10 Best Free Marketing Automation Software in 2024

As with many industries hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, marketing automation software is poised to transform its core practices for the long haul. Even for those who were late adopting work from home arrangements, the pandemic meant valuable experiences going forward to a largely digital world looming ahead.

In terms of automation, it’s a good idea to find the best that will give your business an edge over the competition. This is why we’ve compiled ten of the absolute best in the field—and the good news is, all of them are free!

With face-to-face meetings out of the question because of the pandemic, marketing campaigns meant customer engagements in the digital networks. Meanwhile, the lessons of the past years point to superior customer engagement as the long-term approach with proven results.

Correspondingly, there are customer engagement best practices to help you boost your marketing campaigns. However, one thing you should keep in mind is that at the core of your marketing campaigns should be a thoughtfully deployed marketing automation solution.

This is especially because most a good number of content marketers now use automation solutions alongside other technologies such as analytics, email marketing software, social media, and project management platforms.

Moreover, as we move beyond the pandemic, 22% of the most effective marketing campaigns are automated. And organizations are scaling and optimizing to take advantage of this trend. So much so that, experts predict that the global marketing automation software market is set to reach $15,018.5 million by 2030

If you are concerned, however, that these tools are pretty expensive, worry not for free marketing automation tools do exist. Some offer a free, no-holds-barred trial, while others (like HubSpot) offer a completely free plan with all the bells-and-whistles of a fully-featured marketing software.

With this in mind, we proceed to look at the 10 best free marketing automation software in our database. While these are indeed numbered from 1-10, this list is by no means in ranked order.

10 Best Free Marketing Automation Software

1. Freshmarketer

Kicking off our list is Freshmarketer, a free marketing automation solution powered by an industry-leading software provider. Part of the Freshworks product lineup, this platform offers an array of tools to help businesses streamline and accelerate their marketing processes. It has end-to-end marketing features, such as email builder, event tracking, custom reports, and marketplace integrations.

Freshmarketer also provides handy tools to help you upgrade your marketing campaigns. For instance, the solution has behavioral targeting, behavioral segmentation, and personalized campaign features that you can use to reach a wider target audience. Freshmarketer also allows you to build your own landing pages, speed up lead generation, and improve conversion rates.

With Freshmarketer’s automation tools, you can easily manage your CRM processes across their entire lifecycle, from acquisition to retention of customers. The platform also provides an AI chatbot that lets you generate automated responses, enabling you to foster an interaction with your customers at any given time.

What’s included in the free plan?

• Contact and account management
• Email marketing campaigns
• Website tracking & built-in chat
• Contact lifecycle stages
• 24×5 support

2. HubSpot Marketing Hub

HubSpot Marketing Hub is a behemoth in the marketing automation landscape, and for good reason. This all-in-one platform boasts an arsenal of features designed to streamline your marketing efforts and nurture leads like prize-winning roses. From content management and social media scheduling to email automation and lead generation, HubSpot seemingly does it all.

Your team can easily craft blog posts, landing pages, and emails in a breeze with HubSpot’s user-friendly interface and drag-and-drop tools. With this at your disposal, you can say goodbye to dealing with clunky codes. It also has built-in SEO recommendations and on-page optimization tools to help you climb the search engine ladder with ease.

Moreover, there is no more flying blind with HubSpot’s robust analytics that offer insights into website traffic, lead behavior, and campaign performance, empowering you to make data-driven decisions that actually move the needle.

HubSpot Marketing

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What’s included in the free plan?

• Multi-language versions of your website for up to 3 languages, excluding the landing pages.
• Standard web analytics reporting.
• Ad retargeting for all ad types, up to two audiences.
• Monitor and track up to ten custom properties.
• Basic SEO recommendations.
• Send up to 2,000 emails per calendar month.

