Marketing automation application refers to software used by companies to streamline, automate, and measure marketing workflows by automating repetitive marketing tasks. In other words, it performs specific manual marketing tasks for you at any given point in time. Here’s an example of how it runs: imagine someone downloads an e-book from your website, the marketing automation software will obtain the contact information from the form, share that lead based upon the data that it has collected, and send them a relevant series of emails over a prescribed time.
Based on a study on “Marketing Automation Strategies for Sustaining Success,” by Marketo & Ascend2, 91% of the most successful marketers agree that marketing automation is “very important” to the success of their marketing goals across different channels. In the same study, it was also reported that 25% of survey interviewees considered their marketing automation approach as “very successful”.
The field of marketing automation is developing at a rapid rate. Adding a marketing automation tool to your e-commerce website is a high return on investment (ROI) strategy and is a necessary element of Inbound Marketing for e-commerce.
However, given the fast-growing overabundance of marketing automation applications available, which is best for your business?
Here are the top five marketing automation applications for an e-commerce website.
Founded in 2011, Windsor Circle is a fast-growing, well-funded startup in the eCommerce marketing automation space. Almost half of Windsor Circle’s features include email, but, in fact, no emails are actually sent from the tool itself. Rather, the system integrates with other popular email tools such as iContact, Emma, Constant Contact, etc. that you might be already using. Windsor Circle also offers an analytics platform, which enables you to segment and analyse e-commerce marketing data for insights. Windsor’s latest features include the ability to segment and target based on behaviours and on-site behavioural tracking.
Windsor Circle is a prominent name when it comes to integrations. They claim to be equipped to integrate with any eCommerce platform available. Any platform that does not support as “pre-built” is integrated over data feeds and comes with a one-time charge of $2,500.
HubSpot is a major e-commerce player and the king of marketing automation application for small to medium B2B companies. While not specifically common in e-commerce, HubSpot is rising in the market where brands are focused on Inbound Marketing and content marketing for higher eCommerce purchases. HubSpot is one of the most comprehensive e-commerce marketing automation applications with features such as publishing a blog, building and advertising landing pages and forms, running an automated email marketing campaign, and managing social media.
It is definitely a one-stop shop when it comes to e-commerce marketing automation. HubSpot has only three pre-built integrations with e-commerce platforms. Each integration was produced by a third-party and comes with a low fee of approximately $50-$100 per month.
Omnisend is an ecommerce marketing automation platform aimed at growing ecommerce businesses that have graduated past generic email marketing tools. It is a good choice for those looking for great MailChimp alternatives. It is heavily focused on automation and segmentation, with advanced filters than users can slice and dice to identify and communicate with specific audience groups. The automation features are growing, with a wide range of trigger options for different cases. That being said, it also has a bevy of other email marketing features, such as a drag-and-drop newsletter builder, instant import with Product Picker (for Shopify stores), and the always-popuplar popups and signup forms builder.
Omnisend is aiming on bringing omnichannel marketing to ecommerce, having already released SMS/text messaging features that can be used in campaigns and automation. It is set to bring out push notifications, custom audiences for retargeting, and instant messaging features (such as Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp).
Omnisend is available for Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Magento, and many others. If you’re on a custom platform, you can also connect your store via their easy-to-implement API.
Kevy is a new, but a fast-growing contender in the e-commerce marketing automation space. Their goal is to create limited fragmentation for e-commerce websites when it comes to the application they use to manage the business. Kevy is high on personalisation and has all the “basic ” features one would expect out of a marketing automation application for e-commerce websites. The features include cart recovery campaign capabilities, advanced segmentation capabilities, and email design editor. The company’s email designer is one of the best in the industry as it can even change an image’s size, and not just its dimensions. Also, the single-use coupon ability is an excellent addition which helps Kevy take personalisation even further.
Finally, the added pop-up capabilities are super convenient and strong with the ability to personalise and target pop-ups as well. Kevy can integrate with every e-commerce platform available but has stable integrations for BigCommerce, Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento for fast and convenient integrations.
Klaviyo is famous as an email software as compared to a full-fledged marketing automation application. This statement is partly true if we look at the features available in the tool presently. The tool was developed to be an e-commerce automated email tool with features such as win-back and cart abandonment, setting up automated campaigns like replenishment, and cross-sell. With Klaviyo, you can quickly build custom templates, and import your files with their extensive variety of integration choices. Additionally, the tracking snippet/pixel enables you to segment the content viewed by a user and not just the products they purchased.
Klaviyo integrates with the most popular and common e-commerce platforms. The custom integration possibility through JavaScript is an excellent option for a custom e-commerce platform. The JavaScript integration solution is similar to Google Analytics e-commerce tracking where one can “fill in the blanks” with order specifications to send to Klaviyo.
Bronto marketing automation program assists high-growth retailers to produce content that is intended to generate customer engagement. The program is primarily made up of services such as automation, email, personalisation, and analytics. Moreover, with the software giant Oracle’s backing them up, Bronto’s technology is advancing every day. Although Bronto provides a mixture of essential features for e-commerce websites, one element that shines through is the cart recovery solution which runs seamlessly to deliver personalised, relevant, messages that re-engage and ultimately convert into leads. All you need to do is install of a few lines of Javascript on your website, and Bronto will register cart activity every 30 seconds, and on recognising that a cart has been abandoned, it will trigger a customised workflow with messages that can include cart and order info.
Every e-commerce website has various requirements and goals to achieve when it comes to choosing an e-commerce marketing automation tool. Out of the five application mentioned above, each has it’s individual strengths and were developed to solve several queries for diverse businesses. When you have to make your selection, think precisely about what highlights and features you’ll most likely use and what will be the most significant addition to your business’ productivity and revenue.
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