Looking for an upgrade to your current marketing automation tools? Or on the hunt for a new solution to solve a specific challenge? We’re here to help.

We reached out to 10 marketing agency owners in the US and UK and compiled their favorite marketing automation tools in this guide. We also highlight the features and prices of each tool.

The article is quite long so please feel free to use the Table of Contents on the left-hand corner to skip to the part you’d like to read first.

Otherwise, let’s dig in!

But first…why is marketing automation for agencies important?

The agency world is competitive, and the biggest challenge marketing agencies face is to scale up. To land more clients, agencies need to have marketing processes and workflows nailed down to the T, so they can deliver better results for their clients in a shorter period of time.

At Adriel, when we talk to agencies about automating their reporting, we always hear that they’re drowning in manual tasks, data discrepancies, and inefficiencies. 

Marketing automation tools can alleviate these pressures, offering numerous benefits:

• Time efficiency: With powerful marketing automation software in their arsenal, marketing and sales teams can save time on tedious, manual tasks.

• Competitive edge: When tedious marketing processes are automated, your marketing team has more time out of their day for strategy. This means you can deliver better results in a shorter period of time for your agency clients.

• No hassle client management: Marketing automation solutions are great for pulling all your disparate pieces of work and data onto one unified platform so you can manage projects better. You meet client deadlines with ease and even exceed expectations.

• Enhanced customer relationships: Building lasting relationships with clients is vital for repeat business. Marketing automation platforms facilitate consistent and effective communication, ensuring clients feel valued and understood.

• Robust lead management: Lead generation is one of the biggest pillars of business for marketing agencies. Marketing automation tools help you build a more systematic lead generation pipeline and make sure your potential customers don't slip through the cracks.

That being said, let’s dig into the 15 marketing automation tools that come highly recommended by agencies. 

‍15 marketing automation tools agencies love

For marketing agencies, automation tools are like “silent co-workers”, designed to help them achieve their goals efficiently.

Here are 15 marketing automation tools that agencies we've talked to recommend:

1. Adriel 

Built for marketing agencies, Adriel is a real-time marketing reporting platform with the highest customization and integration capabilities in the market. 

With Adriel’s 650+ easy integrations, custom alarms and rules, and ready-made dashboard templates, agencies have reported to slash up to 60hrs/week on reporting.

Adriel Features:

• 650+ no-code data connectors & custom integrations
• Custom metrics and breakdowns
• Real-time, custom alerts
• Native campaign edits, budget reallocation, and on/off campaigns
• Ad creative insights on all marketing channels
• Data pipelines maintained on your behalf 
• Whitelabel live dashboards and reports
• Ready-made dashboard templates

Adriel Pricing:

• From $299/month for SMBs and entrepreneurs. Includes 10 data connections and 3 user seats.
• From $699/month for marketing teams. Includes 50 data connections and 10 user seats
• From $1499/month for enterprises or teams with large scale campaigns. Includes 100+ data connections and unlimited user seats.
• Custom pricing for agencies

Recommended by:

Adriel has been a total game-changer. It used to take us hours to build and standardize reports from scratch. Now they're ready as soon as we log in to Adriel - our clients are thrilled with our delivery speed!
-- Z. Kelsey, Founder and CEO at Hooked Advertising

2. Asana 

Asana is an affordable and powerful project management and marketing automation tool to manage all teams and projects in granular detail. Digital marketing agencies also use this as a CRM.

Asana Features:

• 200+ integrations
• Real-time project progress report
• Cross-team and cross-project collaboration
• Data security with two-factor authentication, SSO, and SAML 2.0
• Project tracking in one view
• Personalized visualizations with custom fields and charts

Asana Pricing:

•  Free for individuals and small teams
• $10.99/user/month for growing teams
• $24.99/user/month for companies

Recommended by:

Asana is our business’s life source. The organization, notifications, assignment system, and hierarchy makes Asana stand out. We tried Monday as well, but it just couldn't compete with the intuitiveness of Asana.
-- EmilyKate Lorenz, Director of Online services at Hierographx

3. Hootsuite

‍

Hootsuite is an agency-focused social media automation tool for scheduling posts, monitoring activity, and tracking analytics across multiple social media platforms.

