identified in
your RFI/RFP. Consider requesting product demos showing basic tasks and demonstrating core
reports such as:
• Create and edit a new email from scratch.
• Import and segment data.
• Base data management, cleansing and enrichment options.
• Create and edit a new landing page from scratch.
• Execute a simple campaign with an email, mailing list and landing page.
• See a report showing email opens, clickthroughs and landing page conversions.
• See a report showing web traffic and/or specific leads from an email campaign.
• ROI dashboards and reports at the organization and campaign levels.
• Campaign attribution options and capabilities.
This is an ongoing relationship; it’s important to feel that your questions are being answered.
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MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Step Four: Check references, negotiate a contract
Before deciding on a particular vendor, check out its online community and review sites, and
speak with one or two customer references, preferably someone in a business similar to yours.
The vendor should be able to supply you with
You can also ask around at conferences and networking events that you attend.
Use this opportunity to ask any additional questions, and to find out more about any questions
that weren’t answered during the demo. Make sure that the person you’ve been referred to is
someone who is a primary user of the platform. Consider also asking these basic questions:
• Why did you license a marketing automation platform?
• Did you migrate to this platform from another? If so, how was the conversion process?
• Why did you select this platform over others?
• How long did the system take to implement?
• Has this platform lived up to your expectations?
• Did you receive the level of support you needed?
• What CRM system is this platform integrated with? Are you pleased with that integration?
• Were there any surprises that you wish you’d known about beforehand?
• Where have you seen the most success? The biggest challenges?
• How are you measuring your own success?
• How responsive is customer service?
• Has there been any down time?
• What is the most useful, actionable (favorite) report the platform generates?
• What do you wish they did differently?
• Why would you recommend this platform?
• How responsive is customer service?
• Has there been any down time?
• What is the most useful, actionable (favorite) report the platform generates?
• What do you wish they did differently?
• Why would you recommend this platform?
Although not all vendors require an annual contract, many do. Once you’ve selected a vendor,
be sure to get in writing a list of what technology and support are covered in the contract. Ask
about what kinds of additional fees might come up. Are there charges for custom design, and,
if so, how much? What is the hourly charge for engineering services, and is there a minimum?
What partner organizations are available to install and integrate the platform? If you need to
train a new hire mid-year, what will that cost? Obtaining the answers up front – and having
them in writing – will ensure fewer surprises or additional costs down the road.
Set up demos with
your short list of
vendors within a
relatively short
timeframe after
receiving the RFP
responses to help
make relevant
comparisons.
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MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Conclusion
With martech budgets under greater scrutiny in the current environment, marketing leaders
are expected to be able to demonstrate ROI for any new technology investment. Marketing
automation platforms are a critical part of the martech ecosystem for many businesses, offering
numerous benefits by streamlining manual B2B marketing tasks, including lead management,
email campaign development and landing page creation.
These platforms offer a wide range of advanced features, including AI-based predictive
lead scoring and product recommendations, ABM and social media campaign integration.
They also integrate seamlessly with many third-party CRM and other point solutions to
offer extended capabilities. The key to ensuring ROI is to make sure the platform is easy to
use and scale and is suited to your organization’s goals. Platform vendors offer extensive
training programs, online communities and strategic consulting services to encourage more
comprehensive platform use and create a higher return on marketing automation investments.
To identify the marketing automation platform vendor that is the right fit for your organization,
it is imperative that you understand your current marketing processes, recognize where you
need to improve and know how you will measure success. By performing your due diligence
in researching and interviewing marketing automation vendors, your search can come to a
successful conclusion and result in greater long-term ROI and business productivity. n
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Vendor profiles
MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Acoustic
115 Perimeter Center Pl
The Terraces, Suite 700
Atlanta, GA 30346
T: (866) 820-5136
acoustic.com
Key customers
Wikipedia
TJX
Ticketmaster
MetLife
PayPal
USO
Key executives
Dennis Self, CEO
Elmer Lai, CFO
Norman Guadagno, CMO
Jeff Lundal, CCO
Target customer
• B2B and B2C upper mid-market and enterprise marketing teams, supporting
retailers, banks, insurance, e-commerce, education, travel, hospitality, media,
manufacturing and entertainment.
Company overview
• 900 Employees
• Founded in 2019 after IBM Watson Marketing separated from IBM as a standalone
company.
• Backed by Centerbridge Partners
• Acoustic powers thousands of marketing teams in more than 70 countries, sending
more than 4 billion messages every week.
Product overview
• Acoustic Campaign offers the following capabilities:
• Dynamic flowcharting enables marketers to quickly build multichannel digital
campaigns (email, SMS, mobile push, social) with decision junctures and
percentage-based splits that can fork to nine paths (not including the remainder
path). Customer profile updates can be made directly from a campaign and
current customer status is presented across an active program.
• Lead capture, nurturing and scoring models deliver high quality leads while
decreasing customer acquisition costs.
• Email Insights previews 30 different email clients, including Gmail, Outlook
and iPhone and Android platforms, and delivers reports such as geo-location
(including city, state and country), average engagement time and preferred email
client or device.
• Inbox Monitoring helps clients ensure maximum deliverability to Inboxes across
providers and, thus, engagement.
• Mobile app messaging campaigns capture mobile insights in real time and drive
personalized mobile experiences (push notifications and in-app messages) to
each contact.
• SMS campaigns reach customers quickly with personalized, targeted messages.
• Social campaigns enable marketers to reach existing segments in social channels
or to expand to reach new contacts that resemble existing profiles.
