Effective marketing is more than attracting one-time customers; it’s about creating a long-term impression that keeps all customers engaged with your company, so they come back for more. The best marketing CRM tools will help your business manage pipelines, get an overview of leads, and automate marketing campaigns.
I have compiled a list of the top marketing CRM software for you, including key features, best use cases, screenshots, pricing information, and pros and cons.
Best Marketing CRM Software Shortlist
Here’s the shortlist of the best tools that I’ll cover in this article.
- Zoho CRM
- monday Sales CRM
- HubSpot CRM
- SharpSpring
- Nutshell CRM
- Salesforce CRM
- GreenRope
- Thryv
- Intercom
- Freshsales
- SugarCRM
- Creatio CRM
What is marketing CRM software?
Marketing CRM software is a tool that enables businesses to manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle. It provides a centralized platform to store and organize customer data, track customer interactions, automate marketing campaigns, and generate reports on sales activities and key performance metrics. By leveraging marketing CRM software, businesses can improve customer engagement, increase sales, and enhance customer satisfaction by personalizing marketing campaigns and providing better customer experiences.
Overviews of the 10 Best Marketing CRM Software
You can use the simple overviews of each tool below to understand how each tool stands out from other marketing CRM software.
1. Zoho CRM - Best for lead management
Zoho CRM offers businesses lead management tools that will scale with them as they grow.
Why I picked Zoho CRM: The platform provides tools that businesses need to manage their lead pipelines, including attracting new leads, nurturing them through the customer journey, and closing the sale. With Zoho CRM, you can collect contact and demographic information from web forms you can add to various marketing channels. Afterward, you can respond to these leads by launching automated or real-time, tailored marketing campaigns.
Zoho CRM works well for businesses of all sizes that need a complete customer relationship management marketing lifecycle solution. Zoho CRM can help you take this a step further with the tool’s pre-built Google Ads integration that allows users to track their digital ad campaigns’ efficiency from the platform. You can use the software to automatically track and interact with leads and customers based on their use of your site and services.
Zoho CRM Standout Features and Integrations
Features include customer segmentation, lead nurturing, marketing attribution, event management, project management, team collaboration, workflow suggestion, anomaly detection, intelligent automation, and assignment suggestion.
Integrations include Wrike, 3CX, Freshdesk, CloudTalk, Twilio, Domo, ProjectManager, PandaDoc, Odoo, Jotform, Chargebee, ClickSend, Basecamp, GetResponse, and Zendesk.
Zoho CRM costs from $20/user/month when paying monthly or $14/user/month when billed annually. Zoho CRM offers a free 15-day trial for new subscribers.
Pros
- Comprehensive features.
- Extensive customization capabilities.
- Affordable pricing.
Cons
- Steep learning curve.
- Limited reporting.
2. monday Sales CRM - Best for marketing automation
monday Sales CRM enables businesses to offload repetitive tasks from their team members so they can focus on more valuable tasks.
Why I picked monday Sales CRM: The marketing CRM capabilities within monday Sales CRM allow you to collect data and get a holistic view of your leads. Afterward, you can monitor all interactions to provide a tailored experience that moves your leads along the sales pipeline toward a purchase. monday Sales CRM has robust marketing automation capabilities that enable your business to automate various marketing tasks, creating an efficient and engaging lead-nurturing marketing campaign.
monday Sales CRM is suitable for any sized business that needs a solution to help them efficiently manage lead pipelines. You can use the software to capture leads from any source, manage contact information, and track every lead’s status, so you don’t miss any opportunities. monday Sales CRM allows users to create customizable data dashboards to get a complete sales cycle overview and confidently analyze data and optimize marketing processes - all without an IT professional.
monday Sales CRM Standout Features and Integrations
Features include project data visualizations and dashboards, marketing automation, call logging, lead scoring, calendar and reminder system, document storage, task management, campaign management, lead capture, and pipeline management.
