Best Marketing Technology Software: Top 5+ Tools For 2024
Choosing the best marketing technology software for your business is an important first step in developing your company’s marketing technology stack.
From creating a database to manage all your customer communications, to automating tasks and building a marketing sales funnel, the best marketing software tools can help you reach your goals. In this post, I ranked and reviewed the best marketing technology software tools, and provided my top 3 choices so you can get started quickly.
With the rise of digital marketing and especially remote work, running your core sales and marketing operations through marketing software platforms has become increasingly popular. The marketing software market is projected to be worth $264 billion by 2030.
Here’s the key: you need to choose tools that provide your clients with a personalized, professional experience that makes them feel like your #1 customer every time.
If you’re new to marketing software, these are tools that can help you:
- Create and manage marketing campaigns
- Build and design landing pages for campaigns
- Track website analytics and visitor behavior
- Create and send email marketing campaigns
- Manage and segment email lists
- Create and manage social media accounts and post content
- Monitor and track social media analytics
- Conduct A/B testing and optimize campaigns
- Create and manage paid advertising campaigns
- Automate marketing tasks and workflows
- Provide customer relationship management (CRM) functionality
- Integrate with other business tools, such as sales and accounting software.
Here are my top 3 recommendations for the best marketing technology software tools:
HubSpot
Everything you need from CRM and marketing to sales, service, and operations. HubSpot can cover most of your marketing stack needs.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Enterprise solution for automating and managing campaigns, engaging with customers, publishing content and analyzing results.
Keap
All-in-one sales and marketing automation platform for small teams. Keap is a powerful tool for collecting leads and turning them into customers.
What are the Best Marketing Technology Software Tools?
After using a ton of different marketing software tools from numerous tech companies and within multiple industries such as business services, industrial services, marketing, advertising, business development and sales throughout my career.. with both small businesses and large enterprises. I’ve come up with my top picks for the best marketing technology software tools.
1. HubSpot
BEST OVERALL MARKETING TECHNOLOGY SOFTWARE →
HubSpot is by far my favorite tool for getting started building a strong overall marketing tech stack. It’s the most comprehensive marketing software for automation, reporting, and campaigns and offers advanced control and flexibility. It also plays nice with lots of other marketing software and has plenty of useful integrations to help you scale your business.
| Best For | Overall Marketing |
| Pricing | Free – $3,600/mo |
| Free Trial | Yes |
| Free Demo | Yes, Contact Sales |
HubSpot is a comprehensive customer relationship management (CRM) platform that offers a wide range of software and resources to help businesses connect their marketing, sales, customer service, and content management efforts.
The platform includes Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Service Hub, CMS Hub, and Operations Hub, each of which offers its own set of powerful features that can be used together to achieve better results.
The Marketing Hub offers lead generation and marketing automation tools, while the Sales Hub provides advanced CRM and meeting scheduling capabilities.
The Service Hub offers tools for customer engagement and support, the CMS Hub is a flexible content management system and Operations Hub automates the process and syncs all apps, cleans and curates customer data. It allows you to create a personalized, secure experience for customers and make all the systems and teams work more efficiently.
What do I like best about it? I’d say my favorite thing about using HubSpot is that every module speaks to each other without flaw. This makes it a super efficient tool for building business-critical workflows and processes.
I also really appreciate all the out-of-the-box automations you have access to, these are really powerful and are the bread and butter of any marketing tech stack.
What do I not like about it? The cost. They do have a free plan that offers tons of core functionality which can be great for just starting out, but the pricing gets steep in a hurry as you add new modules. Which may or may not be a problem based on how quickly you can cover the cost with new business.
Another area for improvement is the reporting. It’s great standard reporting, but if you have specific data needs or require lots of customization, HubSpot might be challenging to get the most out of.
In my opinion, HubSpot is a must-have for marketing and business dev teams looking to combine functions of sales, marketing, customer service, support, and operations.
