The best marketing software for 2026: 15 tools built for connected teams

Marketing teams operate across an expanding web of channels and stakeholders. Campaigns span email, social, paid media, and content, while coordination extends to sales, product, creative, and finance teams. Performance tracking, budget management, and executive reporting all happen in parallel, often across disconnected systems that weren’t designed to work together.

This fragmentation creates real operational friction. Data ends up siloed, handoffs slow execution, and visibility into impact becomes limited. When marketing software only supports isolated functions like email automation or social scheduling, teams are left stitching together workflows manually, making it harder to connect daily execution to broader business outcomes.

This guide compares 15 marketing software platforms for 2026, focusing on solutions built for connected teams. It explores how modern platforms support cross-departmental collaboration, AI-driven efficiency, and scalable operations, while also outlining how to evaluate total cost of ownership and consolidate tools without sacrificing momentum.

Key takeaways

Marketing software in 2026 goes far beyond simple automation. Selecting the right tools impacts how teams collaborate, execute campaigns, and measure outcomes. These key takeaways highlight the most important insights from the current landscape of connected marketing platforms.

• Cross-functional collaboration is essential: marketing success increasingly depends on platforms that connect marketing, sales, product, and creative teams within unified workflows.
• Data integration drives efficiency: consolidating information from multiple channels into a single source of truth reduces silos and improves decision-making.
• AI enhances productivity: embedded AI can automate repetitive tasks, generate insights, and support strategic work without replacing human decision-making.
• Platform selection should consider total cost of ownership: evaluating subscription fees alongside implementation, training, and integration costs ensures a more accurate understanding of long-term investment.
• Unified work management platforms enable end-to-end marketing operations: solutions like monday work management illustrate how a single platform can coordinate campaign planning, approvals, execution, and reporting across teams.

Quick comparison of leading marketing software platforms

Finding the right marketing platform is not only challenging, it also requires considering how marketing connects with the rest of your organization.

This comparison highlights top contenders to help you identify which platform can unify workflows and support measurable growth across teams.

Pricing is just one factor. The larger question is whether you want a platform that simply manages marketing processes or a central digital workspace connecting marketing with other teams. The answer depends on how your organization works collaboratively.

What makes great marketing software in 2026

Marketing software has evolved far beyond email automation. Leading platforms now act as the central nervous system for growth, connecting marketing outcomes to broader organizational goals.

Teams prioritize results over feature lists. The main question is not “What can this platform do?” but “What can this platform help achieve?” Success involves launching campaigns faster, tracking spend, and making smarter decisions in real time.

Top platforms align with how teams actually work, offering structure to manage complex projects while remaining flexible to adapt when priorities change.

To deliver this, premier marketing solutions provide:

• A single source of truth: unifying data and workflows ensures marketing, sales, and product teams operate from an identical playbook.
• Seamless collaboration: connecting every stakeholder, from finance approving budgets to sales receiving leads, within a shared digital workspace.
• AI that amplifies your team: automating repetitive tasks and surfacing insights frees marketers to focus on strategy and creativity.

This is where a unified work management platform distinguishes itself. It supplies the operational backbone that ties marketing activities directly to business outcomes, transforming fragmented efforts into unified execution.

15 best marketing software platforms for connected teams

Marketing today is a team sport. When different teams rely on separate systems, coordination suffers. The right platform should connect creative work directly to business results that can be tracked and measured.

Solutions were selected based on:

• Cross-departmental collaboration: the ability to unite marketing, creative, sales, and other units in one workspace.
• Workflow flexibility: systems that adapt to your team’s processes rather than forcing you to change them.
• Strong integrations: seamless connections with your existing technology stack for uninterrupted data flow.
• Enterprise-grade capabilities: security, governance, and scalability features required by growing organizations.

1. monday work management

Modern marketing platforms like monday work management provide teams with a centralized space to run campaigns, create content, and manage requests, linking daily work directly to business objectives. Designed for marketing operations, it handles timelines, dependencies, approvals, and handoffs, ensuring launches stay on track. Leaders gain visibility into progress, risks, and team capacity, keeping marketing focused on high-impact initiatives.

Unlike standalone marketing solutions, monday work management unifies marketing with the broader organization. Creative teams, operations staff, and stakeholders operate from a shared playbook, reducing the need for repetitive status meetings and improving alignment across departments.

Use case:

From campaign planning and content calendars to creative requests and budget tracking, marketing teams use monday work management to handle the entire lifecycle within a platform that connects to company-wide goals.

Consider a global product launch: it begins with intake, progresses through creative production and approvals, and concludes with performance reporting across channels including email marketing campaigns. Teams can gather requests via Forms, plan in Calendar, Timeline, or Gantt views, track execution on Kanban boards, and keep leadership informed through dashboards.

Key features:

Before investing in a platform, it is crucial to understand the building blocks you will use daily. These are the monday work management capabilities marketing teams rely on to plan, produce, and deliver work with fewer gaps.

