Once you’ve said goodbye to CRM software and entered your first business marketing plan you probably are ready to see whether there are really any tools that you could keep using. A thought to have stayed with you forever is the idea of using simple web marketing tools to drive traffic to your website and hire relevant leads. While this practice may not have worked out yet, a bit of think about it further and this “boring” website may soon start creating a buzz with the right audience.

That is where marketing automation becomes the perfect fit. With over 40 tools in the market these days to choose from, there is absolutely no excuse for selecting the wrong one for your marketing automation needs. After all, here is what you need to know about marketing automation:

How does marketing automation work?

One of the main benefits of marketing automation is that your work can be monitored by experts in a central location. In order to automate the process, you just need to enter the URL of your website and as soon as someone visits the site they will be checked for performance analysis.

You can get these results from the following source:

Google Analytics — Up to 3 logins for a single website!

Facebook Analytics — Up to 2 login privileges per social page

Google Inbox — Up to 1 login permission per email account

Google Adsense — 2+ logins per page

Lookout — 5+ logins per web address and @twitter and @facebook

Lytics — 2+ logins per web address and @twitter and @facebook

Twitter Relevance — Up to 0.9 login account per tweet

Urbanspoon — 6+ login account per location

Who should have access to marketing automation tools?

If you really want automation to work, you need to tap people with the right experience and prove you have done well by the ecosystem before giving them access to automation tools. By defining the criteria, you will be giving them the only means of self-promotion they need and in return you will get a better idea about who the “right fit” for marketing automation comes from.

What is marketing automation?

If you had the pleasure of reading the single sentence description above, you’ve already figured out what marketing automation is: it is a powerful software that automates your website to reach your buyers with your most relevant information and offer them a tailored offering. This is possible because of the software that has been built to provide the best user experience based on their past browser habits and responses.

This technology makes it possible to run on most any website without to spending a lot of time on design. What you need to understand here is that in marketing automation, the “work” is a lot simpler than it seems. First, you will need to identify the best marketing automation tools that will optimize your website for maximum performance. Also, it is necessary to improve the click tracking tools you will need to be able to make this software run automatically.

How can you start using marketing automation?

In a nutshell, marketing automation is a software that allows you to maintain a steady flow of traffic to your website by categorizing it according to your follower’s preferences. The software constantly updates the content displayed to your customers in real time and will optimize the experience for your visitors so they don’t realize that they are on a random site.

How can you choose the best marketing automation tool for your website?

When it comes to choosing the right marketing automation software you need to go through the following steps:

Find an expert in your industry who can guide you to the best tool you’ll find out within your budget.

Check out what people in your industry are using and rate it on their satisfaction. Use your own judgement.

Review how much of the latest and greatest product is still available at a price you can afford.

Once you have chosen the first tool that will provide you with the set of benefits that you are looking for, then go through the other options available to make your case to your peers.

This article was written for HubSpot, a company that offers the following website automation solutions: