Selling to another business is rarely as simple as sending a discount code and waiting for the sale.
B2B buyers often take weeks or months to decide. They may visit your site several times, download content, involve other decision-makers, and speak to sales before they’re ready to buy.
As I saw in my decade managing campaigns for B2B clients, a platform built mainly for newsletters or ecommerce campaigns can struggle to manage that kind of journey.
The right platform should help you capture leads, nurture them with relevant content, identify the strongest opportunities, and hand them over to sales at the right moment. And while B2B marketing automation platforms are built to do exactly that, the challenge is that many are built for large enterprises (with the price and complexity to match).
So, for this guide, I’ve focused on tools that offer strong automation and CRM features, without requiring an enterprise budget or a dedicated administrator.
What Features Should a B2B Marketing Automation Platform Offer?
Here are the main features I looked for:
- Advanced automation workflows: Multi-step journeys with triggers, conditions, branching, delays, and automated actions
- Lead nurturing and personalization: Segmentation and personalized content based on behavior, company data, and funnel stage
- Lead scoring and routing: Tools that identify sales-ready leads and assign them to the right person or pipeline
- CRM and sales alignment: A built-in CRM or strong integration that keeps marketing and sales data connected
- Lead generation and multichannel engagement: Forms, landing pages, website tracking, chat, and other lead capture tools
- Reporting and attribution: Reports that connect campaigns to leads, pipeline, and revenue
To help you find the right fit, I’ll compare five platforms across these areas, while also considering ease of use, pricing, integrations, and AI features.
Let’s get started!
Best B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: Our Top 5
Based on my testing, here are the top 6 marketing automation platforms for small-to-medium B2B businesses:
| Platform | Best for |
|---|---|
| ActiveCampaign | Advanced marketing automation |
| HubSpot | All-in-one marketing and CRM |
| Brevo | Affordable multichannel automation |
| Zoho Marketing Automation | Customizable automation at an affordable price |
| EngageBay | Small teams wanting a low-cost suite |
Let’s take a closer look at each one to help you decide which one best fits into your sales and marketing strategy.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign has long been one of our top choices for businesses that need more than a few basic email sequences. We’ve found few platforms offer the same range of automation triggers, conditions and actions.
That makes it a strong fit for B2B companies with longer sales cycles. A prospect’s email engagement, website activity, lead score and deal status can all determine what happens next, from sending relevant content to creating a sales task.
Just note that its CRM is no longer included with the standard marketing plans. You’ll need an Enhanced CRM add-on to connect campaigns with deals, pipelines and sales outreach, which can push up the overall cost.
Automation workflows
This is where ActiveCampaign really stands out. Its visual builder supports triggers such as form submissions, email clicks, website visits, score changes and deal updates.
For example, you could increase a lead’s score after they visit your pricing page, send them an industry-specific case study, and create a sales task once they reach a set threshold.
In my experience, there are very few workflows you can’t build. Hundreds of pre-made recipes and an AI automation assistant make setup easier, although the sheer number of options can initially feel overwhelming.
Using ActiveCampaign Intelligence to automate round-robin deal assignment
Lead nurturing and personalization
ActiveCampaign offers much more flexibility than a standard newsletter platform when it comes to deciding who receives what. You can segment contacts using lists, tags, custom fields, email engagement, website activity, tracked events, scores and CRM data.
These criteria can also be used within automations, allowing contacts to follow different paths according to their interests, behavior or stage in the sales process.
Its email marketing tools include conditional content, which lets you display different copy or offers inside the same email based on what you know about each recipient. Predictive sending can also choose an appropriate delivery time for individual contacts on eligible plans.
Lead scoring, qualification and routing
ActiveCampaign supports both contact and deal scoring. You can add or subtract points for actions such as clicking an email, visiting an important page or becoming inactive, and scores can expire so that old engagement doesn’t distort the results.
Once a score reaches a chosen threshold, ActiveCampaign can start a nurture sequence, create or update a deal, notify a salesperson, or assign a task.
CRM and sales alignment
Managing deal pipelines in ActiveCampaign
With the Enhanced CRM add-on, you get customizable pipelines, deal records, sales tasks, and automated one-to-one emails.
