Best Marketing CRM Software Shortlist
Here’s the list of the best CRM tools for marketing that I’ll cover in this article.
When you run an online business, you have the opportunity to connect with more customers and leads than ever before. But managing these relationships can be tough. That’s where customer relationship management (CRM) software comes in handy. These tools allow you to manage your contacts while providing advanced marketing, sales, and customer support features.
This article will focus on how you can use these tools for marketing. I’ll introduce 10 of the best marketing CRMs and show how they help your business with suggested use cases, key features, pros & cons, and pricing information.
What is Marketing CRM Software?
Marketing CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software is a tool that helps businesses manage and optimize their marketing efforts by centralizing and organizing customer data, interactions, and marketing campaigns. It enables companies to track and analyze customer behavior, preferences, and engagement across various channels, allowing for targeted and personalized marketing campaigns. Marketing CRM software typically includes features such as contact management, lead tracking, email marketing, campaign management, and analytics.
Overviews Of The 10 Best Marketing Software CRM
Here’s a brief description of each marketing CRM to showcase each tool’s best use case, some noteworthy features, and screenshots to give a snapshot of the user interface.
Salesforce CRM
Best for a range of features
Salesforce is one of the biggest CRM platforms out there, and it has versions for sales, marketing, and customer support teams. The marketing features include email, personalization, customer journey building, and ad management.
Why I Picked Salesforce: Salesforce has plenty of extras that you don’t get with other platforms. For example, its mobile marketing software lets you use SMS, MMS, and notifications to reach customers on mobile. And its loyalty management platform helps you create loyalty programs to keep existing customers buying. Salesforce also owns Slack, which means the CRM integrates closely with the popular workplace communication tool. Salesforce has different modules for a variety of use cases, meaning you can scale up to include functionality for AI, customer service, business intelligence, and commerce.
Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include highly customizable platform that can be tailored to meet the specific needs of businesses across various industries. Its robust customization capabilities allow businesses to create personalized workflows, fields, and processes. Plus, Salesforce's AppExchange is a vast marketplace of third-party applications and integrations that extend the functionality of the CRM. This ecosystem provides businesses with access to a wide range of pre-built solutions for marketing, sales, customer service, and analytics.
Integrations include Google Workspace, Slack, Quickbooks, MailChimp, LinkedIn, Docusign, JIRA, HelloSign, Code Science, Active Campaign, and Dropbox.
Pros
- Feature rich & scalable
- Data rich analysis & reporting
- Highly customizable & flexible
Cons
- May be too complex for small biz
- Steep learning curve
HubSpot CRM
Best value for price
Hubspot is a popular CRM software with plenty of features for marketers including a form builder, email tool, and analytics. The CRM features come under the name HubSpot CRM and you can combine this with their Hubspot Marketing Hub, allowing you to keep all your CRM and marketing tools in one, unified platform.
Why I Picked Hubspot CRM: Hubspot CRM is a great tool for collecting contact details through landing pages, forms, and live chat/chatbots. The tool has robust ad management features which is useful if you run paid campaigns. You can create audience lists using your existing CRM data and then send targetted ads that cater to where they are in the buying or relationship journey. You can also track your leads’ activity across your website to see the most engaged prospects. They offer certain tools for free but even the paid plans are very reasonably priced for what you get.
Hubspot CRM Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include forms and pages that are easy to build even if you don’t have coding experience thanks to the built-in editor. Anyone who completes the form will be added to the CRM automatically. The tool comes with features that allow you to easily create professional campaigns using templates or the tool’s drag-and-drop builder. You can use information in your CRM, such as your contact's name, to personalize your messages.
Integrations include Wistia, Datqabox, Seventh Sense, Zerys, PandaDoc, Eventbrite, and Aircall.
Pros
- Easy built-in ad management
- Drag-and-drop content builder
- Provides some free tools
Cons
- Advanced features have learning curve
- Not as customizable as other tools
MailChimp
Best for email campaigns
MailChimp is email marketing software with CRM features. They used to focus pretty exclusively on email campaigns but they have since expanded their feature list to include a landing page builder, a form creator, customer journey visualizations, appointment scheduling, and even website design.
Why I Picked MailChimp: Creating marketing materials is easy thanks to the email, landing page, and form creator, which helps capture leads and then market to them. Each captured lead gets a CRM entry, and you can then build powerful automated marketing campaigns to target customers. There is even plenty of prebuilt automation you can use to simplify the setup process.