Integrations include Twilio, Pipedrive, Stripe, PandaDoc, Zendesk, Salesforce, Mailchimp, HubSpot CRM, DocuSign, Microsoft Outlook, Shopify, Gmail, Aircall, and Copper.
monday Sales CRM costs from $13/seat/month for three seats when paying monthly or $10/seat/month for three seats when billed annually. monday Sales CRM offers a free 14-day trial for new subscribers.
Pros
- Very easy and user-friendly.
- Customizable templates.
- Efficiently tracks and manages leads.
Cons
- Can use more training videos.
- Slow customer service response.
3. HubSpot CRM - Best digital marketing toolset.
HubSpot CRM provides a wide array of marketing tools to enhance users’ campaign performance.
Why I picked HubSpot CRM: The platform provides businesses with an extensive digital marketing toolset. HubSpot CRM can help with your social media marketing campaigns as well as your website blog. You can use the platform to set up landing pages and perform A/B tests to see which pages perform best. Also, HubSpot CRM’s automation capabilities will simplify your marketing processes.
HubSpot CRM provides its Marketing Hub for businesses looking to get their business in front of their target audience at the right time. After collecting your potential leads, HubSpot CRM can help you create drip campaigns that enable you to create tailored emails focusing on their needs. When you create your emails, you can use the platform to assign hundred of conditions, triggers, or actions to automatically assign leads to the suitable mailing list or send targeted promotions.
HubSpot CRM Standout Features and Integrations
Features include content publishing, search engine optimization, ad tracking and management, social media management, video hosting and management, live chat, landing page builder, marketing automation, and email marketing.
Integrations include Miro, ClickUp, monday.com, Wrike, CloudTalk, Accelevents, Clockify, SendGrid, Twilio, Pipedrive, ProjectManager, PandaDoc, Recurly, Kantata, and TextMagic.
HubSpot CRM costs from $20/month when paying month-to-month or $18/month when billed annually. HubSpot CRM offers a free forever subscription with limited features.
Pros
- Consolidates customer data.
- Unparalleled support.
- Easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor.
Cons
- Frequent upselling from the vendor.
- Complex pricing structure.
4. SharpSpring - Best for marketing agencies
SharpSpring is a cloud-based marketing CRM software that supports a wide range of agency needs.
Why I picked SharpSpring: The platform focuses on marketing agencies that will use the software to manage their clients’ marketing campaigns. SharpSpring is a robust tool that provides your agency with features such as a workflow builder, dynamic reports, behavior-based email marketing, and a landing page developer. The software automates your client’s online marketing campaigns and helps you manage customer relations.
SharpSpring helps mid-sized businesses and large enterprises that need a powerful marketing automation solution to manage clients’ campaigns. One area where SharpSpring shines is with landing pages. The platform provides high-quality landing page templates that focus on converting visitors into leads.
SharpSpring Standout Features and Integrations
Features include blog post management, rich text editing, blog analytics, lead scoring, task management, contact database, customer segmentation, internal chat, documentation, and email drip campaigns.
Integrations include Wrike, Freshdesk, Pipedrive, ProjectManager, FreshBooks, Jotform, Basecamp, Pipeliner CRM, Outgrow, OnePageCRM, LiveAgent, Zendesk, and Salesforce.
SharpSpring costs from $449/month for 1,000 contacts. SharpSpring doesn’t provide any free trial information.
Pros
- Straightforward automated marketing.
- Easy and intuitive.
- Impressive, advanced features.
Cons
- Reporting lacks depth and detail.
- Expensive to use.
5. Nutshell CRM - Best email marketing system
Nutshell CRM is an email marketing solution that helps organizations win more customers.
Why I picked Nutshell CRM: The platform provides a module that focuses on enhancing your marketing capabilities. It starts with excellent email designs and templates you can use to start building your campaigns. Nutshell CRM allows users to segment their lists based on demographics or other specific data. The tool provides an effective email drip feature that you can set up to activate when customers perform a specific event. Nutshell CRM also provides effective tracking so you can see how your email marketing is performing.
Nutshell CRM is suitable for small and medium-sized businesses that need a solution to manage customers throughout each acquisition process step. It’s an excellent addition to your current system stack because it will integrate with your front-end lead collection tools. Afterward, you can use Nutshell CRM to locate lead conversation data and ensure every ongoing communication is going well.
Nutshell CRM Standout Features and Integrations
Features include sales automation, custom pipeline triggers, customizable reports, automated email sequences, lead forms, collaboration tools, contact management, pipeline management, lead attribution, and custom audience creation.
Integrations include 123 Form Builder, 3CX, ActiveCampaign, Asana, Aweber, Box, Callhippo, Constant Contact, Dropbox, Google Drive, Gravity Forms, HubSpot, Zendesk, Zapier, and Slack.
Nutshell CRM costs from $19/user/month when paying monthly or $16/user/month when billed annually. Nutshell CRM offers a 14-day free trial for new subscribers.
Pros
- Affordable pricing structure.
- Flexible to meet specific needs.
- Reliable customer service and support.
Cons
- Complex for new users.
- The mobile app needs work.
6. Salesforce CRM - Best for omnichannel marketing intelligence
Salesforce CRM provides omnichannel marketing intelligence to help businesses focus on ROI.
Why I picked Salesforce CRM: The platform provides marketing tools, such as email templates and mass messaging capabilities, as well as lead capture and management capabilities. These tools allow you to monitor your leads’ interaction with your company and discover their needs. Salesforce CRM then provides a customizable dashboard that provides the data you need to understand your visitors’ interaction history and any complaints.
Salesforce CRM is an excellent fit for large enterprises that need an advanced marketing campaign management platform. The software helps you reach individual leads via its extensive toolset to help you create content that’s relevant to your audience. It can connect data from several devices and sources to help you get a unified customer view and drive growth.
Salesforce CRM Standout Features and Integrations
Features include event-triggered actions, A/B testing, email marketing, autoresponders, channel management, customer surveys, landing page builder, reporting and analytics, template management, and dynamic content.
Integrations include Pipeliner CRM, BigMarker, LeadsBridge, Agility CMS, Teamgo, Sendinblue, Shopify, Zapier, HubSpot Marketing Hub, Workfront, WebEngage, CallRail, and Formstack.
Salesforce CRM costs from $400/month billed annually. Salesforce CRM offers a 30-day free trial.
Pros
- Enormous amount of learning resources.
- Easy to learn.
- Provides a significant amount of lead data.
Cons
- Features and interfaces can be overwhelming.
- Complex, expensive pricing structure.
7. GreenRope - Best for lead engagement
GreenRope is an all-in-one marketing CRM software that combines unique tools that will help your teams engage with leads and customers.
Why I picked GreenRope: The platform provides the typical features that you would find in standard CRM software, such as autoresponders, audience segmentation, and drip campaigns. But where GreenRope stands out is in its ability to help you easily create surveys to collect valuable customer information, generate workflow charts, and automate SMS campaigns, all based on customer behavior. Your marketing teams can put all of these features to good use and engage effectively with leads and customers while also tracking every aspect of your marketing strategy.
GreenRope works best for medium-sized businesses and large organizations looking for ways to improve marketing automation processes. The tool helps your business reduce the gap between departments and make data accessible to everyone who needs it, so your company can operate effectively with the information your teams need to better target and serve your leads and customers. You can leverage GreenRope’s advanced automation, AI, and predictive analytics to accelerate growth.
GreenRope Standout Features and Integrations
Features include marketing automation, landing page builder, email marketing software, customer journey mapping, social network marketing, web analytics, signup forms, email tracking, and drip campaigns.
Integrations include Shopify, Stripe, Towerdata, Juvo Leads, Zoom, Authorize.net, BlueSnap, Zapier, Olark, WordPress, Magento, SendForensics, Postalytics, and FullContact.
GreenRope costs from $99/month for up to 500 contacts. GreenRope offers a 14-day trial after booking a demo.
