SaaS Marketing Automation Explained [+ Top 5 Tools in 2023]

As the world of software as a service (SaaS) continues to evolve, so does the need for efficient and effective marketing strategies. Today, SaaS companies use cutting-edge technology to reach a wider audience, personalize advertisements to target and convert leads, and offer exceptional services.

But how can small businesses do the same with a limited marketing budget? The answer is: With SaaS marketing automation software. One of the most popular and successful methods for SaaS companies is to succeed by using SaaS marketing automation tools.

In this article, we will explore the benefits of using SaaS marketing automation software and share some of the best tools available in the market today.

If you were looking for inputs on marketing automation strategy, read our other article in this series:

How To Build a Killer Marketing Automation Strategy

Table of Contents

What Is SaaS Marketing Automation?

If you want to grow your company, you need to put in a lot of effort. Initially, you need to create a multi-channel presence to beat your competitors.

But you don’t have to do everything manually. This is where automation comes into play. Marketing automation tools streamline various marketing tasks and boost your entire team’s productivity.

SaaS marketing automation refers to marketing automation for companies in the SaaS industry. SaaS marketing automation is the process of using technology to automate repetitive marketing tasks, such as qualified lead generation, email campaigns, and social media management. By using automation tools, companies can streamline their marketing efforts, save time and resources, and ultimately increase their ROI.

Marketing tools have been around for decades, but with the rise of SaaS, marketing automation has become a necessity for businesses of all sizes. It allows companies to focus on their core competencies while the software takes care of the marketing activities. These tools can also help companies build their brand and improve customer experience.

It involves emailing your leads to nurture them, re-engaging with your customers to increase their lifetime value, integrating multiple channels into one, and much more.

Why Do You Need SaaS Marketing Automation?

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) industry-wide revenue was estimated to reach $157 billion by 2022. Besides, SaaS tools account for 25% of all software used by a business.

That’s why you need a wise marketing strategy combined with the latest tools and techniques to deliver the best customer experience. Using automation tools for your SaaS strategy, you can offer a personalized experience to all your prospects and existing customers.

A SaaS marketing automation tool offers customer segmentation, customer journey mapping, content marketing automation, email campaign management, social media marketing, analytics, and so much more under one platform.

Let’s look at some of the numbers:

Marketing automation increases sales opportunities by 20%.
Companies that use these tools reported a 451% increase in qualified leads.

If you want to reduce your churn rate, you need to increase efficiency at work. And marketing automation is the key.

Most importantly, marketing automation tools create a smooth line of communication between your company and your prospects and customers. Your company needs to keep your customers engaged and provide the best experience possible. This also helps with lead nurturing, pulling them down the sales funnel and eventually converting them into customers.

What Are the Benefits of Using SaaS Marketing Automation?

The benefits of using SaaS marketing automation tools are numerous. Broadly, some of the most important benefits include:

Autopilot Marketing: With these SaaS tools, companies can set up marketing campaigns that run automatically, freeing up valuable time and resources. This allows businesses to focus on other aspects of their operations, such as product development and customer support.
Increased Efficiency: By automating repetitive tasks, SaaS marketing automation tools can increase efficiency and productivity, allowing teams to focus on more strategic activities.
Improved Customer Experience: By providing personalized and targeted marketing campaigns, companies can improve the overall customer experience, leading to increased loyalty and brand advocacy.
Lead Generation: These tools can help businesses generate leads more efficiently and effectively, resulting in better customer acquisition, a higher conversion rate, and increased revenue.
Sales Funnel Management: With the use of SaaS marketing automation tools, companies can manage their sales funnel more effectively, from lead generation to conversion to post-sale activities.

Nonetheless, a recent survey revealed the top three benefits of using marketing automation for SaaS companies. These include:

Saving time (30%)
Lead Generation (22%)
Increase in Revenue (17%)

Let’s discuss in detail how marketing automation can benefit your business.

i. Higher conversion rates

Marketing software helps keep track of every lead, nurture them, and prioritize them to increase conversion.

Furthermore, the system makes your team more effective by automating redundant or time-consuming tasks, allowing your staff members to focus on more productive activities and improving the bottom line.

