4 Marketing Automation Tools That Make Marketing Easier

Marketing automation tools are software that runs repetitive marketing tasks for you automatically. Repeating the same to-do list every single day is boring, and it eats so much of your time that it can become overwhelming. The automation tools available for your marketing will help you get the same work done with far less effort.

As HubSpot puts it, using marketing automation does not mean you stop caring about the work. It makes the work more effective and helps you reach your goals faster.

In this article I introduce my four favourite marketing automation tools: Zapier, Driftbot, Quuu and ActiveCampaign.

The list covers one tool per marketing job, and the plus and minus note in each tool's section follows its official pages, checked on 15 October 2026.

Zapier

Zapier is at the top of my list of favourite and most useful tools for automating marketing tasks.

Zapier is an automation tool that connects the marketing, sales and productivity tools you already use. Two examples of how to use it:

• If you want new email subscribers added to your list automatically, for example, Zapier can do it.
• Or if you want your live chats pushed into Slack so your team can see them, Zapier handles that too.

For more detail you can browse Zapier's blog.

Zapier's plus is no-code automation across 9,000+ apps, and its minus is a free plan limited to two-step workflows (Zaps) and 100 tasks a month.

Driftbot

Drift is a tool designed for chatting with your customers in real time. The "live support" and "live help" buttons you have seen in the bottom-right corner of websites run on tools of this kind.

Driftbot is your store's smart sales team. That team is in touch with customers 24/7. With automated replies you can hand people quick answers. When you do reach a customer one to one they feel looked after, which makes your store feel warmer to them. You can add automatic answers for your most frequently asked questions.

Update (October 2026): The drift.com site now carries the Salesloft brand, and the Driftbot address presents Salesloft's AI Chat Agent. Clari + Salesloft announced the gradual sunset of Drift on 5 March 2026 and refers existing Drift customers to 1mind as the successor.

For more detail, the articles on Drift's blog are worth reading.

Driftbot's plus was real-time chat with automated replies, and its minus is that Clari + Salesloft is phasing Drift out.

Quuu

Quuu is a tool that feeds social content into your Buffer or HubSpot queues automatically.

Are you one of those marketers who publishes hundreds of posts just to work out what resonates on social media? Stop if you are.

You pick your interests from a list of more than 300 categories, choose how many articles Quuu should send to your social accounts, and lean back.

There is an option to review every post manually before it goes out, if that is what you prefer. Or you can let it run fully automatically.

Used properly, Quuu saves you time by finding high-quality content that is genuinely relevant to your audience.

You can find more on Quuu's blog. Update (October 2026): Quuu now presents itself as an AI social media agent that creates and posts content.

Quuu's plus is an AI agent that writes and schedules posts for X, LinkedIn, Facebook and Bluesky, and its minus is per-profile pricing after a 7-day trial.

ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is a platform you cannot leave out when you talk about marketing automation. The one I strongly recommend is ActiveCampaign.

ActiveCampaign is a complete marketing automation suite. From automated email campaigns to automated SMS messages, it lets you reach all of your customers quickly and easily.

Update (October 2026): ActiveCampaign now runs email, SMS and WhatsApp messaging from one platform with a built-in customer relationship management (CRM) tool. Its pricing scales with the number of contacts.

ActiveCampaign's plus is email automation with SMS, WhatsApp and CRM options in one platform, and its minus is the lack of a free plan beyond a 14-day trial.

These are my favourites. Automation tools are of course not limited to these four. Depending on your marketing, other tools can give you more useful information.

What does marketing automation software automate?

Marketing automation software automates the messages and record updates that follow a customer action, through workflows that start from a trigger. A trigger can be a form submission, a visit to a specific page or a cart left without checkout. Brevo and Klaviyo offer a drag-and-drop editor for building the emails themselves. The list below covers four common workflows:

• Welcome email sequences: a new subscriber receives a series of pre-written, personalised emails at set intervals.
• Abandoned cart reminders: a shopper who leaves without paying gets an email or SMS about the product. I covered the checkout side in my mobile conversion rate article.
• Lead scoring: opened emails, page visits and form fills add points to a contact, so sales teams can see who is closest to buying.
• Lead nurturing: contacts who are not ready to buy get content that matches their stage in the customer lifecycle.

Which other marketing automation tools are worth comparing?

Other marketing automation tools worth comparing are HubSpot Marketing Hub, Brevo, Mailchimp, Klaviyo, Omnisend and Customer.io. Each entry follows the tool's own site (October 2026).

How do you choose a marketing automation tool?

Choosing a marketing automation tool starts with the job you want automated, then the channels, integrations and pricing model. The four checks below cover the main situations:

• Startups and small businesses: Brevo, Mailchimp, Klaviyo and HubSpot all offer a free plan, so a small team can test one workflow before paying. HubSpot sells a Starter bundle built for startups and small businesses.
• Ecommerce stores: Klaviyo integrates natively with Shopify. Omnisend builds welcome, abandoned cart and post-purchase workflows for Shopify and WooCommerce stores.
• Integrations: check for a ready connection to your website platform, CRM and ad accounts. Zapier can bridge the gap where none exists.
• Pricing model: Mailchimp, Klaviyo and ActiveCampaign price their plans by the number of contacts, so the cost grows with your list.