3. Ortto

As a marketing automation platform, Ortto comes with an extensive list of features for improving marketing workflows. Through the software, users can build detailed customer profiles, manage leads, and even build hyper-personalized customer journeys. The platform also tracks relevant metrics and provides data-backed insights into the performance of marketing campaigns.

For instance, one useful feature of Ortto is that it comes with tools for lead generation and lead management. Through the platform, users can easily create surverys, forms, and pop-ups for collecting customer information. Marketers can also use Facebook and Google Lead Ads to target potential leads.

Aside from lead management tools, Ortto also has a built-in customer journey builder. This tool visualizes each step of the customer journey, allowing marketers to personalize each phase through filters such as demographics and customer behavior.

What’s included in the free plan?

• 2,000 contacts
• Segmentation
• Activity tracking
• Audience analytics
• Dashboard builder
• Reports builder
• GSuite integration
• Knowledge base
• API

4. Omnisend

Omnisend earned the third spot on our list for its extensive collection of omnichannel marketing features. To help businesses simplify marketing workflows, the solution combines different marketing channels and functions into one platform. With Omnisend, you can manage your emails, SMS, social media, and other marketing channels with ease and efficiency.

Another handy feature of Omnisend is its personalized email campaigns, which allow you to customize your own email content according to the style and branding of your business. It also helps you reach a wider range of target customers with its segmentation tools, enabling you to identify and filter your audience based on their purchase behaviors. Also, Omnisend allows you to prioritize and personalize your marketing strategies to improve your retention rates.

Additionally, the platform is packed with powerful reporting and analytics capabilities, which help you closely monitor what marketing strategies are working best for your ecommerce business. Omnisend allows you to keep tabs on every sale generated by your campaigns and automations, enabling you to stay on top of your ROI and see a full picture of your marketing performance.

What’s included in the free plan?

• Professional email templates
• Popups and signup forms
• Customer support via email
• Pre-built automations and workflows

5. EngageBay

EngageBay is another popular system that gives users an extensive free plan to help them automate and manage key business processes, such as email marketing, sales, and live chat. This enables users to manage the different areas within their operations, including leads generation and contacts management in one nifty and easy-to-use platform.

One of EngageBay’s strengths is that its free plan provides robust CRM solutions to users. From email and contact management, ticketing, email marketing, and lead management to automated live chat support, EngageBay is one of the go-to CRM system providers for SMBs in the current market because of its affordability and versatility.

What’s included in the free plan?

• 1,000 contacts
• 1,000 branded emails per month
• Contact management
• Ticketing management
• Lead grabbers
• Forms
• Facebook ads
• Social media
• 500 MB file storage
• Email and chat support

6. Zoho Campaigns

An email marketing solution designed for SMBs, Zoho Campaigns, comes with a free plan that is designed to automate all processes related to marketing, including email and mailing list management. It operates on the premise of providing the right data at the right time. The system can help users engage customers using social campaigns on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. The tool pretty much handles the whole marketing gig so that you can focus on messages and target audiences.

The vendor offers a great free trial  for those who’d like to try the key features of the product first. You can easily sign up for Zoho Campaigns free trial.

The app allows users to create effective subject lines and designs while ensuring that your mailing list stays free of spam. Emails can be easily created using templates and layouts that are pre-designed. If you so chooses, you can also use templates of your own making; all you need to do is to import them to the platform. An HTML editor, on the other hand, enables users to come up with newsletters for subscribers. Zoho Campaigns gets rid of the need to import or export data by automatically syncing information.

What’s included in the free plan?

• 12,000 emails/month for up to 2,000 subscribers.
• As many as 12,000 emails per month

7. MailChimp

Popular email marketing service MailChimp is targeted at organizations of any size and type. It can manage large volumes of email and sports analytics and tools that enable users to engage both existing customers and prospects, turn leads into sales and market their products/services.

This inexpensive and easy-to-use tool is capable of creating, executing, and analyzing email and ad campaigns. You can likewise manage your subscribers, view click-through, generate customized reports, and track emails using the product. It comes with pre-made templates, but you can also come up with designs of your own.

What’s included in the free plan?

• A/B testing
• Email beamer
• Facebook ad campaigns
• Google remarketing ads
• Instagram ad campaigns
• One-Click Upsells
• Geolocation
• Product recommendations
• Mobile app
• Campaign URLs
• Social sharing
• Knowledgebase

8. Drip

A visual email marketing campaign building and automation platform, Drip helps businesses customize and automate email campaign workflows. It supports different kinds of email campaigns for businesses, teams, and even individuals. This provides users with the ability to send targeted emails and messages to subscribers. With the tool, you can integrate existing systems as it comes with an API, aside from third-party integrations. This effectively expands the program’s capabilities, allowing businesses to gain valuable insights.

Notable features include a visual workflow builder that allows users to customize customer experience using triggers and actions. Emails can be sent in accordance with subscriber profiles, increasing the likelihood of subscriber retention. Leads can be captured using widgets, triggered popups, and embedded and hosted forms.

What’s included in the free plan?

• Up to 100 subscribers
• Unlimited email sends

9. SendinBlue Email

SendinBlue Email is a GDPR-compliant digital marketing automation solution that helps businesses create and nurture customer relationships using transactional emails, email campaigns, and SMS. Its key features include marketing automation, trigger marketing tools, and contact management, and reporting. Using the software, businesses can create and manage campaigns from a single location.

For more information about the different capabilities of this platform, the vendor also offers a free trial plan that lets you test it firsthand at no cost.

The vendor offers a very generous free forever plan that comes with all the essential marketing features as well as a handful of advanced tools such as real-time reporting, custom workflows, lead scoring, web tracking, and automated customer segmentation. What makes it great is that instead of charging you based on your contacts, it only charges based on the number of emails you send. As such, you can continually expand your customer base without worrying about storage capacity. The only downside to Sendinblue’s free plan is that while it can store unlimited contact information, this platform can only send up to 300 emails per day.

What’s included in the free plan?

• Email campaign management
• Email designer
• Access to the email template library
• SMS marketing management
• Personalization options for email and SMS
• Chat function
• Customer segmentation
• Custom forms
• Sales CRM
• Transactional emails and SMS
• Workflow editor
• Advanced templating language
• Page tracking
• Real-time reporting options
• API
• One shared inbox
• Unlimited contacts and details storage
• Automation support for up to 2000 contacts

10. DailyStory

Marketing automation software DailyStory is designed for small businesses, providing them with the ability to identify and engage top customers. It gives users a clear view of visitors and helps them come up with effective means of engagement. The solution covers the whole customer journey, providing tools by which to track, convert, and manage clients and eventually make loyal customers out of them.

DailyStory helps in forging meaningful customer relationships by delivering an excellent experience. Unlike other tools, it accomplishes this not with the use of tracking, insights, and analytics. It goes beyond numbers, giving users a better understanding of site visitors. The solution comes with smart search engine marketing and link retargeting features, which send out your ads to individuals who have clicked links to your site through emails and social platforms.

What’s included in the free plan?

• 5,000 unique visitors/ month
• 50 emails/month
• 100 contacts
• 1 campaign
• 1 user

Automate Your Marketing for Free

We are now indeed in the age of automation, and soon enough, even those that we deem to need human intervention will be automated. As big data trends show the rise of new technologies such as, 5G, and machine learning will make even marketing a totally automated process. And marketing automation tools stand at the forefront of it all, by engaging your customers from all parts of the customer lifecycle with minimal input.

Automation, however, can be expensive, so it’s always a godsend to find one that won’t cost you an arm and a leg to operate—even more so one with a free trial. What’s even better is a software solution that offers a startup plan for free, like Freshmarketer. It has all the features that enables you to keep your contacts organized and allows you to communicate with your customers without the need to switch apps. If you’re interested, you can sign up to try it and its features without paying for anything.