Key Features:
- Easily connect marketing, sales, content management, and customer service
- Lead generation and marketing automation tools
- Advanced CRM and meeting scheduling capabilities
- Tools for customer engagement and support
- Flexible content management system
- Automate processes and syncs all apps, cleans and curates customer data
- Helps create a personalized and secure experience for customers
- Very helpful support team
My Personal Experience.
I’ve had a lot of experience with HubSpot over the years and after all this time I’d say it’s one of the more enjoyable Saas experiences – even though there are so many modules and settings options to learn.
It’s always really easy to get set up and they have a walkthrough guide that keeps you on track, even if you’re the type to wander off into the settings first.
You’ll quickly learn how customer-centric HubSpot is, and that’s something I’m a big fan of. Because if my customers are satisfied, I’m happy. And this focus on the customer extends into all modules, making HubSpot the perfect choice for businesses that want to provide amazing buying experiences for their customers.
I enjoy the powerful out-of-the-box reporting although I’ve encountered challenges when creating reports for businesses with unique reporting needs. Not to say there isn’t a lot of customization possible, because there is. It’s just not going to work for every business. But for the lucky majority, it’s the perfect overall marketing tool.
Pricing Plans:
There are tons of pricing options for HubSpot and it doesn’t need to be all or nothing. Like I mentioned above, there is a free tool you can start with and can just upgrade as your needs change.
What I Like About HubSpot:
- HubSpot’s modules work seamlessly together, making it efficient for building workflows and processes.
- Access to out-of-the-box automations which help you to be more efficient right out of the gate.
- It’s super user-friendly and intuitive to use.
- All-encompassing software tools cover the majority of small business marketing needs.
Here’s What I Dislike:
- The cost can get steep as you add new modules.
- Standard reporting is good but not suitable for unique data needs or deep customization.
2. Salesforce Marketing Cloud
BEST ENTERPRISE MARKETING SOFTWARE →
Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a data-driven digital marketing solution that helps businesses build long-lasting customer relationships. The platform offers a range of products aimed at automating engagement across channels, personalizing moments with real-time data, and optimizing marketing performance with intelligent insights.
With Salesforce Marketing Cloud, businesses can reduce customer acquisition costs by 25-27%, as per a 2022 study based on customer interviews in multiple countries. Read the press release >
The Customer Data Platform allows for building a real-time single source of truth for personalization, while the Personalization product automates real-time personalization across marketing, sales, and service to improve conversions and ROI. The Engagement product increases productivity through customer-centric engagement across email, mobile, advertising, and more. The Account Engagement product makes revenue teams more efficient through account-based marketing and marketing automation. The Intelligence product creates efficiency and focuses on ROI with omnichannel intelligence, and the Loyalty Management product aligns marketing and loyalty for VIP customer experiences.
Key Features:
Salesforce Marketing Cloud provides a full suite of digital marketing software solutions to strengthen every aspect of a marketing strategy. Some of the key features of the platform include:
- Email Studio: A personalized email marketing platform.
- Journey Builder: A tool for building 1-to-1 customer journeys across all channels and departments.
- Marketing Cloud Personalization: A solution for delivering real-time, 1-to-1 customer experiences.
- Marketing Cloud Customer Data Platform: A platform for unifying, segmenting, activating, and analyzing all customer data.
- Marketing Cloud Intelligence: A platform for all marketing data, investments, KPIs, and decisions.
- Marketing Cloud Account Engagement powered by Pardot: A platform for uniting marketing and sales for B2B marketing automation.
- Marketing Cloud Advertising: A solution for targeted 1-to-1 advertising using CRM data.
- Mobile Studio: A tool for personalizing mobile interactions including SMS, push notifications, and chat messaging.
- Loyalty Management: A solution for winning customers for life with personalized loyalty programs.
- Content Management: A platform for creating and delivering content experiences fast.
- Google Marketing Platform: A platform for deeper, data-driven marketing with Google and Salesforce.
- Datorama Reports: A tool for analyzing, visualizing, and reporting on email, mobile, and journey data within Marketing Cloud.
