Content Marketing
35 Marketing Automation Tools To Personalize Your Customer’s Journey

35 Marketing Automation Tools To Personalize Your Customer’s Journey

January 16, 2018
4 min read

One of the most empowering abilities marketers have gained from the digitization of the marketing function is marketing automation.

Today, every organization out there is using some form of software as a service (SaaS) platform to share content (CMS), to streamline their communications with customers (CRM and Marketing Automation), and to draw insights (Analytics) from the data these solutions provide.

As a result of all these evolving resources, we know more about what our customers want. Their pain points, reservations and expectations. We can better understand the how, when and where of their preferred interactions.

And, we can deliver our messaging in a way that feels like it was created just for them. Right?

Well. Sort of.

Even with all the audience targeting, workflow automation, and competitive intelligence tools available today, personalization is far from perfect. We’re still struggling with problems, such as:

  • Real-time personalization – 60 percent of marketers struggle to deliver real-time personalized content
  • Not enough time to get it right – 46 percent say they don’t have the time to deliver personalized content
  • Lack of consistency – 65% of buyers are abandoning the buyer journey because of a lack of consistency in the experience

However, today, we’re marketing within the surge of neural networks and machine learning, which means the algorithms are getting more powerful and marketers are becoming more empowered. The number of martech resources is increasing every year – 2017 was given the nickname Martech 5000 for reaching 5,381 tech solutions, created by 4,891 unique companies.

We do have the resources to deliver more sophisticated personalization. Here is a list of some of the tools to consider for your organization, from the simple platforms to the enterprise-level personalization solutions.

The Top Multi-Function Marketing Automation Platforms

You won’t just be able to better personalize your marketing messaging with these comprehensive solutions. These are dynamic SaaS platforms to build landing pages and forms and to create, manage and track personalized email marketing campaigns, event marketing campaigns, webinars, demand generation and content marketing.

According to independent software reviewer, G2 Crowd, the top three marketing automation platforms – for each organizational level – regarding market presence and performance for 2018 are:

Small Business

Mid-Market

Enterprise

Other Top 10 rated Marketing Automation Platforms include:

Some of these tools have sophisticated AI-based personalization engines, and others may be developing similar functionality.

image source

Specialized Tools for Better Marketing Personalization

I have already covered “what you need to know about personalization and the technology behind it.” Check that post out for the top vendors in the personalization space. Onespot, Idio and SailThru are the content personalization engines I have seen the most at the clients I work with.

And the elephant in the room of many marketers is Adobe Target, one of the more established personalization engines that I’ve also used in a number of companies. I also should mention IBM Watson’s Personalization tool for large enterprises.

On top of those well-known companies, here is a list of specialized tools useful for helping you to personalize every facet of your overarching marketing strategy.

Google Optimize 360 – As part of the Google Analytics 360 Suite, Google Optimize lets users create custom segmented customer experiences. Then you can test those segments to learn what factors cause certain segments to take action on your website.

Segment – For B2B companies, this platform gathers customer interaction data, making it easier to create more personalized campaigns, and to adapt to your segments by using different tools.

Statsbot – A dream for marketers having trouble managing customer data, this platform monitors important metrics like web traffic, number of users and conversions to let your organization known when you’re getting close to goals or falling behind. It’s a great program for adding clarity to your campaigns, so you know where you’re getting the customer experience right.

Certona – Aims to create a personalized, real-time, omnichannel customer experience. It hones in on customer data to develop intelligent predictions so marketers can create highly individualized experiences on the web, mobile, email and in-store.

RichRelevance – Like Certona, RichRelevance makes omnichannel personalization possible, covering website recommendations, personalized browsing, content and search. Its AI-based solution is only available at the enterprise-level. The advanced machine learning being used has made this platform a top choice for global companies.

Growbots – This platform uses machine learning to generate tailored content lists and to automate email campaigns that people want to see in their inboxes. You’ll be able to see which campaigns are performing well, and which aren’t, so you can eliminate the techniques that aren’t working.

Monetate – Want one-on-one personalization? For e-commerce businesses, Monetate takes all your customer data from all your data sources and then uses machine learning to make smarter predictions and decisions. This is a continual process, giving marketers the best insights about customers as those insights evolve – at scale. Monetate has an open architecture that connects different channels. This means you can deliver a one-on-one experience, to all your customers, across all touchpoints.

Evergage – Similar to Monetate, Evergage is a pure personalization platform that uses machine learning to deliver individualized experiences. You can promote relevant content to keep readers on your site for longer, to promote the most relevant offers to help generate leads, and to upsell without driving customers away. With opportunities for A/B and multivariate testing, you can make the platform’s algorithms smarter to drive even better results.

Optimizely – Delivers targeted content and experiences in real-time across multiple customer touchpoints.

Bunting – This tool offers a sophisticated level of website personalization for e-commerce sites. Its algorithms take customer data and use it to learn more about how users are interacting with your website. The platform makes it easy to automate individualized web content, product recommendations and email campaigns, all fed by real-time data.

Quuu – This is a handy tool for more personalized social media marketing. You choose relevant interest categories, and Quuu sends hand-curated content for you to share with followers, saving you time on collecting relevant, sharable content. It’s human curation vs. machine learning, but who says we should outsource all our marketing tasks to robots?

Yala – Yala uses machine learning to auto-schedule social media posts. This way, you can optimize your posts to get the most engagement. It’s a cool little platform that learns when your audience is engaged across your social networks, then auto-posts based on the insights Yala learns.

Persado – You can integrate this innovative tool with your other software solutions like Salesforce or MailChimp. It uses AI to generate email subject lines that will perform better with your target market. The algorithms work to create more engaging subject lines, which can be filtered to align with your brand voice, the emotional context you want to present, and any desired personalization. Then, the platform’s analytics can be used to track performance.

These are just some (36!) of the many personalization tools out there available today, not to mention all the personalization tools that are being created for marketers of the future. What are your favorites?

Get a Free Consultation
for Content Marketing

Michael Brenner

Michael Brenner is an international keynote speaker, author of "Mean People Suck" and "The Content Formula", and Founder of Marketing Insider Group. Recognized as a Top Content Marketing expert and Digital Marketing Leader, Michael leverages his experience from roles in sales and marketing for global brands like SAP and Nielsen, as well as his leadership in leading teams and driving growth for thriving startups. Today, Michael delivers empowering keynotes on marketing and leadership, and facilitates actionable workshops on content marketing strategy. Connect with Michael today.

Related Posts

Sales Alignment 11 Customer Journey Mapping Tools for B2B Marketers

11 Customer Journey Mapping Tools for B2B Marketers

May 31, 2023
5 min read
Marketing Strategy The B2B Marketer’s Handbook of Marketing Automation

The B2B Marketer’s Handbook of Marketing Automation

Jul 5, 2023
9 min read
Content Marketing What Is Email Marketing Automation and Why Does It Matter?

What Is Email Marketing Automation and Why Does It Matter?

Jan 19, 2024
17 min read