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Best Marketing Automation Tools for Small Business

10+ Best Marketing Automation Tools for Small Business 2024 

Written By: author image Stacey Corrin
author image Stacey Corrin
Stacey has been writing about WordPress and digital marketing for over 10 years and on other topics for much longer. Alongside this, she's fascinated with web design, user experience, and SEO.
     Reviewed By: John Turner
reviewer image John Turner
John Turner is the co-founder of SeedProd. He has over 20+ years of business and development experience and his plugins have been downloaded over 25 million times.

Are you looking for the best marketing automation tools for your small business website?

Using the right tools can make your marketing easier, more efficient, and better at connecting with customers. There are many options out there, and it’s important to pick tools that fit your business needs and are easy to use.

In this article, we’ll introduce you to some of the best marketing automation tools and help you understand how these tools can help your business grow online.

What Is Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation is a way to use software and technology to automate, streamline, and measure marketing tasks and workflows. This means you can do things like sending emails, posting on social media, and tracking your website visitors automatically rather than doing each job manually.

It’s like having a helpful assistant who handles repetitive tasks, freeing you up to focus on other important aspects of your business.

Why Does Your Business Need Marketing Automation Tools?

Your business needs marketing automation tools because they can improve efficiency and effectiveness.

Imagine having a set of tools that handle routine marketing processes for you. This can include sending email marketing campaigns, social media management, and even customer relationship management.

By automating these tasks, you save time and reduce the chance of human error. Plus, these tools offer valuable insights into what your customers like and don’t like, helping you tailor your marketing strategies more effectively.

In essence, marketing automation tools help you reach the right people with the right message at the right time without doing it all yourself.

Best Marketing Automation Tools

When growing your online presence, choosing the right marketing automation tools is key. Below, we’ll dive into some of the best marketing automation tools available, highlighting their features, benefits, and how they can transform your marketing efforts.

1. Uncanny Automator

Uncanny Automator best WordPress automation plugin

Uncanny Automator is one of the best WordPress automation plugins. Sometimes referred to as the “Zapier for WordPress,” it connects your existing WordPress plugins together to create powerful automation recipes. For example, you can link your contact form to your email marketing tool—without writing a single line of code.

With Uncanny Automator, it’s like having another team member without the expense of hiring more staff. It takes care of all the tedious, repetitive tasks that consume your time.

Uncanny Automator recipe screen

Need to send follow-up emails, distribute discount coupons, or share helpful content with customers on specific schedules? Uncanny Automator does this and more, giving you time to focus on other essential parts of your business.

The plugin integrates with popular WordPress plugins like WPForms, WooCommerce, Elementor, and RafflePress. You can also use it with other tools like Google Sheets, Mailchimp, Slack, Zoom, Zapier, and more.

Who is it for?

Uncanny Automator is for bloggers, small businesses, startups, eCommerce website owners, and anyone wanting to streamline their marketing. Whether you aim to connect WordPress plugins, automate tasks, or create effective learning platforms, this tool lightens the load.

Pricing: The pro versions of Uncanny Automator start from $149 per year. A free version is also available.

2. OptinMonster

optinmonster conversion optimization toolkit

OptinMonster is one of the best lead generation and conversion rate optimization tools. It helps grow your email list and convert website visitors into subscribers and customers without coding.

With OptinMonster, you can create various opt-in forms, like popups and floating bars, using its easy drag-and-drop builder. You can configure these to appear automatically based on triggers like time spent on your site or user behavior.

OptinMonster drag-and-drop interface

Plus, with advanced targeting, you can personalize your messaging and offers for different audiences.

OptinMonster offers A/B testing, which lets you compare different opt-in versions and optimize them for higher conversions. It also integrates with popular email marketing services like Mailchimp and Constant Contact.

The tool also helps improve the customer journey and reclaim abandoning visitors. For example, you can display an exit-intent popup to engage users about to leave your site and offer them a coupon code or discount.

Who is it for?

OptinMonster is ideal for small business owners seeking effective ways to grow their email list and marketers trying to increase conversions. Its easy-to-use features are ideal for beginners and experienced professionals who want to generate more leads and improve their marketing efforts.

Pricing: OptinMonster pricing starts at $9 per month when billed annually.

For more details see this review of OptinMonster.

3. RafflePress

Best WordPress giveaway plugin

RafflePress is one of the best WordPress giveaway plugins and an excellent solution for automating giveaways. It helps drive traffic to your website, increase brand awareness, and grow subscribers with viral giveaways and contests.