Thus, they get more time to analyze marketing strategies and plan on converting visitors. The more the conversion, the more the revenue.

ii. Personalized marketing automation strategy

Marketing automation tools allow you to create targeted, personalized campaigns thanks to their segmentation, email automation, and real-time customer response tracking capabilities.

Besides, you can interact with your leads on multiple marketing channels, including emails, social media, SMS, and others. Personalized marketing efforts have more impact on your lead nurturing process than a general campaign.

Master the art of high-performing marketing with the perfect strategies – check out our expert guide for all the details!

iii. Accurate reporting

How many leads did you get this month? How much money have you spent on a marketing campaign? You need to keep track of specific metrics that can help you determine how well your marketing campaigns are performing.

Generating reports and analyzing them can be a daunting task if done manually. With a marketing automation platform, these reports are generated in a matter of seconds.

Marketing automation tools collect data from all sources and offer accurate results by analyzing them.

With streamlined reporting, you can know where things are going wrong.

iv. Marketing and sales alignment

Even at SaaS companies, the marketing and sales teams struggle to work in sync. But business growth demands teamwork.

With SaaS marketing and sales automation tools, you can align marketing and sales teams toward common goals. It makes nurturing your email marketing leads and converting them into sales leads a lot easier and ensures that no leads are forgotten or lost in the process.

This way, the marketing team can strategize to get more leads while the sales team can focus on closing deals.

v. Lead nurturing

SaaS marketing involves capturing leads and nurturing them for conversion into paying customers. A marketing automation platform streamlines the whole process of lead nurturing.

For example, you can use drip campaigns to engage with your audience over an extended period, thus ingraining your brand name into their daily lives.

How Much Does SaaS Marketing Automation Software Cost?

Every company wants to reach potential leads in the most cost-effective way. This is why pricing plays a vital role in picking the right marketing automation for your SaaS business.

In this section, we have detailed the top five SaaS marketing automation pricing plans so you can make your decision easily. But before we dive into that, let’s understand the different pricing plans.

How Are the Pricing Plans Modeled for Marketing Automation Software?

Marketing automation tools usually have a standard SaaS pricing plan. Generally speaking, you subscribe to their monthly, quarterly, or annual subscription and enjoy the benefits.

Some software have a fixed number of contacts, while others operate on a sliding scale.

Pay-per-month plans

This is the most common pricing plan with tiers based on features and the maximum number of contacts. The highest plan includes integration with sales platforms and some advanced functionalities, such as analyzing target markets, cross and up-sell products, and more.

Pay per contact, per month

Here, software companies offer full functionality and only charge for the number of contacts in a company’s market database. Generally, the minimum number of contacts is 1,000.

Many software companies have an online calculator embedded on their site where companies can input their number of contacts and receive an immediate quote.

Top Five SaaS Marketing Automation Software

We have listed out five of the best SaaS marketing automation software:

EngageBay
HubSpot
ConvertKit
ActiveCampaign
GetResponse

#1. EngageBay

EngageBay is a robust marketing automation software equipped with a wide range of functionalities. It also has free CRM integration for central customer data access.

And the most remarkable thing? It has the best pricing plans, making the software accessible to small SaaS companies too. EngageBay has four plans: Free, Basic, Growth, and Pro.

The Free plan has much to offer, including email marketing broadcasts, email sequences, landing pages, CRM tools, lead grabbers, video marketing tools, a lead scoring system, templates, and more.

You can include up to 250 contacts in your free version.

This Basic plan starts at $12.74/month and includes all free features plus SMS marketing, third-party integration, tag manager, and a lot more.

The next paid plans are Growth ($42.49 per user per month) and Pro ($84.99 per user per month), with more advanced functionalities, such as marketing automation, push notifications, email automation, sales automation, A/B testing for all elements of emails, web forms, and landing pages, and social media suite for tracking engagement on Facebook, Instagram, etc.

This affordable pricing and power-packed features make EngageBay the best omnichannel marketing automation platform for small businesses, startups, firms, and agencies.