The main advantage is how closely the CRM connects with the automation builder. A form submission can create a deal, while a change in deal stage can trigger an email, update a score or assign the next sales task.
Lead generation and multichannel engagement
ActiveCampaign includes forms, landing pages, website tracking and event tracking. These tools can capture lead data and feed it directly into your segments, scores and automations.
It also supports SMS, WhatsApp and transactional email, although some channels require separate add-ons or usage fees. Its 1,000+ integrations make it easy to connect webinar software, scheduling tools and other B2B applications.
The forms and landing pages are functional, but I found their design experience less polished than ActiveCampaign’s automation tools.
Reporting and attribution
ActiveCampaign’s deal reports
Reporting covers campaigns, automations, contact engagement and sales pipelines. You can also track conversions and the touchpoints that contributed to a lead or customer:
However, advanced attribution and custom reporting require one of the higher-tier plans. I’ve also found the reporting less intuitive than the automation builder, so finding the right data can take some familiarization.
What we like:
- Exceptionally flexible automation builder
- Strong segmentation and personalization
- Contact and deal scoring
- Closely connected marketing and sales workflows
- Extensive integrations
Where ActiveCampaign could improve:
- CRM features cost extra
- The learning curve can be steep
- Pricing rises with contacts and add-ons
- Forms, landing pages and reporting could be more intuitive
Pricing:
ActiveCampaign offers three base plans with email marketing and automation included:
- Plus, which starts at $59/mo
- Pro, which starts at $89/mo, and
- Enterprise, which starts at $159/mo.
To add the CRM layer, you’ll need to choose from one of the following add-ons:
- Pipelines CRM, which starts at $49/mo
- Sales Engagement CRM, which starts at $85/mo
Discounts for annual plans are available. More information about ActiveCampaign’s pricing is available in our guide.
Best for: ActiveCampaign is best for small and medium-sized B2B businesses that need sophisticated lead nurturing and a closely automated handover between marketing and sales.
It offers much more depth than most SMB email tools, without the complexity of an enterprise platform such as Marketo. However, it may be overkill if you only need newsletters and a simple sales pipeline.
> Try ActiveCampaign for free for 14 days
HubSpot
HubSpot is one of the strongest options for B2B companies that want marketing and sales to work from the same customer data. It was a popular choice at the marketing agencies I previously worked for because it could support very different sales and marketing processes without relying on a patchwork of separate tools.
Unlike platforms that started mainly as email marketing software, HubSpot is built around its CRM. Website visits, form submissions, marketing emails, sales conversations, deals and support activity can all appear on the same contact or company record. This connected approach is particularly useful for growing businesses.
The catch is pricing. HubSpot’s Free and Starter plans only offer limited automation, while full workflows, lead scoring and advanced attribution reporting require Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise. That means a considerable jump in cost, although it’s likely to be worthwhile for businesses planning to use automation as a serious driver of growth.
Automation workflows
An automated workflow in HubSpot
HubSpot’s workflows can automate processes across contacts, companies, deals and other CRM records. You can enroll records based on their properties or behavior, then add branches, delays, internal alerts, property updates and task creation.
For example, a demo request could update a lead’s lifecycle stage, assign an owner, create a sales task and begin a relevant email sequence.
The builder is not quite as flexible as ActiveCampaign’s for highly detailed email journeys, but it is excellent at connecting automation with the wider customer lifecycle. Breeze AI can also research, summarize and categorize CRM data within workflows.
Lead nurturing and personalization
You can segment contacts using CRM properties, company information, lifecycle stages, website activity and marketing engagement. Because sales and marketing share the same database, campaigns can be personalized using information collected by either team.
Lifecycle stages are especially useful for B2B nurturing. They can be used across segments, workflows and reports as someone progresses from subscriber to lead, opportunity and customer.
Segmenting contacts by lifecycle stage in HubSpot
I find HubSpot’s email editor and personalization tools easy to use, although ActiveCampaign still offers more flexibility for complex email-focused journeys.
Lead scoring, qualification and routing
HubSpot lets you create scores for contacts, companies and deals using behavioral and CRM data. You might award points when someone visits your pricing page, submits a form or matches your target industry.
Once a lead reaches a chosen score, HubSpot can notify a salesperson, assign an owner or move the contact into a new lifecycle stage.
