Comparing the Big 5 Marketing Automation Platforms

A Marketer’s Guide to the Popular Marketing Automation Platforms

Stacking the right marketing automation platforms can help you:

• Bring in more and better leads.
• Increase customer retention and loyalty.
• Understand customer behaviour better.
• Personalise marketing at scale.
• Capture more value from CXM.

But nothing in life (or marketing) is guaranteed. Getting those benefits, especially in an enterprise environment, requires investing time and resources. 

And that investment is harder than ever to secure. Gartner’s latest CMO Spend Report found that martech spending is at a five-year low. It accounts for just 19.4% of the marketing budget in 2026.

Although it’s no wonder why. Martech utilisation is still in the doldrums at 49%, with just 15% of organisations meeting key marketing goals and driving measurable business impact.

Finally, there’s what we call “analysis paralysis” risk. Even as big players swallow up smaller platforms, the market for marketing automation platforms keeps expanding.

To help you understand what separates marketing automation platforms and make an informed choice, we’re comparing the features, functionality, and flexibility of five leaders: HubSpot, Marketo, Pardot, Zeta, and Braze.

How We Chose the Test Subjects

All five marketing automation platforms in this guide combine email, customer intelligence, lead management, and reporting to run and measure marketing from one place.

(Although one thing you’ll notice is the different way they control access to features.)

In other words, they all do roughly the same thing. We chose these five because:

1. They represent a good cross-section of organisations and use cases.
2. They are regularly named as leaders in their space. 
3. They are platforms we work with and genuinely recommend as an independent CXM consultancy.

The idea isn’t to name the “best” marketing platform. There’s no such thing. Among the literal thousands of options, these are five that illustrate why the right fit is more important than the latest features. 

HubSpot vs Marketo vs Salesforce vs Braze vs Zeta

HubSpot: The All-in-One Marketing Automation Platform

HubSpot is a comprehensive customer platform for SMEs and growing businesses. It’s essentially a CRM with feature bundles organised into six use-case-based “hubs”:

• Marketing
• Sales
• Service
• Content
• Operations
• Commerce                                                                                   

This build-it-yourself model positions HubSpot as a competitor for single-feature marketing tools and full-feature platforms. At least in theory, it’s massively scalable, with solutions for freelancers through to multinational companies.  

For example, marketers might compare HubSpot to Unbounce for building conversion-optimised landing pages, while big sales teams compare HubSpot to Marketo for marketing automation and account-based lead management.

Benefits:

• Intuitive interface.
• All hubs integrated into a Snowflake-compatible CRM.
• Modular feature set provides flexibility as you grow.
• Free features let you trial the UI.

Limitations:

• Hubs may have features you don’t need but still pay for.
• High subscription fees for adding features and expanding contact database limits.
• May fall short for larger enterprises with 2k+ employees or 15m+ contacts.

Use Cases:

• Inbound marketing: SEO, content creation, social media management.
• Lead generation and nurturing: Lead scoring, email marketing, forms.
• Sales enablement: CRM integration, sales automation.
• Customer service: Live chat, ticketing, surveys.

Marketo: Adobe’s B2B Marketing Automation Powerhouse

Marketo Engage is Adobe’s B2B marketing automation platform offering. The focus is on lead generation and customer experience with powerful functionality for cross-channel automation, sales and marketing alignment, and lead management. Marketo is ideal for larger enterprises with complex lead nurturing and account-based marketing needs. It excels in delivering personalised customer experiences at scale.

It’s typically seen as a B2B customer experience platform, but we’ve also used it successfully in B2C cases. However–in our experience at least–Marketo’s complexity and higher price point often intimidate smaller companies. This might seem like a disadvantage, but it’s likely by design. Marketo is powerful. It’s built for bigger companies and complex use cases, so small brands wouldn’t get the full benefit. 

Case in point: Marketo is not a CRM. It’s designed to work with large standalone databases. Especially Adobe Experience Cloud, but also Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics. The focus is on engagement. This is one reason comparing HubSpot vs Marketo is innately tricky. One is a CRM surrounded by marketing automation features, and the other is a marketing automation platform that syncs with your CRM.

Benefits:

• Strong account-based marketing capabilities.
• Advanced AI-powered predictive analytics.
• Flexibility and customization.

Limitations:

• Steeper learning curve.
• Higher costs and investment in training required.