• Campaign management and content calendars: utilize Calendar, Timeline, and Gantt views to track dates, milestones, and dependencies across channels. Teams can map work from brief to launch and roll results into dashboards for visibility.
• Creative request workflows and approval processes: capture requests with Forms, route approvals via email automation, and keep feedback contextual with updates and monday work doc. Standardized forms ensure creative teams receive all necessary details upfront.
• Cross-departmental collaboration features: link marketing work to upstream priorities like Goals & OKRs, and coordinate handoffs through integrations with tools like Microsoft Teams, Slack, Outlook, Gmail, and Salesforce. Ownership of the next step in a multi-stakeholder campaign is always clear.
• Resource management views: the Workload View and Workload Widget allow for monitoring team bandwidth, ensuring high-priority launches are staffed correctly and deadlines remain realistic.

Pricing:

• Basic: $9/seat/month (billed annually).
• Standard: $12/seat/month (billed annually).
• Pro: $19/seat/month (billed annually).
• Enterprise: custom pricing (quote-only).
• Discounts: annual billing provides 18% discount.
• Trial: 14-day Pro trial available.
• AI credits: usage-based at $0.01 per credit beyond free allowances.

Why it stands out:

Marketing software should not require a compromise between team flexibility and leadership oversight. monday work management supports both by combining customizable workflows with portfolio-level visibility.

• Connected strategy and execution: align campaigns to Goals & OKRs, then aggregate progress and outcomes into dashboards for stakeholders. Instead of explaining how a campaign supports quarterly targets, you can simply show the link.
• Fast adoption and speed to value: designed for high adoption, the platform helps teams keep data current and reporting trustworthy. Independent research cited on monday.com notes a payback period of less than four months in a Forrester Total Economic ImpactTM study.
• Freedom to customize without losing consistency: use templates, automations, and governance-friendly permissions to standardize common processes, while allowing teams to adapt workflows as needs evolve.

Advanced AI features:

AI delivers the most value when embedded in the work itself, briefs, requests, updates, and status changes. The AI offering on monday.com integrates intelligence into monday work management through AI Blocks, Product Power-ups, and the Digital Workforce.

• AI Blocks for marketing workflows: deploy AI Blocks in columns and automations to Categorize, Summarize, Extract info from files, Translate, or Detect sentiment. For example, automatically categorize incoming requests by urgency, summarize feedback into action items, or extract details from a creative brief PDF.
• AI Automations and Autofill with AI (Pro and Enterprise): add AI actions via the Automation center or apply them directly from a column menu using “Autofill with AI.” The “Assign person” feature routes work based on expertise, keeping intake organized as volume increases.
• Digital Workforce (rolling out): digital Workers like Campaign Manager and Project Analyzer monitor performance and progress in real time, flagging bottlenecks and surfacing proactive insights.

Automations:

Marketing teams need fewer manual steps, not more meetings. Automations in monday work management convert repeatable processes into consistent, trackable workflows.

• Automations and templates: accelerate campaign launches with templated boards and automate routine steps like reminders, approvals, and handoffs.
• Approval and milestone support: combine automations with timeline-based planning to keep dependencies visible and stakeholder reviews on track.
• Cross-team notifications: link conversations in Slack or Microsoft Teams to the work itself, ensuring updates trigger action rather than getting lost.

Integrations:

A marketing platform is only effective if it fits into your trusted stack. monday work management supports this with extensive integration coverage and extensibility for specialized systems.

• 200+ integrations: connect to essential apps across communication, email, and file collaboration.
• Open API: develop tailored integrations for unique reporting, data flows, or internal systems.
• Everyday workflow integrations: includes Slack, Microsoft Teams, Outlook, Gmail, Google Drive, and Salesforce.

Marketing software features:

When evaluating marketing software, the critical question is whether it can run marketing operations, not just track work. monday work management supports the entire lifecycle from planning to performance.

• Unified campaign and content management: coordinate execution with calendars, timelines, and performance insights.
• Cross-functional marketing coordination: ensure launches align with other departments through connected workflows and shared visibility.
• Marketing performance visibility: track progress, workload, and outcomes via dashboards and reporting that executives can use for decision-making.

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2. HubSpot

By embedding work management directly into its comprehensive customer platform, HubSpot reshapes marketing operations through integrated CRM marketing. It specializes in campaign orchestration and cross-functional collaboration, making it a strong choice for teams needing to coordinate complex initiatives while maintaining visibility into customer impact. Built on the inbound methodology, it links every marketing activity to measurable business outcomes.

Use case:

This platform is the natural choice for unifying campaign planning, execution, and measurement within an environment that already houses your customer data and marketing automation.

Key features:

• Marketing Studio: AI-assisted campaign planning with a visual collaboration canvas converting briefs into actionable plans across email, social, and SMS.
• Campaigns hub: a centralized workspace for task management, team coordination, and real-time ROI reporting built on CRM data.
• Collaboration sidebar: universal commenting, task creation, and approval workflows across all marketing assets and content.

Pricing:

• Free tier: basic features with limited functionality.
• Starter: $45/month (billed annually) with core marketing features.
• Professional: higher-tier pricing with advanced campaign collaboration and workflow limits.
• Enterprise: custom pricing with full approval governance and maximum automation capabilities.
• Discounts: annual billing discounts and nonprofit discounts up to 40% available.
• Additional costs: marketing contact tiers and onboarding fees may apply to paid plans.

