Geoff CuddAs any small business owner knows, time is money and hours are priceless.
This is why the promise of marketing automation is so tempting: if you can let a computer take responsibility for simple yet time-intensive tasks, you and your team have that much more time to work on other facets of your operation.
The following companies offer their own unique selling points, but they all share one thing in common: a fastidious, high-quality approach to this type of marketing.
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We offer this website completely free to our visitors. To help pay the bills, we’ll often (but not always) set up affiliate relationships with the top providers after selecting our favorites. However, we do our best not to let this impact our choices. There are plenty of high-paying companies we’ve turned down because we didn’t like their product.
An added benefit of our relationships is that we always try to negotiate exclusive discounts for our visitors.
Best Marketing Automation Services
We wanted to find the best marketing automation agencies out there, so we scoured the internet, read reviews, and dug into company profiles to ultimately create the following list of our top choices.
1. Ironpaper
Best for companies that want to take a data-centric approach to grow their digital footprint and cultivate their customer base.
Among digital marketing agencies that specialize in automation, Ironpaper stands out for its three key metrics: increase qualified leads, improve conversion rates, and generate opportunities. These three quantifiable goals are the engine that drives this train of specialists to make your company successful in the digital marketing battleground.
Their automation program is no exception to their mission of building up your business and making the most of your leads and audience. To showcase this, they’ll design your marketing automation setup in such a way that you’ll have unparalleled insight into your campaign, allowing you to see in stark clarity what’s working, what isn’t, and how your recipients are engaging with the content you’re sending them. Using this data, you can further tailor your digital strategy to answer the needs of your customers and make your campaign that much more effective.
This strategy is wide-reaching. You won’t only gain back time with the automated processes; you’ll also enjoy improved insights on everything from lead generation and content strategy to call tracking and segmentation. Because this data is so powerful when it comes to fine-tuning your business, the work Ironpaper does on the automation and analytical side can have you quickly growing your business far faster than you may have planned. Intrigued? Give them a call.
2. Fiverr
Best for companies looking to complete smaller, low-complexity projects with affordable but talented freelancers.
Fiverr is a well-known marketplace that makes it easy to hire freelancers on an as-needed basis for jobs of various scales and difficulties. Its calling card is affordability: think gigs posted at as little as $5 per job rather than thousand-dollar contracts. Despite the rock-bottom cost of most Fiverr gigs, quality is on par with anything you’d expect from higher-priced offerings. That alluring combination – big savings, high quality – has made the site a go-to destination for anyone looking to have small-scale projects completed with minimal impact on the income statement.
As we’ve mentioned in other articles, Fiverr impresses us with its ease of use and a wide diversity of freelancers that hail from 160 different countries. With that kind of talent pool to dip into, you’ll be able to find the perfect partner for your company regardless of your niche. All it takes is a quick search on the Fiverr site to discover dozens of automation professionals eager for a chance to pitch their services.
Don’t want to take your chance with an ordinary Fiverr freelancer? Try Fiverr Pro, a premium spinoff where freelancers come pre-vetted by qualified Fiverr experts, thus offering an extra layer of confidence to any service you might buy through the site. It’s the perfect way to hire known professionals that have established success providing marketing automation support to businesses like yours.
- Read our Fiverr Review
3. Mayple
Best for businesses looking for a provider that offers quality freelance talent in an agency-like arrangement for an affordable, transparent price.
Mayple is out to blend the best aspects of the traditional marketing agency with the new freelance marketing economy. How do they pull it off? By offering top talent the opportunity to work with their high-profile clients on performance marketing strategies big and small.
Notably, Maple’s freelance talent pool includes experienced email marketing experts that can help you implement, run, and manage an automated email marketing campaign that generates and converts leads. These specialists won’t only help you establish your automated email plan, either – they’ll ensure you build out the right game plan to use the technology to your greatest advantage. It’s this leadership and expertise that has given Mayple such a great name in the digital marketing arena.
The best part? Unlike so many of their competitors, pricing is transparent. You’ll pay anywhere from $1,850 to $5,450 a month depending on the specific scope of your email and automation strategy. It’s a refreshingly clear-cut tiered pricing model that further separates Mayple from the competition.
- Read our Mayple Review
4. Walker Sands
Best for B2B companies looking to work with a highly focused, experienced agency that specializes in marketing automation.
Walker Sands is the rare agency that has been cultivating its digital ecosystem longer than some young upstart marketers have been alive. Founded in 2001, the company has become renowned for offering start-to-finish automation management for B2B companies no matter how complex or ambitious their plans are.
Unlike many similar agencies, Walker Sands is notable for embracing integrated marketing across multiple channels and providers. That's an important trait, because it means they aren’t tied to any specific software provider and thus aren’t forced to narrow their focus or approach. By being able to understand and exploit the capabilities of various channels and providers, they can help you craft creative and ambitious plans to suit your business rather than force you to conform to the platform they work with.
Perhaps our favorite aspect of Walker Sands is the scope of the support they offer. This is not a business that simply sets up your automation software and sends you an invoice. They want to work with you through every step of the process so that you get the most from your relationship with their team. Their marketing automation support extends to strategy, engineering, data analytics, campaign development and execution, design, configuration, and procurement.
With over two decades of success under their belt, it’s clear Warner Sands knows their stuff when it comes to automating business processes to make your life easier. Give them a call today and see why they have become such a favorite in this space.
5. Upwork
Best for businesses that want to work directly with freelance talent for projects big and small.
Because Upwork is one of the most well-known freelance platforms on the internet, you can find plenty of marketing automation specialists using the site to proffer their services. Because there are such a variety of talented freelancers who have helped companies of all stripes automate their key marketing elements, we think you’ll have no trouble finding the perfect partner for your business.
We think Upwork is the ideal solution for clients who have a clear vision of what they want from a marketing automation campaign and aren’t afraid to hire and vet freelancers on their own. That said, even if you’ve never sifted through freelance pitches before, the Upwork rating and review program makes it easy to weed out the posers from the professionals. One look at their profile is often to see if someone has the skills, qualifications, and eye for quality that marks the best automation providers.
Hiring through Upwork is a great way to save money compared to a traditional marketing agency, as you’ll be able to work directly with freelancers for only the work you need done. It’s also easy to find freelancers on Upwork for any budget, so don’t be worried if you want to try and find talented service providers for a minimal outlay. For this reason alone we recommend Upwork to those still trying to decide if an automation plan is right for their business.
- Read our Upwork Review
Types of Digital Marketing Agencies
What Is a Marketing Automation Agency?
A marketing automation agency employs specialists who can implement and monitor automated programs that shift responsibility for time-consuming repetitive tasks from people to computers.
An easy, highly familiar example of this technology is automated phone systems. How many businesses let you talk with a customer service rep right off the bat? Hardly any that are bigger than a mom-and-pop operation. They instead route you through an automated system that can answer simple questions, provide basic information, and route you to the right department.
Many agencies may bundle their automation marketing programs with other digital solutions as well, as automation has become a core piece of any modern marketing plan. For our part, we’ve tried to highlight agencies where automation marketing is their core business, but many of these top-rated firms also offer many other services you can take advantage of.
What Does a Marketing Automation Agency Do?
In a nutshell, they automate certain key marketing strategies that help streamline your business and save you precious manhours. The classic example is online messaging: rather than have someone at the ready to respond to any and all queries, an automated chatbot can determine what people are asking about, collect contact information, and flag down the right team member to take over the conversation. Such a solution provides immediate answers to a customer and saves companies time and money.
Implementing a project of this scale yourself would require serious technical skills, and if you’d rather not be up into the wee hours of the night studying backend website code, hire a provider that lives and breathes this stuff. Automation specialists will not only know how to incorporate automated processes into your existing business – they’ll also help you strategize just how to use and exploit these tools for maximum effect.
How Much Does a Marketing Automation Agency Charge?
That’s hard to say. Chances are that any marketing automation provider you’re considering would prefer to push you toward scheduling a free consultation rather than tell you any pricing information upfront. That’s not them being sneaky – it’s just due to how custom the work can be.
Depending on factors like project scope, agency service packages, and inevitable negotiations, there really is no one-size-fits-all price tag for marketing automation services. You might pay $1,000 a month for some base-level automation work or be writing checks for $10,000 a month or more to completely overhaul and automate your marketing strategy. Because rates can fluctuate so significantly from provider to provider and project to project, we encourage you to do your homework and ask the hard questions on exploratory calls.
FAQs
Is it worth it to hire a marketing automation agency?
Generally, yes. These agencies can apply their know-how to quickly and easily implement automated technologies that will streamline your online marketing management plan. Hiring a specialist is the only way to avoid spending countless hours trying to learn the requisite technical skills necessary to successfully implement online automation techniques.
How do I choose a marketing automation agency?
Start with a list like the one above, then determine what your needs and budget are. If you only want some light automation work done, consider an independent freelancer. Looking for a bit more support, such as analytics and a robust, multi-channel automation campaign? Consider a traditional agency or a firm that contracts out vetted freelancers, as these businesses are best equipped to take on more serious projects.
Which marketing agency automation is best for small businesses?
For small businesses, we’d recommend starting with Upwork or Fiverr. Why? Because of ease of use and price point. With either platform, you can easily find someone to help establish some initial automation strategies before more serious forays into the space. If you decide you need more professional support, contract with a dedicated agency.
Claire Fountain