Hootsuite Features:

• Publishing and scheduling social media posts from one platform
• Social media content calendar
• Link shortening and tracking
• Content curation and design integrations
• Campaign management
• Custom branded URL (for more expensive plans)
• All-in-one centralized inbox
• Customizable reports and templates
• Competitor benchmarking
• Social ads campaign management and reporting (for enterprise plans)

Hootsuite Pricing:

• $99/month for professionals. Includes 1 user and 10 social accounts
• $249/month for teams. Includes 3 users and 20 social accounts
• Custom pricing for enterprises

Recommended by:

Social media is a large part of our marketing portfolio and Hootsuite has made my job significantly easier and better.
-- Brenda Baker, Owner at Oak + Ivy Venue

4. Agorapulse

Agorapulse is an easy-to-use social media automation and scheduling software, similar to HootSuite. The difference between the two seems to lie in the ease-of-use, value, and pricing. Agorapulse rated 4.5 out of 5 for value on G2.com, while HootSuite ranked 4.2. But HootSuite offers a more intuitive pricing structure as the pricing changes with the number of accounts, rather than features.

Agorapulse Features:

• Unified social inbox 
• Intuitive publishing
• Social listening
• Insightful analytics
• Social media ROI

Agorapulse Pricing:

• $49/user.month for 10 social profiles
• $70/user/month for 10 social profiles and extra features
• $119/user/month for 10 social profiles, extra features, and power reports
• Custom pricing 

Recommended by:

Agorapulse has really changed our ability to follow up with customers and make sure we're being responsive and interacting with them when they want.
-- Jaime Mendelsohn, Director of Customer Happiness at Lovepop

5. ActiveCampaign

‍

ActiveCampaign is also another email marketing, CRM, and marketing automation platform with a vast library of pre-built automations. It’s ideal for B2C marketers looking to streamline tasks like lead scoring, sales lead rotation, and SMS communications.

ActiveCampaign Features:

Marketing automation:

• Email marketing automation
• Forms and landing pages
• Site and event tracking
• Segmentation and targeting
• Customer journey mapping

Sales automation:

• Lead scoring
• CRM
• Sales engagement
• Win probability
• Inbox extension

eCommerce marketing automation:

• 930+ integrations 
• Abandoned cart reminders
• Product catalog
• Cross-sell emails
• Coupons and discounts
• Custom reporting capabilities

ActiveCampaign Pricing:

• $29/month for solopreneurs. Includes 1 user and 10x contact email send limit.
• $49/month for small business owners. Includes 3 users, 10x contact email send limit, and extra features.
• $149/month for bigger teams. Includes 5 users, 12x contact email send limit, and more reporting features.
• Custom pricing for enterprises. 

Recommended by:

I often suggest ActiveCampaign to my clients to ensure that whenever we get a lead, it's handled correctly every time, and it all happens automatically. My favorite feature of ActiveCampaign is that you can combine it with the site tracking to get more data automatically.
-- Phillip Stemann, Founder of Phillip Stemann

6. Constant Contact 

Constant Contact is a small-business-focused email marketing automation tool. Compared to MailChimp, Constant Contact appears to have a more intuitive interface, better delivery rates, and a helpful support team. Digital agencies we’ve talked to use this to nurture prospects and grow their business.

Constant Contact Features:

• Email marketing automation: create, send, and track emails + email templates
• Landing page creation
• Event marketing tools
• List-building tools
• A/B testing
• Reporting 
• CRM
• eCommerce platform
• SMS marketing automation
• Social media marketing
• Mobile apps

Constant Contact Pricing:

• $12/month for 1 user, 1 GB storage, and 10x number of contacts as monthly email send limit
• $35/month for 3 users, 10 GB storage, and 12x number of contacts
• $80/month for unlimited users, 25 GB storage, and 24x number of contacts

Recommended by: 

We find Constant Contact to be the easiest email marketing automation tool to use. Its drag and drop email editor makes it especially intuitive.
-- Robert Bentz,  President at Purplegator

7. IFTTT

IFTTT is a web-based marketing automation tool that automates workflows and tasks between apps and devices using simple "if this, then that" conditional statements. You can explore all their services here.