Considerations:

• Campaign task management and calendar features are limited to Marketing Hub Pro and Enterprise tiers, restricting native work management capabilities for lower-tier users.
• Organizations requiring advanced project portfolio management features like Gantt charts, capacity planning, or time tracking often need to integrate with external work management platforms.

3. Salesforce Marketing Cloud

For large organizations navigating sophisticated multi-channel campaigns, Salesforce Marketing Cloud turns complex journeys into orchestrated experiences. By merging enterprise-grade data management with AI-powered automation, it serves as a robust solution for managing customer interactions at scale.

Use case:

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is particularly effective at unifying operations across departments through Slack-first collaboration, AI-assisted planning, and comprehensive approval workflows that bridge strategy and execution.

Key features:

• Journey Builder with AI assistance: Agentforce assists in planning campaigns, generating segments, and building multi-step customer journeys that adapt to real-time behavior.
• Enterprise governance and approvals: REST API-powered approval workflows with role-based permissions ensure brand compliance across distributed teams.
• Cross-department collaboration: Slack integration surfaces campaign insights and enables in-channel review of journey changes for faster decision-making.

Pricing:

• Growth edition: $1,500/organization/month.
• Advanced edition: $3,250/organization/month.
• Engagement pro+: $2,000/organization/month.
• Engagement corporate+: $5,500/organization/month.
• Engagement enterprise+: $30,000/organization/month.
• Additional costs: dedicated IP, extra contacts, and Premier Success plan (30% of net license fees) available as add-ons.

Considerations:

• Requires significant technical expertise and dedicated marketing operations teams to implement and manage effectively.
• High cost and steep learning curve make it suitable primarily for large enterprises with complex marketing needs.

4. ActiveCampaign

Mid-market organizations find a unified home for their data in ActiveCampaign, which pairs sophisticated automation with CRM capabilities for effective sales lead generation. The platform leverages behavioral triggers, machine learning insights, and sales pipeline management to coordinate marketing and sales activities seamlessly.

Use case:

This solution is ideal for businesses needing to bridge the gap between marketing campaigns and sales execution, offering automated workflows that span both functions.

Key features:

• Advanced automation workflows: multi-step nurture sequences with conditional logic and behavioral triggers automatically create tasks, assign deals, and route leads based on customer actions.
• Integrated CRM with predictive insights: win Probability scoring and lead prioritization powered by machine learning help sales teams focus on the most promising opportunities.
• Cross-channel coordination: a unified platform manages email, SMS, and transactional messaging alongside sales pipelines and task management.

Pricing:

• Starter: $29/month (billed annually).
• Plus: $79/month for 1,000 contacts.
• Professional: $79/month for 1,000 contacts.
• Enterprise: $145/month for 1,000 contacts.
• Additional costs: additional costs apply for SMS credits, extra user seats, and AI activities.
• Discounts: annual billing discounts and nonprofit pricing (20% off) available.

Considerations:

• Calendar sync is one-way only, meaning changes made in external calendars don’t update ActiveCampaign tasks.
• Win Probability features require 100-150 historically closed deals before providing reliable scoring, limiting immediate value for new pipelines.

5. Mailchimp

Moving beyond simple email blasts, Mailchimp offers comprehensive multi-channel orchestration for growing businesses with robust email marketing strategy capabilities. Through its Campaign Manager workspace, it facilitates unified marketing coordination, allowing small to mid-market teams to plan, execute, and track campaigns without juggling multiple tools.

Use case:

Mailchimp is particularly strong at coordinating marketing campaigns across email, SMS, and social channels while providing collaborative planning workspaces and automated workflow capabilities.

Key features:

• Campaign manager: an end-to-end planning workspace combining goals, touchpoints, scheduling, and team coordination in a single campaign-focused environment.
• Marketing calendar: a global calendar view visualizes all scheduled and completed marketing messages across channels with quick-edit capabilities.
• Real-time collaboration: native commenting, presence indicators, and threaded discussions exist directly within email drafts and campaign workflows.

Pricing:

• Free: basic email tools for up to 500 contacts with limited automation.
• Essentials: $13/month with three seats, A/B testing, and up to 4-step automation flows.
• Standard: $20/month with five seats, Campaign Manager access, and up to 200 automation flow steps.
• Premium: $350/month with unlimited users, advanced segmentation, and priority support.
• Pay-as-you-go: credit-based pricing for infrequent senders.

Considerations:

• Campaign Manager and advanced automation features are only available on Standard and Premium plans, restricting work management capabilities for budget-conscious teams.
• Collaboration features are limited to draft emails and don’t extend to plain-text messages or sent campaigns, potentially creating workflow gaps for teams managing diverse content types.

6. Adobe Marketo Engage

Through its integration with Adobe Workfront, Marketo Engage brings enterprise-grade work management to B2B automation. Targeting mid-to-large organizations with complex sales cycles, it offers prescriptive blueprints that seamlessly connect campaign planning to execution. This first-party integration distinguishes it from competitors relying on third-party connections.

