What factors are driving marketing automation platform use, and what capabilities do MAPs provide? We conducted original research to provide an up-to-date overview of the space and not least what the impact of artificial intelligence is having.
Our new original research, “Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide” is now available for free download.
MAPs help businesses identify potential customers and automate the process of nurturing the leads to sales readiness using channels like email, social media, webpages and display ads to bring customers and prospects to customized landing pages and through other experiences designed to move them down the purchase funnel.
These platforms integrate tightly with CRMs and CDPs, continuously collecting more data about leads to fuel insights and further personalization, often with the assistance of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
MAPs are often overlooked by marketers amid the chase after the shiny new thing. They are taken for granted in part because of their ubiquity and critical importance as the central hub of many businesses’ marketing stacks.
The space is still growing
The marketing automation platform (MAP) is the backbone of many modern marketing
technology stacks. It plays a crucial role in the business strategies of both B2B and B2C
companies, especially those offering high-consideration purchases or operating in the ecommerce
space.
Initially solely B2B-focused and combining email automation with lead-capturing landing pages
and forms, MAPs have expanded their capabilities to encompass a wide range of marketing
functions, enabling more sophisticated lead management and scoring as well as content
personalization at scale. In addition, these platforms now extend their reach across multiple
marketing channels and many leverage AI to enhance creative and analytical functions.
The global marketing automation software market is expected to grow from $5.7 billion in 2023
to $15.2 billion by 2033, representing a compound annual growth rate of 10.3%, according to
Market.us.
How vendors differentiate on capabilities
As basic functions of marketing automation become somewhat commoditized, platform vendors
try to differentiate on the ability to scale (especially over new marketing channels), usability, ease
of implementation, customer experience features and the integration of artificial intelligence and
machine learning capabilities.
Vendors continue to expand training programs, as well as add-on professional services, to improve
platform use. Online communities — for both customers and developers — are also increasingly
important in strengthening platform support, advocacy and market penetration.
Many MAP vendors have roots in email marketing, which continues to be a core function. It’s
sometimes the only function customers use. Now, MAPs typically deliver messages to mobile devices
(via SMS, MMS and chat), and include advanced lead management, ABM tools and predictive analytics.
Though the space has long been oriented toward B2B marketing, providers increasingly offer
functionality tailored to B2C use cases, especially for ecommerce and high-consideration
purchases, with some vendors specializing in working with this type of client.
Whatever their uses, today’s MAPs offer open architectures that make it easier to integrate
with the other parts of a martech stack. Notably, these integrations can include tighter ties with
chatbots and webinars.
Core and advanced functionalities of an MAP
Every solution in covered in our original research comes with tools for email campaign development and execution (including landing pages), as well as lead capture, scoring and nurturing. They also typically provide centralized marketing databases and a basic level of reporting on web traffic, visitor behavior and
campaign results. Additionally, native CRM integrations are included, as are app marketplaces or
APIs to enable faster connections with other technologies.
The market is quickly evolving, as marketers demand integrated marketing functionality and
MAP vendors expand to B2C and D2C use cases. Vendors continue to add features for building,
tracking and managing campaigns across additional channels and/or devices, and monitoring the
flow of leads as they move from marketing to sales. Many vendors see marketing automation as
just one element of a larger platform focused on customer engagement.
Vendors continue to add features, including the following:
AI-powered dynamic content creation and delivery
Virtually all MAPs let users create, send and measure personalized email campaigns. Where they
differ is in how email, landing page and website content are created and personalized. Some offer
wizard-based campaign design or content templates, while others provide a more customized
approach. More recently, vendors have begun to offer generative AI capabilities for content
creation, building in tools that create text and images for their messaging — typically through
integrations with providers like OpenAI or others.
There are also differences in static vs. dynamically generated content, which adjusts content
on-the-fly as prospects interact with a website or form. Progressive profiling is often offered to
pre-populate forms with known data and to capture additional prospect information each time
individuals interact with campaigns.
Lead management (possibly augmented by AI)
Lead management comprises three functions: lead capture, lead scoring and lead nurturing.
Leads are captured from the various sources feeding the marketing automation database.
These include but are not limited to website visitors, social media, paid digital campaigns, email
marketing respondents, trade show attendees and purchased third-party lists. The ease with
which additional lead sources are captured, such as through an open API, and whether the
platform offers landing page optimization, will differ among platforms.
