So, you’re ready to take the plunge and get serious about Marketing Automation Software (MAS)? You’ve heard that they can help your business save time and make more money but you don’t know where to start. There are a number of MAS on the market today so how do you choose between them? In this blog post, we will discuss four leading marketing automation platform providers–Pardot, HubSpot, Marketo, and Eloqua–and compare their features to see which one is right for your company.

What’s the best Marketing Automation Software (MAS)?

The MAS provider you choose should depend on the size of your company, how much money you want to spend upfront before seeing results, and what features are most important. For example, if you have a small startup with little budget but need tools for email marketing automation then Pardot is probably best for your needs because it’s affordable and has some basic email campaigns. On the other hand, Eloqua may be better suited for larger companies that require more tracking capabilities or analytics options.

So without further ado, let’s breakdown what each of these marketing automation tools bring to the table!

Marketing Automation Tool Features

Pardot

B2B marketing automation on the world’s #1 Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Pardot empowers marketers and sales professionals to work together, find more leads, close deals faster and maximize ROI!

Track every prospect interaction on your website – from downloads and pageviews to subscriptions – then score them based on a fixed set of parameters. Use real-time sales alerts and automated lead nurturing to help your sales reps prioritize their time and ensure that promising leads aren’t overlooked. Then, measure the ROI of your marketing campaigns via closed-loop reporting.

Accelerate your pipeline, drive revenue, and align marketing and sales with Pardot’s marketing automation solution. Here’s a summary of all the features that Pardot offers (Note: Available features may vary depending on the package you opt for, i.e. Growth, Plus etc.):

Email Marketing Automation

• Constructing and Personalizing Emails
• Sending Outbound Emails
• Managing Email Deliverability
• Automation of Email Responses

Online Marketing

• Landing Pages and Forms
• Mobile Optimization

Lead Management

• Marketing Lead Database
• Data Quality Management
• Segmentation
• Lead Scoring and Grading
• Lead Nurturing
• Online Behavior Tracking
• Automated Alerts and Tasks
• CRM Lead Integration

Reporting & Analytics

• Basic Reporting

Marketo

Marketo is reshaping Marketing Automation by helping companies integrate the customer data, content, automation and analytics needed for marketing and sales in one powerful tool. This enables you to coordinate engagement with customers in a way that’s personalized and measurable at each and every touchpoint – and do it with efficiency and at scale. Lead generation has never been so simple! Here’s a summary of all the features that Marketo offers (Note: Available features may vary depending on the package you opt for, i.e. Select, Prime etc.):

Email Marketing Automation

• Constructing and Personalizing Emails
• Sending Outbound Emails
• Managing Email Deliverability
• Automation of Email Responses

Online Marketing

• Landing Pages and Forms
• A/B Testing
• Mobile Optimized

Lead Management

• Segmentation
• Lead Scoring and Grading
• Lead Nurturing
• Online Behavior Tracking
• Automated Alerts and Tasks
• CRM Lead Integration

Campaign Management

• Program Management

Reporting & Analytics

• Basic Reporting

Oracle’s Eloqua

Oracle’s Eloqua enables marketers to intrigue and win over audiences with thoughtful and personalized campaigns and multi-channel marketing. Eloqua’s marketer friendly platform equips organizations with flexible data management, intelligent campaign management, accurate lead generation, and insightful sales enablement tools to engage buyers when they want to be engaged on their preferred channel. Here’s a summary of all the features that Oracle’s Eloqua offers (Note: Available features may vary depending on the package you opt for, i.e. Basic, Standard etc.):

Email Marketing Automation

• Constructing and Personalizing Emails
• Sending Outbound Emails
• Managing Email Deliverability
• Automation of Email Responses

Online Marketing

• Dynamic Content
• A/B Testing
• Mobile Optimized

Lead Management

• Data Quality Management
• Segmentation
• Lead Scoring and Grading
• Lead Nurturing
• Online Behavior Tracking
• CRM Lead Integration

Campaign Management

• Program Management

Reporting & Analytics

• Basic Reporting

HubSpot’s Marketing Hub

Let’s face it; marketing has become really tough these days. You either have to juggle various point solutions or you’re stuck with tools that are powerful yet impossible to use. This means scattered customer data, lackluster campaigns and too much time spent fussing with software (which is always a drag). But what if those challenges could go away?