• Personalization helps marketers understand, capture and respond to customer
preferences and behaviors.
• Budgeting and planning leverage marketing, CRM and finance systems to
measure, track and optimize marketing performance.
• Artificial intelligence is used throughout the Acoustic Marketing Cloud.
• Acoustic Campaign saves marketers time and helps them drive to insights quickly
via natural language requests for analysis and results.
• Content Management to automatically apply metadata tags to digital marketing
assets
• Anomaly and struggle detection to optimize behavior on websites (landing
pages) and in mobile apps.
• Preferred location feature allows marketers to leverage AI-determined personal
locations (such as “home” and “work”) to communicate personalized messages
and offers while maintaining customer privacy.
• Predictive weather events uses large datasets to build relative triggers that can
personalize customer engagements.
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Vendor profiles
MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
• Acoustic powers digital experiences
through a built-in CMS
• Marketers use the CMS to building
landing pages, lead capture forms,
and entire websites.
• The CMS is linked to Marketing
Automation, so updates are synced
across channels.
• All content leverages the built-in
personalization engine to tailor
content and offers to individual
customers.
Lead management
• Campaign orchestration.
• Lead scoring.
• Contact scoring.
• Native CRM integrations.
• Account-based management.
• Audience segmentation and list
management.
• Distributed marketing.
• Inbound and outbound marketing.
• Child-relational tables.
• Field-level sync.
• Personalization.
• Dynamic content.
• Event-based triggers.
Data cleansing
• Customer profile build and
management.
• Cross-channel identity resolution.
• Data governance and policy
management.
• Privacy and security management.
• Data enhancement and enrichment.
• Open connector to 3rd party
applications.
• Data hygiene and cleansing.
• Response history and promotion
management.
• Cross-channel consent management.
Channels upon which campaigns
can be deployed
• Email, SMS, mobile spp push, social
advertising, web, e-commerce, mobile
messaging apps (WeChat, LINE), print
& direct mail, contact center.
Collaboration
• Features: Roles and permissions,
financial planning and budgeting,
collaboration and resource alignment,
marketing calendar, orgs/business
unit framework for multiple brands,
distributed marketing.
Analytics
• Campaign performance.
• Channel specific performance.
• Cross-channel attribution.
• More than 80 out-of-the-box reports
and dashboards.
• Custom reports and dashboards.
• Behavioral analytics.
• Session replay.
• Heatmaps.
• Inbox Monitoring offers reports
to manage and predict inbox
deliverability.
• Segmentation and audience reporting.
• Email Insights offers reports that
provide email engagement insights.
• Excel add-in downloads all campaign-
related reporting and activity data.
• A/B/n multi-variant testing reports.
Data Privacy
• GDPR.
• CCPA.
• ISO/IEC 2700.
• SSAE-16 SOC Type II.
• Right of Erasure.
• Right of Access.
Integrations
• Integrates with CRM, web analytics,
e-commerce and other marketing
technology and advertising technology
providers.
• Out-of-the-box integrations with
Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365,
Magento, and Sugar CRM.
• APIs set available for customized CRM
app development.
• Acoustic Exchange connects multiple
applications in a marketing ecosystem
through Acoustic’s pre-integrated
Acoustic
115 Perimeter Center Pl
The Terraces, Suite 700
Atlanta, GA 30346
T: (866) 820-5136
acoustic.com
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Vendor profiles
MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Acoustic
115 Perimeter Center Pl
The Terraces, Suite 700
Atlanta, GA 30346
T: (866) 820-5136
acoustic.com
partner network across paid, owned
and earned channels. Clients pay as
the volume of events syndicated across
solutions increases.
• The Acoustic Campaign partner
network delivers complementary
agencies, partner offerings, and
supporting services.
Pricing and support
• Annual contract is required.
• Free trial is available.
• Pricing is typically based on the size of
the customer database for B2B clients
or the number of messages sent (email,
mobile push, SMS, etc.) for B2C clients.
• The majority of Acoustic Campaign
contracts are 12/24-month terms.
• 24/7 email and phone support included
for all customers; an online support
portal is also available. Some receive a
dedicated customer success manager.
• Onboarding support is standard across
all Acoustic customers.
• Experienced services organization
provides technical integrations and
strategic services.
• Web-based training is available and
custom, on-site training is offered for an
• additional fee.
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Vendor profiles
MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Target customer
• Mid-market and enterprise businesses.
Company overview
• Founded in 2007.
• 1,000+ employees.
• Acquia was acquired by Vista Equity Partners in September 2019.
• Acquia acquired Cohesion in September 2019.
• Acquia acquired AgilOne in December 2019.
• Acquia acquired Mautic in May 2019.
• Offices: Boston, MA (HQ), Portland, OR, Santa Clara, CA, Toronto, Canada, Brighton,
United Kingdom, Reading, United Kingdom, Munich, Germany, Paris, France, Sydney,
Australia, Tokyo, Japan, Pune, India.
Product overview
• Acquia Campaign Studio (formerly Mautic) is a customer journey orchestration
solution that allows brands to align their digital strategies, create, orchestrate and
deliver exceptional customer experiences across all channels.
• Offers a drag-and-drop interface that allows marketers to orchestrate the customer
journey by defining different journeys that respond to what customers are doing in
real-time. This includes cross-channel, multi-touch and multi-wave campaigns.