Use case:

Marketo Engage is optimized for orchestrating complex B2B marketing campaigns from initial request through execution and measurement, featuring automated program creation and tokenized content delivery.

Key features:

• Automated intake-to-execution workflows: workfront request forms trigger automated Marketo program creation with pre-populated tokens, subject lines, and campaign assets.
• Enterprise resource planning: the Workload Balancer provides visibility into team capacity and projected work allocation across marketing initiatives.
• Integrated approval processes: built-in Workfront proofing and staged approvals streamline asset sign-off with proof visibility in user dashboards.

Pricing:

• Growth package: quote-based pricing with core email, segmentation, and automation features.
• Select package: quote-based pricing including essential automation and measurement capabilities.
• Prime package: quote-based pricing featuring ABM with journey analytics and AI personalization.
• Ultimate package: quote-based pricing with advanced automation and premium attribution tools.
• Add-ons available: dynamic Chat, Marketo Measure, Marketing Calendar, and Workspaces & Partitions may increase total cost.
• Workfront fusion: included with Ultimate; additional cost for Select/Prime packages.

Considerations:

• Realizing full work management value requires adopting both Marketo Engage and Adobe Workfront, potentially increasing implementation complexity and total cost of ownership.
• API call limits and user counts vary by package tier, which may constrain heavy integrations or larger teams without appropriate contract adjustments.

7. Brevo

European businesses prioritizing GDPR compliance often turn to Brevo for its all-in-one approach. By unifying email campaigns, SMS marketing, and sales management in a single workspace, it offers comprehensive capabilities without the tool sprawl, all backed by transparent pricing.

Use case:

Brevo is well-suited for organizations needing integrated marketing automation and sales management with strong data privacy compliance, particularly those operating under European regulations.

Key features:

• Email and SMS marketing with automation workflows that trigger based on customer behavior and engagement patterns.
• CRM integration with customizable pipelines, task management, and deal tracking that connects marketing activities to sales outcomes.
• Multi-channel communication, including WhatsApp, push notifications, and in-browser video calls with meeting scheduling.

Pricing:

• Free: forever plan with 300 emails/day, one user, basic marketing automation, and core sales features.
• Starter: from $9/month with higher email volumes, forms, segmentation, and basic analytics.
• Standard: from $18/month with full marketing automation, A/B testing, and advanced reporting.
• Professional: from $499/month with ten users, advanced channels (WhatsApp, push), AI features, and analytics studio.
• Enterprise: custom pricing with unlimited users, data warehousing, SSO, and dedicated support.
• Sales packages available as add-ons: sales Essentials ($31/month) and Sales Advanced ($64/month).
• Annual billing: saves approximately 10% on marketing plans.

Considerations:

• Work management capabilities focus primarily on sales-related activities rather than comprehensive project management, limiting broader workflow applications.
• Advanced sales features like automation sequences and VoIP calling require additional Sales packages, which can increase total costs as teams scale.

8. Constant Contact

Small businesses looking to coordinate events and campaigns from a central hub find their solution in Constant Contact. Combining marketing automation with work management features, it allows teams to manage campaigns, events, and sales activities without switching contexts.

Use case:

This platform excels at unifying marketing operations and sales workflows for small businesses through its integrated campaign calendar, task management system, and event coordination capabilities.

Key features:

• Marketing campaign calendar with scheduling automation and personal calendar sync for streamlined campaign planning.
• Lead Gen & CRM with Task Manager dashboard, pipeline management, and automated follow-up workflows.
• Event management suite including registration, ticketing, payment processing, and attendee communication.

Pricing:

• Lite: $12/month (contact-based pricing).
• Standard: $35/month (contact-based pricing).
• Premium: $80/month (contact-based pricing).
• Lead Gen & CRM: custom pricing (demo required).
• Annual savings: annual prepay savings up to 15% available.
• Nonprofit discounts: nonprofit organizations receive up to 30% prepay savings.

Considerations:

• Work management capabilities focus primarily on marketing and sales workflows rather than general project management.
• Lead Gen & CRM pricing requires a demo consultation, which can slow evaluation for budget-conscious buyers.

9. GetResponse

Organizations blending educational content with digital campaigns rely on GetResponse to merge email sequences with webinar hosting. It specializes in combining automated email workflows with live and on-demand presentations, serving businesses that use content marketing and virtual events to drive engagement. With 25+ years in the market, it offers enterprise-grade deliverability alongside collaborative team management.

Use case:

GetResponse is ideal for marketing teams needing to coordinate email campaigns, webinars, and landing pages within a single platform while maintaining team collaboration and approval workflows.

Key features:

• Multi-step email automation with behavioral triggers and advanced segmentation capabilities.
• Integrated webinar hosting for live and on-demand presentations that connect directly to email workflows.
• Visual automation builder with multi-condition starts and cross-channel execution across email, web push, and landing pages.

Pricing:

• Free: Up to 500 contacts and 2,500 messages/month.
• Starter: $19/month (1,000 contacts) with unlimited sends and AI content generators.
• Marketer: $59/month with unlimited automation workflows and ecommerce features.
• Creator: $69/month including webinars, website builder, and course creation.
• Enterprise (GetResponse MAX): custom pricing with SSO, dedicated IP, and unlimited users.
• Annual billing discount: 18% off plus additional 10% for completing onboarding checklist.
• Webinar add-on: $40–99/month for Starter/Marketer plans (availability varies by region).

