CRM marketing automation: 7 platforms to streamline marketing in 2025

Once a lead becomes a customer, they — and the valuable insights they offer — often drop off the marketing team’s radar simply because of limited time and tools for tracking the full customer journey.

That’s where a CRM with marketing automation comes in. By unifying sales and marketing data, teams can gain deeper insights, automate campaigns, and create more personalized experiences.

In this guide, we’ll explore the benefits of CRM marketing automation and share the top platforms, including monday CRM, that offer advanced, AI-powered automation tools.

What is marketing automation in a CRM?

Marketing automation in a CRM refers to built-in tools that automate repetitive marketing tasks within a customer relationship management platform. These tools may include sending email campaigns, scoring leads, and tracking customer behavior.

With these features, marketers can streamline workflows, reduce manual tasks, and deliver more personalized campaigns without switching between multiple tools. By connecting sales and marketing data, teams gain better visibility into the customer journey and can act on insights more effectively.

CRM marketing automation examples

Here are a few practical examples of how marketing teams use CRM marketing automation daily:

• Welcome email workflows: Automatically send a personalized welcome message to new leads after form submission.
• Lead scoring triggers: Assign scores to leads based on email clicks or page visits, then pass them to sales at a specific threshold.
• Cart abandonment campaigns: Send follow-up emails to users who viewed pricing pages but didn’t convert.
• Event follow-ups: Use automations to send thank-you emails and nurture sequences after webinars or in-person events.
• Newsletter segmentation: Automatically group contacts by behavior (e.g., topic interest) to send more relevant content.

CRM vs. marketing automation tools: what’s the difference?

Although most CRMs offer marketing automation features, not all marketing automation tools are CRMs. The table below breaks down the differences a bit further so you can get a side-by-side look at each of their strengths and focuses.

It’s true that most CRMs excel at managing existing customer relationships and sales automation processes, marketing automation tools specialize in attracting and nurturing prospects before they become customers. That said, businesses can benefit from using both.

When a lead becomes a customer, there’s no additional need to engage them with marketing automation tools, and they’ll likely move to a CRM. However, CRMs with AI and marketing automation capabilities offer lead and client engagement through all stages of the marketing funnel and into the sales cycle.

The benefits of adopting a CRM with marketing automation

Companies that want to get a leg up on the competition are integrating marketing automation with CRM capabilities for a stronger user experience. Here’s a closer look at some of the core benefits of using a CRM with marketing automation built in.

Improve lead management

Make handoffs between marketing and sales teams smoother with CRM marketing automations for lead management. CRMs can help teams score and qualify new leads so that marketing teams can create more targeted content. Marketers can access historical data like previous interactions and purchase history to create tailored campaigns.

Unify data under one roof

Instead of siloed data in multiple tools for marketing automations and sales tools, keep your data unified and consistent in one place. A CRM for marketing acts as a single source of truth for both sales and marketing teams, offering full visibility into insights from the first point of contact all the way to closing and beyond.

Optimize budget and resource management

CRM platforms with integrated marketing automation features, like monday CRM, help teams maintain consistent engagement across multiple customer touchpoints. This consistency allows organizations to better analyze marketing spend and workforce allocation. Teams can identify which channels and campaigns generate high-quality leads that convert, while reducing waste on efforts that don’t contribute to results.

Personalize content at scale

The right CRM automation tools can help you segment your leads into numerous groups based on a wide set of demographics. Segmentation allows your company to send emails, targeted ads, and messages to the right audience.

When supported by AI, CRMs can go a step further by crafting personalized content like messaging and sales assets that are tailored to each individual customer based on previous interactions and sentiment analysis. According to Robert Gillespie VP of Marketing, JP Morgan Chase:

I think AI will be a game changer in marketing. Start small, test, learn, and only then scale your AI initiatives. It’s not too late to level up and get in the game.

Align sales and marketing teams

Your business can achieve better results and improved profits when your sales and marketing teams are aligned on strategy, data, and communication. A marketing automation CRM provides insights into campaign performance and sales outcomes, creating visibility across departments.