• Marketers can build individually personalized content quickly through a drag-and-
drop Email Builder, from scratch or from a template, execute and monitor all aspects
of their campaign directly; helping boost engagement, loyalty and customer lifetime
value.
Channels on which campaigns can be conducted
• With Acquia Campaign Studio, organizations can onboard any channel and
orchestrate seamless, one-to-one customer experiences everywhere. This includes
email, SMS, push notifications, landing pages, web push & personalization, social
media, ad tech, direct mail, and emerging channels like voice, IoT & digital signage.
• Marketers can develop engaging, responsive content for any medium through an
intuitive drag & drop interface, with HTML, or with partners and agencies. Start
with a template or build it for a seamless experience from start to finish.
• Individually personalize messages across channels in the context of every customer’s
journey, using customer profile and real-time engagement data to deliver relevant
content to individuals via email and your website.
Collaboration
• Manage multiple teams: Campaign Factory lets users work across regions and
business units to provide an experience that feels unified at every touchpoint.
Acquia
53 State Street 10th Floor
Boston MA 02109
T: 844–373–2128
acquia.com
Key customers
Shake Shack
Lids
ParkNow
Applause
Key executives
Mike Sullivan, CEO
Dries Buytaert,
Co-Founder and CTO
Chris Andersen, CFO
Lynne Capozzi, CMO
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Vendor profiles
MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Analytics & Reporting
• Acquia Campaign Studio offers
detailed analytics and reporting
capabilities, from quick-view
dashboards personalized by user to
deep dive read-outs on the real-time
performance of any campaign or
individual marketing element (e.g.
email, landing page, form, etc.).
• Journey Analytics and Optimization:
Users can receive real-time insights and
testing and adjust on the fly to deliver
the most compelling experiences for
every individual at any given moment,
in any given channel.
Integrations
• Natively integrated with Acquia
Marketing Cloud, which enables
marketers to:
• Use deep, real-time insights from
Acquia CDP to create relevant
and impactful cross-channel
experiences that maximize
marketing ROI.
• Leverage the 360 Profile to build
and personalize campaigns in
Acquia Campaign Studio, including
machine learning-based segments
and offline transaction data.
• Interaction data such as email
sends, opens, clicks, and any other
subscribed events from. Acquia
Campaign Studio is unified at the
customer level into Acquia CDP’s
unified profile.
• Organize customer profiles into
any customized segment, category,
or tag that aligns with a marketing
mission, strategy, or program.
• Acquia Marketing Cloud provides
real-time integrations to third-party
systems via plug-ins, connector-
based, template-based, and custom
integrations to support inbound and
outbound data flow,
Data security
• Acquia Campaign Studio enables
customers to be fully compliant with
GDPR, CASL and has received EU
Privacy Shield certification.
Pricing
• Pricing not disclosed.
Acquia
53 State Street 10th Floor
Boston MA 02109
T: 844–373–2128
acquia.com
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Vendor profiles
MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Act-On Software
121 SW Morrison St.,
Suite 1600
Portland, OR 97204
T: (877) 530-1555
act-on.com
Target customer
• Emerging growth and mid-market B2B & B2C companies seeking a highly
configurable and powerful marketing automation platform, growth marketers looking
to extend marketing performance across customer experiences, and buyers in a
variety of industries that include business and financial services, manufacturing,
higher education, insurance and technology.
Company overview
• 200 Employees.
• Founded in 2008.
• Raised a total of $74M in venture funding.
• Act-On is the only independent and marketing-focused automation vendor in the
market. The company’s solution is built by and for growth marketers, with customer
campaigns, programs, strategies, and ambitions defining its priorities.
• Offices in Portland, OR and Reading, U.K.
Product overview
• Offers a highly configurable platform that sets users up for success and adapts as
their business needs evolve.
• Delivers intuitive inbound and outbound multichannel marketing, contact capture,
scoring, segmentation, targeting and lead nurturing.
• Open ecosystem for simple integration of the technology stack, with native CRM
integrations for Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Sugar CRM, and NetSuite.
• Designed to empower growth marketers to deliver consistent customer experiences,
drive product adoption and advocacy.
Lead management
• Act-On says its customers enjoy the best email deliverability rates in the industry.
It also offers deep integrations with event planning solutions and SMS messaging
directly from within the product.
• Built-in email, landing page, and form templates and design features allow customers
to brand and personalize communications and the nurture program builder is
exceptionally intuitive and powerful.
• Account-based marketing, transactional emailing, social media engagement and
connections with virtually any marketing technology enables a broad range of
marketing features for managing and nurturing leads.
Channels upon which campaigns can be deployed
• Act-On enables multi-channel marketing through:
• Promotional and transactional emailing,
• SMS messaging,
• Landing pages,
• Forms,
• SEO tools,
• Social media,
• ABM, and
• Event marketing.
Key customers
RLH
Sharp
RSA Canada
Avery Dennison
Simpleview
Oregon State University
Foundation
Key executives
Kate Johnson, CEO
Bill Pierznik, COO
Brian Gaffney, SVP,
Worldwide Sales
David Greenberg, SVP,
Marketing
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Vendor profiles
MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Analytics
• Engagement Insights offers a
templated approach using Google
Sheets and Excel to provide real-time
insight into engagement, shareable
across the organization without manual
configuration and customization.
• Data Studio visualizes and exports data
to business intelligence (BI) tools.
• Standard reports track site visitor
activity, including time on site and
pages viewed, top referring sites, email
responses, webinar attendance, landing
page visits and forms submitted.
