HubSpot vs. Marketo: Exploring the Differences and Similarities

When it comes to marketing automation, there is no single tool which is best for every company.

It’s simple: what will work best for you depends on the system you need. With the right tool, you can bridge gaps with marketing automation to help reach your objectives.

To absolutely crush marketing, teams leverage tools such as HubSpot and Marketo (never both, simultaneously). Of course, both have their strengths, as well as their weaknesses.

In this article, we'll examine the pros and cons of each so you can decide which is the best match for you.

HubSpot vs. Marketo: A Fair Comparison

The Pros Of HubSpot

The need for fully-integrated, personalized campaigns is only going to increase. Nearly 80 percent of leads now need about five follow-up phone calls before they close. HubSpot helps marketers master this level of personalization and engagement.

HubSpot, known for their affinity for the color orange as well as a helpful, friendly persona is excellent. It's an all-in-one solution for marketers for various skill levels and experience.

When you choose to invest in HubSpot, you benefit from:

• An All-in-One Sales. Access to a dynamic CRM. Track deals and lead behavior through the funnel.
• All-in-One, Multi-Channel Marketing. All of your marketing tools, from one login. Advanced marketing capabilities, such as a robust content management system, automated marketing workflows, the ability to build smart content, with more strategic ways to segment.
• Website Building Software. Build your website with HubSpot, and benefit from highly accurate tracking and attribution for every step of a visitor's journey through your website.
• Strong Community. With a customer base of nearly 18,000 users, HubSpot has an impressive online forum that connects marketers and sales pros from all over the world.
• Expertise + Training. Learn as you go with HubSpot Academy with marketing certifications, content, and training for all skill levels. Utilize HubSpot Academy to help team members learn how to use the platform, faster.
• Tested Integrations. Extensive library of available integrations, all tested. HubSpot integrates with WordPress, Salesforce, SurveyMonkey, GoToWebinar, and more.
• Various Pricing Tiers. Choose the plan that works for you. Basic. The first tier, great for small teams, $200/month. Professional. Great for more experienced teams, $800/month. Enterprise. Top tier, for experienced teams with robust strategies, $2,400/month.

These are just a few of the many, many features of HubSpot. With HubSpot, teams can run integrated campaigns with HubSpot, and report on the success of those campaigns accurately.

The Cons Of HubSpot

While HubSpot offers a ton of tools for marketers, it’s not always the right solution. Here are some reasons it might not be the best fit for you.

• An All-in-One Solution. Yup, this is a con, too. If you want to get the most out of HubSpot, you have to utilize most of the features, from blogging and social media publishing to building the website using their CMS.
• Costly Add-Ons. Reporting and paid ads add-ons are extra. Also, if the allotted number of contacts for your tier is exceeded, HubSpot will charge you.
• Expensive Onboarding. Depending on which package you get, you'll need to pay up to 5k for on-boarding. HubSpot won't waive the fee, but with our few tactics, you can get you 60% off. You will also need to invest in onboarding for your team.
• Essential Features Grouped In Enterprise. For event-based segmentation and predictive lead scoring, you need to have an Enterprise package, the most costly of all the tiers.

The Pros Of Marketo

The goal for anyone using Marketo is the same as someone using HubSpot: to deliver personalized engagements to the right people, at the right time. When you choose to invest in Marketo, you also benefit from:

• Multi-Channel Marketing. While not all the features are integrated, Marketo offers some of the same features as HubSpot, such as email marketing and lead scoring capabilities. Anything else can be added via integration.
• Track Marketing ROI. With Marketo, you can gain easy insights into what elements are contributing to revenue. The Success Path Analyzer, for example, helps you track how your marketing initiatives directly tie to revenue.
• A Strong Community. Marketo has an extensive, supportive community of users, referred to as Marketo Marketing Nation.
• Salesforce Integration. The Salesforce/Marketo integration is robust, frequently updates, syncing leads, contacts, accounts, users, and more every few minutes. Note: Marketo does not have it's own CRM.
• Various Pricing Tiers. Marketers can select from three tiers that offer more features as you level up. Spark starts at $895 /mo., Standard is $1,795 /mo., and Select is $3,195 /mo.

The Cons Of Marketo

Marketo's platform, of course, has its limits. Marketo users have expressed frustration with challenges such as:

• Not An All-In-One Solution. Marketo doesn't have a CRM and can't host your site. Teams will need to divide their attention between what Marketo does and does not offer.
• Poor Content Creation UX. Unlike HubSpot, Marketo isn't easy to get. Customers that haven't had the best experience cite the user experience and cumbersome content creation as potential areas of improvement.
• Slow Adoption. Using Marketo to its maximum potential takes full adoption, which can be challenging for smaller teams who do not have as much time to allocate. Marketo occasionally has outages; something customers have mentioned explicitly in their criticism of the platform. Some users also review the platform, describing the functionality as slow.
• Limited Integrations. Despite having a valuable integration with Salesforce, teams don't find high value in the other integrations.

Over time, Marketo can be mastered and used to its full potential, but in the beginning, less advanced marketers may struggle to adapt.

Marketo vs. HubSpot

Here it is - Marketo vs. HubSpot. Each tool has strengths and could be a great fit for a particular marketer. Here are the recommended teams, company size, etc. for each platform.

• Marketo is a good fit for advanced enterprise teams. For teams with more staff, that have time to invest in a platform and don't mind the additional integrations and platforms, could be a fit for Marketo. Users have also cited that it's advised to have a developer and designer work in Marketo to provide additional support.
• HubSpot is a good fit for small and large teams with a variety of skill sets and experience. HubSpot is a great tool, period. It's highly ranked across the board on products, services, and customer support. From HubSpot Academy to the ease of use, it's not difficult to jump in and start to make things happen with HubSpot.

We live and die with HubSpot. We think it's the best marketing tool, but that's because we use it to crush marketing. It also works wonders for us and our clients. However, as we've established, it's not cheap.

If you're looking to put HubSpot to work for your company, don't buy until you read this short eBook, which shows how we save our clients up to 60% a year off HubSpot.