19 Marketing Automation Examples, Explained (2024)

Curious about marketing automation, but find the whole thing a little intimidating? We get it. Automation can sound big and complex. More factory production line than marketing team.

But if that describes your thinking, we’re here to change your mind. Marketing automation has become an indispensable tool for marketers. It’s your ticket to take the strain off all those small, repetitive tasks you face every day. It will help you work smarter, faster and better. It will help you build better relationships with existing customers. And drive more conversions.

In this article, my aim is to demystify marketing automation for you. I’m going to do that by sharing a series of marketing automation workflow examples. I’m going to explain how they work. I’m going to describe how they can help you. And I will show you how you can do it, too.

What is Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation is the use of software to automate marketing tasks.

Marketing is the sum of lots of small tasks. Adding and updating details in the contact database. Sending emails, text messages, and notifications. Posting to social media. Following up leads. They all matter. But they take time. Having to always repeat these small, individual tasks can leave you struggling to keep up.

Marketing automation takes on the smaller, simpler, more repetitive tasks. Freeing you up to focus on marketing strategy and creativity. 

What is a Marketing Automation Workflow?

A marketing automation workflow is a set of instructions for automating tasks. Workflows typically have 3 main parts:

  • A trigger for launching the workflow. The simplest type of trigger is a pre-set time to control when the workflow launches. More sophisticated automations use user actions and behaviours. For example, common ‘welcome email’ workflows trigger when a new contact submits a form.
  • Conditions to control the automation. You can use conditions to set different ‘yes/no’ paths if a condition is and isn’t met. For example, an open condition checks if a contacts opened a previous email or not and splits the workflow. Contacts who opened the email will get different follow-up emails than those who didn’t.
  • Actions, or the tasks/activities that get automated. Sending emails, SMS, and notifications, updating contact fields, and adding tags are common examples.

The best marketing automation tools have visual automation editors. That means you don’t need to be a programmer to build effective marketing automations. 

Why Use Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation simplifies processes and improves efficiency. It frees marketers from repetitive tasks. And creates the space to focus on creating better experiences.

Other benefits include speed, scalability and accuracy. Software never gets tired, it never makes mistakes. Once you set up instructions for a workflow, it never varies. And it can work at speeds and scales way beyond human capabilities. That’s only accelerating as AI gets more and more involved.

Here are some more ways marketing automation can make a difference.

  • Optimizing performance: Optimization is the most popular reason marketers give for using automation. 43% say they use it to improve performance.
  • Reducing costs: Doing something more efficiently usually means less waste and better outputs. And that means less cost. Marketing automation has been linked to a 12.2% reduction in marketing spend. 21% of marketers cite this as the reason they want to use marketing automation more.
  • Increasing conversions and revenues: Improving efficiency and accuracy in marketing leads to higher conversion rates. And that in turn increases the ROI on marketing spend. In email marketing, automated workflows generate 30x more revenue per recipient than campaigns. 31% of email orders come from targeted marketing automation workflows. Even though they account for just 1.8% of emails sent.
  • Improving targeting and personalization: Speaking of targeting, automation can take over audience segmentation and personalization of content. 30% of marketers use automation to improve personalization.
  • Getting more from data: Automation makes the process quick, efficient and accurate. This applies to the use of all marketing data. 37% of marketers say automation helps them improve the quality of data they collect. And 30% use it to automate tracking, data collection and entry.

What to Automate?

Marketing automation can’t help with all tasks. But it can do a lot.

Marketing automation workflows can make a big difference with lead capture. How do you get a sign-up form in front of potential new leads, anyway? You can build workflows to send push notifications as people browse a web page. Or automate invitations in social posts.

You can also automate many aspects of lead nurturing. Say a contact browses a certain product page. You can capture that with web tracking. And then use it as a trigger to automate follow-ups. Send more information. Invite to chat with a sales rep. Or maybe just adding a tag to their profile data.

This then leads to targeting and personalization. Tags and segmentation let you automate how you target different people with different content.