With its drag-and-drop giveaway builder and pre-made templates, setting up a giveaway is a breeze. Users can enter by completing tasks like signing up for your newsletter or visiting your social media pages.

rafflepress contest entry actions

RafflePress also works well with social media, meaning people can share your contest easily with friends. Plus, it connects with popular email services. That way, you can automatically add people who enter to your list and send them more information later.

What’s more, RafflePress helps you pick random giveaway winners with a few clicks. This ensures the selection process is fast and fair.

Who is it for?

RafflePress is for WordPress website owners looking for an easy way to run giveaways and contests without coding. It’s ideal for bloggers wanting more subscribers, eCommerce sites looking to promote new products, and small businesses wanting to reach a broader audience.

Pricing: RafflePress costs from $39.50 per year.

4. FunnelKit Automations

FunnnelKit Automations

FunnelKit Automations is a marketing automation platform for WooCommerce that helps you create broadcast and automated campaigns without leaving WordPress. It lets you easily set up workflow automations for email campaigns and SMS marketing.

With its pre-built email and SMS workflows, you can set up campaigns for abandoned carts, lead nurturing, win-back coupons, and more. You can also create custom workflows with its email automation builder.

FunnelKit Abandoned Cart automation

With the drag-and-drop email builder, it’s easy to customize your default WooCommerce emails to match your branding. You can even track opens, clicks, and revenue with CRM tools.

Who is it for?

FunnelKit Automation is for anyone who needs a powerful yet user-friendly tool to automate marketing tasks. Whether you run a small business, an agency, or a large corporation, FunnelKit Automation can simplify your marketing process and maximize your productivity.

Pricing: FunnelKit Automations costs from $99.50 per year.

5. Smash Balloon

Smash Balloon

Smash Balloon offers 5 different WordPress plugins that let you add social media feeds to your website. The plugins cover YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. They’re a great way to automatically update your website with engaging social media content.

Smash Balloon makes updating your site with fresh social content effortless. Its visual builder is easy to use and offers attractive layouts that you can customize to suit your brand.

Smash Balloon feed layouts

You can customize your social media feeds in many different ways. For example, you can create a shoppable Instagram feed to entice new customers, a playlist of your most popular YouTube videos, or even show posts with a specific hashtag.

The best thing is you won’t need to update these feeds manually. They’ll update whenever you add a new post to your social media profiles.

Smash Balloon also offers a Reviews Feed plugin that lets you curate reviews and testimonials and display them on your site to boost social proof.

Who is it for?

Smash Balloon’s plugins are for content creators who want to display social content on their websites. This includes bloggers, influencers, small businesses, and online stores with a WordPress website.

Pricing: Smash Balloon’s plugins are all offered separately at $49 per year. You can also get the entire bundle for $299 per year.

For more information, please see our Smash Balloon review.

6. Constant Contact

Constant contact marketing automation tools

Constant Contact is one of the best email marketing automation solutions for small businesses. It lets you create email sequences that automatically send to new subscribers. You can even send emails based on subscriber behavior.

With Constant Contact, you can use email marketing, social media marketing, and other online marketing tools to build relationships and drive sales or donations. It also makes sending regular emails, event invitations, and other updates to your contacts easy.

Constant contact email builder

Constant Contact’s marketing automation features can save time by sending emails and social posts for you. You can also use automation to create drip campaigns, segment your list, and send targeted messages to different groups of people.

With detailed reports, you can see what isn’t working and make data-driven decisions to improve your campaigns.

Who is it for?

Constant Contact is for small businesses and nonprofits that want to create effective email marketing and other online marketing campaigns. It’s an easy-to-use platform with plenty of resources to help you get the most out of your digital marketing.

Pricing: Constant Contact’s email marketing plan costs from $20 per month with basic marketing automation functionality. For advanced automations, you can use the Email Plus plan, which starts at $45 per month.

Alternatives: You may also like ActiveCampaign or Brevo (formerly sendinblue).

You might find these Constant Contact integrations helpful too.

7. ChatBot

best live chat platform

ChatBot is a popular live chat service and a smart bot that can engage with potential customers in real time. It’s like having a virtual assistant for your website that’s available 24/7 to answer questions instantly.

ChatBot can help you automate customer-focused tasks, such as answering customer questions, gathering customer data, and generating leads. By learning from your website, it can offer a more personalized customer experience than traditional self-service options.

Choosing a ChatBot template

As your business grows, keeping up with demand for support can take time and effort. ChatBot can help you scale your support operations by automating tasks and handling multiple conversations simultaneously.

