Which Marketing Automation Platform Should You Choose?
There are many Marketing Automation Platforms out there, and our team is often asked which platform we would recommend. This article is designed to help you understand the differences and compare features between two of the top platforms, HubSpot and Marketo, so you can decide which is the right Marketing Automation software for your business.
Overview of Hubspot vs. Marketo
HubSpot’s Marketing Hub enables you to grow your business through a proven combination of comprehensive marketing functionality and best in class usability. HubSpot is built for organizations that want to grow their business, but still be able to adapt quickly to changing markets and customer preferences. HubSpot is ranked #1 in Marketing Automation by Gartner, #1 in Marketing Automation by G2 Crowd and #1 Overall Best Product for Marketers by G2 Crowd
Marketo is a very complex tool that provides marketing automation and email nurturing, and requires difficult and sometimes costly integrations or other tools to help with the complete cycle of marketing, sales, and customer success. Also, to get the most out of a single email and marketing automation tool you require deep integration with a CRM system such as Salesforce, which needs to be maintained by your team. Marketo is ranked #8 in Marketing Automation by G2 Crowd and #5 by Gartner.
In Gartner’s Report on Marketing Automation software, they have one of the best summaries of the positioning of these two platforms: “There are many vendors and products out there, some are very robust, complicated and expensive, typically aimed at large enterprises such as Marketo. These require numerous resources to implement and utilize. However, if you are a ~$500M company with a small marketing department, HubSpot could be the perfect fit for your needs. They have excellent onboarding and customer support.”
You can only scale your business so far without automating your marketing activities and your processes. If you are the marketing leader in your organization, it's important to choose tools that deliver power & flexibility, and that are easy and delightful for your team to use every day. To deliver better results you need an integrated set of tools that help you move your prospects through all stages of the funnel, getting found, engaging and nurturing leads, and ultimately you need to tie all your marketing efforts back to ROI. In Marketo, you get a limited set of tools that require a specialized Marketing Operations staff member to coordinate, implement and manage. In HubSpot, all of this functionality is already built into the product.
Now let’s look at a few key areas of each Marketing Automation tool.
Marketing Automation & Email
Nurturing prospects and converting them into customers is at the core of every marketing automation tool. With the growth in the number of online customer touchpoints, however, automation and nurturing have started to evolve beyond just email to take care of all the various new ways that marketers have to connect with customers. Marketo includes the core capabilities of marketing automation, such as sending email, but requires costly integrations with CMS, CRM, and other tools to support other touchpoints. HubSpot is an all-in-one marketing software that includes content creation, email, a CRM, and automation in a single platform so all your setup is available visually and doesn't require a single line of code.
Measurement & ROI
Measuring effectiveness across your entire funnel is important to making data-driven decisions. From the content you create, to contacts generated, to customers won, having a view of each section of your funnel will allow you to focus on doing more of what works -- and less of what doesn't. Using Marketo you have the ability to get reporting from high-level engagement analytics to basic revenue reporting, however, for attribution & ROI reporting you will need to integrate Marketo with a specific attribution tool such as Bizible. With HubSpot, all of your analytics are available in one place - from top of the funnel performance metrics all the way to multi-touch revenue attribution. With the ability to connect every customer interaction to revenue, you can make strategic decisions that are based on actual business value. Better yet, since reporting is available out-of-of-the box, no manual integration or additional costs are required to get started.
Total Cost of Ownership of Marketing Automation Platforms
The cost of the software subscription is certainly a key component to keep in mind as you are evaluating Marketing Automation tools, however it's not the only cost that you should take into account. Keep in mind any new headcount that will be required as a result, as well as services or implementation fees. With Marketo, most organizations need to hire a dedicated marketing operations administrator to help manage and operate the software. This cost of a new hire, along with benefits can add significantly to your total cost of ownership. With HubSpot there's no dedicated administrator required, and all of the features you and your team need are available in an easy to use visual layout. Hubspot also includes Account Based Marketing (ABM) functionality, however with Marketo you will need to purchase a very costly ABM module that actually does not integrate well with Marketo, and is very difficult to use.
Hubspot & Marketo are not just software
Finally, choosing a Marketing Automation provider is a crucial decision, so when you make a purchase it's important to consider not only the software, but the support and resources you'll receive. With Marketo, you can get additional support and resources, but you need to pay extra for this. With Hubspot, you get free training, free support for all members of your team and free onboarding where they will even help you execute your first campaign. And if you need a bit of extra help, please feel free to contact us at Meticulosity and we will be happy to help you select the right marketing automation platform for your business or maximize the ROI from your new HubSpot implementation.