MailChimp Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include the audience dashboard, which highlights insights you can use to power your campaigns. For example, it automatically creates customer segments you can use in your email marketing based on metrics like growth sources, email engagement, location, or demographics. MailChimp has a lot of audience segmentation and behavior analytics tools, all of which can hlep you target the right customers with suitable communications when it counts most.
Integrations inlcude QuickBooks Online, Shopify, Stripe, Yelp for Business, LiveChat, SimpleTexting, Zendesk, Wordpress, Mixpanel, Firebase, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Vimeo.
Pros
- Robust audience segmentation tools
- Simple drag-and-drop content builder
- A/B testing & AI-powered recommendations
Cons
- Not suitable for complex CRM needs
- Max 5 seats unless you buy Premium
Keap
Best for SMS/MMS marketing
Keap is a CRM for small businesses and entrepreneurs that helps marketing and sales teams with the entire sales process, from collecting leads to managing customers post-sale. Keap combines email, phone calls, messages, and notes to create a seamless and complete customer relationship experience.
Why I Picked Keap: Keap CRM is a versatile solution that can greatly benefit marketing departments, particularly in the context of text message marketing. With Keap CRM, marketing teams can leverage its automation and segmentation capabilities to design targeted SMS campaigns. By utilizing customer data stored in Keap CRM, marketers can segment their audience based on various criteria such as demographics, purchase history, or engagement levels. Keap CRM also provides tools for creating and managing SMS campaigns, including templates, scheduling, and tracking features.
Keap Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include easy process and workflow automations. Creating automations is simple using the tool’s if and when workflow builder. Just choose the inputs, such as a lead completing a form, and the output, such as sending a welcome message. You can also use data stored in the CRM to automatically personalize contact, for example, by adding a name to an email. Keap also has lead-scoring features. This shows you which leads are the most likely to buy so you can spend your time communicating with the most valuable people.
Integrations include PieSync, AdEspresso, BigCommerce, Bojoro, AppointmentCore, Automate.io, Zapier, Fix Your Funnel, Deadline Funnel, CustomerHub, Formlift, Gmail, Graphly, Imember360, Instapage, JotForm, LeadPages, My Fusion Helper, OptinMonster, Outlook, PlusThis, Privy, QuickBooks, ScheduleOnce, WordPress, and others.
Pros
- Landing page & form builder
- Easy to build automations
- Two-way text messaging
Cons
- Costs extra for more than 3 users
- Pricing may be prohibitive for SMBs
Insightly
Best for lead routing
Insightly is an easy-to-use CRM with plenty of features for marketing teams and other business functions. The marketing features center around helping fill your funnel with quality leads for your marketing or sales teams. Insightly offers both CRM and marketing SaaS modules, so you may consider subscribing to both for a one-two punch.
Why I Picked Insightly: Insightly CRM's lead routing feature is designed to streamline the process of assigning and distributing leads within a sales team. With lead routing, businesses can establish predefined rules and criteria to automatically assign incoming leads to specific team members or sales representatives based on factors like geography, lead source, or industry. This ensures that leads are promptly and efficiently distributed to the most appropriate salesperson. Note: Lead routing is not available on the Plus (lowest) subscription plan, so I'd advise skipping that one.
Insightly Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include a unique relationship linking feature that allows users to create connections between various records, such as contacts, organizations, and projects. This enables businesses to understand and visualize complex relationships between different entities, helping them identify key influencers, track affiliations, and establish a comprehensive network view of their contacts and organizations.
Integrations include ADP Workforce Now, Asana, BambooHR, Calendly, DocuSign, Drift, Jira, Microsoft Power BI, Shopify, Slack, WooComerce, Workday, Sage Intacct, and other tools.
Pros
- All-in-one marketing, sales, service
- Lead scoring & routing capabilities
- Tons of training resources
Cons
- Integrations cost extra
- Convoluted pricing schema
Marketo
Best for large enterprises
Adobe Marketo is a leading marketing automation software platform that helps businesses drive customer engagement and generate quality leads. With its powerful suite of tools and features, Adobe Marketo enables marketers to create personalized campaigns, nurture leads, analyze marketing performance, and optimize their overall marketing strategies.