You can also create workflows to automate re-engagement. Keeping track of contacts who lose touch is time consuming. A simple workflow does it for you. Set a condition for 5 emails left unopened. If that’s met, it triggers a re-engagement automation email. 

Abandoned cart workflows are a special kind of re-engagement automation. If someone leaves a cart full of products without paying, you can trigger a message asking if they want to continue.

11 Marketing Automation Workflow Examples

So what do different marketing automation workflows look like and how do they work? I’ve picked out 11 workflow examples to talk you through.

All of the following marketing automation workflows are from ActiveCampaign. I chose ActiveCampaign because it has 900+ pre-made automation templates and a fantastic user-friendly visual workflow builder.

Welcome New Email Subscribers

Welcome series are one of the most common types of marketing automation workflow. They trigger emails whenever a new contact submits a form. Welcoming a new subscriber connects lead capture to lead nurture.

Simple welcome marketing workflow automation

Here’s an example of a basic automated series for welcome emails:

  1. The workflow triggers whenever a new contact is added to a list. When they submit a sign-up form, for example. 
  2. A welcome email gets sent to the new contact.
  3. The workflow pauses for as long as you specify, a couple of days or hours.
  4. After the pause, it sends out a follow-up ‘Next Steps’ email.
  5. There’s another delay, longer this time.
  6. Then there’s a third and final ‘check-in’ email sent. 
  7. The final action is adding a tag to say the contact has completed the onboarding/welcome process. You can use this tag to avoid sending similar emails in future. Or to create a segment for the next workflow along the nurturing journey.

This type of email marketing workflow is called a ‘drip’ campaign. It ‘drips’ emails over a couple of days. Delaying more direct, sales-focused emails after the initial welcome stops you coming across as too pushy.

welcome series marketing automation example for customer engagement tracking

This workflow is a good example of using conditions to create a more targeted workflow. It’s still a welcome series. But the aim is to track clicks so you know how engaged new contacts are.

  1. The workflow starts with a new contact trigger and welcome email.
  2. The first yes/no condition is about whether the new lead has clicked a link in the first email. There’s a one-week delay, to give people a chance to click. 
  3. If yes, the contact gets tagged as an ‘early engager’ and receives a follow-up email. This tag might help to segment your most engaged leads later.
welcome series workflow for customer engagement tracking
  1. If no, the new lead receives a ‘welcome reminder’ email. There’s another delay to give them a chance to respond.
  2. Then comes a second ‘yes/no’ condition, again based on whether the contact clicks a link. If they do, the workflow ends. If not, a note is added to their profile to say they haven’t engaged. 

Get started with this welcome automation for free

welcome series automated emails example

Here’s an example of a welcome email built in ActiveCampaign. It’s part of a series aimed at increasing engagement from museum visitors. It does a lot more than just say hello. It explains the museum’s mission and what it offers. It also tells new subscribers what they can expect from future emails. And it invites them to ‘click through’ to learn more.

Surprise Subscribers on Their Birthday with a Gift

The anniversary email is another classic email marketing automation workflow. It’s a really simple way to keep a connection with existing customers. And it’s easy to automate. Here’s what a simple workflow looks like:

simple anniversary email marketing automation
  1. The workflow is triggered on a date saved in a contact’s profile. The most common example is their birthday or date of subscription.
  2. The email could just be a simple ‘Happy Birthday’ or similar best wishes. Or you could offer a gift like a coupon.
  3. A delay gives the contact time to see the email and use the gift.
  4. The yes/no condition sorts out those who use the gift from those who don’t.
  5. Contacts who use the gift have a tag added to their profile. 

You need a birthday field in your customer data to make it the trigger date. You can collect birthday dates in your sign-up forms.

Here’s a clever example of how to vary the birthday email idea from a hospitality marketing company. This email sends two weeks before a contact’s birthday. The idea is to use the coupon to book a special treat in advance. 

birthday gift automated workflow

Try this anniversary automation for free

Recover Abandoned Carts

Cart abandonment workflows are very common and effective ecommerce automations. Over half of automation workflows in ecommerce are for cart abandonment. Many visitors add products to a shopping cart and then for whatever reason don’t buy. Each one is a potential sale lost. And abandoned cart emails can recover some of these sales.