Considerations:

• List-size-based pricing can become expensive for large databases, with $4 per additional 1,000 contacts above 100k.
• The interface feels dated compared to newer platforms, and some approval workflows reference legacy editors that may affect user experience.

10. EngageBay

Designed specifically for small businesses wanting to avoid enterprise price tags, EngageBay offers an affordable all-in-one CRM and marketing suite. It combines contact management, email marketing, and helpdesk functionality with embedded work management capabilities, allowing teams to consolidate their tech stack.

Use case:

EngageBay works best for small businesses needing CRM-anchored work management with tasks, automations, and calendar scheduling tied directly to contacts, companies, and deals.

Key features:

• Task management with status boards: create configurable tasks with custom types and statuses that move across visual boards as work progresses.
• Cross-suite automation: build visual workflows that trigger on task changes, deal updates, and calendar events to connect marketing, sales, and service activities.
• Integrated calendar and scheduling: two-way sync with Google and Outlook calendars, plus automated appointment scheduling with custom domains and email reminders.

Pricing:

• Free plan: $0 (250 contacts, basic task management included).
• Basic plan: $14.99/user/month billed yearly (500 contacts).
• Growth plan: $64.99/user/month (5,000 contacts).
• Pro plan: $119.99/user/month (50,000 contacts, includes custom reporting, SSO, role management).
• Billing discounts: yearly billing offers 8% discount; biennial billing offers 15% discount.
• Onboarding & migration: free onboarding and migration included.

Considerations:

• Work management features are lighter than dedicated project management platforms, focusing more on CRM-centric tasks than advanced project constructs like Gantt charts or resource planning.
• Advanced capabilities like custom reporting, role management, and SSO are reserved for the Pro tier, which may require a significant pricing jump for teams needing those controls.

11. Insightly

Project-based businesses and agencies use Insightly to ensure customer relationships flow naturally into project delivery. By unifying CRM with project management and marketing automation, it eliminates the handoffs and data silos that typically plague service organizations.

Use case:

Insightly serves project-based businesses needing to convert sales opportunities directly into managed projects while maintaining visibility across customer relationships, delivery workflows, and marketing campaigns.

Key features:

• CRM-native project management with pipelines, milestones, and automated task creation through Activity Sets.
• AppConnect automation platform connecting 100+ tools like Jira, Asana, Microsoft Teams, and DocuSign.
• Unified data model across CRM, marketing, and service functions with embedded AI assistant (Copilot).

Pricing:

• CRM plus: $29/month per user (billed annually).
• CRM professional: $49/month per user (includes workflow automation and AI Copilot).
• CRM enterprise: $99/month per user (adds sandboxes, audit logging, and advanced features).
• Marketing plus: $99/month per account (includes 2,000 prospects).
• Marketing professional: $499/month per account.
• All-in-one bundles: starting at $349/month (includes CRM, Marketing, Service, and AppConnect).
• AppConnect: $249/month for 25,000 tasks with $3,000 technical setup fee.

Considerations:

• Projects can use either pipelines or milestones but not both simultaneously, limiting hybrid workflow approaches.
• Time tracking and approval processes require higher-tier plans, increasing costs for teams needing these capabilities at scale.

12. Bitrix24

For organizations seeking unified operations without per-user fees, Bitrix24 consolidates CRM, collaboration, and project tools. Its flat organizational pricing model makes it attractive for mid-sized teams needing extensive functionality without escalating costs.

Use case:

Bitrix24 serves organizations wanting to consolidate their CRM, project management, communication, and collaboration needs into a single platform while maintaining predictable costs through flat organizational pricing.

Key features:

• Integrated workspace: combines tasks, projects, CRM, chat, video calls, and document sharing in one unified platform.
• Multiple project views: offers Kanban boards, Gantt charts, Scrum methodology, and workload visualization for flexible project management.
• AI-powered assistance: CoPilot feature generates task descriptions, creates checklists, and summarizes comment threads across tasks and communications.

Pricing:

• Free plan: unlimited users with 5 GB storage and core collaboration features.
• Basic plan: $61/month per organization ($46/month billed annually) for up to five users with 24 GB storage.
• Standard plan: $124/month ($87/month billed annually) for up to 50 users with 100 GB storage.
• Professional plan: $249/month ($175/month billed annually) for up to 100 users with 1,024 GB storage.
• Enterprise plan: fixed pricing from $499 to $9,999/month for 250 to 10,000 users.
• Annual savings: annual billing saves up to 35% on select plans.
• Additional costs: extra fees apply for telephony features and third-party marketplace apps.

Considerations:

• The interface can feel cluttered and overwhelming due to the breadth of features, creating a steep learning curve for new users.
• Support responsiveness varies significantly, with free-plan users relying primarily on self-help resources.