Pros:
- Enterprise solution with lots of options to customize to your business needs
- Robust marketing tools (segmentation, automation, A/B testing, reporting & analytics, and CRM connectivity)
- Ease of setting up campaigns (push and email notifications)
- Filter and targeting of specific leads
- Simple and easy landing page creation
- Customization options for sending, planning, and executing email marketing campaigns
- Seamless integration into Salesforce Sales Cloud
- Extensive functionality of the Engagement Studio for building drip campaigns
- One-stop solution for prospects, campaigns, leads, reports, and mass email communications
- Automates marketing processes across multiple channels
- Analytics & reporting capabilities for measuring and optimizing campaign performance
Cons:
- Difficult for beginners to use all its features
- One of the more expensive overall solutions
- Complex software, tough for new users to adapt to
- Landing page builder can be tricky to use without some coding knowledge
- Limited storage capacity for files
- Too many software modules
Pricing Plans:
The pricing for Salesforce Marketing Cloud starts at $1,250 USD per month for one of the more critical modules (Marketing Cloud Account Engagement Powered by Pardot) and gets more expensive as you add more modules. Most businesses can expect to pay between $2500-$5000 USD per month to cover most business needs.
3. Keap
BEST MARKETING SOFTWARE FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND SMALL TEAMS →
Keap is a sales and marketing automation platform designed to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses. It provides an all-in-one solution for lead capture, CRM, automation, email and text marketing, and a business line. Keap helps streamline lead collection, automate repetitive tasks, create targeted marketing messages, and separate personal and work communications. The platform also offers one-on-one coaching, strategic guidance, 24/7 support, and seamless migration services to ensure success. Try Keap for free with a 14-day trial >
Key Features:
- Customer Relationship Management: Centralize your client data
- Sales & Marketing Automation: Triggered emails, texts, and marketing actions
- Sales Pipeline: Visual dashboard to track sales process
- Ecommerce and Payments: Online selling and payment collection
- Reporting and Analytics: Data insights on what’s working
- Appointments: Client booking based on availability
- Email Marketing: Easy automation and template setup
- Mobile App: Business phone line, SMS, and email
- Integrations: Connection with hundreds of apps
Pros:
- Campaign Builder tool for automation and personalization of content
- Social media management tools to serve and monitor clients
- Ability to set up campaigns with tags and triggers
- Consolidated multiple applications in one place
- Ability to create almost endless automation of emails and business tasks
- Regular iterations and automation options
- Good support community with staff available to answer questions
- Vast number of integrations with other solutions
Cons:
- Can be time intensive to master all modules
- Difficulty in customization of the interface
- Steeper learning curve for automation
- Clunky management of mailing list subscriptions and unsubscriptions
- Somewhat challenging Zapier integration
- Double opt-in email lacks options
Pricing Plans:
Keap is one of the most affordable marketing software tools and offers a ton of features for the price. Pricing starts at $129 USD per month for the Pro options which includes up to 1500 contacts. The Max option starts at $199 USD per month and includes up to 2500 contacts as standard. Pricing increases as you grow your contact list but even with 100k contacts you won’t spend more than $700/month, so it’s a fairly inexpensive tool overall.
4. Adobe Marketo Engage
BEST MARKETING SOFTWARE FOR CREATIVES →
Adobe Marketo Engage is a marketing automation platform that helps businesses connect with customers and increase engagement and growth.
The platform combines automation, content creation, lead development, and account-based marketing in one solution.
Marketo Engage provides features such as marketing automation, which allows businesses to launch quick campaigns and personalize experiences using AI-built predictive audiences and triggered content.
Additionally, the platform offers account-based marketing tools to prioritize accounts, drive engagement, and close deals by automating personalized cross-channel experiences and syncing marketing and sales efforts. Lead management features include attracting, nurturing, and delivering win-ready leads through inbound and outbound programs and personalized email campaigns.
The platform also includes multi-touch attribution, which measures every customer touchpoint and improves marketing impact through granular attribution analysis.
