Updated On: 16 Jan, 2026
Marketing automation continues to mature rapidly. By 2026, businesses expect tools that do more than send emails: they orchestrate journeys across channels, tie marketing to revenue, and use AI to automate routine decision-making. If you’re evaluating marketing automation tools, this guide explains what to look for and profiles ten platforms.
Marketing automation is software that automates repetitive marketing tasks (such as email sends, lead nurturing, scoring, and routing) so teams can focus on strategy and creativity while improving efficiency and scale. It usually connects logic, triggers, and customer data to run campaigns and measure impact.
Kylas Sales CRM is an enterprise-grade CRM built for SMBs that integrates automation across sales and marketing workflows. While primarily known for its sales pipeline and CRM capabilities, the platform includes robust automation features that support marketing activities, making it a strong contender among modern marketing automation tools for growing businesses.
Kylas Sales CRM fits businesses that want unified CRM-driven automation rather than juggling separate tools for email, workflows, and communication. Its structured approach helps enforce follow-up discipline and consistent nurturing across the customer lifecycle.
HubSpot is widely used as an all-in-one platform combining CRM, marketing automation, CMS, and sales tools. Its visual workflow builder, contact scoring, and native CRM data make it strong for teams that want a single ecosystem for lead management and campaign orchestration. HubSpot’s automation features also include AI-assisted content and improved journey orchestration. (HubSpot is often recommended where marketing automation needs to align closely with sales.)
Marketo Engage remains a go-to for enterprise B2B marketing automation, with deep capabilities for personalised campaigns, lead nurture programmes, account-based marketing, and analytics. It’s well-suited to teams with complex buyer journeys and heavy volume, who need advanced segmentation and attribution.
Built for B2B marketers working inside the Salesforce ecosystem, Pardot (Marketing Cloud Account Engagement) tightly integrates marketing automation with Salesforce CRM records. It excels at lead qualification, lifecycle automation, and aligning sales and marketing activity for predictable pipeline growth.
Mailchimp continues to serve small and mid-size businesses as a user-friendly email automation software with solid automation workflows, templates, and audience tools. It’s a pragmatic choice when the primary need is email campaigns, simple journeys, and reasonable pricing for smaller contact lists.
ActiveCampaign blends powerful automation with CRM features. Its strength is flexible, event-driven workflows and a gentle learning curve for marketers who want advanced automation without heavy enterprise cost. It’s often chosen by teams that need sophisticated triggers and conditional logic for lead nurturing.
Klaviyo remains popular in e-commerce for hyper-targeted, behaviourally driven campaigns. If your growth relies on transactional signals (purchases, browse behaviour, product interactions), Klaviyo’s predictive analytics and native e-commerce integrations help deliver high-ROI messaging.
Brevo offers email, SMS, and basic marketing automation at competitive prices, making it a valuable choice for SMBs that need multichannel outreach without complexity. It’s especially suited to teams that want straightforward automation and low entry cost.
Omnisend targets e-commerce teams with a simple way to automate cross-channel campaigns (email, SMS, push). Its visual workflow builder and prebuilt automations make it fast to deploy abandoned-cart, welcome, and post-purchase flows, which are ideal for retail brands.
Zapier isn’t a classic marketing automation platform, but in 2026, it’s widely used to orchestrate automation across apps, connecting CRMs, landing pages, ad platforms, and specialist marketing tools. For teams using best-of-breed tools, Zapier (and similar iPaaS options) can glue workflows together and automate cross-system triggers.
When comparing marketing automation tools in 2026, evaluate these points:
The best marketing automation software for your organisation depends on whether you prioritise CRM alignment, e-commerce personalisation, enterprise-grade orchestration, or simple mail automation. Kylas Sales CRM is a sensible first choice if your priority is a CRM-first workflow that keeps marketing actions connected to sales outcomes; other tools on this list specialise in email, e-commerce, or enterprise automation and may suit different growth strategies.
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