With Marketing Hub, all your marketing tools and data are on one easy-to-use, powerful platform. You’ll save valuable time and have all the context you need to provide a personalized experience that attracts and converts the right customers at scale. Plus, marketers can keep data as the main focal point of everything they do, since Marketing Hub is built as part of the HubSpot CRM platform. When marketers use the entire CRM system, they can accurately track their ROI and validate their investments. Here’s a summary of all the features that HubSpot’s Marketing Hub offers (Note: Available features may vary depending on the package you opt for, i.e. Starter, Professional etc.):

Email Marketing Automation

• Constructing and Personalizing Emails
• Sending Outbound Emails
• Managing Email Deliverability
• Automation of Email Responses

Online Marketing

• Landing Pages and Forms
• Dynamic Content
• Mobile Optimized
• Search Tracking and Optimization

Lead Management

• Marketing Lead Database
• Data Quality Management
• Segmentation
• Lead Nurturing
• Online Behavior Tracking

Reporting & Analytics

• Basic Reporting
• Web Analytics

Marketing Automation Tools Pricing & Plans

Pardot

Pricing varies depending on the number of contacts you have and other factors. There are four packages that you can opt for: Growth (at $1250/month with up to 10,000 contacts), Plus ($2500/month with up to 10,000 contacts with extra features), Advanced ($4000/month with up to 10,000 contacts with even more features), and Premium ($15000/month with up to 75,000 contacts with all features unlocked).

Marketo

Marketo has a free 30-day trial period so that you can see how well their marketing automation tool will work for your company before purchasing their service! Marketo’s price point is on the high end of the spectrum and an annual contract with quarterly payment is required. They offer four pricing plans: Select ($1900 per month), Prime ($3325 per month), Ultimate ($4185) and Enterprise (Varies).

Eloqua

The pricing for Eloqua ranges from $2000 per month for the Basic package with a maximum of 10,000 contacts, $4000 per month for the Standard package and over $10,000 per month for their Enterprise package depending on the number of contacts, features and degree of customization you desire.

HubSpot

HubSpot has three pricing plans: Starter ($50 per month with up to 1000 contacts), Professional($890 per month with up to 2000 contacts and additional features) and Enterprise($3200 per month with up to 10000 contacts and full features). Hubspot’s pricing plan is highly flexible as you can purchase additional contacts with each of these plans at a fixed rate.

Hint: You can usually get a discount from these providers throughout the year, but they’re most likely to cut a deal close to the fiscal year end, since they’re trying to finish strong. The fiscal year end for each of these providers is as follows: Pardot (January 31), HubSpot (December 31), Marketo (November 30), and Eloqua (May 31).

MAS Analytics

Pardot

Improve marketing efforts by taking advantage of data analytics. Gain valuable insight into your brand’s performance and swiftly execute data-driven decisions.

• Curated analytics experience for B2B Marketers with out of the box apps, dashboards, and predictive models.
• Combines data from third party and external data sources to measure multi-channel marketing campaign ROI.
• Provides recommendations and smart suggestions to maximize ROI at each stage of the funnel.

Built for B2B Marketers

• Make use of pre-built marketing KPIs and best practices, which are embedded with the programs you work on. You’ll be able to thoroughly understand what has happened with all of your campaigns and why, what will happen next, and how you can intelligently maximize ROI at every stage of the funnel.
• Marketing campaign analytics – utility of connectors with other tools, enhanced dashboards and story reports with connector data
• Einstein Discovery – a new algorithm designed for “out-of-the-box” artificial intelligence.
• Ready-to-use intelligent apps and dashboards

Connected

Discover insights across marketing, sales, and service data.

• Gain access to 3rd party connectors and query billions of rows in seconds.
• Centralize your data with a few clicks, not hours of coding.
• Discover your marketing potential using customizable analytics.

Intelligent

Data can be the best way to tell your story and differentiate yourself among competitors.

