Marketing Automation
GLOSSARY
Definition
Marketing automation is software that runs repetitive marketing tasks without manual intervention: sending a welcome email when someone signs up, moving a lead to a nurture sequence after they download a whitepaper, alerting sales when a prospect visits the pricing page three times in a week.
Why it matters
The category was defined by Eloqua and Marketo in the mid-2000s, both later acquired by Oracle and Adobe respectively. The original pitch was 'do more with fewer people.' The reality is that most companies use about 20% of what they pay for. The tools that stuck around are the ones that made the common workflows easy, not the ones with the longest feature lists.
Tools in this space
ActiveCampaign
AI-powered marketing automation and CRM for small to mid-size businesses
Braze
Customer engagement platform with AI-powered real-time messaging across channels
Customer.io
Data-driven messaging platform for automated email, push, SMS, and in-app messages
Adobe Marketo Engage
Enterprise B2B marketing automation with AI-driven lead management and engagement
Related terms
Deliverability · MQL / SQL · ABM · Lead scoring · Email sequence