2 Best email marketing automation tools for Small Business

Best marketing automation software for small to medium-sized businesses

With over 150,000 customers, it’s not surprising that ActiveCampaign was the most commonly mentioned tool in our survey of email markering software options for 2023.

ActiveCampaign has earned its reputation as a leading marketing automation tool by focusing on building a world-class product that provides multiple solutions for B2C, B2B, and e-commerce businesses from around the globe.

It’s by far the most advanced email marketing platform on our list, with machine learning and predictive tools enabling marketers to work smarter and deliver higher ROI.

Often credited with pioneering visual marketing automation, ActiveCampaign is impressively intuitive and easier to use than some tools on our list.

As an all-in-one marketing tool, ActiveCampaign comes with a built-in CRM system to manage your sales, live chat, and of course, email campaigns.

As an all-in-one marketing tool, ActiveCampaign comes with a built-in CRM system to manage your sales, live chat, and of course, email campaigns.

ActiveCampaign’s Pricing

You might think all these features come at a hefty cost. Yet, starting at only $9 a month, ActiveCampaign is reasonably priced and more affordable than many of the tools on this list.

ActiveCampaign’s Pros

• All-in-one platform

  You can build courses, landing pages, websites, membership sites and manage products directly inside ClickFunnels.

• Unique triggers and actions

  As a bi-product of it’s all-in-one platform, ClickFunnels has unique triggers and actions in their automation workflows, like auto-enrolling people into courses or upselling products.

• Community

  ClickFunnels have an active user community (online and offline) with more than 100k customers throughout the year. There is also a wide network of ClickFunnels consultants available for managed campaigns.

• Automation split testing

  This feature enables you to A/B test entire sequences against each other, rather than just test individual emails (which is offered by most marketing automation tools).

ActiveCampaign’s Pros

• CRM

  ActiveCampaign’s marketing automation is particularly powerful because ActiveCampaign has an in-built CRM system. This CRM, however, is not as good as standalone platforms like PipeDrive or Salesforce – though we feel this is a reasonable trade-off for ActiveCampaign’s automation features.

ActiveCampaign Verdict

If you’re looking for a market-leading email marketing solution, there’s no denying that ActiveCampaign has long occupied that position.

Try ActiveCampaign today with a 14-day free trial — no credit card required.

Best for established small buisnesses

Keap is best suited to small businesses that already have a strong customer base and a turn over above $100,000.

Our favourite aspect of Keap is the campaign builder. Unlike other automation tools, building sequences in Keap are intuitive and almost addictive.

Keap's Pricing

Keap has generous pricing for its feature set, and with their simple pricing structure, it won't spiral out of control as you scale.

Keap's Pros

• User interface

  Keap has one of the best-designed user interfaces in the marketing automation industry. Their visual campaign builder makes crafting even the most complex of nurturing sequences both fun and intuitive.

• Great integration & API

  Thanks to a combination of over 300+ apps in the Keap Marketplace, their API, and their Zapier integration, you can connect Keap to hundreds of third-party tools.

• Great support & training

  Keap receives a lot of praise for the quality of their customer service.

• Scalability

  Keap uses universal tracking, which makes it easy to keep track of a contact’s behaviour across multiple marketing channels.

• Built-in shopping cart / eCommerce

  Keap are one of the only marketing automation tools that offer order forms, payment processing, fulfilment, and inventory tracking directly within the tool.

Keap's Cons

• Kickstart fee

  Keap charge a one-off mandatory kickstart fee of $1999. While it’s useful to have an Keap consultant help you setup your first few campaigns, this initial fee puts some customers off.

• No native integrations

  Keap doesn’t have any native integrations with third-party tools. While they do have a marketplace with over 300 apps and extensions, many of these require an additional ongoing cost.

• Deliverability rates

  While Keap claims to have deliverability rates above 98%, we have seen several user tests showing that Keap’s deliverability isn’t as good as some other tools. On top of this, some tools allow you to setup dedicated IP addresses for sending emails, which is not a function offered by Keap.

Keap Verdict

Keap is best suited to small businesses that already have a strong customer base and a turn over above $100,000. Think of it as invaluable addition to your marketing team.