According to an article published on Forbes, in this age of digital marketing, it is imperative to provide appropriate content as well as touchpoints at the right time. Therefore, it is no wonder that most worldwide businesses and websites look for content management systems (CMS) in some kind or other.
There are many HubSpot alternatives when you look for a CRM. When ascertaining which marketing automation platform is best for your business, there is no dearth of platforms. Two of such popular platforms are HubSpot and Marketo.
When it comes to HubSpot and Marketo, you will require a careful understanding of every firm’s abilities to arrive at the best decision for your business promotion efforts. For instance, the market share of HubSpot is 15.89 percent, while that of Marketo is 2.04 percent.
As far as differences are concerned, it is about pricing and functionality. Read on to learn more about HubSpot vs Marketo.
HubSpot and Marketo: Which is better?
The two software products indeed provide some functionality, options, benefits, and features, and each of these platforms has a good fan following, but there are a couple of differences.
So, let's hop onto them!
Know about the user experience
One aspect that some people say about HubSpot is its user experience. The user experience was meant for business marketers by marketers. It is true that Marketo also has an outstanding user interface with perceptive dashboards as well as navigation; it is a little challenging to get around Marketo than the simple, user-friendly interface of HubSpot.
When it comes to HubSpot, though, it offers a detailed stepwise process so that even non-technical users can navigate or get around the platform quickly and effortlessly. HubSpot focuses on user experience or UX. It has spent a tremendous amount of time on research to develop the platform for enhanced functionality. This commitment to UX is supported because the staff at the company work day and night to boost the platform's efficiency.
As far as Marketo is concerned, the UX focuses more on bigger businesses or companies where specific users within the enterprise depend on particular platform areas. For companies that require deep workflows and analytics, Marketo is the right platform for these businesses.
Opting for the best marketing automation platform comes down to your company's particular requirements and the preferences of users.
HubSpot Training and Support
Before you spend money on a kind of software, you would like to know about the training and support every company provides. Marketo and HubSpot have strong support communities. Then, HubSpot walks the extra mile with its academy as far as training and support are concerned. You will find numerous documents and tutorials available, all prepared for inbound marketers.
The resources do not merely assist users in starting campaigns, but they also offer valuable insights and information on building a winning plan that will work. As far as HubSpot is concerned, it also provides phone support, which is toll-free together with live chat and email support in its portal.
In addition, HubSpot provides certifications in inbound marketing and other relevant topics. The challenge between Marketo vs. HubSpot is which platform is better than the other. Now, that depends on whether a business will embrace Marketo or HubSpot more.
Marketo Support
Marketo provides support too, but users have not always praised it that well. They often complain about the long waiting time and are unable to find relevant or to-the-point answers to their questions or queries. There is partial support with a usual plan, while paid plans have unrestricted support. It means that you need to pay to receive full technical support if you are using Marketo.
However, Marketo does provide numerous resources on the website too. It includes offering its individual training courses called Marketo University.
Content management platform features
One of the mainly crucial features of marketing automation is how it functions as a content management system or CMS.
When it comes to HubSpot, its CMS could be utilized to develop your complete website through drop and drag tool, but you do not need to use it as your CMS if you like any other CMS such as WordPress or WP. You could still utilize the HubSpot to create landing pages as well as blog posts instead of including them these to your business website.
Marketo, though, does not have any CMS. You can use platform to create landing pages, but it does not have the required tools for creating a website or a blog. You will need to develop your website on any other platform and next incorporate it with Marketo.
Social media integration
HubSpot lets users build and plan posts for the majority of social networking sites. You can still post updates on LinkedIn for people, not simply business pages. Using HubSpot lets business marketers know the effect of their social media doings, as the benchmarks could be components of the dashboard.
Marketo lags behind a little in this respect because most of the big companies employ Marketo, and they frequently use any other social media marketing tool to plan, publish and connect on social networking sites. It lacks the classy monitoring and reporting, the tools built just for social media sites.
Therefore, if social media is a huge focal point for your brand, Marketo is not going to offer you the experience you are looking for to take your business to the next level.
Analytics and Reporting
All the things you do in marketing require to be gauged; else, you will not have important data or information to tell you what is fine with your business and what is not. HubSpot and Marketo both come with analytics functionality to monitor your efficiency and distinguish useful data from potential buyers and existing customers. Marketo scores are higher than HubSpot in this regard.
HubSpot offers exhaustive analytics related to each method you employ, while Marketo walks the extra mile with predictive analytics as well as modeling from CRM info and demographics.
HubSpot allows you to build custom reports to zero in on the things that matter most to your brand. This can help you see your return on investment when it comes to marketing efforts based on sales data.
Conclusion
When it comes to the battle between HubSpot vs. Marketo, the choice you make actually depends on your business, focus, how big your audience base is, and how technically skilled your audiences are at a point of time.
Still confused about which CRM would be the best for you in 2021? Do check other HubSpot alternatives like, HubSpot vs Asana, HubSpot vs Mailchimp, and HubSpot vs Zoho. Hope it helps you take the best decision.
Need help setting up HubSpot for your organization? Get in touch with us now and our HubSpot experts will handle the rest for you.