The ability to score both individual contacts and companies is particularly valuable for B2B businesses. However, lead scoring is unavailable on the lower-priced plans.
CRM and sales alignment
This is HubSpot’s biggest strength. Its CRM connects marketing activity, pipelines and sales follow-up in one place. Sales teams can manage deals, schedule meetings, track communication and use sequences for one-to-one outreach.
In my experience, HubSpot’s CRM is more intuitive and complete than the CRM tools included with most marketing automation platforms. Its free version also lets smaller teams start managing contacts and deals before investing in the paid marketing features.
However, functionality is divided across Marketing, Sales, Service, Content and Data Hubs. Costs can rise quickly once you need Professional features across several products.
Lead generation and multichannel engagement
HubSpot offers some of the strongest lead generation tools in this roundup, including forms, pop-ups, landing pages, live chat, meeting scheduling, advertising tools and even a website builder.
I was particularly impressed by its forms and landing pages. Both connect directly with the CRM and can trigger automated follow-ups without additional integrations.
HubSpot can also sync leads from Facebook and LinkedIn, create advertising audiences from CRM segments and record campaign interactions on each contact’s timeline.
Reporting and attribution
HubSpot’s reporting is another standout feature. You can report on contacts, companies, deals, lifecycle stages, campaigns and sales performance. Attribution reports can show how marketing activities contributed to new leads, opportunities and revenue.
I also find its standard dashboards clearer than ActiveCampaign’s. Because the CRM and marketing data are already connected, it is easier to follow a lead from their first interaction through to a closed deal.
As with automation and scoring, though, the most useful attribution and custom reporting features are reserved for the more expensive plans.
What we like:
- Marketing and sales data are closely connected
- Excellent built-in CRM
- Strong forms, landing pages and inbound marketing tools
- Contact, company and deal scoring
- Clear pipeline and revenue reporting
- Useful free tools for getting started
Where HubSpot could improve:
- Full automation requires an expensive Professional plan
- Costs can rise quickly across multiple Hubs
- Email automation is less flexible than ActiveCampaign’s
- The range of products and plans can be confusing
- Some advanced features require additional setup or onboarding
Pricing:
- Free plan available
- Customer Platform Starter starts at $20/month/seat
- Customer Platform Professional starts at $1,450/month (includes 6 seats)
- Customer Platform Enterprise starts at $4,700/month (includes 8 seats)
- Discounts for annual plans available. More pricing information is available here.
Best for: Few competitors provide such a complete view of the customer journey – which is why HubSpot is best for growing B2B businesses that want to manage inbound marketing, CRM and sales follow-up in one connected platform. It’s particularly compelling for businesses that rely on content, forms, landing pages and sales consultations to generate revenue.
The Free and Starter tools provide an accessible entry point, but businesses needing proper B2B automation should budget for the considerable jump to a Professional plan.
Brevo
Brevo is one of the best-value options for small and medium-sized B2B businesses that want email marketing, automation and a lightweight CRM in one place.
We’ve used Brevo ourselves at EmailTooltester for years, including for newsletters, transactional emails, live chat and automated workflows. It is generally quick to learn, and its automation features are surprisingly capable for the price.
Its CRM and reporting are not as advanced as HubSpot’s, while its automation builder lacks some of ActiveCampaign’s depth. But for smaller teams that want practical marketing and sales automation without an enterprise-level bill, Brevo offers a very attractive middle ground.
Automation workflows
Brevo’s ready-to-go automation templates
Brevo’s visual builder combines triggers, conditions and actions across email marketing, website activity and sales. Workflows can begin when someone submits a form, visits a page, engages with an email, books a meeting or moves through a deal pipeline.
From there, Brevo can send follow-ups, create tasks, update contact details or move deals to a new stage. Templates and an AI assistant also help speed up setup.
It is not the best choice for highly complex journeys, but it should comfortably cover most SMB lead-nurturing and follow-up scenarios. We also like that these workflows are available without the expensive upgrade HubSpot requires for its full automation builder.
Lead nurturing and personalization
Contacts can be segmented using profile data, email engagement, website behavior, purchase activity, and lead scores. These conditions can also determine which route someone follows through an automation.
