Real Inbound Blog - Close the HubSpot Adoption Gap

HubSpot vs Marketo

Written by Mark Hullin | Jan 31, 2022 1:10:25 PM

An important aspect of any business is choosing the right Marketing Automation platform. The following article compares two of the best marketing platforms - HubSpot and Marketo - to help you decide between them. 

HubSpot Marketing Hub

This is a marketing automation system that collects data from your customer base and builds an actionable sales funnel within its CRM powered framework. Everything from attracting attention, converting leads, and reporting is streamlined into one central location. Integrate with third-party apps for increased functionality, innovative use of content delivery, and timely deliverables to website visitors based on their preferences. It’s no wonder why it helped create over £1 billion in revenue in 2021 – and it doesn’t look as if things are slowing down any time soon!

 In G2 Crowd's ranking of Best Product for Marketers, HubSpot is number 1 in Marketing Automation.

 Marketo

 Marketo is a diverse tool that offers flexibility when it comes to email nurturing and automation and requires no costly integrations or other tools to help with marketing, sales, or customer success. In addition to a complete email solution, Marketo also offers social media management software and landing page creation capabilities without the need for any additional integrations or tools.

 It uses machine learning to determine the customer’s readiness state and deliver the right message, content, or product at the right time. Its robust customer engagement processes, through nurturing campaigns and automation chains, help fulfill different business requirements, from going cross-selling to upselling!

 The G2 Crowd placed Marketo as the number 8 company in Marketing Automation, while Gartner ranked the company at number 3

 Marketo Pricing vs HubSpot Pricing

 There is more to a product than the label price. Let's look at a standard HubSpot subscription and the total cost of ownership for each tool to help you understand the difference.  

 

HUBSPOT MARKETING HUB ENTERPRISE

MARKETO

     

Users/Seats

Pricing based on your organisation - add as many users as you need (source)

25 Users included upgrade for more (source)

Contacts

You only pay for leads that you market to

Pay per contact in your database

CRM

Integrate HubSpot Sales Hub with other leading CRMs, including Salesforce, and experience a seamless experience right away

 

Utilise their CRM technology exclusively for your marketing team

Access leading CRMs, including Salesforce (source) compatibility

Implementation

Enterprise onboarding is priced at £4,900 flat. There is an option for technical consulting services (source)

(source) Pricing for launch packages ranges from £4,000 to £15,000

Platform Maintenance

Streamline your platform with one source code (source)

Integrate your CRM, Help Desk, CMS, etc. with your in-house tech stack.

Customer Support Costs

Professional and Enterprise plans come with phone and email support (source)

(source) Includes basic support, extra charges apply for full service

HubSpot vs. Marketo: Capabilities

Comparing HubSpot and Marketo on several key marketing metrics.

  • Marketing Transformation
  • Ranking against Search Engines
  • Tools to attract visitors

HubSpot Marketing Hub is a whole new approach to digital marketing. With tools that help you attract and nurture leads, along with comprehensive customer relationship management (CRM) functionality, it’s everything you need to create engaging content, run your digital advertising, grow your social following and promote content across the web. HubSpot can even host video and chatbots on your site – all in one place.

 Marketo is primarily designed for traditional email campaigns and doesn’t enjoy the benefits of a complete marketing solution. Accordingly, fully integrating features like web forms, landing pages, and blogs with your emails campaigns may require additional tools and effort. 

 Marketo is primarily designed for traditional email campaigns, giving it an edge in terms of versatility, and offering a singular focus on emailing. An unfortunate side effect of this is that it may have trouble dealing with the other components of a complete marketing solution. Accordingly, implementing new features like web forms, landing pages, and blogs to your emails campaigns may require additional tools and effort.

Lead conversion and nurturing

 HubSpot is like a portfolio manager who manages all your content creation, automation, email, and CRM in one software. Everything that you need is available at an easily accessible visual level, and it doesn't require a single line of code - so no need to spend time mastering confusing tech lingo when working with HubSpot.