Additionally, unified reporting and analytics give both teams a complete view of the funnel from marketing to qualified leads to closing deals.

7 of the best CRM and marketing automation platforms

To make your choice a little easier, we’ve narrowed down your options with the top picks for CRMs with marketing automations. Below, you can see a quick side-by-side comparison of the top CRMs in this category, or you can scroll a bit more to read about each in greater detail.

1. monday CRM

Best for: Teams that want visual, customizable marketing automation powered by AI

Combining intuitive visual workflows with feature-rich AI-powered marketing automation capabilities, monday CRM brings sales and marketing together in one place. The platform gives users the power to create custom workflow automations that make marketing tasks like lead nurturing and email campaign personalization quick and painless. With monday CRM’s predictive intelligence, marketing teams can gain deeper insights into customer behavior to create strategies and campaigns that stand out.

Key features

• AI-powered sentiment analysis allows marketers to better understand leads and customers for more tailored campaigns.
• The AI writer generates personalized emails for mass campaigns, customized per segment.
• The campaign manager agent boosts marketing success by analyzing campaign performance in real time.

Pricing

• Plans starting from $12/user/month
• 14-day free trial

Learn more about monday CRM plans and pricing.

What users are saying

G2 rating: 4.6/5

“monday CRM has been a great tool for the marketing team at my company. We are able to better manage our weekly 1:1 meetings, and everyone can set up their boards to fit their work style. The platform is user-friendly, easy to understand and train on, and just makes sense for our team.” — Caroline M.

2. HubSpot Smart CRM

Best for: Companies focused on inbound marketing and tight sales alignment

HubSpot Smart CRM offers a well-rounded marketing automation suite that features AI-powered lead scoring, advanced email marketing tools, and seamless integration between marketing and sales activities. The platform’s strength lies in its ability to track the complete customer journey from first website visit to closed deal, making it ideal for businesses focused on inbound marketing strategies.

Key features

• Advanced reporting dashboards provide data on marketing campaigns.
• Personalized email campaigns timed for optimal engagement boost open rates.
• Built-in AI social media agents analyze performance and industry data.

Pricing

• Free forever plan with limited features
• Plans starting from $9/seat/month
• Multiple plans available for individuals, small teams, businesses, and enterprises

What users are saying

G2 rating: 4.4/5

“I’ve been using HubSpot for a while now, and it has completely transformed the way we handle marketing, sales, and customer service. The platform is incredibly intuitive, making it easy to manage campaigns, track leads, and automate workflows. The CRM is top-notch — it keeps all of our customer interactions in one place, making follow-ups seamless. The automation tools have saved us so much time, and the analytics provide deep insights into what’s working and what’s not.” — Margaret J.

3. Salesforce

Best for: Enterprises needing advanced customization and marketing automation features

Salesforce is an enterprise-level CRM that offers comprehensive and customizable marketing automation features, particularly when paired with Marketing Cloud. The system offers sophisticated lead-nurturing tools, advanced segmentation, and analytics that scale with large enterprises. Its integrated AI features help marketers save time by creating smarter marketing campaigns based on real-time data.

Key features

• AI marketing automations enable instant creation of forms and landing pages.
• Lead segmentation tools generate personalized cross-channel journeys.
• Natural language prompts simplify campaign building end to end.

Pricing

• Plans starting from $25/user/month
• Multiple plans available as well as additional paid add-ons
• 30-day free trial

What users are saying

G2 rating: 4.4/5

“I’ve been using Salesforce for over two years in a mid-sized sales organization, and it’s become an indispensable tool for managing customer relationships, tracking sales pipelines, and collaborating across teams. While there’s a learning curve, the benefits are undeniable once everything is properly set up.” — Fidel F.

4. Pipedrive

Best for: Sales-focused teams wanting lightweight marketing automation

Pipedrive is a CRM that offers streamlined marketing automation features designed to coexist seamlessly with sales workflows. The platform provides essential automation tools like email sequences, lead scoring, and deal tracking without overwhelming users with overly complex features. Pipedrive’s simplicity makes it perfect for small to mid-sized teams, however, its marketing automation features may not be scalable enough for more involved marketing needs.