• Funnel reports allow users to define
funnels based on business process,
track prospects through conversions,
measure overall flow and velocity
through the funnel and compare results
across time periods.
• Website Prospector tracks and scores
visitor behaviors prior to capturing
contact data, to enable richer contact
profiling
Data Privacy
• Compliant with GDPR and CCPA.
Integrations
• Native CRM integrations with
Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365,
Sugar CRM, Pipeliner CRM, and
NetSuite.
• Out-of-the-box integration with Zoom
Webinars, WebEx and GoToWebinar.
• Act-On Anywhere provides email
templates and Act-On tracking
capabilities from Gmail and Outlook
inboxes.
• Open APIs available for additional app
development and integration, including
Silver status with Zapier.
Pricing and support
• Annual contract is required.
• No free trial is available.
• Act-On pricing is based on active
contacts, not database size. This allows
customers to pay for engagement with
active contacts, rather than lists and
junk data.
• Two pricing tiers: Professional and
Enterprise.
• Professional starts at $900/month
• Enterprise starts at $2,000/month
• Act-On services and support packages
are designed to address and adapt
to business’ unique marketing goals.
Support packages include live, in-
person phone support, quarterly
success reviews and business check-
ins. Support team enjoys a CSAT score
above 98%.
• Fast Track Onboarding is $5,000.
• There are three support packages:
• Silver is standard and included.
• Gold ($6,000) includes a dedicated
support manager.
• Platinum ($15,000) includes a
dedicated support manager and a
customer success manager.
• Product bootcamp training is offered.
Act-On Software
121 SW Morrison St.,
Suite 1600
Portland, OR 97204
T: (877) 530-1555
act-on.com
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Vendor profiles
MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
HubSpot
25 First St., 2nd Floor
Cambridge
MA 02141
T: 888-482-7768
hubspot.com
Target customer
B2B and B2C customers, mostly mid-market and scaling SMBs.
Company overview
• 4000 Employees.
• Founded in 2006.
• Publicly traded (NYSE: HUBS).
• In December 2020, HubSpot committed to putting $20M into social impact investing,
with an eye toward helping “dismantle systemic racism through meaningful, long-
term change.”
• European headquarters in Dublin; Asia-Pacific headquarters in Singapore; Latin
America headquarters in Bogotá, Colombia.
• Additional offices in Berlin, Germany; Sydney, Australia; Tokyo, Japan; and
• Portsmouth, NH.
• HubSpot is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform that provides
software and support to help businesses grow better. The platform includes
marketing, sales, service, and website management products that start free and scale
to meet customers’ needs at any stage of growth.
Product overview
• The HubSpot Growth Platform is a full software stack for marketing, sales and
customer success, with a free CRM at its core. The platform components are:
• HubSpot Marketing Hub: Includes tools for lead capture and management,
scoring, nurturing, analytics, A/B testing, blogging, content management, social
monitoring and publishing, email marketing and paid advertising. Offers rules-
based or predictive lead scoring for any data point including email and website
actions, social media metrics and form captures.Scoring systems can be tested as
well as segmented in a customer’s database.Additional functionality includes the
ability to trigger campaigns, profile and lead scoring changes, and notifications
when particular prospect behaviors occur.
• HubSpot Sales Hub: Sales productivity software for sales teams at growing
businesses. The software includes email tracking from the user’s inbox,
notifications when leads view site pages, and in-line information on competitor
sites and emails users receive. Can be used to schedule emails and follow-ups
from within the user’s inbox.
• HubSpot Service Hub: A service tool for growing businesses that want to
prioritize the needs of the customer. Tools include a unified inbox called
Conversations, knowledge base tools, and customer feedback measures.
• HubSpot CRM: A CRM and growth tool for businesses who are just starting to
formalize their sales process. Helps align sales teams and supports business
growth by organizing details about an organization’s contacts, companies, sales
process and customers in one place.
• HubSpot CMS: Uses a personalization engine to customize the website
experience for each visitor. Includes free one-click SSL, as well as a web
application firewall for added security.
• Mobile app provides platform access for both iPhone and Android users.
• Data is stored in the cloud
Key customers
SurveyMonkey
Classpass
DoorDash
Airstream
Care.com
Randstad
Key executives
Brian Halligan,
Co-founder and CEO
Dharmesh Shah,
Co-founder and CTO
Yamini Rangan,
Chief Customer Officer
Kipp Bodnar, CMO
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Vendor profiles
MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Channels upon which campaigns
can be deployed
• Blogs, websites.
• Email.
• Paid media campaigns.
• Social media management through
Social Inbox, an included social media
publishing and monitoring tool.
• Highlights an individual’s lifecycle
stage with a color-coded interface
that links directly with HubSpot’s
other tools for follow-up and
internal communication on social
media alerts.
• Users can schedule and publish
posts to Twitter, Facebook,
LinkedIn from one or multiple
accounts.
• Tweets are categorized (customer,
prospect or active opportunity)
and then trigger alerts for sales,
marketing or customer service.
Analytics
• Reports track channel performance,
conversion assists, time-to-completion
• and reverse funnel analysis.
• Users can benchmark traffic, conversion
and inbound links for up to 10
• competitors.
• ROI tracked via multiple sources such
as organic and paid search, referrals,
• social media, email marketing, direct
traffic and other campaigns.
• Monthly reports are delivered
automatically and can be customized.
• A reporting add-on provides
customizable dynamic dashboards for
• both sales and marketing.
