Best Marketing Automation Software for B2C in 2024

B2C marketing automation software solutions are essential to building engagement and in ensuring that your brand remains top-of-mind for the consumer. When used the right way, automation tools for B2C marketing drive sales and boost profitability. B2C marketing automation strengthens the relationship between the brand and the consumer while at the same time building a personalized customer journey.

Prior to having the technology to automate marketing, marketers had to conduct campaigns and events by segment. Marketing automation radically transformed practice by enabling marketers to automatically design and send campaigns that are personalized for each type of consumer. The adoption of marketing automation technology, however, did not happen overnight. The transition took time as marketers had to familiarize themselves with new tools.

Today, almost every marketing automation software vendor provides product demos and free trials. Even software tutorial videos are made available online. Given this accessibility, you can avail of a free trial to check if a particular marketing automation software fits your B2C marketing requirements. Product demos are available online, which discuss the key functionalities of marketing automation software. It also includes an overview of how to use the software. Should you wish to know more, most software providers offer free trials so potential clients can actually try the platform for their marketing campaigns and see its advantages and disadvantages—at least in the context of their business. Finally, there are vendors that offer free software to freelance professionals and small businesses. Once you have decided which marketing automation software could best serve your B2C marketing needs, you can proceed with your campaigns without any outright cost.

Some of the most popular marketing automation software that belongs to the top tier typically provide product demos and free trials. You can also request onboarding support so that you will learn how to maximize the features and functionalities of the software. In this way, you will be equipped with the essential skills needed to unleash the powerful software features. You may choose to start with the best B2C marketing automation in the market today such as Freshmarketer, HubSpot Marketing, monday.com, Maropost Marketing Cloud, Marketing Creatio, Omnisend, Unbounce, and EngageBay.

Every business needs marketing campaigns. Getting a B2C marketing automation platform should be part of the business strategy as it will streamline your marketing operations and collect crucial data about your customers.

B2C marketing automation tools are designed to make marketing more personalized and data-driven, and as such, it will have a huge impact on how you interact and build relationships with customers. Let’s look at how marketing automation software for B2C helps businesses of all shapes and sizes:

• Small businesses. Small and even micro-businesses will benefit from using marketing automation software for streamlining operations. Marketing automation software will be able to take care of marketing on multiple channels online and in automating repetitive tasks. In addition, it will boost growth as marketing automation software can help the business gather more data about customers, which could lead to more personalized marketing.
• Medium-sized Businesses. Medium-sized B2C businesses stand to benefit from marketing automation software for these types of companies typically require mechanisms to retain and grow customers. At this stage, marketing automation software can help nurture customer relationships through more personalized marketing. The midsized business can look into buying behavior and past purchases to design more engaging campaigns.
• Large Businesses. For large businesses, marketing automation software will deliver powerful analytics that can accurately segment customers and identify specific buying behaviors. With a large collection of data on customers, large companies will be able to effectively manage their growing customer base. At the same time, these companies can also use the data that they have gathered from marketing automation software to design new products and offerings.

• Freshmarketer is a conversion rate optimization (CRO) software that offers the most complete tools that will automate your marketing and enable you to deliver more personalized campaigns that will increase customer engagement.
• HubSpot Marketing is an advanced digital marketing tool that can automatically manage lead generation, blogs, ads, social monitoring, and email marketing. It also has a CRM base using powerful analytics,
• monday.com is a software that can manage all marketing and creative initiatives by providing the visibility that you need to monitor all ongoing campaigns and deliver the insights that you need to demonstrate impact.
• Maropost Marketing Cloud is a robust marketing automation tool with a journey builder feature that maps out the customer journey and enhances multi-channel customer engagements through unified audience data.
• Marketing Creatio is a multichannel marketing CRM software that streamlines personalized communication across all channels by building 360-degree knowledge about customers, which boosts lead generation and customer retention.

There are various types of marketing automation software for B2C, from free tools to powerful suites that deliver end-to-end service. When it comes to software, classification can be based on pricing, features, and other value-added services. In choosing your marketing automation software for B2C, the type of deployment is also an important factor to consider, which can be on-premise, cloud-hosted, or SaaS.

• On-premise marketing automation software. Hosted on the client’s local server, purchasing a license is required to use this type of software. This type of deployment entails higher investment as it requires complex setup and hardware installation on site.
• Software-as-a-service (SaaS) marketing automation software. This type of deployment will require monthly or yearly subscription fees but hosting will be from the vendor’s server—which means that there will be no on-site setup. The vendor also takes care of updates and maintenance.
• Cloud-hosted marketing automation software. This is considered the most affordable type of software deployment for it typically offers free basic plans without the need to update and perform maintenance from the end-user side.