Having read the entire article, you should now be able to make a sound purchase decision on your own. However, if you feel that you need a fully-featured solution, check out this compilation of the best 12 marketing automation platforms guide.

Key Insights

• Pandemic-Driven Transformation: The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the shift towards digital marketing and the adoption of marketing automation solutions, making it essential for businesses to adapt to new practices for customer engagement.
• Cost Efficiency: Free marketing automation software provides significant cost savings for businesses, allowing them to leverage powerful tools without financial strain, especially beneficial for startups and small businesses.
• Comprehensive Features: Many free marketing automation tools offer robust features such as email marketing, CRM integration, lead management, customer segmentation, and analytics, ensuring comprehensive marketing capabilities.
• Scalability and Flexibility: These solutions are often scalable, providing free plans for smaller operations and paid upgrades for growing businesses, ensuring that companies can expand their marketing efforts as needed.
• Integration Capabilities: Most free marketing automation platforms integrate seamlessly with other business tools and software, enhancing overall efficiency and streamlining marketing workflows.
• Enhanced Customer Engagement: Marketing automation tools facilitate superior customer engagement by automating personalized communication and interactions, which is crucial for maintaining and growing customer relationships in a digital-first world.

FAQ

1. What are the benefits of using free marketing automation software? Free marketing automation software allows businesses to automate and streamline their marketing processes without incurring high costs, making it ideal for startups and small businesses. These tools often include essential features such as email marketing, customer relationship management (CRM), and analytics.
2. Can free marketing automation tools handle large volumes of contacts and emails? While free marketing automation tools can handle a significant volume of contacts and emails, there may be limitations depending on the specific software. Some tools offer scalable plans where businesses can upgrade to handle larger volumes as their needs grow.
3. Are free marketing automation solutions secure? Yes, many free marketing automation solutions implement robust security measures to protect user data, including encryption, secure data centers, and compliance with data protection regulations.
4. Do free marketing automation tools offer customer support? Customer support varies by provider. Some free tools offer basic support via email or chat, while others provide more comprehensive support options in their paid plans. It’s essential to check the support offerings of each platform.
5. Can free marketing automation software integrate with other business tools? Many free marketing automation tools offer integration capabilities with various business tools such as CRM systems, email platforms, social media, and analytics tools, enhancing overall business efficiency.
6. What features are commonly included in free marketing automation software? Common features in free marketing automation software include email marketing, customer segmentation, lead management, CRM integration, analytics and reporting, landing page creation, and social media management.
7. How do free marketing automation tools help with customer engagement? Free marketing automation tools help businesses automate personalized communication, track customer interactions, and segment audiences to deliver targeted messages, thereby enhancing customer engagement and relationship management.
8. Are free marketing automation solutions suitable for businesses of all sizes? While free marketing automation solutions are particularly beneficial for startups and small businesses, many platforms offer scalable options that can cater to the needs of larger enterprises as well.
9. What should businesses consider when choosing free marketing automation software? Businesses should consider factors such as feature set, scalability, ease of use, integration capabilities, security, customer support, and any potential limitations in the free plan when choosing a free marketing automation software.
10. Is it possible to upgrade from a free plan to a paid plan with more features? Yes, most free marketing automation software solutions offer paid plans that provide additional features and capabilities. Businesses can upgrade as their needs evolve and require more advanced functionalities.

By Jessica Stewart

Jessica Stewart is the resident marketing analyst at FinancesOnline and a pioneering member of our research team. She believes that data is at the center of business and marketing technology is its enabler, a point not lost in her articles published in major outlets such as BusinessInsider, USA Today and Entrepreneur. Beyond assessing the standard tools for workflow automation, campaigns, messaging, and real-time alerts, Jessica focuses on the software’s bottom-line ROI— how it helps marketers perfect their data-driven method to collect and process customer data, measure the KPIs, and, ultimately, realize profits.