Brevo supports personalization and conditional content, so different recipients can see different messages or offers within the same email. The editor is straightforward and works well for creating campaigns quickly, although the template selection is fairly limited.
Lead scoring, qualification and routing
Brevo allows you to create a lead scoring system using a combination of contact attributes and automations, although it requires more set up than in other platforms
Brevo lets you create rules-based lead scores using actions such as email engagement, form submissions, and website visits.
Once a contact reaches a certain score, Brevo can notify the sales team, create a deal, add the lead to a segment or trigger an email or SMS sequence.
This is enough to automate a basic marketing-to-sales handover, although the scoring is less sophisticated than ActiveCampaign’s and lacks HubSpot’s stronger company-level qualification.
CRM and sales alignment
Brevo’s sales tools cover the essentials: deals, customizable pipeline stages, owners and tasks. You can also automate deal creation, stage changes and follow-up activities based on marketing behavior.
I like how smoothly Brevo connects automations with contacts, meetings and deals. At EmailTooltester, we’ve used workflows to send opt-in requests after live-chat conversations and follow-up offers after meetings.
Using Brevo to send automated opt-in requests after a live chat conversation has finished
That said, it still feels more like an email marketing platform with a CRM attached than a complete sales system.
Lead generation and multichannel engagement
Brevo includes forms, landing pages, meeting scheduling, live chat and website tracking. It also supports transactional email, SMS and WhatsApp, allowing several channels to feed into the same workflows.
Transactional messages such as password resets and order confirmations can be managed alongside marketing campaigns, which is a real advantage for businesses that would otherwise need a separate service.
The forms are useful, but the landing page builder is less convincing. It includes features such as SEO settings, tracking code and custom domains, but the editor can feel clunky.
Reporting and attribution
Brevo reports on campaigns, automations and sales pipelines. This should be enough for smaller teams tracking engagement, leads and deals.
However, reporting is one of its weaker areas. Brevo lacks the advanced attribution, customizable dashboards and revenue reporting available from platforms such as HubSpot.
What we like:
- Strong automation features for the price
- User-friendly email marketing tools
- Marketing and sales workflows work together
- Built-in transactional email, SMS and WhatsApp
- Useful lightweight CRM
- Good value for large contact databases
Where Brevo could improve:
- CRM and reporting lack depth
- Landing page editor feels clunky
- Less automation flexibility than ActiveCampaign
- Limited template selection
- Some channels and advanced features cost extra
Pricing:
- Free plan available
- Starter plan starts at $9/month
- Standard plan starts at $18/month
- Professional plan starts at $499/month
Discounts are available for annual plans. More information is available in our Brevo pricing guide.
Best for: Brevo is best for budget-conscious B2B businesses that want a tool that combines email marketing, practical automation, and basic sales management.
It is particularly good value for companies with large databases that send relatively infrequently, as its pricing is based mainly on email volume rather than solely on contact numbers. (Note: some lower tiers now also impose contact limits, so be sure to check this carefully before signing up.)
Zoho Marketing Automation
Zoho is a little different from the other platforms in this roundup. Rather than putting everything inside one product, it connects several apps: Zoho CRM manages sales and customer data, while Zoho Campaigns/Zoho Marketing Automation handles email campaigns and lead nurturing.
This modular setup gives you plenty of flexibility. You can start with an affordable CRM and add more advanced marketing tools as your needs grow. The trade-off is that Zoho can feel less joined-up than a true all-in-one platform, especially while you are still working out which app does what.
Still, there is a lot here for growing B2B businesses that want to adapt their CRM and automations around their own processes. Zoho CRM even offers a free plan for teams of up to three users, although email marketing requires a separate app.
Automation workflows
Image source: Zoho
Zoho CRM’s workflow rules can send notifications, assign tasks and update records when specific conditions are met. You can build automations around leads, contacts, accounts and deals, while custom functions give more technical users additional flexibility.
For marketing journeys, Zoho Campaigns supports onboarding, nurturing, re-engagement and retention workflows. These can respond to actions such as form submissions, email engagement and field updates, with branching and CRM actions available inside the journey.
There is plenty of depth, but Zoho’s automation tools are spread across several products and menus. Once configured, though, they can automate a surprisingly broad range of marketing and sales processes.