Lead nurturing is the process of keeping prospects engaged through periodic, personalized
communications or campaigns until they are ready to buy. MAPs may offer pre-built nurturing steps or
actions, as well as allow users to customize their content. When done right, customization can build a
relationship between the brand and its prospects, and drive interaction with sales when the prospect
is ready.
This capability is also augmented with artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies,
which can analyze vast amounts of data to suggest the next best action for engaging a lead.
Lead scoring assigns a value to each lead based on a predetermined set of rules or criteria. Traditional lead scoring models are generally based on two sets of data values: behavior (i.e., site purchases, browsing, social posts) and demographics/firmographics. Many MAPs now offer predictive scoring driven by AI and machine learning, which can incorporate hundreds of data points by sourcing websites, social networks and internal systems — such as the CRM and marketing database itself — to calculate scores.
Predictive analytics driven by AI and ML
Virtually all the MAPs in this report provide a standard set of analytics that track quantifiable
data such as website visitor activity, pages viewed, time spent on site, emails opened, content
downloaded and campaign responses. More vendors are offering predictive analytics and models based on machine learning. This uses algorithms to process data and surface trends or insights
that enable marketers to customize visitor experiences and marketing campaigns.
Several platforms have invested in AI that goes a step beyond machine learning. This uses
technology to mimic human intelligence and recommend marketing actions or outcomes. These
may include highly personalized website content or product recommendations based on analyses
of consumption trends, on-site behavior, firmographics and CRM data. Other vendors rely on plugand-play integration with predictive analytics tools to offer greater analytics and personalization.
Mobile marketing
Creating an engaging experience for mobile prospects and customers is a must-have capability. As
a result, many MAPs include responsive templates for email, landing pages and web forms. Several
vendors integrate with email testing tools such as Litmus, which allows users to preview email
messages across clients and devices.
Other mobile marketing features include SMS/texting, in-app marketing and remote platform
management from mobile devices. In-app marketing features can include push notifications or
ads based on geography (i.e., geofencing or beaconing) or during events. Marketing automation
vendors have also expanded platform access to mobile users, moving beyond automated alerts
and remote data collection to full platform management.
Account-based marketing
Aligning marketing initiatives with sales teams is a top ABM priority for marketers. The goal of ABM
is to target marketing programs to prospect or customer buying teams, rather than to individuals.
The larger the purchase, the more people and departments are involved. MAP vendors continue
to add new ABM features to enable marketers to address the buying group in addition to individual
members through enhanced account nurturing and predictive scoring capabilities.
Native CRM and CDP integrations
With more businesses seeking to align marketing with sales, native or out-of-the-box integration
with CRM systems has become a critical feature for MAPs. Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365,
Oracle NetSuite and SugarCRM are among the most commonly available connectors.
Data is synchronized between the two systems and shared in both directions at frequent
intervals. For example, data that is added by a sales rep to an account record in the CRM will be
automatically added to the record in the MAP so marketers can use it too.
Integrations with CDPs serve similar purposes and are growing in importance as marketers seek
the more sophisticated functionality that such platforms can provide.
Connectivity with third-party software
Vendors develop APIs and foster relationships with external developers via app marketplaces as a
way for customers to access an expansive array of third-party software systems. App marketplaces
provide faster plug-and-play access between the systems, although there may be additional fees.
If a preferred app is not available on a vendor’s marketplace it doesn’t mean the two systems won’t
connect — just that some customization will be required. API use may incur additional charges,
generally on a per-call basis for each data download.
App marketplaces can be an important area of differentiation for vendors. Cultivating relationships with developers who create add-ons and integration tools adds to the software’s utility without requiring the vendor to develop those integrations. If you’re considering licensing a MAP, be sure to assess potential partners’ efforts in this arena.
AI and machine learning
Users will experience the influence of AI’s development throughout advanced MAPs, where it’s
being used to improve the performance of traditional functions, as described above. However,
some platforms may offer users or administrators the option to customize the data “ingredients”
used to build AI models or the weights given to the various inputs. Others may be more of a
“black box,” where users don’t necessarily know how the AI arrived at a certain conclusion or
recommendation.
The market is quickly evolving, as B2B marketers demand integrated marketing functionality. For much more detail on this rapidly changing space, download the latest edition of our free report, “Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide.“
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