Hubspot Vs. Marketo

The marketing automation tools are relatively new and the software phenomena triggered by them has become extremely popular. So much so that these automation tools have become ubiquitous and as many as 70% of the market leaders and about 35% of the organisation have adopted them to make marketing automation market a whopping $3.3 billion. It is even projected that this number will more than double itself by the year 2025 or maybe even sooner.

The two most common tools used for marketing automation are HubSpot and Marketo. Both these tools have an extremely high satisfaction score and features that majorly overlap. They are the leaders in the cloud based marketing automation industry but there are a few significant differences between them that make the people choose one over the other. While HubSpot continuous to be the undisputed leader, Marketo is giving it a tough competition. This article is a comparative analysis of both these tools highlighting their features and benefits and ends with the verdict to declare a winner amongst them.

Ease of use

Hubspot is extremely easy to use and is ideal for the small business owners that do not have the ability or knowledge to cold. It is an intuitive platform that provide the business owners with the knowledge about online marketing and is an all-inclusive solution. It is extremely easy to get things done by using this software however, they have not compromised with the sturdiness and the software continues to be robust and fail proof. With a single system including all the CRM applications and sales figures, hubspot is considered to be more attractive by the small business owners all the people looking for integrated software without the need of customisation.

Marketo, on the other hand, is comparatively complex and difficult to use. It is recommended for the key marketing channels like social media platforms and blogging since it requires multiple tool and comparative indicators. Measuring the effectiveness of the marketing efforts of the companies also becomes difficult with Marketo since it has different modules for different forms of marketing. The five models into which the entire system of Marketo can be broken down are:

• Lead management
• Email marketing
• Consumer marketing
• Customer base marketing
• Mobile marketing

All these modules can be either separately purchased or combined in a bundle to form an integrated platform. Marketo provides the ability to it uses to customise the platform as per their needs but the organisation that want a unified system may not prefer this software.

Affordability

The entry-level products offered by HubSpot very affordable and the ones that are generally opted by the business organisations. The five tiers of pricing adopted by HubSpot are classified according to the scale of the business. They offer a free, starter, basic, professional and Enterprise version. The CRM software of HubSpot is available for free on only the price of the Sales Hub increases according to the scale.

Marketo provides greater choice to its users in the form of the different editions that are also priced according to the features included in them. Although the starter version of HubSpot is significantly affordable when compared to the basic edition of Marketo, when it comes to the full-fledged enterprise version, Marketo and HubSpot have comparative prices.

Analytics

The organisation adopt the marketing automation techniques to ensure that their marketing attempts are driven by insight. This inside is a result of Data Analytics. Therefore, the marketing automation solutions should have practical tools for Data Analytics so that the campaign programs, initiatives and marketing activities can be analysed with the help of reports and statistics.

The support from these software includes extremely powerful analytics tools that provide the users with the pulling reports and trackers to monitor the impact created by their campaigns in the market. Marketo also has extremely powerful analytics tools that provide strategic visibility and deep insights. The correlation between the effort made by the organisation and the revenue generated by it is easily drawn by the tools and it can be used for carrying out predictive analysis and modelling the behaviour by analysing the patterns and content preferences of the people.

The ultimate comparison

The verdict

Although both HubSpot and Marketo are extremely powerful marketing automation tools, it is recommended that you choose the one that suits your business requirements. The small-sized and mid-sized business organisation should opt for HubSpot since their needs will be better served by the all-inclusive software. HubSpot’s is catered more towards small and medium-sized businesses. It’s easy-to-use and learn software allows almost anyone to pick it up and get to work, but if your organization is more enterprise level, it may find that it needs something even more robust.  Business organisations do not require a higher learning curve and would do better with a complete all in one solution. The biggest drawback of Marketo is the initial learning curve required to get started using the software. The company’s software is better suited for larger companies with a dedicated IT department, although marketers with a technical background shouldn’t have too much trouble. However, the large business organisation for the Enterprises that are looking for a custom built solution for aligning their prospect engagement with the strategic goals of the business should opt for Marketo. The advanced analytics and email workflows of Marketo can allow the organisations to maximize the impact of their marketing activities and the advanced features included in the software can be utilised by the people having strong knowledge of IT operations.