Key features

• Automate email marketing and customize drag-and-drop templates with Campaigns by Pipedrive
• Keep leads engaged with automated drip campaigns, auto-responders, and follow-up emails
• AI email writer helps marketers strike the perfect tone and personalize every message

Pricing

• Plans starting from $14/user/month
• 14-day free trial

What users are saying

G2 rating: 4.3/5

“Pipedrive excels as an incredibly user-friendly CRM that is exceptionally easy to learn and implement, especially for small to medium-sized businesses. Its core strength lies in its visual drag-and-drop sales pipeline, which allows users to intuitively manage deals and track progress with minimal training. The platform’s clean interface, straightforward onboarding process, and simple data importation get teams up and running in no time.” — Firas J.

5. Brevo

Best for: Growing businesses that rely heavily on email marketing automation

Brevo combines CRM functionality with powerful email marketing automation at an affordable price point. The software is centered around email marketing automation, offering advanced segmentation, behavioral triggers, and transactional email capabilities. With a pricing model based on email volume rather than contacts, Brevo is particularly attractive for businesses with large databases but moderate email sending needs.

Key features

• AI content assistant generates email content, suggests visuals, and identifies optimal send times.
• SMS marketing automation manages two-way messaging and campaign timing.
• Transactional email workflows like abandoned cart and welcome series trigger real-time delivery and tracking.

Pricing

• Free forever plan with limited features
• Plans starting from $8.08/month

What users are saying

G2 rating: 4.5/5

“Brevo’s email marketing platform has impressed us with its ease of use and rich features. The templates they offer for customizing our marketing emails are very practical and look professional. The ability to create automated email flows has helped us strengthen our relationships with our customers.” — Abbas K.

6. Freshsales Suite

Best for: Small teams needing user-friendly CRM tools with built-in email automation

As part of the Freshworks suite of products, Freshsales Suite is a simple CRM that integrates AI features that support both sales and marketing teams. Freshsales Suite offers intelligent automation features like lead scoring, email campaigns, and workflow automation. The platform’s integrated AI assistant, Freddy AI, helps teams automate marketing reports, email composition, and more without manual intervention.

Key features

• AI-powered landing page tools allow marketers to launch campaigns and monitor visitor behavior.
• Custom email sequences personalize the prospect journey from the first interaction.
• AI chatbots engage website visitors in real time to drive conversions.

Pricing

• Free forever plan for up to 3 users
• Plans starting from $9/user/month
• 21-day free trial

What users are saying

G2 rating: 4.5/5

“Freshsales offers excellent value for its price, making it ideal for small businesses or companies that want an effective CRM without breaking the bank. It is a very intuitive tool with features (such as email marketing) that make it easy to manage the business. The customer service is top-notch, and they are always available to assist, which has been a huge plus.” — Carolina R.

7. Zoho CRM

Best for: Small businesses seeking a full-featured, all-in-one automation suite

Zoho CRM offers marketing automation alongside accounting, project management, and other business tools. As a part of the Zoho ecosystem, Zoho CRM can be paired with Zoho Campaigns for a more comprehensive email and SMS marketing solution. Zoho CRM is a great solution for small businesses that want to manage their entire operations on one platform without switching between applications.

Key features

• AI content generation tools write personalized emails and recommend campaign strategies.
• Zia AI assistant automates repetitive tasks and enhances campaign performance.
• Analytics dashboards deliver insights for audience targeting and campaign optimization.

Pricing

• Free forever plan with limited features
• Plans starting from $14/user/month
• 15-day free trial

What users are saying

G2 score: 4.1/5

“Zoho CRM offers a robust, customizable interface that integrates seamlessly with our digital marketing ecosystem. The automation workflows, lead scoring, and multichannel communication tools enable us to deliver personalized experiences at scale. The analytics dashboards are particularly valuable for real-time insights, campaign tracking, and pipeline forecasting — making it an essential tool for data-driven decision-making.” — Iniyan B.

