What Is Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation is the use of software to automate certain tasks, such as sending a thank you email to a customer, that would otherwise require a person to handle manually. Marketing automation platforms can perform many common campaign types and activities, including email marketing, lead scoring and lead management, and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

Marketing automation is usually rules-based, meaning that your workflows operate on a series of “if-then” statements. As in: If a customer performs “X” task, send “Y” message via email and SMS text. Companies often begin with lead management as a key use for marketing automation. It sustains email campaigns that offer high-value content to new leads, usually with incentives to remain in a sales funnel. Because prewritten email messages and other communications are sent automatically based on rules that you define, this becomes a particularly efficient way of grooming and managing sales leads as they come in.

Marketing automation supports customer experiences that feel like a company is providing personal attention and a high level of service. Just as important, marketing automation platforms enable businesses to achieve this in an efficient manner, without burdening marketing teams with loads of repetitive, manual tasks or outsized costs. They do this at scale, too, meaning that as your business grows, you can continue to deliver consistent marketing messages to larger and larger audiences, without overtaxing teams or budgets. Marketing automation a key method of helping customers feel like you’re there for them when they need you.