Use cases:

• Lead scoring and nurturing: Advanced segmentation, personalization, and predictive analytics.
• Account-based marketing (ABM): Identifying and engaging high-value accounts through targeted campaigns.
• Customer journey mapping: Gaining a comprehensive understanding of customer interactions across multiple channels.
• Revenue attribution: Measuring the impact of marketing efforts on revenue generation.
• Predictive analytics: Identifying high-potential leads and optimizing marketing campaigns.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud: The Sales(force) Centric Solution

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is geared towards companies already invested in the Salesforce CRM ecosystem. There are, somewhat confusingly, two products with very similar names:

• Marketing Cloud Engagement: The B2C platform for high-volume consumer messaging across email, mobile, SMS, social and advertising, with journey building on top.
• Marketing Cloud Account Engagement: The B2B platform for lead scoring and nurturing on considered purchases — this is Pardot, renamed in 2022.

The version you’ll use comes down to how you sell.

It’s also worth knowing where Salesforce is heading. Its newer Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced editions run natively on the core Salesforce Platform and Data Cloud.

Marketing Cloud Next is the direction of travel, with Agentforce adding AI agents across the stack in line with Salesforce’s vision for the “agentic enterprise”.

The appeal for Salesforce-heavy teams is the tight link between CRM and marketing. Although you certainly aren’t limited to Salesforce marketing automation platforms, even if you use Salesforce’s CRM.

Benefits:

• Deep, native integration with Salesforce CRM and Data Cloud.
• Plenty of guided “Builders” and “Studios” for assembling campaigns and journeys.
• Cost-effective if you’re already on Salesforce.

Limitations:

• Data management is more complex than other platforms.
• Expensive for non-Salesforce users to migrate.
• Full value leans on Data Cloud, which adds cost and setup.

Use Cases:

• Lead management (Account Engagement): Capture, score, and nurture B2B leads inside Salesforce.
• B2C journeys (Engagement): Trigger messages on the right channel at the right moment across the customer lifecycle.
• Sales and marketing alignment: Share data between marketing and Sales Cloud.
• Cross-channel campaigns: coordinate messaging across email, mobile, social, and ads.

Zeta Marketing Platform: Building a Name for AI-Powered Automation

Zeta’s marketing automation offering, Zeta Marketing Platform (ZMP), represents the new world of progressive customer profiling. 

Unlike most marketing platforms which start as CRMs, ZMP is built on Zeta’s flagship customer data platform (CDP). Everything the platform offers is built around identity and data. As a result, it’s highly effective for analysing customer signals, connecting data sources, predicting intent and personalising experiences. 

While other marketing automation platforms focus primarily on lead management and email marketing, ZMP is more focused on identifying individuals and personalising experiences. This makes it an intelligent choice for brands prioritising data-driven marketing, personalised marketing at scale, and omnichannel (typically purchase-oriented) experiences. 

Benefits:

• Collects, centralises and organises data from online and offline touchpoints 
• Matches customer data to create unified customer profiles.
• Personalises customer experiences using AI and predictive modelling.
• Supports seamless cross-channel customer journeys.
• Handles large volumes of data to support growing businesses.

Limitations:

• Can be complex to implement and manage.
• Most users require additional training to get the platform’s full value.
• Strong data focus means there are limited features for specific marketing tactics like social media management or content creation.

Use cases:

• Retail and eCommerce: Personalising product recommendations, optimising customer lifecycle marketing and driving loyalty programs.
• Media agencies: ZMP combines identity matching, targeting and activation, enabling agencies to scale up and prove ROI.
• Travel and leisure: Connecting customer interactions, personalising messaging, increasing loyalty in travel and hospitality industries.
• Financial services: Enhancing customer segmentation, improving customer acquisition and retention, and personalising financial offers
• Telecommunications: Optimising churn prediction, targeting promotions and personalising customer experiences
• Media and entertainment: Delivering personalised content recommendations, increasing engagement and optimising advertising campaigns.
• Healthcare: Improving patient engagement, targeted marketing for healthcare products and services, and optimising patient journeys.

Braze: The Mobile Engagement Specialist

Braze is a customer engagement platform known for its strong mobile marketing features and real-time engagement capabilities. The feature suite is mobile-first. SMS, WhatsApp, and in-app messaging are usually the entry points for brands.

But you also get the classics. Braze’s email tool has impressive personalisation and automation features and the web experience builder rivals bigger platforms. It’s usually a good bet for companies looking to drive app adoption, increase customer loyalty or reduce churn. 

We like Braze because they’re on the front foot. They see how first-party data, AI and real-time conversations are changing CXM. You get a data platform, customer journey orchestration tool and analytics as part of the platform.

That said, Braze is the smallest company on this list. For now — they’re growing fast.

Benefits:

• Real-time data and personalisation.
• Strong mobile marketing features.
• Excellent for orchestrating multi-channel campaigns.
• AI features, analytics and data platform built in.

Limitations:

• Higher cost and non-transparent pricing.
• Steeper learning curve for new users

Use cases:

• Push notifications: Deliver timely and relevant messages to mobile users.
• In-app messaging: Engage users within the app with personalised content.
• Customer journey orchestration: Create seamless customer experiences across multiple channels.
• Data analysis and insights: Understand customer behaviour and preferences to optimise campaigns.