Before you choose a marketing automation software, you need to identify the specific features and functionalities that you require for your marketing operations. Remember, marketing automation is all about using digital software to automate your tasks. The following features are essential:

• Email Marketing. This feature of your marketing automation software should be able to build a database that contains important customer information so you can send personalized messages and increase engagement.
• Online Marketing. The main objective for getting marketing automation software is to automate your online marketing, and the online marketing feature should be robust enough to streamline processes from a single platform.
• Lead Management. This feature is crucial because all conversions start with the lead. Managing leads encompass lead generation and lead nurturing. The marketing automation software should have metrics for these activities so you can optimize processes.
• Analytics and Reports. This feature is crucial because data will drive strategy. The analytics and reporting tool should provide key metrics and KPIs that can help you formulate your marketing strategies.
• Resource Management. Every marketing initiative is a project that requires resource management. The cost of your initiatives and tasks will have an impact on the overall budget, and this tool can also help you evaluate the value of your marketing programs.
• Social Marketing. Every marketing platform includes social marketing tools that can automate your campaigns on various social media channels and measure ROI using metrics that can inform your marketing strategy.
• Lead Generation. SEO, dynamic landing pages, and automated lead scoring are essential tools for effective lead generation that your marketing automation software should offer to ensure that your business will continually attract new customers.
• Landing Pages. The power of a dynamic landing page to attract and engage customers should be maximized by the marketing automation software by orchestrating the customer journey upon reaching the business webpage.
• A/B Testing. This essential marketing automation software feature allows marketing practitioners to use advanced email segmentation techniques to compare program results and optimize campaigns.
• Mobile Optimization. Marketing campaigns need to be mobile optimized as more people are accessing emails and websites from their mobile devices. Choose a marketing automation software that includes this tool to ensure that your campaigns will be accessible from any device.
• API. The marketing automation platform should easily interconnect with your existing software, thus, it is important to choose one that has an open API or inbuilt developer API so you can easily do integration.

Business-to-consumer marketing needs to be fast as each individual can easily choose a seller that meets immediate needs. B2C marketing is more personalized, and should always be relevant. When done right, marketing automation software for B2C can boost sales and improve profitability. The following are some of the benefits of marketing automation software for B2C:

• It will bring you closer to the customer. As one of the tools in marketing automation software, social marketing enables consumers to immediately find a store, a restaurant, or any service or item they need by searching on social platforms. If your business has no automated marketing platform in place, you will fail to capture your potential market.
• It will prevent lost customers. Individual customers in B2C marketing decide on a whim, and when you automate marketing, the well-timed messages can make a huge difference. Once a customer chooses another seller or service provider, you lose an opportunity to gain a customer that has the potential to make repeat purchases.
• It will increase customer engagement. B2C marketing is all about personalization and automating your marketing, which establishes consistent connections and touchpoints with the consumer. Marketing automation can collect data that can inform your customer engagement strategies.
• It will improve conversion rates. Marketing automation software can send text reminders, communicate through social media and in-app messaging, and send cart abandonment emails that would make customers feel personalized service. This constant communication with the customer improves conversion rates.
• It will generate rich data about consumer behavior. Once compiled, the data that you have on each customer will provide your marketing team with insights on buying behavior. Once you know how your customers behave as they interact with your brand, you will be able to design initiatives that can enhance engagement.
• It will boost sales. While this is the primary reason for every marketing initiative, identifying and knowing your customers should be the ultimate goal of marketing automation. Engaged customers become loyal customers, and loyal customers are repeat purchasers that will boost profitability.

• Machine learning and AI-assisted platforms. As speed is essential in B2C marketing, AI will continue to enhance automation by making decisions based on data collection and analysis. Chatbots and email will continue to benefit from advancements in AI.
• Seamless customer experience. Marketing automation has made omnichannel marketing possible, one in which your brand’s presence is felt across multiple channels. This seamlessly integrated shopping experience delivers consistency to the customer resulting in sustained engagement.
• Predictive lead scoring. Lead scoring is a marketing practice that has been around for quite some time now, but the introduction of AI transformed this into a tool that can quickly predict who among your leads would most likely be converted based on demographics and online behavior.

Marketing automation software for B2C has undoubtedly transformed the way practitioners engage customers. These tools, however, are not one-size-fits-all solutions that companies simply plug and play. Aside from the learning curve involved, the following potential issues may be encountered when using marketing automation software:

• Creating quality automation. While most marketing automation software for B2C offers various functionalities, practitioners still find it challenging to create quality automation. Simply automating tasks without a clear set of objectives may underutilize the software’s capabilities.
• Subpar data. Marketing automation software for B2C has the capability to collect granular information about customers. However, the effectiveness of this functionality depends on how the platform will be used as a touchpoint for every stage of the customer journey.
• Lack of engaging content. Automation is meant to promote consistency, which includes providing your customers fresh content for them to stay engaged with your brand or business. This becomes a potential problem when your team lacks engaging content.
• Data management and optimization. Automating marketing processes may seem simple to do, but users must also know how to perform effective data management as well as optimization to maximize benefits.