13. Ortto

Growth-oriented teams managing complex lifecycles use Ortto to fuse customer data, journey automation, and omnichannel conversations. By combining marketing automation with AI-powered support, it connects customer information and interactions in one workspace, making it ideal for organizations needing both marketing sophistication and support efficiency.

Use case:

Ortto excels for teams wanting to unify customer data across marketing campaigns and support interactions while leveraging AI to optimize both customer journeys and response times.

Key features:

• Customer data platform that unifies information from multiple sources into comprehensive customer profiles.
• Visual journey builder with automation workflows triggered by unified customer data and behavior patterns.
• AI-powered omnichannel inbox with knowledge base integration and suggested responses trained on your content.

Pricing:

• Starter: $199/month (or $169/month billed annually) for 5,000 contacts.
• Professional: $509/month for 10,000 contacts, includes Talk inbox and Knowledge Base.
• Business: $849/month for 10,000 contacts, adds mobile push and transactional messaging.
• Enterprise: custom pricing with dedicated support and advanced security features.
• Annual savings: annual billing provides approximately 15% savings across all tiers.
• Additional costs: email overages billed per 1,000 sends beyond plan limits.

Considerations:

• Talk inbox and Knowledge Base features require at least the Professional tier, limiting access for smaller teams on budget-conscious plans.
• There is a learning curve for advanced automation features and potential integration gaps compared to more established platforms in the market.

14. Nutshell

Nutshell guides teams through every stage of customer engagement by automating sales processes with built-in marketing tools. Specializing in pipeline automation and scheduling, it streamlines revenue operations for small businesses without adding complexity. All plans include unlimited contacts and data storage.

Use case:

Small businesses gain automated workflow guidance through features like stage goals, task lists, and lead distribution that systematically move prospects through sales pipelines while reducing manual administrative work.

Key features:

• Unlimited contacts and data storage included on all plans.
• Pipeline automation with stage goals to progress leads (Growth plan and up) and automated task lists with lead distribution to guide teams (Pro plan and up).
• Integrated meeting scheduler that connects to CRM records, with advanced options like round-robin booking available on higher-tier plans (Business plan and up).
• AI-powered meeting summarization and notetaker that automatically logs transcripts and summaries to contact timelines (Business plan and up).

Pricing:

• Foundation: $13/month (annual billing) with 100 active leads and a single pipeline.
• Growth: $25/month (annual billing) with stage goal automation.
• Pro: $42/month (annual billing) with automated task lists, multiple pipelines, and lead distribution.
• Business: $59/month (annual billing) with full scheduler features and unlimited AI notetaker.
• Enterprise: $79/month (annual billing) with advanced reporting and AI capabilities.
• Annual savings: annual billing saves 15% compared to monthly pricing.
• Add-ons: quotes and invoices ($67/month), Marketing Pro ($49/month), Nutshell IQ starting at $37/month.

Considerations:

• The Foundation plan limits teams to 100 active leads and a single pipeline, which may constrain higher-volume operations.
• Key automation features are gated across different plans: stage goals require the Growth plan, while automated task lists and multiple pipelines require the Pro plan.
• Full scheduler functionality and AI-powered tools like the meeting notetaker are only available on the Business plan or higher.

15. Moosend

Online retailers and agencies focused on conversion find a strong ally in Moosend, which pairs deep ecommerce integration with automation. By combining AI-powered audience discovery with collaborative features, it supports marketing teams managing complex email workflows. Backed by Constant Contact, it serves over 100,000 customers with unlimited email sends.

Use case:

Moosend excels at ecommerce email automation, offering cart abandonment recovery, product recommendations, and behavioral triggers that help online retailers maximize customer lifetime value.

Key features:

• AI-powered automation: audience Discovery automatically segments contacts and generates targeted campaigns weekly, while AI Writer creates personalized email content.
• Ecommerce integration: native connections with major platforms trigger campaigns based on customer behavior, including browse abandonment and post-purchase sequences.
• Team collaboration: built-in commenting with mentions, version history, and role-based permissions streamline marketing production workflows.

Pricing:

• 30-day free trial: access to core features with limited contacts and assets.
• Pro: contact-based pricing starting around $9/month with unlimited email sends.
• Moosend+: Custom pricing with add-ons like dedicated IPs, SSO/SAML, and extra team members.
• Enterprise: quote-only pricing includes SLA, priority support, and deliverability optimization.
• Credits: pay-as-you-go bundles from $350 for 350k credits to $1,000 for 1M credits.
• Annual discounts available: 15% bi-annual, 20% annual, plus 25% nonprofit discount.

Considerations:

• Limited to email marketing focus rather than comprehensive marketing operations, requiring additional platforms for broader campaign management.
• Team member seats are capped by plan (Trial: 2, Pro: 5, Enterprise: 10+), potentially constraining larger collaborative teams without upgrading to higher tiers.

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How to choose marketing platform software that scales

Selecting a marketing platform is more than a technology decision, it determines how teams operate for years. The right solution supports growth and efficiency, while the wrong choice can waste time, money, and momentum as misaligned systems are corrected.

For marketing teams, scaling involves more than handling more contacts. Effective campaigns require cross-department collaboration and connection to additional platforms without compromising security.