IFTTT Features:

• Customizable marketing automation rules
• Cross-app/device marketing automation
• User-friendly interface
• Extensive service integrations
• Real-time task automation

IFTTT Pricing:

• Free for two “Applets” - small applications that connect two or more services or devices
• $2.5/month for 20 Applets
• $5/month for unlimited Applets 

Recommended by:

We use IFTTT to create custom workflows that automate repetitive tasks across different apps and services. For example, we use it to automatically save email attachments to Dropbox or Google Drive.
-- Adam Hardingham, CEO at Rivmedia

8. Make.com (formerly Integromat)

‍

Make.com is an advanced marketing automation platform for businesses and individuals looking to streamline workflows by connecting apps and automating tasks without needing extensive coding knowledge.

Make.com Features:

• Drag-and-drop builder to connect apps
• Workflow builder (called "scnearios")
• Real-time data flow
• Pre-built integrations with 1000+ apps and 6000+ endpoints
• API connections
• No-code toolkit
• Team collaboration
• Ready-made templates
• Whitelabel

Make.com Pricing:

• Free. Includes no-code visual workflow builder and 1000+ apps
• Core: $10.59/month. Includes 10,000 ops/month, unlimited scenarios, access to the Make API, and more.
• Pro: $18.52/month. Includes everything in Core, plus custom variables, scenario inputs, and more.
• Teams: $34.12/month. Includes everything in Pro, plus multiple teams and permissions, high priority scenario execution, and more.

Recommended by:

Hands down the 'most' powerful tool in our arsenal. This powerful automation platform acts as the central hub for our tech stack, seamlessly connecting all our diverse tools and applications through robust 'no code' integrations.
-- Eric Melillo, Co-owner and CGO of Meticulosity

9. AdGen AI 

AdGen AI is a programmatic creative tool that uses Generative AI to create, test, and publish ads at scale on multiple channels. 

Digital marketing agencies can not only get a collection of ad creatives with different styles in minutes, but they can also publish them across Meta or Google Ads in one-click.  

AdGen AI Features:

• No-prompt ad creative and copy generation
• Hundreds of ad variations in minutes
• On-brand ad copy based on website URL
• A/B testing ads at scale
• Publish bulk ads on Meta and Google ads
• Automatic UTM generator

AdGen AI Pricing:

• 10 free credits as part of launch
• $19/month for small businesses and freelancers. Includes 50+ ad copy generations and 600 image ad variations
• $79/month for boutique agencies and startups. Includes 250+ ad copy generations and 3000 image ad variations
• $199/month for creative agencies and e-commerce brands. Includes 750+ ad copy generations and 9000 image ad variations
• Custom pricing for enterprises 

Recommended by:

I LOOOVE how fast AdGen generates professionally designed ads!
-- J. Bollman, CMO of 62Above

10. CapCut

For social media or PPC agencies that work a lot with videos, CapCut is an invaluable tool. From creating and editing videos to adding text and enhancing images and videos - CapCut does it all. It’s free and comes with ready-made templates and AI capabilities. 

CapCut Features:

• Comprehensive photo and video editor
• TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram video maker and editor
• Lifestyle video maker (e.g. GIFs, wedding videos, etc.)
• Speech-to-text and text-to-speech
• Transcribe videos and add subtitles
• Image upscaler, portrait generator,
• Ready-to-go video templates

CapCut Pricing:

• Free!

Recommended by:

We edit videos on CapCut for social media and it’s super user-friendly and helps us save a ton of time.
-- Gabriela Covay, Founder and Managing Director at Bright Valley Marketing

11. Figma 

Figma is a collaborative web-based design tool favored by UX/UI designers for its user-friendly interface and robust teamwork features. It recently introduced a new tool - FigJam - an online whiteboard which helps with UX research, brand guides, marketing campaign plans, and more. 