Why I Picked Marketo: Marketo can be utilized as a marketing CRM by large enterprises to effectively manage and optimize their marketing activities. As a marketing automation platform, Marketo enables large enterprises to consolidate and centralize customer data, providing a comprehensive view of customer interactions and preferences. With its robust lead management and nurturing capabilities, Marketo helps large enterprises track and engage with leads throughout the customer journey, ensuring personalized and targeted marketing communications. The platform's scalability allows for managing a large volume of leads and creating complex multi-channel campaigns.
Marketo Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include robust account-based marketing capabilities, allowing businesses to target and engage specific accounts or companies rather than individual leads. This feature enables marketers to align their efforts with the goals of key accounts, personalize messaging, and coordinate marketing and sales activities. Marketo allows marketers to track and analyze campaign effectiveness, lead generation, customer engagement, and revenue attribution.
Integrations include Salesforce, Microsoft platforms, SAP, Google platforms, Facebook, LinkedIn, Level3, BrightTalk, On24, Zoom, Video, ReadyTalk, TwentyThree, GoToWebinar, and CiscoWebex. You can also connect to the Adobe Experience Cloud for additional first-party tools.
Pros
- Robust account-based marketing
- Highly customizable & scalable
- Enterprise-grade functionality & security
Cons
- Pricing may be prohibitive for small biz
- Comparatively outdated, clunky UI
NetSuite CRM
Best for customizability
Netsuite CRM is a powerful marketing CRM software that helps businesses manage their customer relationships and optimize marketing efforts. With its comprehensive suite of features including lead management, campaign automation, and customer segmentation, Netsuite CRM provides businesses with a unified platform to drive customer engagement and track marketing performance.
Why I Picked NetSuite: Netsuite CRM serves as a versatile marketing CRM solution, offering extensive customizability to cater to the specific needs of different industry niches and businesses of varying sizes. It provides a flexible platform that can be tailored to accommodate industry-specific processes, terminology, and workflows. Whether a business operates in manufacturing, retail, services, or any other sector, Netsuite CRM allows for customization to align with unique requirements. Furthermore, Netsuite CRM scales effectively to support businesses of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises, enabling them to manage customer relationships, execute targeted marketing campaigns, and track marketing performance.
NetSuite Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include seamless integration with enterprise resource planning (ERP) functionality. This integration allows businesses to unify their customer data, sales processes, and financial operations in a single system. Netsuite CRM offers scalability and robust customizability to meet the evolving needs of businesses. As companies grow or their requirements change, Netsuite CRM can easily adapt and scale to accommodate increased data volume, user count, and business complexity.
Integrations come with an extra cost via NetSuite Connector, a SaaS dedicated to building two-way connections between popular software platforms. NetSuite's website doesn't list tools by name but their promise integrations with inventory management software, order management software, warehouse management software, 3PL services, and accounting solutions.
Pros
- Highly customizable & scalable
- Upsell & quote management
- Integration with enterprise resource planning tools
Cons
- Many features & services cost extra
- Integrations not included in the base price
Freshworks
Best chat & phone tools
Freshworks is a customer experience platform with a variety of SaaS solutions, including Freshmarketer and Freshsales. Freshsales is the subscription service that includes robust CRM but, like other tools on this list, you may ultimately find buying into both the marketing and CRM packages simultaneously to be your best bet.
Why I Picked Freshsales: Freshsales is a marketing CRM platform that offers robust chat and call tools, enhancing customer engagement and improving marketing effectiveness. With its chat functionality, businesses can proactively engage website visitors, capture leads, and provide real-time support. This feature enables marketers to initiate conversations, qualify leads, and guide prospects through the customer journey. Plus, Freshsales' call tools enable users to make and receive calls directly from the CRM, log call details, and track call outcomes.
Freshsales Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include AI-powered lead scoring capabilities that help businesses prioritize and focus on high-quality leads. The system analyzes lead data, engagement patterns, and customer behavior to assign a score that indicates the likelihood of conversion. FReshsales also does phone support, handling voice interactions with high-quality calls, auto-logging and recording calls, and monitoring metrics. You can plan and manage call routing, greetings, and voicemails during holidays.
Integrations include Mailchimp, Segment, Office 365 Calendar, Hubspot Marketing, PieSync, Google Workspace, Google Calendar, Google Contacts, Quickbooks, and Xero. Additional connections are available via Zapier, but that requires a separate subscription and may incur additional costs.
Pros
- Add functionality with other Freshworks tools
- Auto-route conversations to agents
- Create custom marketing & sales pipelines
Cons
- Lacks some advanced features
- Costs extra for 1001+ emails
Nutshell
Best for B2B marketing
Nutshell CRM is a user-friendly and intuitive customer relationship management software designed to help businesses effectively manage their sales processes and customer interactions. With its easy-to-use interface, comprehensive sales automation features, and robust reporting capabilities, Nutshell CRM provides businesses with the tools they need to streamline sales activities and nurture customer relationships
Why I Picked Nutshell: Nutshell can be utilized as a powerful marketing CRM for B2B organizations, providing valuable features and functionalities to enhance marketing efforts. With Nutshell, B2B marketers can efficiently manage and nurture leads, track marketing campaigns, and analyze their marketing performance. The platform allows for easy lead capture and segmentation, enabling marketers to categorize and target leads based on industry, company size, or authority level. Nutshell's email marketing capabilities facilitate personalized and targeted email campaigns, while its robust reporting and analytics features provide insights into lead generation and campaign effectiveness.
Nutshell Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include unique contact management features. You can easily import contacts from any source and the team will even help you get set up. You can then add new leads via online forms, phone contacts, or even scanning a business card with your phone camera. The tool will automatically bring in data from around the web when you upload a contact. For example, it will add their social media accounts, and location.
Integrations include Intercom, Mailchimp, Outlook, PandaDoc, Quickbooks, RingCentral, Slack, Unbounce, Wufoo, Zendesk, Gmail, and Microsoft Office 365.
Pros
- Unique B2B marketing focus
- Click-to-call functionality
- Built-in collaboration tools
Cons
- UI can be cramped & cluttered
- Lean training resources
monday.com
Best for ease of use
monday sales CRM is a flexible and customizable customer relationship management software that empowers businesses to efficiently manage their customer interactions and sales processes. With its intuitive interface and robust features, monday.com CRM helps teams centralize customer data, track leads, and collaborate with team members.
Why I Picked monday sales CRM: monday.com CRM offers a user-friendly platform that can greatly benefit marketing teams. Its intuitive interface and easy-to-use features enable marketers to streamline their workflows, collaborate seamlessly, and manage campaigns effectively. With monday.com CRM, marketing teams can track and manage leads, monitor campaign progress, and assign tasks to team members effortlessly. The platform's visual boards and customizable templates provide a clear overview of marketing projects and allow for easy tracking of tasks and deadlines.
monday sales CRM Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include a strong emphasis on collaboration and communication. The platform provides a centralized hub where teams can easily collaborate, share updates, and communicate in real-time. Features such as @mentions, file sharing, and activity tracking enhance team collaboration, fostering better communication and seamless coordination.
Integrations include over 1000 third-party tools, including apps like Slack, Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar, Jira, GitHub, Trello, Dropbox, Typeform and many more, accessible through a paid plan with Zapier (separate plan and costs).
Pros
- Unlimited pipelines, contracts, boards
- Merge duplicate data automatically
- Good iOS & Android apps
Cons
- Plan & pricing structure changes frequently
- Lead scoring locked to highest paid plan
The 10 Best Marketing Software CRM Summary
Tool | Free Option | Price | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Salesforce CRM Best for a range of features | 14-day free trial | From $25/user/month (billed annually) | Visit Website |
2 | HubSpot CRM Best value for price | 14-day free trial + free plan | From $20/month | Visit Website |
3 | MailChimp Best for email campaigns | 30-day free trial + free plan available | From $13/month | Visit Website |
4 | Keap Best for SMS/MMS marketing | 14-day free trial | From $169/month | Visit Website |
5 | Insightly Best for lead routing | Free trial available | From $29/user/month (billed annually) | Visit Website |
6 | Marketo Best for large enterprises | Free demo | From $895/month | Visit Website |
7 | NetSuite CRM Best for customizability | Free demo | $999/month | Visit Website |
8 | Freshworks Best chat & phone tools | 21-day free trial + free plan | From $19/user/month | Visit Website |
9 | Nutshell Best for B2B marketing | 14-day free trial | From $19/user/month | Visit Website |
10 | monday.com Best for ease of use | 14-day free trial + free plan available | From $8/user/month (billed annually, min 3 seats) | Visit Website |
Other Options
Here are a few more of the best CRM software for marketing that didn’t make the top list
- Creatio
Best multichannel marketing platform
- Pipedrive CRM
Best custom sales pipeline
- Zoho CRM
Best for social media connections
- Ontraport
Best CRM web forms
- ActiveCampaign
Best mobile app
- ClickUp
Best free CRM for small teams
- SendinBlue
Best email templates
- SharpSpring
Best marketing automation tools for SMBs
- Lucrativ
Best cloud-based auto dialer
- amoCRM
Best for simple business needs
Comparison Criteria for Marketing CRM Software
Here is my process and considerations when evaluating marketing CRM software for placement on this list. First, I built a shortlist of software vendors with informative and modern websites, positive user reviews, and maybe even awards for customer satisfaction or usability. To whittle this down to a top 10, I researched each software using vendor websites, online tutorials, and free trials. With years of marketing experience, I was able to look at each software and think, "Is this something I would use? Is this something I would give my teams to use?"