Pros
- Can handle most business operations.
- Smooth onboarding experience.
- Easy to use.
Cons
- Navigation is time-consuming.
- Some features load slowly.
8. Thryv - Best for expanding small business presence
Thryv primarily focuses on expanding small businesses’ online presence through its cloud-based marketing solution.
Why I picked Thryv: The software is an all-in-one tool that helps small businesses build a more significant online presence, communicate with leads and customers, and stay on top of tasks. Thryv can start building your online presence by loading your business information across more than 40 top sites, including Google, Facebook, and Yelp. The software will add calls to action to encourage leads to engage with your company. The platform also offers in-house designers that will build a custom website that’s optimized to be visible on top search engines.
Thryv helps small businesses that are searching for an end-to-end solution to operate their entire business. This tool allows you to manage operations and get paid through the platform. If your company accepts payments through your website, the software offers a ThryvPay tool that helps services businesses accept and process credit card and ACH payments.
Thryv Standout Features and Integrations
Features include email marketing, task management, marketing automation, document storage, contact database, audience segmentation, social media management, lead management, and interaction tracking.
Integrations include Pipedrive, Jotform, HoneyBook, Salesforce, Microsoft 365, Mailchimp, WordPress, Slack, HubSpot CRM, Dropbox, Trello, Constant Contact, Shopify, and Zapier.
Thryv offers custom pricing upon request. Thryv doesn’t provide any free trial information.
Pros
- Automatically publishes content.
- User-friendly design.
- 24/7 customer support.
Cons
- Small learning curve.
- Setup is time-consuming.
9. Intercom - Best for conversational marketing
Intercom specializes in conversational relationships that enhance customer satisfaction with chatbots and messaging capabilities.
Why I picked Intercom: The platform uses chatbots as one of the primary methods of conversational marketing, which makes lead generation a significant aspect of Intercom. The tool’s messenger features allow you to greet website visitors with target messages. Intercom also uses smart lead routing to ensure your best reps speak with your leads based on relevant customer data.
Intercom helps any sized business communicate with leads and customers throughout all customer journey stages. The chatbots and live chat capabilities will help you capture more of your best leads so your teams can convert them while they’re still hot. Intercom’s real-time features and rich insights mean the platform will help your team understand where to make improvements so they can provide an unbeatable experience.
Intercom Standout Features and Integrations
Features include business messenger, customizable chatbots, automated answers, product tours, outbound messages, account-based marketing, live chat, customer data, and management tools.
Integrations include Google Analytics, Clearbit, Segment, Mailchimp, Marketo, Zapier, Heap, Survicate, Typeform, Mixpanel, Amplitude, KickFire, Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach, and Pipedrive.
Intercom costs from $74/month. Intercom doesn’t provide any free trial information.
Pros
- Simple and intuitive interface.
- Helpful real-time messaging features.
- Multichannel messaging capabilities.
Cons
- Add-ons can be expensive.
- Steep learning curve.
10. Freshsales - Best for personalized experiences
Freshsales can help businesses create tailored campaigns and use real-time data to develop better-personalized experiences.
Why I picked Freshsales: The platform provides an artificial intelligence tool that the vendor calls Freddy. Freshsales built Freddy to give users insights on things such as setting up personalized engagement journeys or emails based on your visitors’ actions. The AI will help you identify your best leads through its lead management and nurturing tools, as well as lead scores.
Freshsales is suitable for companies of all sizes operating in a wide range of industries that need help focusing on those interested in working with their organization. The software provides the typical features you would find in marketing CRM software, such as email marketing templates, reply tracking, landing page builders, and other vital marketing functionalities. You can also get effective reporting features based on advanced data and metrics to get the best insights possible.
Freshsales Standout Features and Integrations
Features include contact lifecycle stages, custom fields, custom sales activities, custom modules, task management, auto-assignment rules, sales sequences, workflows, internal notifications, and an activity timeline.