Key Features:
- Combines automation, content, lead development, and account-based marketing
- Helps connect with customers and saves time and resources
- Marketing automation: AI-powered predictive audience segments, personalized experiences, behavioral data analysis
- Account-based marketing: AI-generated best-fit account lists, personalized cross-channel experiences, sync with sales
- Lead management: attract, nurture, and deliver win-ready leads, real-time scoring, personalize content based on buying stage
- Email marketing: personalized email campaigns, real-time updates, predictive content, A/B/n testing, in-depth results dashboard
- Multi-touch attribution: measure customer touchpoints, unify data, advanced filters and segmentations, granular attribution analysis.
Pros:
- Helps to ingest lead data from various sources and enables smart program creation and automation
- Good for ABM and lead management
- Granular reporting, especially Revenue Explorer
- Easily tracks KPIs using Channels and statuses
- Marketing campaign management is easy to plan, implement, and track
- Lead management is centralized and easy to track
- Content customization is possible based on target audience and behavior
- Provides various analytics and performance tracking tools
- Easy integration with other tools
- Robust product with LaunchPoint integration and webhook functionality
- Offers end-to-end customer experience management solution
- Mobile app is useful for lead data capture and advanced reporting
- Trusted and reliable marketing tool with good technical support
Cons:
- Junk data accumulates in the system and there is no easy way to filter it
- Salesforce integration error and API limit can break the process
- Reports load slowly in Revenue Explorer
- Can be expensive, especially for small and medium-sized businesses
- Complex to learn and use, especially for those without marketing automation background
- Limited features compared to other tools in the market
- May be incompatible with some data management and marketing systems
- Initial setup can be long and complicated
- Integration with CRM platforms can be a hassle
- UI could be improved
- Not graphically advanced in terms of UI and visuals
- Campaign workflows can be hard to understand if there are too many steps involved.
Pricing Plans:
Plans start at $0/user/month and come in four tiers: Growth, Select, Prime, and Ultimate.
5. Monday.com
BEST MARKETING PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOL.
Monday.com is a project management tool designed to help with task management. It enables you to create and assign tasks, track progress, and monitor deadlines. Monday.com also provides a platform for team members to collaborate on tasks by adding comments, attaching files, and communicating in real-time. You can prioritize and organize tasks through the use of customizable views and filters. Automation features can also help businesses save time by automating repetitive tasks. In short, Monday.com provides you with a comprehensive platform to manage their tasks and improve your overall task management processes.
Pricing: Monday.com offers a Free version for Individuals as well as a 14-day free trial on paid plans; Which start at $8/user/month for Basic, $10/user/month for Standard, and $16/user/month for Pro. Request pricing for Enterprise.
Other Considerations:
6. Slack
BEST COMMUNICATIONS TOOL.
Slack is a messaging platform that helps improve communication within a business. It offers real-time messaging, organized conversations, file sharing, integrations, and mobile accessibility. Slack allows team members to quickly communicate with each other, organize conversations by channels, share files and integrate with other tools, such as Asana and Google Drive. With mobile accessibility, team members can communicate and collaborate on the go, making it particularly useful for remote teams or frequent travelers.
Pricing: Slack offers a Free version; With paid plans starting at $6.67/user/month for Pro and $12.50/user/month for Business, Request Pricing for Enterprise+.
7. Canva
BEST WEB GRAPHIC DESIGN TOOL.
Canva is a graphic design platform that helps businesses create high-quality web graphics for various purposes. Canva offers design templates tailored to different types of web graphics, drag-and-drop interface for easy customization, collaboration features, brand consistency, and access to graphics. The platform’s brand kit feature allows for consistent branding across designs, and its library of over a million graphics, images, and fonts helps businesses create professional-looking graphics. Canva can save businesses time and enable them to create custom graphics that meet their specific needs.
Pricing: Canva offers a Free version; With paid plans starting at $199.99/year for Pro and $30/user/month for Enterprise.
8. Grammarly
BEST GRAMMAR CHECKING TOOL.