Here’s how a typical abandoned cart recovery workflow works:

abandoned cart marketing workflow automation 
  1. The trigger is a contact abandoning a cart. ‘Deep Data Integration’ means connected ecommerce software.
  2. The condition checks when the customer’s last order was. There’s a 24 hour delay before the check. This is to make sure the purchase wasn’t completed before the abandoned cart email is sent.
  3. If the last purchase came in the last 24 hours, the automation ends. No email is sent.
  4. If the contact didn’t buy anything in the last 24 hours, a cart abandonment email is sent.

Start recovering abandoned carts with this automation for free

Here’s an example of an abandoned cart email:

abandoned cart customer engagement

Notice how this doesn’t get too pushy or ‘sales-y’. The tone is conversational and light. The subject line is catchy and playful. ‘Don’t miss out!’ is a great phrase to use in an abandoned cart email. It tugs on that natural FOMO a lot of us have. 

In the body text itself, there’s a plug for a sale. It’s always good to offer someone a way to save money if they have just backed out of buying. They’ll feel like they’re getting a great deal. 

Follow-up New Customers for Onboarding

This is an example of a drip campaign to send to a first-time customer. It’s like a Welcome campaign. But the trigger is someone making a purchase, rather than signing up for your newsletter. The idea is to build a relationship so a one-time buyer becomes a regular customer.

after purchase follow up automated email workflow
  1. The trigger is a contact making a purchase. This workflow also needs integration with an ecommerce platform.
  2. The first follow-up email is a simple ‘thank you’ for the purchase.
  3. Again, there’s a 2-day delay between emails.
  4. The idea of the rest of the workflow is to ‘onboard’ the customer. This means familiarizing them with your brand. Answering any questions they have. Making recommendations for other purchases. This is done with a series of useful, informative emails. Starting with this “How to Get Started” email.
after purchase follow up marketing automation workflow
  1. After another delay, the next email points the customer to help and support resources.
  2. The final ‘onboarding’ email is further tips and tricks.

You don’t have to stick with the suggested content of these emails. You can use different content. Or shorten or lengthen the sequence. It’s a flexible template you can use for any post-purchase workflow.

Follow up new customers with this workflow for free

Up- and Cross-Sell with Workflows

Up- and cross-selling aims to get customers to spend more on extra or higher value items. Here’s an example of how it can work as an email marketing workflow.

store post-purchase cross-sell automated email workflow
  1. The trigger is a contact making a purchase.
  2. The first email is delayed so you don’t seem too pushy. A lot of cross-selling happens at the point of purchase. But email follow-ups work better if you give customers a little space. So it becomes a ‘delayed’ cross-sell.
  3. A cross-sell email is a product recommendation. You say something like, thanks for buying product X the other day. We wondered if you might like product Y to go with it. With a ‘buy now’ link in the email.
  4. A delay of one week gives the customer a chance to respond to the cross-sell email.
  5. Then there’s a condition. Has the customer made another purchase in the last 7 days? This is to create a second opportunity for the cross-sell.
store post-purchase cross-sell marketing automation workflow
  1. If the condition is met, the contact gets tagged. This records that the customer bought a product offered in the cross-sell email. You can use this data to send future offers.
  2. If the condition isn’t met, a second cross-sell email is sent.
  3. After another delay, the condition is repeated. Has the contact made a purchase since the follow-up email was sent?
  4. If yes, they are tagged to say they took the offer. And the automation ends.
  5. If no, the workflow ends with no further action.

Increase revenue with this cross-sell automation for free

Automated Lead Scoring

Lead scoring helps B2B marketers sort the best prospects from the least engaged. This keeps your focus on the leads most likely to convert into customers. Or, target highly engaged, active contacts and less engaged leads in different ways.