Data Privacy
• HubSpot is GDPR compliant.
Integrations
• Runs a partner program featuring a
vibrant ecosystem of certified non-
HubSpot tools that complement and
integrate with HubSpot. It features over
500 powerful integrations, with several
new partners joining each month.
Pricing and support
• Annual contract required.
• Free trial available.
• Pricing is based on the number of
contacts you plan to market to, with a
variety of plans, including:
• Starter: Starts at 1,000 marketing
contacts for at $45/month
• Professional: Starts at 2,000
marketing contacts for $800/month
• Enterprise: Starts at 10,000
marketing contacts for $3200/
month
• Email, phone and Twitter support are
included in pricing. Phone support
available 7am to 8pm EST.
• HubSpot Academy is a free marketing
how-to site offering customers guides,
webinars, brainstorming worksheets
and inbound certification courses.
HubSpot
25 First St., 2nd Floor
Cambridge
MA 02141
T: 888-482-7768
hubspot.com
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Vendor profiles
MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Keap
1260 South Spectrum Blvd.
Chandler, AZ 85286
T: 866-800-0004
keap.com
Target customer
• Small businesses with two to 25 employees.
Company overview
• Founded in 2001.
• 400 employees.
• Raised more than $140M in venture funding.
• Investors include Bain Capital Ventures, Goldman Sachs, Signal Peak Ventures, and
Mohr Davidow Ventures
• $100M+ annual revenue.
Product overview
• Keap centralizes customer information in a suite of tools including:
• CRM.
• Sales automation.
• Marketing automation.
• E-commerce.
• Payments.
• Analytics.
• Mobile solutions.
Lead Management
• Contact management.
• Contact segmentation (tags).
• Saved searches, filters, and contact lists.
• Tasks.
• Web forms.
• Landing pages.
• Company records.
• Lead scoring.
• Customizable dashboard.
• Pipeline management.
• Advanced Automation.
• Easy Automation Builder.
Data cleansing
• Automated list management for email engagement monitoring.
• Data migration services.
• List hygiene services.
Key customers
The Bestseller Academy
Skillastics
Artist Management Services
Magic Evan
Brooklyn Music Factory
Advocates 4 Angels
Key executives
Clate Mask, Co-founder and
CEO
Scott Martineau, Co-founder
and Chief Marketing Officer
Kaja Jezycki Chief People &
Operations Officer, General
Counsel
Rajesh Bhatia,
Chief Technology Officer
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Vendor profiles
MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Marketing channels
• Email, SMS, phone, affiliates.
Collaboration and/or task
management
• Automated reminders, task
management, workflow management,
invoices, billing and payments
management, appointment scheduling,
order forms.
• Gmail and Outlook Syncs.
Reporting and analytics
• Marketing Reports
• Conversions by sales stage, lead
source, and other criteria.
• Form completion, email open
rates, and click-throughs.
• Marketing and campaign
performance.
• Contact action.
• Sales Reports
• Revenue by a lead source, contact
interests, products, and other
criteria.
• Activity history and sales generated
by each rep on the team.
• Projected revenue based on
current efforts.
• Activity and revenue from referrals.
• Custom opportunity reports by
owner, sales stage, and activity.
• Order and Billing Reports
• Sales, receivables, payments,
credits, and subscription revenue.
• Income by lead source, product, or
invoice.
• Customer lifetime value.
• Orders, failed credit card, and
unpaid invoices.
• Admin Reports
• User logins, leads added, contacts
added, and updates.
• All tasks by user, type, due date,
completion status, and associated
notes.
Data privacy and security
• PCI DSS.
• Third-party data center providers must
have recently completed a Service
Organization Controls (SOC) 2 Type II
audit.
• Two-factor security authentication
Third-party software integration
• Keap Marketplace includes 250 small
business service and technology
ecosystem partners, apps, integrations,
content, and pre-built marketing
campaigns.
Developer programs and tools
• The Keap Developer Community
provides information on available APIs.
• PartnerEdition lets certified partners
and developers create and deploy
campaigns to their own customers’
apps.
• Keap Marketplace lets anyone share
or sell re-usable solutions to Keap
customers in an online marketplace.

Pricing and support
• Keap product lineup includes:
• Keap Grow: $79/month (+expert
coaching)
• Keap Pro: $149/month (+expert
coaching)
• Infusionsoft by Keap: $199/month
(+expert coaching)
• Free trial available.
• Support is included with every
subscription and is available via live
chat 24/7 or via phone during regular
business hours in the U.S., U.K., and
Australia.
• Expert Coaching is an individually
tailored consultative service.
Keap
1260 South Spectrum Blvd.
Chandler, AZ 85286
T: 866-800-0004
keap.com
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Vendor profiles
MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Target customer
• Fortune 100 companies. Most customers are small businesses, particularly in the
commerce and technology industries.
Company overview
• 1200 Employees.
• Founded in 2001.
• Privately owned. No VC funding.
• Mailchimp is the trading name of its operator, Rocket Science Group.
• Headquarted in Atlanta, GA with additional offices in Brooklyn, NY, Oakland, CA,
Santa Monica, CA and Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Product overview
• All-in-one marketing platform for businesses with an emphasis on growth marketing.
• Facebook, Google, Instagram (organic social posting, ads, remarketing).
• Postcards.
• Automations.
• CRM.
• Email.
• Shoppable landing pages.
• Websites.
• Domains.
• Reporting and analytics.
• Signup forms.
• Behavioral targeting.
• Creative assistant.
