HubSpot vs. Marketo: A Comprehensive Comparison

The goal of this article is to provide you with a comprehensive comparison of HubSpot and Marketo, looking not only at their features, user experience, and price, but other factors as well.

Content

Introduction

HubSpot vs. Marketo: Basic Comparison

Pricing

Usability User-friendliness

Lead Management

Email Campaigns

Sales Forecasting

Strengthening Ties

Conclusion

FAQ

Introduction

The way businesses connect with their audience today has changed significantly in recent years. At the core of this transformation are marketing automation platforms that streamline, automate and evaluate marketing activities and workflows, enabling companies to operate more efficiently and increase their revenue faster. 

As more and more companies realize the importance of these platforms, more and more players are emerging in the field to stake their claim. We're going to focus on HubSpot and Marketo today.

Both platforms offer reliable tools and features that cater to a wide range of marketing needs, from small businesses to large corporations. As with any technology investment, however, the biggest differences are in the smallest details. Which platform offers better tools for email marketing? How do the prices differ? And most importantly, which one best fits your business goals? These questions are clearly answered here.

HubSpot vs. Marketo: Basic Comparison

HubSpot is a CRM platform offering comprehensive tools for managing contacts and sales pipelines, enhanced with additional "Hubs" to support marketing, sales and customer service. It has pricing suitable for beginners and advanced packages for larger companies.

In contrast, Marketo is a sophisticated marketing automation platform that integrates seamlessly with major CRM systems such as HubSpot. It is best suited for medium to large organizations with complex marketing needs.

Pricing

If you're looking for a free CRM tool, HubSpot is a winner because Marketo doesn't have its own CRM, free or paid.

Marketo doesn't disclose pricing for its four packages on its site. To make a direct cost comparison between HubSpot and Marketo, you'll need to request a price estimate from Marketo, depending on the size of your database. Once you receive it, you can compare it to HubSpot's published pricing plans, which range from $18 to $3,300 per month and are scaled based on the number of users and volume of marketing leads managed.

Usability User-friendliness

Both HubSpot and Marketo are known for their user-friendly platform thanks to their modern, user-centric dashboards. However, mastering the advanced features of both platforms can take some time to master.

If you're looking to improve your proficiency with HubSpot, consider enrolling in courses offered by HubSpot Academy, and for those looking to expand their knowledge of the Marketo system, Marketo University offers relevant training.

HubSpot Academy:

Marketo University:

Lead Management

HubSpot's basic CRM offers the advanced tools needed to organize and control your contacts and leads. Each HubSpot package includes a pipeline for closing deals, and the number of pipelines you can service increases with advanced plans. Tools such as account-based management and automated lead distribution are included in the Professional and Enterprise packages.

In Marketo, lead management is available at both the individual user level and at the larger account level, which is beneficial for companies that use ABM strategies. In addition to lead management, Marketo also helps map the entire customer journey, from initial contact to closing the deal.

Email Campaigns

Both Marketo and HubSpot allow for 1:1 emailing, resulting in personalized interactions with individual contacts, leads and sales reps. With both platforms, you can create comprehensive, customized email marketing campaigns.

HubSpot's free and basic plans come with only the default email automation features. In contrast, the Professional and Enterprise packages provide unlimited sophisticated automation features, A/B testing, multi-channel marketing automation, email status reports, and 1,000 to 1,500 active mailing lists. You can track the results of your email campaigns at any time through the HubSpot reporting interface.

HubSpot Email Template:

With Market, you can design customizable email campaigns enriched with dynamic content to meet all your promotion requirements. Whether you use a simple drag-and-drop email creation tool or an existing template, you can create emails that resonate. Implement personalized emails triggered by user behavior, inactivity, segmentation efforts, or broader campaign paths. Marketo's tailored interface allows you to instantly track metrics and results for individual campaigns.

Marketo Email Template:

Sales Forecasting

HubSpot provides users with standard and customized forecasting and reporting options. However, the sales forecasting feature is exclusive to premium packages, specifically the Professional and Enterprise plans. Marketo, on the other hand, offers content and audience forecasting features in its highest packages, but does not provide enhanced sales-focused forecasting capabilities.

Strengthening Ties

Marketo enables marketers to tailor messages and pinpoint customer segments by evaluating preferences, behaviors and their position in the purchase journey, making it easier to deliver relevant and engaging content. Additionally, Marketo's site personalization capability ensures that each site visitor receives content specifically tailored to their unique needs and inclinations. It's worth noting, however, that site personalization comes with other add-ons.

In addition to the aforementioned, Marketing Hub Enterprise also provides analytics tools such as discerning where your revenue is coming from and insights into customer journeys, which helps improve the customer experience. Additionally, through personalized symbols, content can be customized for individual contacts based on their characteristics, which can increase engagement rates in web and email campaigns.

Conclusion

For those looking for a premium and flexible CRM tool that includes extensive marketing automation, sales management and customer service features, HubSpot is the best choice.

HubSpot caters to small businesses and individual entrepreneurs with its free and cost-effective starter plans. For mid-size and large businesses, the feature-packed Professional and Enterprise plans provide comprehensive pipeline management and analytics tools that are essential to their marketing technology.

For medium and large enterprises that already use CRM - preferably HubSpot, Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics 365 - Marketo seems like a compelling choice, especially for managing complex email campaigns thanks to its powerful automation features.

However, it should be noted that in today's ever-evolving world of digital marketing, often the best results can be achieved by leveraging the strengths of multiple platforms simultaneously, and in our opinion, this is exactly the case. So consider the possibility of integrating HubSpot and Marketo. By linking these two modern tools, you can benefit from HubSpot's comprehensive approach to CRM and inbound marketing while leveraging Marketo's advanced automation features to execute complex email campaigns. This combination can help you achieve the results you desire, leverage the best of both systems, and tailor a strategy to fit your unique business goals.

And if you're still not sure which tool would be the best fit for your company, don't hesitate to schedule a free consultation with our CRM specialists, who will be happy to help you choose the best option. In case you're deciding between multiple CRM tools, you can also read our article on Comparison of the Most Popular CRM Systems for 2023, where we compare SalesForce, ActiveCampaign, HubSpot and Pipedrive, to name a few.

FAQ

1. What is HubSpot and Marketo?

Quality marketing automation platforms that offer tools for email marketing, lead management, analytics, etc.

2. How do their pricing structures compare?

Both offer pricing packages; check their websites for details.

3. Which one is better for email marketing?

Both are very well sophisticated; the decision depends on your specific needs.

4. What are their user interfaces like?

HubSpot: Intuitive and friendly 

Marketo: Advanced and more complex

5. Do they offer software integrations?

Yes, both support a variety of integrations with other platforms.

6. Can I switch from one to the other?

Yes, although the process may require third party support or services.