This is a very simple workflow for automating lead scoring. 

lead scoring marketing automation workflow
  1. The workflow triggers when a contact visits a specified page.
  2. The action is adding points to their lead score.
  3. And that’s all there is to it. Points added, the workflow ends.

As I said, it’s basic! But the main point here is that anything can trigger points being added. Browsing a product or pricing page. Clicking a link in an email or responding to it. Submitting a query. Signing up for a newsletter or loyalty program. Whatever means ‘engaged’ to your business, you can turn that into points. Adding up those points then tells you who is interacting with your brand the most.

Automate lead scoring with this workflow for free

Follow-up Contacts Who Download Your Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is an incentive to get people to subscribe to your email list. It’s usually a special offer, discount, or a digital download, like an ebook. This workflow automates sending the lead magnet by email. It then also creates a deal to add to a sales pipeline. 

The idea is to get from lead capture to conversion as quickly as possible. The lead magnet acts as ‘bait’. And the new lead goes straight into a pipeline for your sales team to target.

lead magnet and deal creation workflow automation
  1. The trigger is a lead submitting a form.
  2. The automated email contains what ActiveCampaign calls ‘gated content’. This just means content that is only available if you fill in the form.
  3. At the same time the email is sent, a deal is created. 
  4. There’s a short delay after the deal is created. This is optional. But it’s to create a gap between the lead magnet email and any follow-up sales emails.
  5. A member of the sales team gets notified that a new deal has been created. This ‘deal owner’ is responsible for progressing the deal through the pipeline.
  6. The final action is creating a follow-up task for the deal owner. In this example it is to email the contact. But it could be making a call. Or booking an appointment to speak to them.

Automate lead magnet delivery with this template for free

Gather Feedback with Automation

Another useful post-purchase task is asking for feedback from the customer. This is good for showing you care and to build a relationship. But it also gathers data on what customers think of your products. 

marketing automation workflow for gathering feedback after a purchase
  1. The trigger is a completed purchase. Again, this workflow needs an ecommerce platform integration.
  2. The delay is to give the customer time to try out the purchase. The suggested default is 7 days.
  3. After the delay period is up, an email is sent asking for feedback on the purchase.

Start gathering feedback with this recipe for free

Reengage Sleeping Subscribers

Sometimes contacts stop opening your emails. Reengaging ‘sleeping’ leads is more cost effective than finding new ones. But it’s still time-consuming. A reengagement workflow helps speed things up. Here’s an example of a simple reengagement email workflow. 

reengagement automated email workflow
  1. The automation starts when a contact gets the Disengaged tag. You can add this tag automatically to contacts who didn’t open your past 5-10 emails. Or whose lead score is below 20 out of 100. 
  2. A reengagement email asks if a contact still wants to receive your communications. And maybe offers an incentive like a discount.
  3. The delay is to give the contact time to respond.
  4. The condition sorts contacts who have clicked a link or opened an email in the past 7 days.
  5. If yes, the contact is considered reengaged. The automation ends and they keep receiving emails.
  6. If no, they are removed from your list. They no longer receive your emails.

Removing disengaged contacts reduces bounce rates and protects your sender reputation. Check out our review of the best email verification tools for specialised list cleaning tools.

Reengage sleeping contacts with this automation for free

Build Buzz with Webinar/Event Automation

The following workflow is a good example of email automation for event organizers. It’s split into two halves. First, the workflow sends out pre-event reminders to build engagement. Then it sends follow-ups after the event. For a webinar, this is great for sending out a recording of the session, for example.