Choosing the best platform for your business

Picking the right CRM marketing automation software takes time and careful consideration. Some teams may need more feature-rich marketing automation tools, and others might lean heavier on traditional CRM features. Here are a few things to keep in mind to help you narrow down your choice.

Start with a list of features you need

CRMs come with a lot of different tools, and marketing automation comes at many touchpoints in a funnel. Start by breaking down your current workflows and looking at specific points that can benefit from automation. Next, consider some of the essential features your team needs in a CRM with marketing automation, such as:

• Email marketing automation
• Lead scoring and qualification
• Workflow automation
• Landing page creation
• SMS marketing automation
• AI assistants
• Analytics and reporting
• Integration capabilities
• Social media management and automation

Look at your integration requirements

Most marketers use a smorgasbord of tools already to manage social media, mailing lists, forms, customer service tools, and others. When looking for a CRM, take a peek at the integrations the platform offers and see if it fits with your existing tech stack. Ideally, you want to choose a platform that helps you streamline data and automations from all your software in one solution so that everything lives in one place.

Factor in your team’s technical skills

Although most CRMs today are fairly simple to implement, you want to make sure the platform you go with appeals to all members of your team so that you don’t create unwanted friction for adoption. Certain platforms, like Salesforce, for example, have great marketing automation features, but are a little more technically complex. By contrast, a solution like monday CRM offers a user-friendly platform that anyone with any degree of technical skills can pick up quickly.

Opt for a platform with AI automation

Finally, the consideration that will likely make the biggest difference is choosing a tool with advanced AI automation features. AI-powered CRMs can help you save hours on manual marketing tasks like email personalization, customer behavior analysis, and email campaign management. Not only does AI save you time, but it can also help teams improve marketing strategies and performance with smart automations, real-time suggestions, and targeted insights that analyze your most successful marketing tactics.

Make the most of AI marketing automation with monday CRM

Combining a CRM with marketing automation tools helps teams work more collaboratively and map customer journeys with ease. To take things further, consider using an AI-powered CRM like monday CRM, to save time, reduce manual effort, and improve campaign performance.

AI is no longer optional in modern marketing workflows. In a survey of 1,800 marketers by the Marketing AI Institute and Drift, 78% said they believe AI will intelligently automate more than a quarter of their marketing tasks within three years. monday CRM helps teams stay ahead of this shift with built-in AI tools that automate everyday marketing tasks, surface insights, and drive smarter campaigns.

With monday CRM, marketing and sales teams can work together on one intuitive interface powered by artificial intelligence. The platform’s advanced AI functionality enables marketers to effortlessly create smart automations that boost campaigns and uncover deeper insights into customer behaviors.

Here’s a quick rundown of some of the best monday CRM features for marketing automation.

Use AI marketing agents to maximize success

Create a team of AI agents to handle everything from real-time reports to campaign management. With monday CRM’s AI campaign manager agent, your team can focus on creative tasks while your AI agent analyzes performance and brings you actionable insights on what can be improved.

Analyze customer sentiment and behavior

Another way monday CRM’s AI helps automate marketing tasks is through its sentiment analysis capabilities. Get a more accurate look at how leads and clients are reacting to your campaigns so that you can use that feedback to make adjustments.

Automate workflow intelligently

Create custom marketing automations in just a few clicks. In monday CRM, users can build their own automations to handle everything from email follow-ups to lead qualification. Additionally, built-in AI tools can boost automations to make them even more intelligent with real-time data and context for each customer.

Create and send personalized email campaigns

Use custom templates or AI to generate tailored emails for campaigns that you can send using mass emailing and tracking. Let AI handle everything, including crafting the text, visuals, determining the best send time, and tracking metrics like open rates.

Strike the perfect balance between CRM and marketing automation

Finding the right CRM that offers a good balance of sales and marketing automation is essential to streamline various business processes while crafting personalized customer experiences. All the platforms we covered above would make good choices, however, your best option is a scalable and flexible solution that can grow as your team evolves, like monday CRM. Backed by AI, monday CRM stands out for its visual and user-friendly interface and simple yet versatile automation features that help your team work more productively and build more efficient marketing campaigns.