Figma Features:

• Intuitive design interface
• Vector graphic editing
• Libraries for components, styles, and variables
• Design prototypes
• Community resources like widgets, plugins, and files 
• RestAPIs
• Team collaboration
• Integrations with project management and communication tools like Asana and Microsoft Teams

Figma Pricing:

• Free for 3 Figma and 3 FigJam files
• $12/editor/month for professionals
• $45/editor/month for organizations
• $75/editor/month for enterprises

Recommended by:

"AI integration into design platforms like Figma have been a pleasant surprise. It helps speed along tedious design tasks and is specifically useful for the FigJam feature in Figma for structuring notes and making project ideas more organized."
-- EmilyKate Lorenz, Director of Online services at Hierographx

12. Infusionsoft (now Keap)

Keap is like a Hubspot alternative for boutique digital agencies and small businesses. It’s great for managing customer data, streamlining email marketing campaigns, and writing personalized messages, all-in-one place. 

Keap Features:

CRM:

• Contact management, segmentation, and lists, filters, and saved searches
• Tasks, notes, and company records
• Custom fields
• Lead source tracking and scoring

Marketing and email marketing automation

• Landing pages and forms
• Multi-page sales funnels
• Email marketing, sync, and newsletters
• Business phone line and 1:1 text messages
• Text message broadcasts, automated text messaging
• Mobile app
• Google reviews

Sales

• Sales pipeline, sales round robin
• Appointments and calendar sync
• Quotes, invoices, and checkout forms
• One-time, recurring, and ACH payments
• Subscription management
• One-click upsell and cross-sell
• Promo codes
• Referral partner management and collaboration

Keap Pricing:

• $159/month for small teams. Includes 1500 contacts and 2 users.
• $229/month for growing teams. Includes 2500 contacts and 3 users.
• $279/month for large teams. Includes 2500 contacts and 3 users + premium features.

Recommended by:

“InfusionSoft is our go-to for CRM and digital marketing automation!” 
-- Claire Jarrett, Founder of Jarett Digital

13. WP Engine

WP Engine is a website hosting platform that simplifies the management of client websites by automating tasks such as updating WordPress versions and plugins. You can design, build, power, and manage WordPress, WooCommerce, and headless sites with WP Engine.

WP Engine Features:

Website tools:

• Website monitoring and tester
• Global edge security
• Smart plugin manager
• Local wordpress development
• Genesis WordPress
• WordPress themes and tools
• WP Engine Smart Search
• Application performance

WordPress Plugins:

• Advanced custom fields
• WP migrate
• WP offload media and SES

WP Engine Pricing:

• $24/month for 1 site, 25,000 visits, 10GB storage, and 50GB bandwidth/month
• $29/month for the same capacity as above but with advanced features
• $600/month for premium performance, enterprise-grade security, and priority support

Recommended by: 

“When you host client websites, there is so much ongoing work that needs to be done. Things like changing out WordPress versions and updating plugins are time consuming and difficult to monitor when you have dozens of client websites to administer. WP Engine makes it easier as it reports daily on what we need to update and repair.”
-- Robert Bentz, President at Purplegator

14. SE Ranking

SE Ranking is a versatile SEO software suite that's ideal for small to medium-sized businesses and digital marketing agencies, offering comprehensive tools for keyword ranking, website analysis, and competitor tracking.

SE Ranking Features:

• Keyword rank tracker and research
• Backlink checker and monitor
• Competitive research
• Website audit
• On-page SEO checker
• Page changes monitor
• Report builder
• Content editor
• SERP checker
• Local marketing tool

SE Ranking Pricing:

• $55/month for SEO professionals. Includes 1 manager seat and 10 projects
• $109/month for small agencies and teams. Includes 3 manager seats and unlimited projects
• $239/month for mid-to-large agencies and businesses. Includes 5 manager seats and unlimited projects

Recommended by:

"SE Ranking allows us to auto-generate detailed reports which not only save time but also ensure accuracy and up-to-date SEO data.."
-- Connor Hewson, Managing Director at Assured Marketing

15. Evernote

‍

Evernote is a flexible note-taking and organization app, perfect for individuals and teams seeking a centralized platform to capture, organize, and share notes and ideas across devices.