pre-webinar reminder drip automated workflow.
  1. The trigger is a contact signing up for the event on a form.
  2. This sends a registration confirmation email.
  3. The next step is a Goal. Goals are a type of condition. Instead of a simple yes/no, you can set different rules or targets to meet. It’s just a delay here to hold the next action until 7 days before the webinar. You can’t do this with a standard delay. It always counts on from after the last action. With a goal, you can create a date field (i.e. the date of your event). And use this as a condition.
  4. The first reminder email sends 7 days before the webinar/event.
  5. The second date goal is set for the day of the event.
  6. This sends a reminder email on the day of the event.
post-webinar follow-up automated email workflow
  1. Now the webinar is over, you can move back to standard delay steps. This one has the event’s closing time.
  2. This sends a ‘thank you for attending’ email.
  3. The next delay sets a slightly later time. Or you could use a ‘wait one hour’ instruction.
  4. The next email sends a recording of the webinar. For a non-digital event, you could swap this for a feedback request. Or ask if there are any follow-up questions.
  5. The final step is delayed by a couple of days.
  6. The idea of this last email is to do some follow-up marketing. The suggestion is to promote future events. But it could be to promote products and services. Offer an attendees’ special discount. Invite people to sign up for future updates. Anything you like.

Try this webinar automation for free

Increase Customer Loyalty with Automation

Loyalty programs are notoriously admin-heavy. But marketing automation makes them easy to run online. We’ve already talked about using lead scoring to segment ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ leads. You can just as easily build workflows to log loyalty points. And use conditions and segmentation to trigger rewards.

This workflow is for running a ‘tiered’ loyalty program. Members get organised into 3 levels by number of points earned. Bronze, silver and gold. These levels can be used in other workflows to segment different rewards or benefits.

tiered loyalty program marketing automation workflow
  1. This workflow is triggered whenever a contact score changes. A contact score is the same as a lead score. It’s just a numerical field in their contact data.
  2. The workflow operates via a series of yes/no conditions. Each condition checks the contact score total. The first condition asks if the total is in the range 0 to 20.
  3. If yes, the customer is put in the bronze tier.
  4. If no, the next condition applies. Is the total in the range 21 to 60?
  5. If yes, the customer goes in the silver tier.
  6. If no, the workflow moves on to the final condition. Is the total 61 or higher? If yes, the customer goes in the gold tier.

You can build workflows for each tier to send updates and offers based on their level in your loyalty program.

Get started with this loyalty program automation for free

8 Real Marketing Automation Examples

The workflow examples shown in the previous section are customizable templates. Now let’s look at some real-life marketing automation examples from companies.

Go! Running Tours Gets 40% of Bookings from Repeat Customers Using Welcome Automations

Running tours company Go! Running is clearly doing something right with its customer engagement. It uses the ActiveCampaign CRM to run a sophisticated deal management process. It sources leads through strong B2B partnerships. And then works hard to understand every customer through detailed data gathering. This data is then used to make every journey personalized and inspiring.

Much of this is automated. It all starts with a welcome workflow. Go! Running’s welcome series does a lot more than simply saying thanks for signing up. It’s a drip campaign focused on familiarizing new customers with the brand’s services. Different emails promote various tours and holidays over several days. And the series ends with a customer feedback email.

deal management workflow from Running

One thing that is noticeable in the workflow is the number of tags. Go! Running clearly takes segmentation seriously. Its workflows collect lots of customer data. This helps it target products and services based on preferences, location, and behaviour. And that will help with the level of repeat business it enjoys.

Your Therapy Source Gets 30% of its Revenue From Abandoned Cart Automation

Your Therapy Source Abandoned Cart automated email workflow

Simple automations can have a big impact on business performance. Therapist Margaret Rice was running email marketing completely separate from her website. She had no way of measuring the impact emails were having on sales. So she decided to sign up for ActiveCampaign to connect to her WooCommerce site. 

The impact has been stunning. Margaret enjoys a 2000% return on what she spends on ActiveCampaign. And 50% of her revenue comes from email marketing. Most of that comes from abandoned cart automation. 

Made for Freedom Uses Marketing Automation to Fight Human Trafficking

Made for Freedom is a fashion retailer with a mission. It sources unique products from around the world. And donates 20% of profits to organizations that support victims of trafficking. It also works to recruit volunteers for these charities.

The company uses ActiveCampaign for email marketing and marketing automation. This includes standard brand and product promotions, newsletters, and special offers. It also uses automations to handle volunteer recruitment.