How to Choose the Right Marketing Automation Platform

There’s no “best” marketing automation platform. We work with all the big ones (and several small ones) based on what our clients and their customers need. 

What we’ve learnt over and over is that the biggest, shiniest or slickest platform isn’t always the best. Don’t let a sales pitch convince you otherwise. 

Take time to assess your needs. Set clear goals. Do your research. Think critically about the latent capabilities in your existing martech, compared to the cost and learning curve that comes with new marketing automation platforms or digital transformation projects.

It’ll make any investment you make significantly more valuable, whether that’s upgrading tech or training your team.

Step 1: Define Your Business Goals and Objectives

• Identify KPIs: What matters most to your business? Lead generation, customer retention, revenue growth? Figure out how to track the value of your efforts against those goals.
• Define martech’s role: How does marketing automation contribute to your KPIs? It’s far from the only factor, so set realistic expectations.
• Assess your current marketing stack: Look for feature gaps, data siloes,  and opportunities to upgrade or update. 

This is a good time to call in CXM consultants. Our role is to clarify your business goals, simplify the next steps, and keep the project moving. 

Step 2: Understand Your Audience’s Needs

• Create detailed customer personas: Develop in-depth profiles of your ideal customers, including where they spend time online and how they want to interact with your brand.
• Identify pain points and attractors: Determine what is and isn’t working currently. Try to anticipate how this will change in the future.
• Reorganise around the customer: You’ll only get value from martech if your team structure and processes are customer-centric. This reorganisation can be a big step, but it’s worth the effort.

Step 3: Make a List of Must-Haves

• Essential features: What features and functionality would you consider ‘core’ in the next 12-24 months? Factor in current use cases and growth plans. 
• Optional functionality: Evaluate the need for additional capabilities like CRM integration, SMS marketing, predictive analytics and AI. When do these become essential? Can you upgrade when the time comes?
• Scalability: Ensure the platform gives your business room to grow without being too oversized. Otherwise, you’ll be back here before too long.

Step 4: Set Your Price

• Determine your marketing budget: Allocate funds for the platform, implementation, and ongoing costs.
• Calculate ROI: Evaluate the potential return on investment based on expected benefits and costs.
• Explore pricing models: Compare different pricing plans and options.

Just a note here: published prices are often on the low end. They don’t account for additional features, larger databases, implementation, training and personal support.

The best way to get accurate HubSpot, Marketo, Salesforce, Zeta or Braze pricing is talking to the vendor.

We can also provide a ballpark based on our experience with these and other marketing automation platforms. 

Step 5: Assess Support Needs

• Make an implementation strategy: Consider internal capabilities, external assistance, change management factors, IT requirements, and migrating to the new system.
• Assess platform support: Evaluate the quality and availability of customer support. This should be easy enough to find in online reviews and forums.
• Consider training options: Most platforms have self-guided training courses. If you need something specific, we can create a tailored short course or embed into your team to train your people.

Step 6: Start Small, Think Big, Scale Fast

When you’re ready to roll out the platform, it’s tempting to go all in. In our experience, a pilot approach is better. It gives you time and data to work out the kinks so the broader implementation goes as smoothly as possible.

• Pilot the platform: Select a small group with specific use cases. Get them to test the features, user-friendliness, integrations and any customisations.
• Gather user feedback: Collect input on what works, what’s hard to use, and what they miss from the old days.
• Improve and test again: Use what you learn to adjust the next implementation phase. If you can, expand the pilot gradually to have more time for tweaks.
• Measure performance: Track key metrics to assess platform effectiveness. Continue adjusting over time.

Martech implementations never really end. There’s always a process you can improve, a new feature in development, a pain point you can solve, or an insight you can act on.

The Final Word on Marketing Automation Platforms

HubSpot vs Marketo vs Salesforce vs Braze vs Zeta: Who Won?

If you came here looking for an answer on the “best marketing automation platforms”, we can only apologise. Then again, you probably knew it wouldn’t be that simple. 

The “best” platform is the one that meets your business needs and enables your long-term customer experience strategy. It’s the one that builds customer loyalty.

Ultimately, it’s the one that delivers the most value.

If there was one marketing automation platform that met all those criteria for every business, we wouldn’t need to compare HubSpot vs Marketo vs Salesforce vs Braze vs Zeta (vs AJO vs Microsoft vs Pipedrive vs ActiveCampaign, ad infinitum...)

That said, hopefully this guide helped you narrow your shortlist. Or at least frame your understanding of marketing automation platforms so you know how to distil the landscape into what you need. 

For help navigating the next steps, get in touch with us. Our unbiased CXM technology consultants will help you make the right choice for your business, budget, and customer goals.