• Use data analysis software to get answers to essential business questions in minutes.
• Adapt attribution models with machine learning to meet the needs of your business.
• Take action on insights generated by artificial intelligence to improve your campaign’s effectiveness.
• Use the point and click interface to identify and predict factors that drive revenue and conversion.

Enterprise Ready

Secure your data on one of the world’s most trusted cloud platforms.

• Use multi-layered encryption and monitoring systems.
• Access continuous updates 3 times a year.
• Ramp up your business users with native learning tools.

Marketo

Focus Your Investment to Maximize Your Bottom Line

With attribution that measure variables in the entire buyer journey, you can correctly identify which channels and campaigns deliver the most revenue and ROI. This way, you’ll be able to confidently allocate resources to only those with demonstrable capability.

Unify Your Marketing Data

Automatically connect and unify your data, so you can act on insights quickly while cutting down on tedious reporting and repetitive tasks.

Measure and Map Your Customer Journey

Your customers are on a journey, and it’s up to you to understand the different messages that resonate at every stage. From predictive account scoring systems for your most important buyers to deep insights into how they progress through each point in the funnel – consistently deliver timely, effective and tailored messages with Marketo’s marketing automation solution.

Reporting Flexibility Tailored To Your Needs

Take advantage of the best attribution models for your needs! With single-touch, multi-touch and AI powered custom options available to choose from, you can be sure that Marketo has a model that fits.

Attribution For Every Marketer

With Marketo’s comprehensive suite of attribution solutions, marketers can finally prove their impact and power growth. From flexible ad hoc reporting to shareable pre-built dashboards, now you can acquire the actionable insights you need without any extra noise!

Eloqua

Oracle Analytics is a complete, and connected platform that enables relevant, role-based, and real-time marketing analytics to drive your success. With intelligent insights and visual analytics built into every solution, it delivers unparalleled clarity for your customer journey and marketing campaign.

Predict Buying Patterns

Oracle’s Analytics platform is the first and only cloud-based analytics suite that combines machine learning algorithms with context sensing to predict buying patterns. The Contextual Customer Intelligence model uses historic data combined with environmental cues, such as location, weather or customer sentiment, to offer optimized strategies for conversion and budget efficiency.

Understand Buyer Demographics

If you’re looking for the best success with every customer segment, use our cross-referencing capabilities to analyze your data by channel, demographic, season and more. Identify marketing blind spots and underperforming segments through easy-to-understand graphics and visualizations.

Prove Marketing ROI

The best way to determine whether your marketing and advertising campaigns are working is by consolidating real data from both traditional and digital channels. These numbers provide the most accurate reflection of campaign effectiveness, ROI, target market engagement, etc.

Quickly Adapt to Market Changes

Real-time views of customer data enable you to recognize changes in the market before they become too overwhelming. Proven predictive modeling delivers tools for quickly adapting in a smart, data-driven way, keeping you ahead of the curve.

HubSpot

HubSpot has excellent analytics tools to help you track how well your marketing efforts are doing!

Tie every marketing interaction to closed revenue

Track your customer’s journey from anonymous visitor to loyal advocate.

Break down any report by the contact- or company-level properties in your database to discover key data trends over time. Create behavioral events to track actions taken on your website so you can understand visitors’ behavior and trigger automation workflows.

When you close the loop on your marketing efforts with a multi-touch revenue attribution strategy, you’ll be able to identify what content is most effective and double down on those strategies.

Analyze your site’s performance with key website metrics.

Conduct qualitative and quantitative analyses of the traffic on your website, or on specific pages.

Find out which sources are generating the most website sessions, contacts and customers. Filter by country or URL structure to get a deep analysis of each source’s performance. Drill down into individual companies from that page to see what is working for them in order to improve your own pages’ conversion rates!

By targeting the sources of traffic that are driving most value, you can focus your marketing campaigns and increase ROI.

Get detailed reports for social media and other channels

With HubSpot, analytics are integrated into everything you do, right off the bat.

See detailed reports for every one of your marketing assets, from website and landing pages to emails. Then add any report to your dashboard so you’re tracking all the most critical metrics in one place — and can easily share those insights with the rest of team.

HubSpot’s integrated analytics provide clear insights you can use to make data-driven decisions and grow your business.