You can even use it to reduce customer support costs by automating tasks currently handled by human agents.

Who is it for?

ChatBot is an excellent solution for small businesses, educators, and individuals who need an easy way to automate customer support tasks. The platform is easy to use and includes a visual builder to create your chatbot without coding.

Pricing: ChatBot costs from $50 per month for up to 1000 chats.

8. HubSpot

HubSpot CRM

HubSpot is one of the best sales automation tools and CRM platforms. It helps you grow by providing marketing, sales, and customer service tools. Plus, it’s a cloud-based platform, so you can access it from anywhere with an internet connection.

HubSpot’s marketing tools help attract visitors to your website, convert them into leads, and nurture those leads into customers.

Its marketing automation tools also make creating and automating marketing campaigns easy. And with its CRM integration, you can schedule emails, live chat, and more.

HubSpot dashboards

With HubSpot’s reporting and analytics tools, you can see detailed insights into your marketing and sales performance. It also offers a predictive lead-scoring feature to prioritize leads based on specific data points.

Plus, its customer service tools make it easy to support customers through multiple channels.

HubSpot offers a many integrations with other popular business tools, such as Salesforce, Shopify, and Gmail. This makes it easy for businesses to connect HubSpot to other tools and streamline their workflows.

Who is it for?

HubSpot is for businesses of all sizes, from small to large enterprises. It’s a perfect fit for companies looking to grow using inbound marketing and sales techniques.

Pricing: HubSpot’s CRM and the basic HubSpot plan is free. For the best features, we recommend using the HubSpot Marketing Hub, which starts at $33.60 per month, billed annually.

9. Zapier

Zapier content marketing automation tools

Zapier is one of the best content marketing automation tools on the market. It’s a cloud-based service that connects different apps and services to work together automatically. This can save you a lot of time and effort and make your life much easier.

With Zapier, you can create “Zaps” that connect different apps and services that free up your time so you can focus more on growing your business.

For example, you could create a Zap that automatically adds new subscribers to your email list when they sign up for your newsletter. Or, create a Zap for a new ticket in your customer support system when you receive a new support email.

SeedProd zapier integration

You can also use Zapier to automate personal tasks, such as saving your social media posts to a Google Drive folder or automatically backing up your computer to a cloud storage service.

Who is it for?

Zapier is for anyone looking to automate their work. It’s handy for businesses of all sizes, but individuals can also use it to automate personal tasks.

Pricing: Zapier offers a limited free plan for up to 5 monthly zaps. Paid plans start from $19.99 per month.

10. Buffer

Buffer best marketing automation tools for social media

Buffer is among the best social media marketing automation tools. It helps you schedule, publish, and analyze social media posts, which enables you to save time, increase engagement, and grow your audience.

With Buffer, you can schedule all of your posts in advance, so you don’t have to log into each account and post manually.

Buffer interface

It also helps to increase social media engagement by allowing you to publish high-quality content at the right times. Plus, with its analytics tools, you can track engagement and identify areas where you can improve.

Who is it for?

Buffer’s ease of use makes it an excellent option for businesses, bloggers, and websites of all sizes who want to save time, increase engagement, and grow their social media audience. It’s easy to use and now comes with AI features to make social media management even more productive.

Pricing: You can get started with Buffer’s free plan, which lets you connect up to 3 channels. Paid plans start from $6 per month for 1 channel.

Bonus Best Marketing Automation Tools

If you need more ways to automate your business, you might find the following solutions helpful:

Note: We’ve reviewed the best marketing automation tools, including Salesforce (Pardot), Adobe Marketo Engage, Keap, Ortto (Autopilot), Omnisend, and others. However, to avoid choice paralysis, we’ve decided not to include them in this list of marketing automation tools.

Get Started with Marketing Automation Today

We hope this guide has helped you find the best marketing automation software and tools for your small business. The solutions on this list can help with lead management, omnichannel marketing, transactional and promotion emails, customer outreach, and much more.

Ready to automate more of your marketing tasks? Choose a tool on this list and give it a go!

You may also find the following best showcases helpful in your search:

Thanks for reading! We’d love to hear your thoughts, so please feel free to leave a comment with any questions and feedback.

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author avatar
Stacey Corrin Writer
Stacey has been writing about WordPress and digital marketing for over 10 years and on other topics for much longer. Alongside this, she's fascinated with web design, user experience, and SEO.

Disclosure: Our content is reader-supported. This means if you click on some of our links, then we may earn a commission. We only recommend products that we believe will add value to our readers.