• Dynamic content.
• Subject line helper.
• Customer journeys.
• Surveys.
• Smart recommendations.
Lead management
• Lead generation and nurturing.
• Analytics
Š Behavioral targeting
Š Segmentation
Š Predicted demographics
Š Tags & contact profiles
• Campaigns
Š Email.
Š Landing pages.
Š Signup forms.
Š Postcards.
Š Ads.
• Facebook ads.
• Instagram ads.
• Landing pages.
• Google remarketing ads.
Key customers
Dollar Shave Club
GitHub
Magnolia Market
Chronicle Books
TEDTalks
UrbanSitter
Key executives
Ben Chestnut,
Co-founder and CEO
Dan Kurzius, Co-founder
Tom Klein,
Chief Marketing Officer
Carine Roman,
Chief Customer Officer
Mailchimp
675 Ponce de Leon Ave. NE
Suite 5000
Atlanta, GA 30308
Mailchimp.com
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Vendor profiles
MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Š Organic social posting.
• Smart features:
Š Address finder.
Š Lookalike audience finder
(ads and postcards).
• Lead management.
• Audience dashboard.
• Archive contacts.
Channels upon which campaigns
can be deployed
• Mailchimp provides marketing tools for:
Email, Facebook ads, Instagram ads,
Landing pages, Google remarketing
ads, sign-up forms, postcards, customer
relationship management, websites,
organic social posting.
Collaboration
• Integrations give users the option to
connect the collaboration and task
management tools of their choice to
the Mailchimp account.
Analytics
• Mailchimp’s advanced analytics
monitors real-time marketing data
across channels and provides growth,
engagement, and revenue reports for
users.
• Campaign reports analyze clicks,
opens, and revenue.
Data privacy
• Mailchimp’s legal team partners with
developers and engineers to make
sure Mailchimp’s products and features
comply with applicable international
spam and privacy laws.
• Retains a law firm in the UK to consult
on EU privacy issues.
• Undergoes annual verification with a
U.S. based, third-party compliance
reviewer under the Privacy Shield
verification program, and it has certified
compliance with the EU-U.S./Swiss-U.S.
Privacy Shield Frameworks.
• Member of the ANA, ESPC, OTA, and
MAAWG.
• Mailchimp corporate attorneys and legal
compliance manager are active members
of the International Association of Privacy
Professionals (IAPP) and collectively hold
the certifications of CIPP/US, CIPP/G, and
CIPP/E.
Integrations
• Shoppable landing pages through a
partnership with Square.
• Buy Button on websites and landing
pages through partnership with Stripe
• Native integration through connected
sites with Shopsync, WooCommerce,
BigCommerce, Magento, Magento
2, PrestaShop, Big Cartel, Drupal
Commerce, Miva, and Ubercart.
• Marketplace access to hundreds of
third-party apps and web services.
• Custom integrations through API with
Google Analytics, EA Pro Reports, Glew
Ecommerce Analytics, and Power BI.
• The Mailchimp API is designed to
help create custom solutions or
integrate with RESTful APIs. The REST
architectural style is an integral part of
API 3.0. Developers use Mailchimp API
3.0 to sync email activity and campaign
stats with their databases, manage
audiences, view and control automation
workflows, and test calls and endpoints
before pushing to production.
Pricing and support
• No annual contract required.
• Free trial is available.
• Mailchimp offers tiered pricing based
on number of subscribers and emails
sent per month.
• Free Plan
• Essentials Plan starts at $9.99/
month.
• Standard Plan starts at $14.99/
month.
• Premium Plan starts at $299/month.
• No consultative or integration services
offered directly by Mailchimp, but the
company has a network of experts who
collaborate with small business owners
to assist with marketing, development,
and design projects.
Mailchimp
675 Ponce de Leon Ave. NE
Suite 5000
Atlanta, GA 30308
Mailchimp.com
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Vendor profiles
MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Marketo (an Adobe Company)
345 Park Avenue
San Jose, CA 95110
T: 408-536-6000
adobe.com
Target customer
• SMB to enterprise-level B2B marketers and some B2C considered-purchase
marketers in a variety of industries, including technology, business services,
healthcare, financial services, education, manufacturing, and telco.
Company overview
• Parent company Adobe founded in 1982.
• 22,634 employees.
• More than 13,000 customers around the world.
• Marketo acquired by Adobe in October 2018.
• More than 50 Adobe offices around the world including in San Jose, San Francisco,
Lehi (Utah), Seattle, Atlanta, Denver, Portland, Dublin, London, Paris, Tel Aviv, Tokyo
and Sydney.
• Annual revenue of $11.171 billion in FY2019.
Product overview
• Cloud-based Marketo Engage features 10 major capabilities for:
• Marketing automation to create, automate, and measure campaigns across
channels.
• Account insights and profiling to identify the right target accounts using data and
AI.
• Email to engage customers with relevant conversations in minutes.
• Mobile to communicate with customers using mobile devices.
• Social integration to identify potential and current customers.
• Targeted, personalized display ads.
• Dynamic interactions with customers on a web site.
• Marketing analytics to prove and improve business impact.
• Predictive content.
• Marketo Sales Connect to coordinate sales and marketing.
Capabilities
• Lead Management
• Marketo Engage:
Š Provides landing pages and progressive forms.
Š Users can develop and qualify potential buyers with personalized nurturing
campaigns and scoring capabilities.
Š Prioritize the best leads with quality and urgency ratings.