Lead nurturing and personalization
Zoho Campaigns lets you create dynamic segments using contact details, custom fields, campaign engagement, and data synchronized from Zoho CRM.
These segments can be used in targeted campaigns and automated journeys. Dynamic content also lets you show different email content to different recipients within the same campaign.
The main drawback is setup. Because the CRM and email marketing tools are separate, keeping data synchronized and understanding where each feature lives takes more effort than with HubSpot or Brevo.
Lead scoring, qualification and routing
Zoho’s AI-powered scoring can help to highlight deals that are more likely to convert, and deals that need more attention
Zoho supports conventional scoring rules as well as AI-assisted scoring through Zia. Scores can use CRM properties and customer interactions, and can be applied to leads, contacts, accounts and deals.
These scores can trigger tasks, notifications and other workflows. Assignment rules can also route leads according to criteria such as territory, product interest or lead source.
I like that Zoho combines manual control with AI-based scoring. However, Zia needs sufficient historical data to produce useful predictions, so smaller businesses may get more immediate value from traditional rules.
CRM and sales alignment
CRM is one of Zoho’s main strengths. You can manage leads and deals, customize pipelines, and assign follow-up activities.
Its flexibility makes it especially suitable for businesses whose sales process does not fit neatly into a standard pipeline. Marketing engagement from Zoho Campaigns can also sync back to CRM records, helping sales teams understand how leads have interacted with campaigns.
Zoho offers a lot of functionality for the price, although it feels less polished than HubSpot. The number of modules and settings can also make the initial setup feel heavier than expected.
Lead generation and multichannel engagement
Zoho CRM includes web forms that feed leads directly into the CRM and can trigger replies or assignment rules. Zoho Marketing Automation adds landing pages, website tracking and behavioral reporting.
The wider ecosystem also includes tools for surveys, live chat, webinars, social media and customer support. This lets you build a broad marketing stack without leaving Zoho, although separate apps can increase both cost and complexity.
Reporting and attribution
Zoho CRM provides customizable reports and dashboards for sales activity, pipelines and marketing performance. Zoho Campaigns and Marketing Automation add campaign and journey reports, including how contacts progress through workflows.
There is plenty of reporting flexibility, especially with Zoho Analytics. However, creating one clear view of marketing’s contribution to revenue may require more configuration than it would in HubSpot.
What we like:
- Highly customizable CRM and sales processes
- Strong workflow and lead-assignment options
- Manual and AI-assisted scoring
- Broad ecosystem of connected business apps
- Good value for the level of functionality
- Unlimited emails included in Zoho’s Marketing Automation plans
Where Zoho could improve:
- Marketing features are spread across separate apps
- Setup and navigation can feel complicated
- The interface is less polished than HubSpot’s
- Advanced reporting may require Zoho Analytics
- Pricing and feature availability can be difficult to untangle
Pricing:
- Free plan available for 3 users
- Standard starts at $14/user/month
- Professional starts at $23/user/month
- Enterprise starts at $40/user/month
- Ultimate starts at $52/user/month
Discounts for annual plans available. Learn more about Zoho’s pricing here.
Best for: Zoho is best for small and medium-sized B2B businesses that want a customizable CRM and room to build out a broader marketing and sales system over time.
It offers excellent value and a surprising amount of depth, especially for companies prepared to invest some time in setup. However, teams looking for the smoothest out-of-the-box experience may find HubSpot or Brevo easier to navigate.
EngageBay
EngageBay brings email marketing, automation, CRM, landing pages, appointment scheduling, and customer support together in one platform. It is designed with smaller teams in mind, and offers a broad range of features without feeling overly complicated.
When I tested EngageBay, I found the interface pleasant and responsive. Contact records were especially clear, with separate views for emails, calls, deals and automation activity. That makes it approachable for businesses introducing a CRM for the first time, rather than something that needs a specialist to manage.
Automation workflows
EngageBay’s visual automation builder combines triggers, conditions and actions across its marketing and sales tools. You can use it to send emails, update contact data, adjust scores, create deals and assign tasks.
It also includes a separate workflow feature for running sets of actions manually. For example, you could select several completed deals, mark them as won and remove the associated contacts from active sales sequences.