Evernote Features:

• "Home" page that shows the most relevant information
• Custom organization systems
• Easy-to-apply and customizable note templates
• Tag notes with keywords to sort them
• Document scanner
• Content calendar
• Offline access

Evernote Pricing:

• Free for 50 notes, 1 notebook, and 60MB monthly uploads
• $14.99/month for up to 100,000 notes, 1,000 notebooks, and 10GB monthly uploads
• $17.99/month for up to 100,000 notes, 1,000 notebooks, and 20GB monthly uploads

Recommended by:

"I use Evernote to capture and organize my notes, ideas, and tasks. Evernote helps me to write and edit my notes, add images and audio, and access and sync them across my devices."
--James Heartquist, Real Estate Buyer at WeBuyHouse Arizona

How do I choose a marketing automation software?

But with thousands of marketing automation tools in the market, how do you choose the right one for your business? 

Typically, marketers value these features when they are looking for the best marketing automation solution:

1. Ease of use

Not every employee in your agency is tech-savvy. The best marketing automation tools understand this and fine-tune their product to be as easy to use as possible. They also offer an extensive library of resources, videos, documentation, product tours, to ensure everyone in your organization knows how to make the most of it.

The one specific feature I value most is ease of use. I can quickly adapt to using the marketing automation tool without having to take an online course or do extensive research and studying.
-- Jerail Fennell, CEO of NotedJax

2. Easy and comprehensive integrations

In marketing, data is king. You want a solution that seamlessly integrates with all your other marketing automation tools so you can extract, import, and share data easily across different channels. This way, you can build a more accurate picture of who your customers are, how they behave, and how you can effectively grow your business. 

Easy integration is so important. It would enable a comprehensive view of the customer journey, enhancing strategy development and decision-making processes.
-- Moody Mattan, Founder & CEO of BrandXR

3. Ability to turn data into personalized online marketing campaigns 

Just aggregating data is not enough to craft a personalized marketing strategy. The right marketing automation software digs deep into your marketing data and provides suggestions for personalized campaigns that lead to higher conversions.

4. Custom rules

For agencies with multiple departments, teammates, and clients, custom rule creation can be a massive time-saver. Choose an automation tool that allows you to create your own metrics, dimensions, and workflows based on what you need to power up productivity. 

I like to break processes down to granularities to find pain points or areas where we can be more effective.
-- EmilyKate Lorenz, Director of Online services at Hierographx, a full-service agency

5. AI image generation

One of the most tedious tasks of marketing is creating images for ads, social media posts, blogs, or other content pieces. Creative teams are stretched thin with mountains of requests from different departments. Creative automation tools can ease the burden and cut down image generation time to minutes instead of days. 

Once you have some automation tools in your shortlist, follow these steps to automate your marketing agency:

How do you automate a marketing agency?

1. Identify Repetitive Tasks: Start by pinpointing routine, time-consuming tasks within your agency such as social media posting, email marketing, or data entry. These are prime candidates for marketing automation.

2. Choose the Right Tools: Select marketing automation software that aligns with your agency's specific needs. Look for tools that offer ease of use, integration capabilities, and features like custom rule creation, AI-driven functionalities, and data analytics.

3. Integrate and Streamline: Ensure that your chosen marketing automation tools can seamlessly integrate with existing systems and workflows. This integration is crucial for creating a cohesive and efficient automation ecosystem across various marketing channels.

4. Train Your Team: Educate your team on how to use these marketing automation tools effectively. Proper training is essential for maximizing the benefits of automation and ensuring that your staff can leverage these tools to their full potential.

5. Monitor and Optimize: Continuously monitor the performance of your automated systems and gather feedback from your team. Use this information to make adjustments and improvements, ensuring that your automation strategy evolves with your agency's needs and the changing digital landscape.

This concludes our guide to marketing automation for agencies. If you need a marketing dashboard to streamline reporting, check out Adriel below.‍

Automate marketing reporting with Adriel

Looking for a digital marketing automation tool to save time on marketing reporting? Adriel is here to help.

With dozens of grab-and-go dashboard templates, Adriel can save you massive time on aggregating and visualizing data on all your marketing campaigns.

Have a report you’d like us to replicate, or need some extra assistance? Get in touch and we’ll build a template within 48 hours free of charge.