To select a platform that adapts to existing workflows, consider architecture, customizability, and integration options. A solution that aligns with organizational processes ensures efficient operations rather than forcing adjustments to rigid software.

Step 1: audit your current marketing tech stack

Begin by evaluating existing systems. Identify overlaps, gaps, and disconnects in workflows.

This process highlights unnecessary expenditures on redundant solutions and pinpoints where manual workarounds occur. Observing these workarounds reveals precisely what the new platform needs to handle.

Step 2: map cross-functional workflows

Marketing success depends on collaboration across teams. Campaigns often involve design, product, sales, and customer success. Understanding these intersections supports selection of a platform that unites teams rather than creating silos.

Critical workflows should be mapped from start to finish, focusing on where work passes between teams:

• Lead handoffs: transferring qualified leads from marketing to sales with full context.
• Product launches: coordinating activities across marketing, sales, product, and success teams.
• Content creation: managing requests, approvals, and distribution with creative teams.

A unified platform provides shared visibility into project status and timelines, transforming handoffs into seamless workflows while preserving context.

Step 3: evaluate total cost of ownership

Subscription fees are just the tip of the iceberg. The true cost includes implementation, training, integration maintenance, and the productivity lost when teams juggle disconnected systems. A total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis provides the complete financial picture.

Hidden costs can quickly surpass the sticker price, so accounting for them is critical. Consolidating five separate platforms into one saves more than just license fees; it reclaims the hours your team spends switching between apps and manually reconciling data.

Step 4: plan for phased implementation

Avoid an all-at-once launch by introducing the platform in phases. This method allows teams to secure early wins, gather feedback, and manage change effectively.

Begin with a high-impact workflow that demonstrates results quickly. Expand systematically, applying lessons from each phase. Clear communication ensures every team member understands how the new solution supports operations.

Modern platforms like monday work management facilitate scalable marketing operations. Centralizing cross-functional workflows accelerates execution, connects planning to outcomes, and prepares teams for future challenges.

Marketing management software categories that drive results

Choosing marketing software requires alignment with organizational workflows, campaign complexity, and growth strategy.

Unified work management platforms

These platforms operate on a core principle: isolation kills efficiency. They connect every team involved in a campaign, from creative and finance to product and legal, creating a single source of truth for complex, cross-functional work. This approach transcends basic campaign management to power the entire operational lifecycle.

A unified platform provides the foundation to run your marketing department like a business, offering the context and visibility leaders need to link marketing activities directly to strategic goals.

For instance, organizations achieve full strategic alignment on monday work management by centralizing all workflows into one digital workspace. This creates a powerful, connected system where:

• Leaders gain real-time visibility into resource allocation and campaign progress.
• Cross-functional collaboration becomes seamless, reducing friction and delays.
• The entire tech stack is simplified, reducing overhead for IT teams.

Traditional marketing automation platforms

Specialists by design, these platforms excel at specific functions such as email automation, lead nurturing, and analytics. They provide robust capabilities for executing high-volume campaigns and tracking detailed customer engagement metrics.

Teams with highly specialized, independent campaign needs often rely on these platforms for their advanced segmentation and A/B testing features. Challenges emerge, however, when campaigns require collaboration across multiple departments.

While powerful in their niche, their specialized focus can inadvertently create information silos. Teams frequently need to add separate project management platforms just to keep workflows aligned, creating friction and fragmented processes.

Specialized point solutions

Think of this approach as à la carte, selecting distinct, highly specialized platforms for each marketing requirement. This enables advanced functionality for social media management, SEO, or content creation, allowing the construction of a tailored tech stack.

The main appeal lies in accessing the most sophisticated features for each specific task. This suits teams with unique workflows or complex requirements in a single domain that general platforms may not fully address.

Yet, this flexibility carries trade-offs. Managing numerous platforms often introduces integration challenges, data inconsistencies, and administrative overhead, which can offset the advantages of specialization.

Enterprise marketing suites

Global enterprises require tools built for massive scale and complexity. These all-in-one suites bundle a vast range of marketing capabilities into a single offering, heavily focused on governance, security, and multi-brand management.

For massive organizations juggling different geographies and business units, this approach provides the control and customization needed to manage complex operations. They are designed to meet strict compliance and security requirements at an enterprise scale.

This power requires significant investment in cost, time, and dedicated administrative resources. While essential for some of the world’s largest companies, the rigidity and lengthy implementation can be a major hurdle for more agile organizations.

AI in marketing software beyond the hype

Artificial intelligence has shifted from a trend to an operational necessity. The goal is not to replace strategic insight but to provide an edge in execution. Effective AI focuses on automating repetitive tasks and surfacing actionable insights, allowing teams to dedicate more time to creative and strategic work.

In practice, AI integrates into existing workflows, addressing specific challenges without requiring advanced data science skills.

Platforms like monday work management bring targeted AI capabilities directly into marketing operations:

• Automate content organization: instantly tag and categorize marketing assets, keeping your content library organized without manual effort.
• Generate instant summaries: transform campaign data or customer feedback into clear, narrative reports that save hours of analysis.
• Orchestrate complex workflows: deploy AI agents that monitor budgets, track project progress, and flag risks, ensuring campaigns run smoothly.