 HubSpot is an inbound marketing and sales platform that helps organisations attract traffic, leads, and customers through content for their website or blog. HubSpot’s Marketing Hub is a powerful tool with all the tools needed to conceptualise and experiment with your inbound strategy on any level, from the individual outreach email to the creation of a holistic campaign that nurtures prospects into buying customers. Whether you're an entrepreneur starting up or a Fortune 500 company looking for a long-term solution rather than hiring internal staff ... this is the place to start.

Despite having core capabilities of marketing automation, such as sending emails, Marketo does not work effectively without integration with CMS, CRM, and other tools. 

 You will need to write code to integrate most integrations into your applications, and this can take a significant amount of time.

CRM-driven marketing

Marketing Hub from HubSpot is the next evolution of marketing management, focused on managing everything that matters to your business. Powered by our latest technology stack and fueled by new best practices, Marketing Hub is a powerful online marketing platform that lets you attract potential customers and convert them into paying clients. HubSpot Marketing helps your company generate more sales leads, get more customers in the door, increase revenue with existing customers, and give back to your community.

 Marketo is one of the few vendors which have invested significantly into deep integrations with many leading CRM solutions like Salesforce, and in additional configurations, it may also be used for several purposes regarding the marketing techniques you are aiming to conduct.

 Despite this, the company was acquired by Adobe yet didn't add an organic CRM platform but invested heavily in its core features.

Setting up Your Marketing Machine

HubSpot comes with all the tools you need to build your marketing machine and create a delightful customer experience. HubSpot is a unified, end-to-end digital platform for companies big and small that helps businesses find, attract, and convert customers at scale—and measure what matters. Combining HubSpot’s Marketing Automation platform, content management system, and customer relationship management into one easy-to-use hub includes everything you need to digitally grow your business.

 With Marketo, a few individuals oversee a company's tech stacking. The gatekeeping of technical skills, initiative, and availability determine your future growth, rather than democratising access. 

 By using this model, marketing initiatives are bogged down by sales or service data rather than being integrated into the marketing process. 

ROI Evaluation

HubSpot is like your checkbook. With HubSpot, you can always keep track of what's going on with your project. Not only do you have access to key metrics that communicate the success of your project, but you also have insight into what might negatively impact growth overall. Your analytics are right there at your fingertips and not restricted to any one program or website, thanks to HubSpot's automated efforts in integration - now every customer interaction can be traced directly back to revenue, making strategic decisions easier than ever before.

 Marketo includes robust reporting capabilities, such as engagement analytics and revenue reports. However, the reporting requires manual configuration, which can be time-consuming.

Account-based marketing (ABM)

HubSpot’s suite of tools can help you set up your account-based marketing strategy with a great deal of flexibility. There is an option for manually finding and targeting potential customers within your pipeline, as well as another for letting HubSpot’s algorithms do the heavy lifting for you. With one or the other of these options, businesses can easily access a variety of analytics linked to their accounts, such as who their most important contacts are and what they trust most in terms of methods related to B2B prospects. HubSpot also provides free templates that can be used to present information in a way that will appeal to CEOs, marketing managers, or people who have some responsibility for SEO-related issues.

 An add-on of Marketo's ABM allows you to unlock these features, and you'll need to purchase individual licenses for each user who needs access. Your admins will need to coordinate closely on integrations and ensure users know how both systems work so you can align Sales and Marketing.

Unsurpassed Customer Service

HubSpot is dedicated to helping customers grow their businesses with the best possible experience from day one. Our award-winning Customer Success and Support Teams are available to all customers, offer phone and email support at no extra charge for Pro and Enterprise customers, and are here to help you every step of the way as your business grows. For quick management tips and fresh ideas about marketing fundamentals, HubSpot Academy is also accessible at your fingertips.

 With Marketo subscriptions, basic support is included, and additional support can be acquired for a fee. Marketo support consistently scores lower than the average within the industry, despite this.