Here’s a workflow for onboarding new volunteers:

Made for Freedom volunteer onboarding email automation

Prospective volunteers sign up via a form. This triggers an email with available opportunities. An interesting twist is the condition for whether they reply or not. If yes, it creates a deal. This moves the process from a marketing workflow into a pipeline. And means each volunteer query can be handled personally.

Marketing Automation Does the Work of Two Full-Time Employees for Palmetto Fortis 

Education service provider Palmetto Fortis outgrew its previous marketing platform. It needed software that could meet all its marketing needs and was still easy to use. The clincher was ActiveCampaign’s marketing automation tools.

Marketing in the education sector works best when it is a slow burn and carefully targeted. Palmetto Fortis had built a database of 23,000 contacts. Detailed segmentation and long-term drip campaigns were far too much to handle manually.

Marketing director Meagan Ingersoll believes automation saves the work of two full-time employees. This includes careful tracking and tagging of contact behaviour. This then feeds into personalized content and campaigns. The company also uses marketing automation workflows for detailed lead scoring. With ActiveCampaign’s Salesforce integration, the sales team gets this data automatically.

Palmetto Fortis lead scoring marketing automation workflow

The results include a 52% increase in open rates and a doubling of click rates. This has also translated into a 20% increase in sales. 

TAGGUN Boosts Free Trial Conversions by 28.9% Using Abandoned Cart Workflow

TAGGUN sells AI software that scans receipts and invoices for instant data capture. The company turned to ActiveCampaign when it wanted to grow its business. It uses marketing automation workflows to build automated pipelines at key points of the customer journey. 

One of these pipelines covers customers signing up for a free trial. TAGGUN noticed that a lot of prospects were filling in the sign-up form. But then not submitting it. So they added an abandoned cart workflow to the pipeline. This saw free trial sign-ups increase by 28.9%.

TAGGUN marketing automation workflow to move customers between subscriptions.

The company also uses workflows to move customers between subscription levels. The above workflow manages how leads move from the free trial to the pay-as-you-go tier. It uses conditions and goals to sort prospects between different deal stages. 

Oh Crap! Grows Unit Sales by 9100% Using Targeted Sales Automation

Australian compostable dog poop bag vendor Oh Crap! had already enjoyed success using ActiveCampaign. It had achieved 73% open rates for email marketing campaigns. And unsubscribe rates of under 1%.

The company wanted to turn more one-time customers into repeat buyers. So it used ActiveCampaign’s Shopify integration to sync data from its web store. And used this to build targeted sales-focused automations. Find out where we rank ActiveCampaign among the best email marketing tools for Shopify.

One example is a clever replenishment flow that predicts repurchase opportunities. Oh Crap! boxes come in sizes of 45, 180 or 375 bags. It uses the simple formula of a bag used a day to predict when a box runs out. That number of days passing after a purchase triggers the replenishment workflow. 

workflow including purchase reminder email

The workflow includes a purchase reminder email. And adds customers to a custom Facebook audience.

Biletto Achieved a 32% Cost Saving with Advanced Automation and CRM Integrations

Biletto is an online ticketing and event management platform. It operates in 14 markets across Europe and caters for a large variety of B2B clients. Customer journeys are highly varied. It found using separate marketing and CRM tools inefficient and complicated to manage. With ActiveCampaign, it found a platform that was intuitive to use. But allowed it to automate complex processes all in one place.

Biletto customer retention advanced automation workflow

This is an example of one of Biletto’s account management workflows. It looks very complicated. But it’s basically a reengagement workflow like the basic template discussed above. It just has more conditions to segment more customer groups. And it adds more actions to each branch. It’s a great example of how you can use simple building blocks to create advanced workflows. 

Swim University Increased Revenues by 66% with Email Marketing Automation

Swim University is a pool care business built around a popular blog and YouTube channel. It monetizes pool care advice with online courses. Founder and owner Matt Giovanisci has long used email marketing. But he struggled with the burden of choosing what to send out, when.