Grammarly is a writing assistant tool that businesses can use to enhance the quality of their written communication. The platform identifies and corrects grammar and spelling mistakes, enhances tone and clarity, ensures consistency, saves time, and integrates with other platforms. Grammarly checks for issues such as sentence length, passive voice, and adverb overuse, and suggests alternative words, sentence structures, and formatting options to improve the overall quality of the text. The tool offers real-time proofreading and integrates with multiple platforms, such as Microsoft Office, Google Docs, and Slack. By using Grammarly, businesses can improve their written communication, communicate more effectively, enhance their professionalism, and avoid costly mistakes.
Pricing: Grammarly offers a Free version; With paid plans starting at $12/month for Premium and $12.50/user/month for Business.
9. SEMrush
BEST KEYWORD RESEARCH TOOL.
SEMrush is an SEO tool that helps businesses improve their online visibility by conducting keyword research. The tool provides in-depth analysis of keywords, including search volume, competition level, and trends over time. SEMrush enables businesses to conduct keyword research and identify new keywords to target, including long-tail keywords. The tool also allows businesses to analyze their competitors’ keywords, optimize content for specific keywords, and track keyword rankings over time. By using SEMrush, businesses can identify high-traffic, low-competition keywords, gain insight into their competitors’ SEO strategies, and monitor the success of their SEO efforts.
Pricing: SEMrush offers paid plans starting from $99/month for Lite, $179/month for Standard, $399/month for Advanced, and $999/month for Agencies.
10. ChatGPT
BEST CONVERSATIONAL AI TOOL.
ChatGPT is an AI-powered language model that can assist businesses in various ways. The platform provides support with customer service, content creation, data analysis, translation, and personalization. ChatGPT can help businesses save time by answering common questions and concerns, generating content ideas, and analyzing data to provide customized interactions with customers. It can also provide real-time translation services to enable communication with clients and customers from around the world. By using ChatGPT, businesses can improve customer experiences, make data-driven decisions, and streamline their workflow.
Pricing: ChatGPT offers a Free version; With paid plans starting at $20/month (ChatGPT Plus).
11. Pipedrive
BEST PIPELINE MANAGEMENT TOOL.
Pipedrive is a CRM tool that helps businesses manage their sales pipeline more effectively. The platform provides a visual pipeline, lead and deal management, automation features, and reporting, enabling businesses to track leads and deals, identify bottlenecks, and streamline their pipeline management. Pipedrive offers automation features, such as email tracking and workflow automation, to save time and improve pipeline performance. The tool’s reporting capabilities provide insights into pipeline performance, including sales revenue, sales cycle time, and the number of deals won and lost.
Pricing: Pipedrive offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card required; With paid plans starting at $14.90/user/month for Essentials, $24.90/user/month for Advanced, $49.90/user/month for Professional, and $99/user/month for Enterprise.
12. GoTo Webinar
BEST WEBINAR PLATFORM SOFTWARE.
GoToWebinar is a platform that provides webinar solutions for businesses. The tool offers interactive features to increase audience engagement, customizable templates and registration pages to create a branded and engaging webinar experience, recording and playback options to make webinars accessible to those who missed the live event, and analytics to help businesses make data-driven decisions. Additionally, GoToWebinar integrates with other marketing tools, such as email marketing software, to promote and manage webinars. By using GoToWebinar, businesses can create engaging webinars, reach a wider audience, and capture valuable data to improve their overall webinar strategy.
Pricing: GoTo Webinar offers a 7-day free trial for the Pro plan with paid plans starting at $49/organizer/month for Lite (250 participants), $99/organizer/month for Standard (500 participants), $199/organizer/month for Pro (1000 participants), and $399/organizer/month for Enterprise (3000 participants).
13. Shopify
BEST E-COMMERCE PLATFORM.
