G2 Crowd announces the best marketing automation platforms, based on thousands of user reviews

CHICAGO, Nov. 20, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The updated Grid(SM) report for marketing automation software, announced today by business software review site G2 Crowd, ranks 20 products to help software buyers in their selections.

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The Fall 2014 report is based on more than 2,200 reviews and ratings from marketing and other business professionals, including more than 1,400 new reviews since the Spring 2014 report. The inaugural Grid(SM) report for marketing automation was released in Summer 2013.

The Grid(SM), which is created from G2 Crowd's software review engine, factors in customer satisfaction reported by users and vendor market presence determined from social and public data to rank products.

Marketing automation platforms were originally designed for marketing departments and organizations to automate repetitive tasks. Originally focused on email marketing automation, marketing automation refers to a broad range of automation and analytics tools.

This report includes marketing automation suite products, which contain functionality that may span other categories on G2 Crowd. The category excludes products that are targeted toward one specific area of marketing, such as email or social marketing.

To qualify as a Leader, a product must receive a high customer satisfaction score and have substantial market presence. HubSpot, Pardot, Act-On, Marketo and Eloqua were named Leaders. HubSpot earned the highest customer satisfaction score among all products.

High Performers have high customer satisfaction scores with a smaller market presence than Leaders. Salesfusion, OutMarket, ONTRAPORT, Net-Results, LeadSquared, Hatchbuck and Genoo were named High Performers.

In addition, four products received enough user reviews to be included on the Grid(SM) for the first time: OutMarket, LeadSquared, Hatchbuck, and eTrigue.

One new feature in the Fall 2014 report is the Grid(SM) segmentation by reviewer company size. In addition to the main Grid(SM), three segment-specific Grids(SM) have been published: one for small business (50 or fewer employees); one for mid-market businesses (51 to 1,000 employees); and one for enterprise-size businesses (more than 1,000 employees). Each has its unique sets of Leaders, High Performers and overall satisfaction leaders.

Grid(SM) for Marketing Automation (Small Business):

• Leaders: HubSpot, Act-On, ONTRAPORT, Pardot
• High Performers: Net-Results, LeadSquared, OutMarket, Salesfusion

Grid(SM) for Marketing Automation (Mid-Market):

• Leaders: HubSpot, Act-On, Pardot, Marketo, Oracle Eloqua
• High Performers: Salesfusion, OutMarket

Grid(SM) for Marketing Automation (Enterprise):

• Leaders: Marketo, Oracle Eloqua
• High Performers: Pardot, HubSpot

Of the 60+ software vendors listed in G2 Crowd's marketing automation software category, the 20 ranked products each received 10 or more ratings and reviews to qualify for inclusion on the Grid(SM).

Satisfaction rankings are generated from the user reviews, and market presence is calculated from vendor size, market share, and social impact. Based on a combination of these scores, each software solution is categorized as a Leader, High Performer, Contender, or Niche.

Across all marketing automation platforms, reviewers reported the product they use meets their requirements at an average rate of 84%, and on average reviewers said they were 84% likely to recommend the product they use.

Some highlights from the marketing automation reviews on G2 Crowd:

"Hubspot brings not only the best software platform for managing an entire marketing campaign, but also the best support and training available. The tightly integrated platform allows a campaign manager to easily transition within the tools and after, what we like to refer to as, hand-held analysis, allows a marketer to quickly identify strategies needed to implement a more successful approach."
- Aaron Dyess, Co-Founder/VP at Gielow Marketing

"Overall, Pardot is very user-friendly and actually very fun to explore. I was able to quickly pick it up and in most cases I was moving faster than our implementation plan. Everyone is also such a pleasure to work with and I've always gotten prompt support/answers from the Pardot folks. I discover new features and abilities daily."
- Amanda Elmore, Sales Promotions Manager at The SSI Group, Inc.

"[Act-On] is one of the best options out there for small businesses. There are products out there that offer a huge assortment of features but...they can be unwieldy and tricky for some of my time-pressed and tech-challenged colleagues. Act-On has obviously given careful thought to what organizations are looking for the most and at a price point that is reasonable."
- Nannette Nolan, Director of Marketing Communications, Life Sciences Trainers & Educators Network

"There is a tremendous amount of flexibility [with Marketo] and we've been able to bend it to our business needs. Recent enhancements have made things like lead form generation even easier. Setting up basic nurture programs is very easy and setting up complex nurture programs is not a daunting task."
- Michael Raia, Senior Director of Digital Strategy and eMarketing at FieldAware

"Eloqua is a powerful marketing automation tool that has the largest breadth of functionality and most extensive customization of any MAT solution I have used."
- Mary Wallace, VP of Marketing Services at Activate

"Salesfusion has a very solid marketing automation platform, but what truly sets them apart is their focus on their customers' success. They have shown from the first contact through our entire relationship with them that they deeply care about their customers and want to make sure that we are successful with the platform."
- Jon Harmer, VP of Marketing at Nexidia

"I love [OutMarket's] ability to make a single posting and have it his multiple social channels as well as to compare the traction each post makes on a social platform, [and its] ability to issue and track press releases. Our page reads have increased dramatically and our reach has also increased considerably."
- Lindsay Smith, Marketing Director at Title Alliance Ltd.

Premium research access can be purchased on the site for $599. These offers the original data for filtering and weighting, as well as individual profiles of each platform with the most helpful positive and negative marketing automation software reviews, detailed company information, user satisfaction ratings, feature scores and customer metrics. Future refreshes of the Grid(SM) will provide updated rankings based on the latest reviews and social data.

Be sure to check out the new Grid(SM) for the best marketing automation tools and subscribe to the premium research.

About G2 Crowd, Inc.

G2 Crowd is a leading business software review platform that leverages its more than 18,000 user reviews to drive better purchasing decisions. Technology buyers, investors, and analysts use the site to compare and select the best software based on peer reviews and synthesized social data. Co-founded by the founder and former executives from SaaS leader BigMachines and backed by more than $4.5 million in capital, G2 Crowd aims to bring authenticity and transparency to business technology research. For more information, go to G2Crowd.com.

SOURCE G2 Crowd, Inc.

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