The following is the list of requirements I considered when making my final picks.
Core Functionality
Marketing CRM software will all be a bit different so I want to be transparent in what was required to make it onto this list. To be considered, the software must offer the following core functionalities:
- Ability to store and manage customer data, like customer name, contact details, purchase history, preferences, and interactions across multiple touchpoints.
- Helps businesses plan, execute, and track marketing campaigns efficiently. It offers features like email marketing, social media integration, lead nurturing, and automation tools.
Key Features
Marketing CRM software typically offers a range of key features that empower businesses to effectively manage their marketing efforts. Some of the key features include:
- Contact Management: The ability to store and manage customer information, including contact details, demographics, and interactions, in a centralized database.
- Lead Tracking and Management: Tracking and managing leads throughout the customer journey, from initial contact to conversion, allowing for effective lead nurturing and conversion optimization.
- Campaign Management: Planning, executing, and tracking marketing campaigns across various channels, including email marketing, social media, and digital advertising.
- Automation and Workflows: Automating repetitive marketing tasks, such as sending follow-up emails, scheduling campaigns, and assigning tasks, to improve efficiency and save time.
- Analytics and Reporting: Generating insights and reports on campaign performance, customer behavior, conversion rates, and other key metrics to evaluate marketing effectiveness and make data-driven decisions.
- Segmentation and Personalization: Segmenting the customer base based on various criteria and creating personalized marketing messages and campaigns tailored to specific customer segments.
- Social Media Listening and Engagement: Monitoring and engaging with customers on social media platforms, tracking mentions, comments, and messages to maintain an active social media presence and respond to customer inquiries.
- ROI Tracking: Tracking the return on investment (ROI) of marketing campaigns and initiatives to evaluate their financial impact and optimize resource allocation.
- Mobile Accessibility: Providing mobile access to the CRM software, allowing marketers to manage campaigns, access customer data, and track performance on the go.
- Add-Ons: Ability to add functionality to the software to increase CRM capabilities or include more marketing-focused features.
- Custom Fields: Customize field and data types (numbers, text, phone numbers, images, social handles) to better sort contact data.
These features collectively enable businesses to streamline their marketing processes, enhance customer engagement, and achieve better marketing outcomes.
Usability
An intuitive and user-friendly interface allows marketers to easily navigate through the software, access features, and perform tasks without unnecessary complications or confusion. For instance, a drag-and-drop email builder enables marketers to create visually appealing email campaigns swiftly. Customizable dashboards and reporting features make it easier to view and analyze key metrics and performance data. These user-centric features and capabilities ensure that marketers can utilize the CRM software effortlessly, maximize productivity, and focus on delivering impactful marketing campaigns.
Software Integrations
Software integrations play a vital role in the selection of marketing CRM software as they enable seamless connectivity and data exchange between different tools and platforms. For instance, integrations with email marketing platforms like Mailchimp or Constant Contact allow for streamlined campaign execution and audience segmentation. Integration with popular social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter enables marketers to manage social media campaigns and track engagement directly from the CRM software.
People Also Ask
Here are a few questions I wanted to cover for those who might be new to marketing CRM software, or for those that just want more information.
How much does marketing CRM software cost?
What is CRM software in marketing?
What is an example of marketing CRM?
What are the benefits of marketing CRM software?
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- Ecommerce Email Marketing Software
- Marketing Automation Software
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The Takeaway
This article contains some of the best marketing CRMs available. Each has a relatively similar feature set, with the biggest differences being specific integrations, pricing, or functionality. To choose, create a list of the exact features you need and then take advantage of free trials or demos to find out more about each one.