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HubSpot Or Marketo Engage: What Is The Difference?

September 5, 2022
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Marketing is one of the essential business processes that help you get traction and boost your revenue. It enables you to reach out to your prospects and customers, spread your word, and encourage them to engage with your business.

In the age of digitization, dedicated software platforms help you streamline your marketing processes through automation and advanced tools. These platforms relieve your marketing reps from having to perform tedious manual tasks and enhance your team's performance. 
Regarding automated and digital marketing solutions, HubSpot and Marketo Engage are two of the most preferred alternatives by businesses worldwide. Both platforms help you make the most of your customer database and be there for your customers throughout their buying journeys.

However, if you need to choose between HubSpot and Marketo Engage, it is essential to look into their features and the benefits of implementing each platform. 
What Is HubSpot?
HubSpot is a CRM platform that allows businesses to record, track, and analyze valuable customer records. It will enable you to tailor your business processes based on your customers' specific needs and preferences. It comprises four major business-related products – Sales Hub, Marketing Hub, Operations Hub, and CMS Hub.
The Marketing Hub allows businesses to create targeted inbound marketing campaigns depending on the customers they cater to. From generating leads to closing a deal, the CRM platform will enable you to track your prospects and customers' journeys as they engage with your organization. 
What Is Marketo Engage?
Marketo is a robust account-based marketing automation platform that helps you streamline various marketing processes. It allows you to leverage lead acquisition, lead nurturing, content personalization, and other techniques that help you reach out to your prospects/customers and encourage them to make purchases. 
Marketo Engage is an end-to-end engagement platform dedicated to mapping, designing, and automating the journey of your customers or prospects as they engage with your business. It helps you enhance the experience of your target audience while engaging with your business at different stages and facilitate cross-channel engagement to get better traction.
Critical Differences Between HubSpot Marketo Engage
Now that we have understood what the two marketing platforms stand for and how they help you leverage your processes let us look into specific parameters that allow us to make the HubSpot vs. Marketo Engage comparison.
Pricing
Pricing is one of the most importa nt factors considered by an organization while implementing a marketing solution and charting out a marketing campaign.
HubSpot’s Marketing Hub can be implemented in three different editions based on your requirements:

 

  • Starter – Starting at $45 per month

  • Professional – Starting at $800 per month

  • Enterprise – Starting at $3,200 per month

 
HubSpot also provides businesses with a freemium model to facilitate cost-effective marketing.
On the other hand, Marketo isn’t too transparent and precise about its pricing. Instead of providing pricing information for different plans, Marketo groups the plans into different tiers as follows:

 

  • Select – For marketing teams that are looking for basic measurement options and automation

  • Prime – For account-based organizations seeking AI personalization

  • Ultimate – For organizations that are willing to automate complicated marketing processes and obtain valuable insights 

  • Enterprise – For enterprise-level businesses handling multiple teams and seeking tools to streamline complicated processes

 

Although Marketo has not been transparent about its pricing, implementing the platform can cost you anywhere between $960 to over $7,000 monthly, depending on your scale, needs, and preferences.
When it comes to pricing, HubSpot is undoubtedly a more cost-effective alternative as compared to Marketo Engage.
Integrations
In the age of digitization, businesses often rely on third-party integrations to enhance the functionality of the solutions implemented by them. These integrations allow you to expand the features offered by software platforms and prevent users from working on separate systems. 
Both HubSpot and Marketo Engage facilitate seamless third-party integrations to provide your team with a single unified platform while working.
HubSpot provides you with more than 100 different native integrations based on your specific requirements.
Here are some of the most popular HubSpot integrations that help you enhance your business processes:

 

  • The Favorites – WordPress, Gmail, Google Calendar

  • Sales – PandaDoc, Calendly, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Salesforce

  • Customer Service – Zendesk, Intercom, SurveyMonkey

  • Email Marketing – MailerLite, MailChimp, MailOptin

 

Marketo wins the battle regarding third-party integrations because it provides its users with more than 550 different integrations. 
Here are some of the most popular Marketo integrations that help you enhance your processes:

 

  • The Favorites – Microsoft, NetSuite, Mintigo

  • Social Media – LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

  • Event and Webinar – GoToWebinar, Zoom, Cisco WebEx

  • Sales – FastCall, Salesforce, CallRail

 

Centralized Management
Businesses today are looking for automated solutions that help them centralize different business processes. This makes them look for all-in-one platforms that help them manage business processes for various departments operating within the organization. 
Regarding such versatility, HubSpot helps you manage marketing, sales, and customer services on the same platform. While its specialty lies in marketing, it allows users to make more strategic and holistic decisions by connecting the data with sales and customer service teams. No business activity exists in complete isolation, and HubSpot helps you deploy multiple teams to handle duplicate contacts for different purposes. 
On the other hand, the functionality of Marketo is limited to marketing. While it helps you streamline different marketing processes, you may need to invest a fortune in other platforms and third-party integrations if you want your teams to work on a centralized interface. 
Source Of Truth For Your Data
Over time, businesses are willing to invest in platforms that provide them with a single source of truth for all their datasets. This helps you enhance your processes and get rid of data siloes. For example, if you look at a specific contact in a modern CRM, it would provide you with all relevant information regarding the connection, such as its website activity, communication with your team members, engagement levels, and much more. 
One of the most significant benefits of HubSpot is that it provides you with a clear and 360-degree view of every contact’s journey as it engages with your business at different stages. The multi-touch revenue attribution in HubSpot allows you to automatically connect the interaction of every customer to the revenue you generate. This helps you see how different marketing channels and actions regarding a specific customer lead to revenue generation. 
While Marketo Engage provides a few valuable insights regarding your business data, it is often dependent on third-party integrations to make sense of your records in the best way possible. Unlike HubSpot, Marketo would require you to spend more money to achieve a holistic and single truth for your data. 
HubSpot Vs. Marketo Engage: Which Is A Better Option?

If you are looking for a marketing solution that facilitates more third-party integrations, you should go with implementing Marketo Engage. Otherwise, HubSpot is a more cost-effective, versatile, and holistic marketing solution for your organization. It helps you stay connected with your customers and prospects throughout their journeys and facilitates seamless collaboration between your marketing, sales, and customer service teams on a single platform.

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