Marketing automation: what it is, how it works and practical examples (B2B included)

Emails to send, contacts to follow up, salespeople asking for warmer leads, reports to prepare. Much of this work follows rules that repeat themselves time after time, and that’s where marketing automation comes in: a system that carries out repetitive actions on its own and leaves people the work that needs judgement.

In this article we explain what it is, how it works, what its elements are, how it applies to B2B and what changes when you add artificial intelligence.

What marketing automation is

Marketing automation is the use of software to trigger marketing actions automatically, based on rules and on contacts’ behaviour. You set a starting event (a form filled in, a download, a page visited, an abandoned basket), define the conditions and decide what happens: an email, an update in the CRM, an alert to the salesperson, entry into a segment.

The first tools, in the 1990s, mainly handled email campaigns. Over time lead scoring, complex workflows and CRM integration were added, up to today’s artificial intelligence features.

Why use it

• Time freed up. Sends, segmentation and record updates no longer require manual work.
• Personalised messages at scale. Each contact receives content linked to what they’ve done, at the moment they’re most likely to need it.
• Leads followed until they’re ready. People who aren’t ready to buy at first contact are accompanied with useful content instead of being forgotten: that’s lead nurturing.
• Marketing and sales aligned. Salespeople receive qualified contacts with their full history, at the right moment.
• Everything measurable. Every email, flow and step is tracked, so you can see what works and what needs fixing.

How it works: the main elements

Workflows

A workflow is the flow that describes what happens to a contact: starting event, waits, conditions (“did they open the email?”, “did they visit the pricing page?”) and actions. A workflow can send emails, change fields, assign the contact to a salesperson, create a task in the CRM or move the contact into another flow.

Email marketing automation

This is the most widespread application: email sequences triggered by a precise event, such as signing up to the newsletter, downloading a guide or abandoning a basket. Unlike a newsletter, each message arrives when the contact has done something. We’ve gathered news and tools in the article on email marketing automation.

Lead scoring

Lead scoring gives each contact a score based on who they are (role, industry, company size) and what they do (emails opened, pages visited, content downloaded). Once a threshold is passed, the contact is flagged as ready for sales.

Segmentation

The database is divided into homogeneous groups by demographic, behavioural or interest criteria, so that each group receives relevant messages. The more precise the segmentation, the more communications seem written for the person receiving them.

Integrations

An automation platform delivers most when it’s connected to the CRM, the website, the management system, advertising platforms and analytics tools. Without integrations you end up with duplicate data and flows that don’t know what has happened elsewhere. To connect different tools there are also platforms such as n8n, which we discuss in the guide to business process automation.

A complete B2B example

A technical manager at a manufacturing company downloads a guide from the website on choosing a component.

1. The form adds them to the CRM with the contact source and a workflow dedicated to that topic starts.
2. Over the following weeks they receive three or four emails with in-depth content: a case study from their industry, a comparison sheet, an invitation to a webinar.
3. Lead scoring records the interactions. They visit the pricing page and open the case study: the score goes up.
4. Once the threshold is passed, the system alerts the area salesperson with a summary of everything the contact has read and creates a call-back task.
5. If, on the other hand, the contact doesn’t interact for a certain period, they move to a lighter flow, for example the monthly newsletter, instead of continuing to receive prompts.

The salesperson reaches the phone call knowing what interests the customer, and the customer receives useful information without being chased. In B2B with long sales cycles, this is the main value of automation. If you want to build journeys like this, you’ll find how we work on the page about B2B lead nurturing.

Which software to choose

Some of the most widely used platforms:

• HubSpot: a complete CRM, marketing, sales and service platform, suited to anyone who wants to get started quickly and grow module by module.
• Adobe Marketo Engage: very common in medium-sized and large companies, strong on email automation and lead tracking.
• Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (formerly Pardot): designed for B2B and integrated with the Salesforce CRM.
• ActiveCampaign: email, automation and CRM in a single tool, often chosen by small and medium-sized businesses.

To choose, it’s worth assessing:

• which processes you want to automate and how complex they are;
• the budget, bearing in mind that many prices grow with the number of contacts;
• ease of use for whoever will be building the flows every day;
• integrations with the CRM and the other tools already in use;
• the quality of support and the availability of partners in Italy.

Marketing automation and artificial intelligence

Classic marketing automation carries out rules written by a person. Artificial intelligence adds the ability to learn from data:

• predictive lead scoring: instead of fixed scores, the system learns from history which contacts are most likely to buy;
• next-best-action suggestions: CRMs such as Salesforce, with their Einstein AI features, suggest which content or offer to send to each contact;
• email send time and subject line: many platforms choose the sending time and test variants automatically;
• reading conversations: AI can recognise a dissatisfied customer from an email to customer service and flag it to a person straight away;
• conversational assistants: chatbots that answer on the website, qualify the contact and pass them into the right flow. We developed Conversly, an agent that works hand in hand with automation flows.

AI only works if the data is good quality and someone checks the results. We explored the topic in our guide to artificial intelligence in B2B marketing.

The most common obstacles and how to overcome them

• Technical complexity. Connecting the platform to existing CRMs and management systems takes skills and time. It’s best to rely on people who have done it before and to map the data before starting.
• Poor-quality data. Duplicate contacts, empty fields, untracked sources: even the best flow gives poor results. Cleaning the database is the first job to do.
• Resistance to change. People used to working a certain way may see automation as one more form of control. Training and visible results in the first few months help more than any presentation.
• Too much, all at once. It’s better to start with one or two flows (for example a welcome flow and nurturing on the most downloaded content), measure them and then expand.
• Privacy. Consent, purposes and data retention must be managed in compliance with the GDPR. Automation makes it easier to track consent, provided it’s set up properly from the start.

Frequently asked questions

What’s the difference between marketing automation and email marketing? Email marketing sends communications to a list, usually on set dates. Marketing automation triggers communications based on each contact’s behaviour and also involves the CRM, lead scoring and sales.

Is marketing automation useful for small businesses too? Yes. There are platforms with affordable costs, and a few well-made flows (welcome, nurturing, re-engaging inactive contacts) are enough to see results.

How long does it take to set up? It depends on the starting point. With tidy data and clear goals, the first flows can be up and running within a few weeks. Integration with complex CRMs and management systems takes longer.

Do you need artificial intelligence to do marketing automation? No. Rules written by a person cover most cases. AI becomes useful when there’s a lot of reliable data, for example in predictive lead scoring.

If you want to understand which of your marketing processes are worth automating and where to start, discover our marketing automation service or book a call.