Swim University predictive sending newsletter automation

Matt wanted a way to make drip campaigns offering pool cleaning advice seasonal. Typical pool cleaning problems change at different times of the year. But he also wanted his emails to match different seasons in different countries.

Automation workflows like above are set up to optimize send times in several ways. First, they are customized to different regions and time zones. So relevant campaigns get sent at the right time. Contacts are tagged when they open emails and click links. So the company can easily segment according to how engaged contacts are. And finally, predictive sending analyzes open rates by date and time. And sends emails out when they are likely to get the highest open rates.

The increased relevance has helped Swim University add 14,000 new subscribers. And with targeted sales funnels on top, it has seen revenues grow by 66%.

The Best Marketing Automation Tools

To win with marketing automation, you need the right tools. The best marketing automation software is flexible enough to automate many different tasks. It’s sophisticated enough to let you join tasks together in long workflows. And it’s still user-friendly enough for anyone to get started. Visual workflow editors are key here. Here are some of our top picks for marketing automation platforms.

ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign marketing automation

It’s hard to look past ActiveCampaign when it comes to marketing automation. It’s a great all-in-one sales and marketing platform for growing businesses full-stop. It covers email marketing, sales CRM, transactional emails and more.

I’ve already explained ActiveCampaign’s main strengths as a marketing automation tool. It comes with more than 900 workflow templates. It’s got a great visual workflow builder. You can choose from dozens of triggers, actions and conditions. There are no limits to how big and complex you can build your workflows. And you can join up all different processes. For example, ActiveCampaign is great for connecting marketing campaigns to sales pipelines. Across the entire customer lifecycle, you can automate pretty much anything you like. Read our full ActiveCampaign review for more details about ActiveCampaign automation.

Email marketing with basic automation starts at $15 a month. To unlock the full marketing automation package, the Pro plan costs $79 a month. Get started here with a 14-day free trial. Or check out this ActiveCampaign pricing guide for all the details.

HubSpot

Hubspot visual workflow builder

HubSpot is one of the biggest and most popular CRM platforms around. It has 6 different Hubs including Marketing and Sales Hubs. You can build custom packages that mix and match features to suit your needs. 

Automation is everywhere in HubSpot. The Marketing Hub includes a visual workflow builder. You can automate emails, ad targeting, contact tagging and more. For larger businesses, the Operations Hub is for process integration and advanced automation. This includes tools to code your own automations. Find out more about features, pros, and cons in our full HubSpot review.

HubSpot has products for every size of business. The Marketing Hub and Customer Platform for SMEs start at $20 per user a month. Its professional and enterprise tiers cost thousands of dollars. It also has an excellent free CRM, although the automation tools are limited. Check out our full HubSpot pricing guide to find out more about costs and onboarding fees.

GetResponse

GetResponse marketing automation

GetResponse is an email marketing platform. The automation tools start with simple autoresponders on the email marketing tier. These are basic timed sequences with simple triggers. The marketing automation tier unlocks more complex event-based workflows. There are templates for common workflow types and a user-friendly visual editor. You can track contact behaviour for segmentation and set up lead scoring. Ecommerce automation features include AI product recommendations and transactional emails. Read our full GetResponse review for more info about features, pros, and cons.

GetResponse’s email marketing plan starts at $13.30 a month for 1,000 contacts. Marketing automation starts at $41.30 a month. And ecommerce $83.30. There’s a free tier with basic email tools but no automation. Find all the pricing details in our GetResponse pricing guide.

MailerLite

MailerLite visual workflow builder

MailerLite is one of the best value email marketing services around. Its marketing automation features are excellent for its price point. It also has an amazing drag-and-drop email editor with templates, and you can build websites and run blogs. There are also payment tools for selling digital products and paid subscriptions.

MailerLite trades on being super easy to use. Its automation tools are no different. The visual workflow builder is one of the most user-friendly you will find. But a lot of ‘easy’ automation builders are also basic. MailerLite is different. You can set up web tracking for event-based triggers. And use conditional logic to create several automated pathways. Check out our full MailerLite review for more details about automation.