Š Integrations with Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, and other CRM
systems to increase lead management effectiveness.
Data cleansing
• Marketo Engage natively performs basic data cleansing.
• Data deduplication feature finds and merges duplicate users in the database.
• Users can set up automated workflows for data normalization.
• More advanced data deduplication and data cleansing enabled through turnkey
integrations with a number of LaunchPoint partners, including RingLead,
ReachForce, StrikeIron, and CRMFusion.
Key customers
CenturyLink
Charles Schwab
GE Panasonic
RingCentral
Roche
Key Executives
Shantanu Narayan,
Chairman, President and CEO,
Adobe
Aseem Chandra,
Digital Experience SVP Product
Marketing, Adobe
Suresh Vittal, Digital Experience
VP of Product & Technology,
Adobe
Brian Glover, Director,
Marketo Engage Product
Marketing, Adobe
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Vendor profiles
MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Marketing channels
• Email.
• Mobile push notifications and in-app
messages.
• Direct mail.
• Social media.
• Digital advertising.
• Web sites.
• E-commerce sites.
• Webinar and conference services.
• Video/interactive applications.
• Tradeshows, seminars, and events.
Collaboration and/or task
management
• Task management included natively
from within the application Command
Center or from the Tasks section of the
Live Feed.
• Tasks can also be managed from within
CRM systems.
Reporting and analytics
• ROI reports include multi-touch
attribution and aggregate impact of
marketing on the revenue cycle over
time, including conversion rates plus
flow and velocity through the funnel.
• Executive dashboards feature revenue
cycle analytics identifying real-time
metrics and trends.
• Bizible by Marketo offers complete
attribution across every marketing
and sales touchpoint, a variety of
attribution models, and connectors
to paid media channels.
• Performance Insights identifies
programs and channels that deliver
the highest marketing ROI.
• Success Path Analyzer monitors key
performance metrics for each stage
of the customer journey.
• Revenue Modeler defines customer
journey stages and monitors how
potential customers move through
the funnel.
• Advanced Report Builder features a
pivot-table UI for ad hoc reporting on
channel and campaign performance,
including attribution and ROI.
• Opportunity Influence Analyzer
demonstrates cross-channel
marketing activities that influence
deals to understand each marketing
touchpoint’s influence.
Data privacy and security
• SOC 2-Type 2.
• GDPR.
• CCPA.
• HIPAA.
• ISO 27001 certified.
Third-party software integration
• Native integration with Microsoft
Dynamics 365, Salesforce, and SAP
C4C.
• Supports two-way synchronization.
• With CRM credentials, custom
objects and fields can be synched
automatically.
• Additions/deletions to CRM
framework such as fields or objects
are automatically updated in
Marketo.
• Turn-key integrations available for
Oracle NetSuite, SugarCRM, and Zoho.
• Partner ecosystem of data integrators
and digital agencies includes Accenture
Digital, Deloitte Digital, DigitasLBi,
Informatica, Mulesoft, Talend, and
Software AG.
• LaunchPoint app marketplace includes
550 marketing apps and services
covering analytics, content marketing,
events, mobile marketing, social media,
video, sales tools, and digital marketing
and advertising.
• Additional integrations available
through Webhooks, SOAP, and REST
APIs.
Developer programs and tools
• Developer program provides access
to documentation around the Marketo
API.
• Getting Started.
• REST API.
• Lead Tracking (through Munchkin
code).
• Webhooks.
• Web personalization.
Marketo (an Adobe Company)
345 Park Avenue
San Jose, CA 95110
T: 408-536-6000
adobe.com
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Vendor profiles
MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
• Marketo Mobile Engagement
(MME).
• Email scripting.
• Client Libraries.
Pricing and support
• Pricing based on the size of the
marketing database, plus any
additional infrastructure requested,
such as advanced security, high volume
APIs, high volume email infrastructure,
or advanced database features.
• Annual contract required.
• No free trial available.
• Five pre-built bundles for the
Email Marketing, Account-Based
Marketing, Consumer Marketing, Lead
Management and Customer Base
Marketing solutions.
• All solutions include Marketo
Engagement Platform, which
helps marketers build customer
relationships by enabling
personalized interactions.
• Any product/module not packaged
in the solution can be purchased as
an add-on.
• Products/modules are typically priced
on a single scaling factor, such as
database size, number of marketing
users, number of mobile activities, or
number of web site visitors.
• All Marketo subscriptions include
access to customer success managers.
• All customers receive 24/7 web portal
support.
• Global phone support is available with
paid support options.
• Professional services packages are
available for implementation and
consulting services.
• Premium-priced support services
include access to named support
professionals, accelerated service-level
response, and sessions for proactive
mentoring and business review.
Marketo (an Adobe Company)
345 Park Avenue
San Jose, CA 95110
T: 408-536-6000
adobe.com
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Vendor profiles
MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Target audience
• B2B or B2B2C organizations that are enterprise, mid-market or small businesses that
require nurturing / lead scoring for large considered purchases or long sales cycles.
• Sales and/or marketing departments who are looking to align internally and
personalize the digital customer experience.
• Industries include, but are not limited to: High tech, manufacturing, financial services
and insurance, travel and transportation, consumer packaged goods, and media and
communication.
Company overview
• Founded in 1977.
• 135,000 employees.
• Publicly traded (NYSE: ORCL).
• Oracle acquired Eloqua in December 2012.
• Oracle offers suites of integrated applications plus secure, autonomous infrastructure
in the Oracle Cloud.