The builder is not as extensive as ActiveCampaign’s, but it gives smaller teams plenty of scope to automate lead nurturing and routine sales administration.
Lead nurturing and personalization
Contacts can be organized using lists, tags, filters and custom fields, then used to target campaigns or determine which automation path someone follows.
You can build sequences for onboarding, follow-ups and longer nurture campaigns, while engagement can trigger new messages or internal updates.
EngageBay covers the essentials well, although businesses with very detailed segmentation needs may eventually want something more advanced.
Lead scoring, qualification and routing
EngageBay’s lead scoring tools help identify the contacts showing the most interest. Scores can change based on actions such as opening an email or clicking a link, then trigger follow-up activity.
Once a contact reaches a chosen score, EngageBay can notify a salesperson, assign a task, or move the lead into a more sales-focused sequence.
It also offers predictive scoring, although I would treat this as a useful extra rather than a key reason to choose the platform. For most smaller businesses, clear rules based on meaningful actions will be easier to manage.
CRM and sales alignment
The CRM includes contacts, companies, deals, tasks and customizable pipelines, which EngageBay calls deal tracks. You can create several tracks for different services, products or sales processes.
I particularly liked the way contact records separate activities into different tabs. It makes it easier to understand what has happened with a lead without searching through one long timeline.
A contact profile in EngageBay
The CRM feels more substantial than what you typically get with an email marketing tool, although it lacks some of the refinement and reporting depth of more established CRM platforms.
Lead generation and multichannel engagement
EngageBay includes inline and pop-up forms, plus a landing page builder that can feed new leads directly into its CRM and automations. Landing pages can include built-in forms, and A/B testing is also available.
You also get appointment scheduling, live chat, a helpdesk, and social post scheduling. That makes EngageBay a practical choice for small teams that want several customer-facing tools under one roof.
Its main weakness is integrations. The direct integration library is more limited than those of larger platforms, so businesses with a more complicated software stack may need Zapier or Make.
Reporting and attribution
EngageBay provides standard dashboards and reports for campaign performance, deals, and sales activity. Custom reports are also available for tracking the metrics most relevant to your team.
For a smaller business, this should cover the main questions around engagement and pipeline progress. However, EngageBay is less convincing for advanced attribution or showing how multiple marketing touchpoints contributed to revenue.
What we like:
- Excellent range of features for the price
- Friendly, responsive interface
- Marketing and sales automation in one platform
- Multiple customizable sales pipelines
- Built-in forms, landing pages, scheduling and live chat
Where EngageBay could improve:
- Fewer direct integrations than leading competitors
- Reporting and attribution are fairly basic
- Automation is less flexible than ActiveCampaign’s
- Some of the most useful features require a paid plan
Pricing:
- Free plan available
- Basic plan starts at $14.99/month
- Growth plan starts at $64.99/month
- Pro plan starts at $119.99/month
Discounts available for yearly and biennial plans.
Best for: EngageBay is best for small B2B teams that want to bring marketing, sales, and customer support together at an affordable price.
It is easy to warm to: the interface is friendly, the CRM is practical, and the automation features go well beyond what you might expect at this price. Still, growing businesses should check that its integrations, reporting, and automation depth will be enough for them in the longer term.
Conclusion: Which B2B Marketing Automation Platform is Best For You?
Ultimately, the best platform depends on where your biggest bottleneck lies:
- If leads aren’t being nurtured properly, prioritize automation depth (e.g. ActiveCampaign).
- If marketing and sales data are disconnected, choose the strongest CRM integration (e.g. HubSpot).
- If budget is the main constraint, focus on the features you’ll actually use rather than paying for an all-in-one platform you’ll never fully adopt (e.g. Brevo).
For most small and medium-sized B2B businesses, ActiveCampaign is the strongest overall choice. Its automation builder, segmentation and lead-scoring tools give you plenty of room to create sophisticated nurturing campaigns without moving into enterprise territory.
HubSpot is the better option if you want your CRM, marketing, sales and reporting under one roof, and you have the budget for its Professional plans. And Brevo, Zoho and EngageBay offer more affordable ways to automate marketing and customer management.
Still not sure which platform is right for your business? Leave a comment below with your requirements, and I’ll be happy to help.