Ultimately, the only AI that matters is the one you can measure. The true test is whether it saves time, improves campaign performance, or unlocks new capabilities. By embedding AI into a central work platform, leaders can directly connect these automated actions to business outcomes, ensuring technology serves one purpose: accelerating results.

Seven steps to consolidate your marketing tools successfully

Marketing teams often accumulate platforms like souvenirs, each solving a single problem while creating a maze of disconnected workflows. This fragmentation slows execution, obscures valuable insights, and inflates costs. This fragmentation slows execution, obscures valuable insights, and inflates costs.

Strategic consolidation transforms that tangled stack into a streamlined engine for growth. It involves building a focused, powerful tech stack that enables teams to move faster, collaborate effortlessly, and deliver remarkable results.

Step 1: inventory your reality

Before building a better future, map your present. Audit every platform your team uses, from officially sanctioned tools to the shadow IT solutions powering single workflows. Are you paying for subscriptions nobody uses?

This inventory serves as your roadmap. Document the essentials for each platform:

• The basics: subscription costs, renewal dates, and active user counts.
• The function: what core job does this platform perform?
• The data: what critical information lives inside it?
• The context: why was it chosen, and which workflows depend on it?

Step 2: spot the overlap

Analyze the inventory to identify capability overlaps and gaps. This reveals opportunities for cost savings and workflow simplification.

• Redundancies: multiple project management platforms, email providers, or analytics systems tracking the same metrics.
• Gaps: manual workarounds such as content approvals in email chains or budget tracking in spreadsheets.

Step 3: decide: keep, kill, or scale

Categorize every platform as “keep,” “kill,” or “scale” based on its strategic value and potential for consolidation. Retain systems with unique capabilities and strong adoption, and eliminate those that are redundant or underused.

The “scale” category is where transformation happens. These platforms can become the foundation of your new, unified stack. For example, organizations gain incredible visibility when they use a flexible platform like monday work management not just for a few campaigns, but as the central operating system for all marketing work.

Step 4: migrate with purpose

Transition to new systems carefully to preserve critical history and active campaigns. Prioritize data by business impact, focusing first on active customer and campaign information.

Document what moves, where it will reside, and validation steps post-transfer. Archive less critical historical information to start with a clean workspace.

Step 5: map the connections

A consolidated stack works best when platforms communicate seamlessly. Map integrations so data flows across systems in real time, ensuring accurate insights.

Plan CRM syncing with marketing automation, and analytics platforms pulling campaign data. Favor platforms with strong native integrations to reduce custom development and technical debt.

Step 6: train for impact

The best stack succeeds only with knowledgeable team members. Offer role-specific training demonstrating how workflows become faster and more effective.

Assign super users for peer support, create feedback channels, and communicate the strategic vision. Understanding the purpose behind changes ensures buy-in and smooth adoption.

Step 7: refine and evolve

Most automation platforms manage execution effectively but miss the strategic connection. A Work OS makes a difference by unifying operations.

Platforms like monday work management provide a central space to manage campaigns, content calendars, and creative production, breaking silos and increasing visibility.

Why monday work management transforms marketing operations

Most automation tools handle execution well, but they often miss the strategic connection. This is where a true Work OS makes all the difference.

Instead of adding another disconnected platform, monday work management gives marketing a central space to build and run any workflow. From campaign planning and content calendars to creative production, every process is unified and visible. This breaks down the silos that keep marketing from proving its full impact.

Connect marketing to organizational goals

Marketing activities can be tied directly to company OKRs. Campaigns, content, and launches align with strategic priorities, providing leadership with reliable insights into performance and resource allocation.

Scale with AI-powered workflows

AI handles repetitive tasks, such as tagging assets or summarizing metrics, freeing team members to focus on creative strategy. Digital Workers autonomously monitor campaign progress, flag risks, and suggest resource adjustments without manual intervention.

Unite teams with customizable processes

Workflows can be adapted to agile sprints or waterfall phases, ensuring the platform grows alongside organizational strategy. Campaign planning, content calendars, and creative request processes can be configured and modified quickly, maintaining flexibility as priorities evolve.

Building a marketing engine that grows with you

Marketing teams face constant challenges: fragmented workflows, disconnected platforms, and limited visibility into how daily campaigns contribute to broader business goals. Modern platforms help centralize operations and turn these obstacles into opportunities for efficiency and impact.

Key benefits include:

• Unified workflows: connect campaigns, content calendars, and creative requests in a single platform, breaking down silos.
• AI-powered automation: automate repetitive tasks like tagging assets, summarizing metrics, and tracking budgets, freeing teams for strategic work.
• Cross-department collaboration: integrate marketing with sales, product, and other teams to ensure seamless information flow.
• Customizable processes: adapt workflows to fit unique marketing methodologies without rigid constraints.
• Strategic visibility: link every campaign and project directly to organizational goals, enabling data-driven decision-making.

By consolidating workflows on a single platform, teams gain efficiency, maintain alignment, and amplify strategic impact,without adding complexity or sacrificing flexibility.

Try monday work management