Integrations include Wrike, 3CX, Freshdesk, Visual Visitor, Contractbook, Basecamp, Desktop.com, Microsoft 365, Mailchimp, HubSpot CRM, Constant Contact, QuickBooks, Zapier, Calendly, and Campaign Monitor.
Freshsales costs from $18/user/month for up to 1,000 contacts when paying monthly or $15/user/month when billed annually. Freshsales offers a free 21-day trial for new subscribers.
Pros
- Easy-to-use workspace.
- Quick setup.
- Excellent support team.
Cons
- It can be costly.
- Some email delivery issues.
11. SugarCRM - Best for interaction tracking
SugarCRM provides businesses with a solution to help track every interaction across multiple channels.
Why I picked SugarCRM: The tool’s marketing features help your business easily track interactions between customers and your business. SugarCRM does this by providing AI-driven analytics that will give you an in-depth look at these interactions. It simplifies interactions so your teams can quickly handle inquiries and issues.
SugarCRM is an excellent option for mid-sized businesses and large enterprises that need to reach larger audiences and measure their campaigns’ success. You can use the software to capture leads by creating landing pages that focus on conversions with its intuitive drag-and-drop builder. You can leverage SugarCRM’s marketing automation features to align your marketing and sales teams together and only hand off the most qualified leads.
SugarCRM Standout Features and Integrations
Features include a contact database, email marketing, autoresponders, customer surveys, lead management, event-triggered actions, template management, A/B testing, analytics and ROI tracking, lead scoring, and search marketing.
Integrations include ThinkAutomation, LeadsBridge, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Sage CRM, Oktopost, Gigtel, NetSuite CRM, Yieldify, ExactVisitor, Infor CRM, and Patchworks.
SugarCRM costs from $1,000/month, billed annually for up to 10,000 contacts. SugarCRM doesn’t provide any free trial information.
Pros
- Automates customer contacts.
- Sets up various digital campaigns.
- Robust feature set.
Cons
- Complex user interface.
- Steep learning curve.
12. Creatio - Best for managing marketing pipelines
Creatio provides no-code pipeline management tools to help your business plan customer experience journeys.
Why I picked Creatio: The software provides features that simplify automating marketing pipeline processes. Creatio can enable your teams to manage customer interactions throughout nearly all channels. The platform collects excellent contact data and performs effective segmentation capabilities to help your teams create personalized marketing campaigns.
Creatio is an excellent fit for mid-sized businesses and large enterprise organizations looking for an out-of-the-box marketing automation platform. You can use the software to design, manage, and evaluate omnichannel marketing campaigns. Creatio makes evaluating your campaigns’ performance simple with its analytical tools to find inefficiencies and optimize them.
Creatio Standout Features and Integrations
Features include demographic data, segmentation, website behavior tracking, lead management, trigger campaigns, personalized email marketing, business process management, productivity tools, event management, and a system designer.
Integrations include Brandwatch, UniTalk, Mailchimp, HubSpot CRM, Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar, Robly, Tableau, Google Contacts, Gmail, Solvemate, SurveyMonkey, and Sales Robots.
Creatio costs from $916/year. Creatio offers a free trial but doesn’t specify how long.
Pros
- Flexible and easily customizable.
- Highly scalable.
- Robust reporting and productivity tools.
Cons
- Complex pricing structure.
- Not all processes are low-code.
Other Options
Here are a few more options that didn’t make the best marketing CRM software list:
- Mailchimp CRM - Best all-in-one marketing tool
- Keap - Best for nurturing leads
- Pipedrive - Best for managing every stage of marketing processes
- Marketo - Best for building brand value
- Agile CRM - Best for converting website visitors into leads
- ActiveCampaign - Best for connecting all business systems
- Copper - Best for logging all interactions
- Insightly - Best for centralizing business data
- Ontraport - Best for service providers
Other Types of Marketing Tools
Here are some additional marketing resources you can use to enhance your organization’s marketing efforts.