Product Overview
• Oracle Eloqua is a marketing automation solution for cross-channel campaign
orchestration that nurtures leads across each stage of the buying process using best-
in-class applications to drive sales with:
• Campaign orchestration to create dynamic campaigns that intrigue buyers and
adapt the multi-touch experience based on a buyer’s real-time activities.
• Targeting and segmentation capabilities that allow users to create rich customer
profiles and target the right individuals with the most relevant information
throughout the sales cycle.
• Lead management capabilities that are customizable and leverage key data
points while driving high-quality leads.
• Sales and marketing alignment with unified buyer intelligence to identify,
prioritize, and track high-valued opportunities and top-tier accounts across the
sales cycle.
• Data management and activation that allow marketers to take the next best
action with a contact based on real-time digital behaviors.
• Asset management for design and re-purposing compelling emails, landing
pages and content blocks that engage customers and efficiently manage assets
across teams and campaigns.
• Marketing measurement and insights through flexible and powerful out-of-the-
box reporting and detailed dashboards.
• Advanced intelligence capabilities that apply data science to observed
behaviors and adapt experiences to the learned preferences of each individual.
Lead management
• Oracle Eloqua’s lead management capabilities enable marketers to leverage relevant
data for powerful real-time automated lead scoring and routing across multiple
campaigns and business lines.
• Oracle Eloqua’s native capabilities give marketers the ability to implement an ABM
strategy. As marketers develop their ABM strategy they can use Eloqua to better
understand and identify accounts, expand their footprint within those accounts,
engage relevantly with the right stakeholders and grow advocates for repeat sales.
Oracle Eloqua
2300 Oracle Way
Austin, TX 78741
T: 737-867-1000
www.oracle.com/cx/marketing/
automation
Key customers
DocuSign
Panasonic
Mack Trucks
Movember
Kansas City Chiefs
Tampa Bay Lightning
Key executives
Rob Tarkoff, EVP, Oracle
Advertising and Customer
Experience
Nate Skinner, SVP, Marketing,
Oracle Advertising and
Customer Experience
Shashi Seth, SVP, Oracle
Marketing
Holly Simmons, VP, Product
Management, Oracle Marketing
© 2021 Third Door Media, Inc. • http://thirddoormedia.com
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Email: martechtoday@digitalmarketingdepot.com
Vendor profiles
MAR TECH INTELLIGENCE REPOR T:
B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Data cleansing/normalization
• Oracle Eloqua’s data management
capabilities allow for data
deduplication, normalization, and
augmentation to keep data clean and
updated. Eloqua enables integration
with dozens of third parties to complete
account and contact data ensuring it’s
up to date in the system.
Marketing channels
• Oracle Eloqua enables marketers
to create optimized, personalized
campaigns across email, display search,
web, video and mobile.
Collaboration and/or task
management
• Oracle Eloqua’s asset creation and
management capabilities give marketers
the ability to create compelling emails,
landing pages, and forms, and manage
those assets across their lifecycle. With
re-usable content blocks in the landing
page and email editors, marketers can
recycle marketing and brand-approved
elements to power their scaled content
needs. Managers & Admins simply
create approved content blocks, and
using permission settings, they can
restrict who can edit and what can be
edited for each block.
• Oracle Eloqua’s Program Canvas powers
lead management, including lead routing
and lead scoring. Program “Listener
Steps” can decision-on changes in
contact information such as lead score,
and take different actions based on
whether the lead exists already in the
CRM, including updating the lead score,
creating the lead in the CRM and routing
the lead to Sales with a task to offer a
Demo. The Program Canvas not only
manages tasks to routes leads, but also
enables marketers to create the lead
scoring models that will manage the
criteria that qualify a lead. This automates
the task of qualifying leads based on
Sales input regarding the leads they want
to follow-up with or track closely.
Reporting and analytics
• Oracle Eloqua’s marketing
measurement capabilities bring
powerful out-of-the-box and custom
analytics and reporting, powered by
Oracle Business Intelligence, to help
marketers accurately track and measure
business impact.
• Eloqua’s Account Engagement
Dashboard enables marketers to
identify, target and grow the most
engaged accounts, with insights
into products of interest and level of
account engagement.
• Closed-Loop Reporting lets marketing
teams see how sales opportunity
revenue is attributed to marketing
campaigns, enabling users to analyze
overall campaign revenue performance
(ROI) to identify the best and worst-
performing campaigns.
Data privacy and security
• Oracle has adopted processes
and practices to align with privacy
regulations, including GDPR
requirements.
Third-party software integrations
• Oracle Eloqua supports native bi-
directional integrations with Oracle
Sales, Oracle CRM On Demand,
Salesforce, and Microsoft Dynamics
365. Additional integrations are
available through a partner or Oracle
Integration Cloud Service for NetSuite,
SugarCRM, SAP CRM and Infor. In
addition, REST API is available to
integrate with other enterprise systems
such as ERP, content management and
data warehouses.
• The Oracle AppCloud provides access
to 500-plus app partners with over
700 integrations, including LinkedIn
Sales Navigator, Microsoft Outlook for
Sales Tools, WeChat, AddThis, Cvent,
Certain, Demandbase, Lattice, WebEx,
GoToWebinar, CloudWords, Pinterest,
LookBook HQ, SnapApp and LinkedIn.
Oracle Eloqua
2300 Oracle Way
Austin, TX 78741
T: 737-867-1000
www.oracle.com/cx/marketing/
automation