#2. HubSpot

HubSpot is another popular automation tool that offers everything you need to capture leads and convert them into customers. It has three paid plans: Starter, Professional, and Enterprise.

This Starter Plan starts at $45 a month and comes with a landing page builder, email templates, conversation bots, forms, list segmentation, email list insights, and more.

Its Professional Plan starts at $800 per month with 2,000 contacts.

Apart from the Starter Plan, you get tools for personalizing your campaigns, optimizing online conversion tools, and more.

Similarly, the Enterprise Plan starts at $3,200 monthly with 10,000 marketing contacts.

It has tools for managing your brand and team, such as field-level permissions, single sign-on, etc.

#3. ConvertKit

ConvertKit’s primary purpose is to help SaaS companies grow long-lasting relationships with customers through segmentation and increase conversions with automated emails.

ConvertKit offers three plans: Free, Creator, and Creator Pro.

The Free Plan allows you to manage up to 1,000 subscribers and offers unlimited landing pages and forms.

The Creator Plan starts at $29 per month for up to 1,000 subscribers.

In addition to the Free Plan features, you get automated funnels and sequences and free data migration from another SaaS marketing tool.

The Creator Pro Plan is for $59 per month (for up to 1,000 subscribers). For 10,000 subscribers, you will be paying $167 a month.

Advanced functionalities include Facebook custom audiences, a newsletter referral system, subscriber scoring, and more.

Get a handle on ConvertKit’s pricing with our detailed breakdown, and find the perfect plan or solution for your small business.

#4. ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign provides a marketing automation tool that creates an excellent customer experience for SaaS companies. Its pricing is calculated based on the number of contacts you have. It has an online calculator on its Pricing page that immediately gives you a quote.

ActiveCampaign offers two plans: Lite and Pro.

The Lite plan starts from $9 per month for 500 contacts.

Similarly, the Plus plan is available for $49 per month, the Professional plan for $129 per month, and the Enterprise plan for $229 a month.

Billed yearly, the Enterprise plan costs $399 for 10,000 contacts a month. Above that, you have to talk to the sales team and get a custom quote.

ActiveCampaign features are categorized based on different verticals, including digital business, B2B, and e-commerce.

#5. GetResponse

GetResponse’s email marketing automation tool is aimed at delivering a personalized experience to your customers. It helps boost online sales through lead generation and customer engagement.

It has four pricing plans: Basic, Plus, Professional, and Max.

The Basic Plan starts at $15 per month, and that includes unlimited landing pages and lead funnels, Facebook and Google ads, and more.

Its most popular plan is Plus for $49 per month, followed by Professional for $99 per month.

Max Plan has custom pricing. It offers an online calculator where the price changes based on how many contacts you have. For 10,000 contacts, the Professional plan costs $165 a month, and for 25,000 contacts, $255 a month.

Bottom Line

In this fast-paced world, manual work won’t just cut it. You can’t expect to reach the top without making the most of automation software. Though a well-planned marketing automation strategy is crucial, it needs the right platform to succeed.

A SaaS marketing solution like EngageBay has all the tools you need to automate your tasks, capture and nurture leads intelligently, prioritize hot leads, re-engage with cold ones, streamline your customer support processes, and so much more.

That said, the market today is flooded with dozens of SaaS marketing automation software, all promising the skies. We’ve compiled the best ones here. All the marketing automation platforms we’ve mentioned here can help your business succeed in a big way.

For SMBs, EngageBay is the best choice. It has transparent plans and fixed pricing, meaning you don’t have to worry about cost overruns as your company grows.

And the best part? EngageBay costs less than $1 a day!

There’s also a forever-free plan for up to 15 users to get your company started. With this plan, you get a myriad of benefits, including project management tools, email marketing automation, sales automation, predictive lead scoring, cloud storage, Live Chat, and everything else you need to manage your SMB.

But EngageBay is more than just a marketing automation tool. You also get an all-in-one CRM, customer support, and sales automation software that’s centered around your customers to attract them and keep them delighted for decades.

SaaS Marketing Automation Explained (+Top 5 Tools to Consider) [2023 Updated]