- Marketing Management Software
- Marketing Automation Software
- Digital Marketing Software
- Marketing Dashboards
How I Selected the Best Marketing CRM Software
Perhaps you're wondering how I selected the best marketing CRM software for this list? To build this list, I evaluated and compared a wide range of marketing CRM software with positive user ratings.
After determining my long list of top choices, I further honed my list by using the selection criteria below to see how each platform stacked up against the next one. I also drew on my years of marketing experience to pinpoint the features that add a lot of value.
Selection Criteria
Here’s a short summary of the main selection and evaluation criteria I used to develop my list of the best marketing CRM software for this article:
User-Friendly:
A user-friendly platform is crucial in software so your teams will use it to the fullest. If you want to have a successful tool implementation, it’s essential for a solution to be easy to use. I look for a simple, visually appealing platform with a design that focuses on its end users.
Core Functionality:
Marketing CRM software should encompase the basic core functionalities in order to be considered for this list:
- Ability to track and store complex lists of customer/client contact information
- Ability to manage leads by tracking the status of leads and assigning tasks to sales and marketing teams
- Ability to automate marketing campaigns (email, SMS, ads) to reach out to customers at various stages of the customer lifecycle
Software Integrations:
It’s essential that marketing CRM software supports multiple integrations so your teams can use it as a core of all touchpoints that happen in your campaigns. Integrating your CRM with numerous systems in your current tech stack can simplify interactions throughout all your marketing efforts. I look for platforms that integrate with various systems, such as email, customer support, and social media tools.
Value for Money:
Many solutions fit all budgets, from free tools to more expensive enterprise options. It’s crucial to know that the software you’re considering won’t become too expensive after adding more users or if your needs change and require more advanced features. I look for marketing CRM software that includes the price of implementing the solution and multiple pricing options that fit the size of your business.
Key Features
Here are some of the most common features that you should find in the best marketing CRM software:
- Customer Conversation History: Having a chronological customer or lead interaction record that your business has can help you prepare relevant marketing communication for future conversations.
- Lead Form Generation: When your website visitors complete a form to receive a new offer, sign up for a demo, subscribe to a newsletter, or speak with a sales rep, their name and email address will automatically be added to your CRM.
- Customer Filtering: Segmenting your customers and leads based on various factors, such as industry type, geographic location, last contact date, and lifetime value, will help you create highly tailored marketing messages that will get your audience’s attention.
- Automated Email Nurturing: An excellent marketing CRM platform should reduce the labor your team needs to provide to organize your email lists and send follow-up emails by sending email communications according to where a lead is in the sales pipeline.
- Tracking Tools: The ability to track leads from source to sale helps your business see which marketing campaigns are working and which to improve or end.
- Collaboration Tools: Excellent marketing CRM software should provide collaboration tools to help your team members interact and exchange ideas, workloads, and concepts.
People Also Ask
Here are a few popular questions answered for your convenience!
Is a CRM Good for Marketing?
How much does marketing CRM software cost?
What are the benefits of marketing CRM software?
Other Marketing Software Reviews
Marketing software comes in all shapes and sizes, from social media platform management to website and product reporting. You'll probably need several tools to cover the whole gambit of needs. Here are some other software review lists that I recommend checking out:
- Social Media Management Software
- B2B Marketing Software
- Marketing Strategy Software
- Marketing CRM Software
- Brand Management Software
- Affiliate Marketing Software
- Social Media Management Software
- Field Marketing Software
- SMS Marketing Software
Finding the Marketing CRM Software for Your Business
Modern marketing CRM software can provide many features in a single piece of technology. Each business and marketing team has a different approach when it comes to using these platforms. To figure out which software is right for your business, don’t be afraid to experiment with free trials for a few solutions until you find one that fits best with your workflows.
In the meantime, if you want to find more software suggestions and receive advice from top marketing experts, sign up for The CMO newsletter. As a subscriber, you will receive the latest marketing tools, and guidance you can implement in your business delivered right to your inbox.