Shopify is an ecommerce platform that provides businesses with the tools needed to set up and run an online store. The platform offers customizable templates and themes for creating a unique online store, product management tools, payment processing solutions, and integrations with shipping carriers and fulfillment centers. Shopify also provides analytics and reporting tools to track sales and customer behavior and marketing tools, such as discount codes and email marketing, to promote products and increase sales. Overall, Shopify simplifies the ecommerce process and enables businesses to manage their online store and sales more efficiently.
Pricing: Shopify offers a 3-day free trial with no credit card required; With paid plans starting from as low as $1/month for Starter, $29/month for Basic, $79/month for Shopify, and $299/month for Advanced. Shopify Plus plans start at $2000/month.
14. Mailchimp
BEST EMAIL MARKETING PLATFORM.
Mailchimp is an email marketing platform that can help businesses with their email marketing campaigns. The platform provides customizable templates and drag-and-drop tools for creating professional-looking email campaigns, list management features to segment subscribers and deliver targeted emails, and automation capabilities to save time. Mailchimp offers analytics and reporting tools to track email campaign performance, and integration with other marketing tools, such as e-commerce platforms, to create more personalized and effective email campaigns. By using Mailchimp, businesses can create targeted and relevant email campaigns, improve their email marketing performance, and save time by automating repetitive tasks.
Pricing: Mailchimp offers a Free version; With paid plans starting a $13/month for Essentials, $20/month for Standard, and $350/month for Premium.
15. Hootsuite
BEST SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE.
Hootsuite is a social media management tool that can assist businesses with scheduling, monitoring, analytics, collaboration, and integration with other marketing tools and platforms. The platform allows businesses to save time by scheduling and publishing social media posts, track their brand mentions and competitors’ activity, and measure their social media performance. Hootsuite provides collaboration features, allowing team members to work on social media posts together, and integrates with other marketing tools. In summary, Hootsuite can help businesses enhance their social media presence, save time, and make data-driven decisions to improve their overall social media strategy.
Pricing: Hootsuite offers a Free 30-day trial; With paid plans starting at $99/month for Professional, $249/month for Team, and $739/month for Business. Request pricing for Enterprise.
16. Google Ads
BEST PPC ADVERTISING PLATFORM.
Google Ads is a pay-per-click advertising platform that helps businesses with targeted advertising, cost-effectiveness, ad creation, analytics, and integration with other marketing tools. It allows businesses to set a budget and target ads to specific audiences based on keywords, location, and interests. Advertisers can create and optimize ads using tools provided by Google Ads, and then monitor ad performance using analytics and reporting tools. Integration with other marketing tools such as Google Analytics offers a comprehensive view of advertising performance. Overall, Google Ads is an essential tool for businesses to improve their online advertising, reach their target audience, and make data-driven decisions to enhance their overall advertising strategy.
Pricing: Free; With Google Ads, you only pay when someone clicks on your ad (cost-per-click), and you can set a budget for your campaign.
What Are The Benefits Of Using Marketing Technology Software?
Utilizing Marketing technology software (MarTech) is invaluable for optimizing your marketing efforts. It automates tasks such as lead generation and email marketing, saving you time and resources.
These tools improve audience targeting by analyzing data from various sources, leading to tailored campaigns and higher conversion rates. MarTech creates better team collaboration with real-time tracking and information sharing. Its use results in a higher ROI for your marketing campaigns, boosting your revenue. It also provides a competitive edge by enabling your business to stay ahead of industry trends and swiftly respond to market changes.
Summary
If you’re looking for marketing technology software, my top 3 recommended tools are:
- HubSpot. Best For Business.
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Best for Enterprise.
- Keap. Best For Entrepreneurs.
HubSpot offers a suite of marketing, sales, and service tools that can help businesses of all sizes with their marketing needs. Salesforce provides a powerful marketing automation platform that can help businesses with lead generation, email marketing, and more. Keap offers a comprehensive small business CRM and marketing automation platform that can help businesses streamline their marketing efforts and grow their customer base.
Overall, these top three marketing technology tools offer a range of features and benefits that can help businesses improve their marketing strategies and achieve their marketing goals more effectively and efficiently.