MailerLite pricing starts at just $9 a month. That includes the automation builder and all its core features. In fact, automations are included in MailerLite’s incredibly generous free plan. See all the pricing details in our MailerLite pricing guide.

Brevo

Brevo advanced automation

Brevo is another very affordable marketing platform with some pretty advanced automation tools. Its multichannel marketing platform covers email, SMS, WhatsApp and web and push notifications. It also features a sales CRM, a sending API for transactional emails, and a chatbot builder.

Brevo offers both marketing and sales automation. It comes with an excellent user friendly drag and drop workflow builder. You can mix and match communication channels in the same workflow. And trigger automations via integrations to other platforms. The sales automation tools are more basic. But still useful for moving deals through pipelines and creating tasks. Learn more about the automation features in our full Brevo review.

The starting price for Brevo’s marketing platform is $9 per user per month. But you need the Business tier to unlock marketing automation, starting at $18 a month. There is a free plan but it doesn’t include automation tools. Check out our full Brevo pricing guide to find out what’s included in each plan.

How to get the most out of marketing automation quickly

Marketing automation can and should be a part of your marketing strategy. Even if you are new to it, you can benefit from marketing automation quickly. As I’ve shown, there are plenty of marketing automation examples you can easily try.

It all starts with choosing the right marketing automation software. We recommend ActiveCampaign. But there are other good affordable options. You should choose a platform with plenty of pre-made workflows. Start with simple, common examples. Welcome series, anniversary automations, and abandoned carts. These are all quick wins for building engagement and increasing conversions. 

As you grow in confidence, create automations to collect customer data. Tags and other data can be used in future campaigns. Or to segment workflows with conditions. Build up to more advanced techniques like lead scoring and goals. Before long, you will be automating large chunks of your interactions with leads and customers. You’ll save time, increase efficiency, and improve revenue.

FAQs about Marketing Automation Examples

What is considered marketing automation?

Marketing automation is the use of software to manage repetitive tasks in marketing. There are lots of examples. Setting up emails to send automatically is one very common example. It’s often used in lead nurturing to send targeted, personalized messages. It can be used to gather data on contacts, through tagging and lead scoring. It can be used on social media platforms to schedule posts and engage with followers.

What are marketing automation strategies?

Marketing automation strategies are methods for improving marketing processes through automation. Strategies vary by marketing field and what your goals are. One common email marketing strategy is to set contact actions to trigger sending. This way, contacts get relevant, timely emails. Specific email marketing automation strategies include sending welcome emails to new subscribers. Or abandoned cart emails when customers leave a cart without buying.

How do you create a marketing automation?

You create a marketing automation with marketing automation tools. You will find a workflow builder in a marketing automation platform. This lets you put all the pieces of a workflow together in a simple, intuitive way. Workflows are visual representations of automated processes. They include triggers for starting a workflow. Actions that are automated. And conditions for controlling how and when actions happen. 

How do you automate a marketing process?

Marketing processes are automated by software. You have to programme marketing automation software with task instructions. For example, if you want to automate how and when an email gets sent. You have to provide instructions for the time you want to send. Or what events you want to trigger the sending. You have to give instructions for who to send to. And any rules or conditions that might stop or change the instructions.

This can sound complicated. But with a modern marketing automation tool, it’s quite straightforward. You don’t have to start coding or programming software to give instructions. Platforms come with visual builders for creating marketing automation workflows. With these, you just piece together your instructions on screen. Set the rules. And away you go.

About Paul Newham


Paul Newham is a content writer specialising in business blogging, report writing, software reviews, and online copywriting. He has 5+ years of email marketing, marketing automation and software review experience. He tested over 60 business software including email marketing tools, CRMs, outreach services, SMTP providers, email verification, and AI writing tools.
With a background in journalism and PR, he understands business content from both sides. And knows what makes for great, engaging copy, but also understands that for businesses, the written word is all about driving value.

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