The Best Mobile Marketing Software List
Here’s my list of my current favorite software:
Mobile marketing software can mean a dozen different things. At its core, it's some form of multichannel engagement software. That can include tools for mobile analytics, mobile engagement, optimization, SMS marketing, marketing automation, reputation management, and even CRMs.
Marketers are used to having a handful of tools at their fingertips, and it's a reality of the job that you'll always be discovering and needing new, better, and different tools. In this article, I outline the best mobile marketing software to help you discover new tools that can make your mobile efforts skyrocket this year.
What Is Mobile Marketing Software?
Mobile marketing software refers to a specialized set of digital tools and platforms designed to assist businesses in executing marketing campaigns targeted specifically at mobile devices and users. Mobile marketing software typically includes capabilities such as mobile messaging (SMS, MMS, push notifications), mobile advertising, mobile email marketing, app marketing, mobile analytics, and campaign management. This software enables businesses to reach their target audience on mobile devices, deliver personalized and timely messages, track campaign performance, and analyze mobile user engagement.
Overviews Of The Mobile Marketing Software
Here’s a brief description of the mobile marketing tools that are featured on this top 10 list.
Salesforce CRM
Best for customer relationship management (CRM)
Salesforce CRM is a software solution with mobile capabilities that helps businesses manage customer relationships more efficiently. It provides companies with insights into customer behavior, preferences, and interactions which can be used to create targeted campaigns and promotions tailored to meet customers' needs.
Why I Picked Salesforce CRM: Through its mobile-friendly features, marketers can create campaigns that look great on any screen size and run smoothly on any device type. Additionally, it provides automated notifications for when customers take specific actions, such as making a purchase, allowing users to tailor their messaging even further.
Salesforce CRM allows businesses to track customer interactions across email, social media, web pages, and other platforms. With this information, marketers can identify which strategies work better and adjust accordingly. Salesforce CRM includes tools for creating personalized, automated messages that can be sent to customers for increased loyalty, such as segmentation, scoring, and multichannel initiatives.
Salesforce CRM Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include the ability to automate routine tasks related to mobile marketing, such as sending follow-up emails or creating personalized notifications depending on customer behavior or preferences. This helps eliminate manual labor in executing campaigns while allowing users to drive engagement. Salesforce CRM also has unmatched client relationship building systems, which makes it great for funneling marketing efforts right into your sales team's contact list for personalized attention.
Integrations include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Google Workspace, Slack, Quickbooks, MailChimp, LinkedIn, Docusign, JIRA, HelloSign, Code Science, Active Campaign, and Dropbox. You can also access numerous additional integrations through the Salesforce AppExchange as well.
Pros
- Comprehensive range of features
- Strong integration capabilities
- AI-driven marketing analytics
Cons
- Steep learning curve
- SMBs may feel priced out
Textedly
Best for collecting customer reviews
Textedly is a mobile marketing software that allows businesses to send mass text messages to their customers. It's a super useful tool for keeping your audience engaged and informed about your latest offers, promotions, or updates. They offer both auto-responders and two-way texting so you can schedule routine messages but also answer customer queries in real time.
Why I picked Textedly: Textedly stands out as a leading platform for SMS marketing, especially when it comes to soliciting business reviews on Facebook or Google. Through Textedly's SMS campaigns, businesses can precisely target their customers and encourage them to share reviews on popular review platforms. The software enables the creation of personalized messages that include direct links to the business's review pages, ensuring customers can conveniently access the desired platform. With Textedly's comprehensive analytics and tracking capabilities, businesses can assess the success of their review request campaigns and make informed adjustments to their strategies.
Textedly Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include unlimited subscribers on any plan, which means you can grow your audience without worrying about hitting a cap. Second, it has a really cool feature called 'conversation triggers' that allows you to set up automatic replies to certain frequently asked questions. This can help solve problems or provide simple answers before elevating the concern to a live agent. They also offer webforms, so you can build a contact collection form and embed it right on your website.
Integrations include Slack, Salesforce, Hubspot, Intercom, Pipedrive, Shopify, Mailchimp, Facebook Lead Ads, Google Sheets, Google Docs, Google Calendar, WordPress, Zoho CRM, Helpscout, Twitter, and others. You can unlock further integrations using Zapier, but that requires a separate subscription and may incur additional costs.
Pros
- Targeted & personalized messages
- Robust analytics & tracking features
- Opt-in compliance
Cons
- Customers sometimes hesitant to give out phone numbers online
Iterable
Best for beginners
Iterable is a comprehensive marketing automation platform that enables businesses to create personalized, omni-channel campaigns and engage with their customers at scale. With its robust features such as advanced segmentation, workflow automation, and cross-channel messaging, Iterable empowers marketers to drive customer engagement, boost conversions, and build lasting relationships.
Why I Picked Iterable: Iterable excels in providing an intuitive and user-friendly interface, making it easy for marketers to navigate and utilize its features. With its drag-and-drop workflow builder and visual campaign editor, Iterable simplifies the process of creating and managing complex marketing campaigns. The platform's user-friendly design allows marketers to quickly set up automated workflows, segment their audience, and personalize messages without the need for extensive technical expertise. Iterable's emphasis on ease of use ensures that marketers can efficiently execute their marketing strategies, saving time and resources while delivering impactful and personalized customer experiences.
Iterable Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include a comprehensive cross-channel marketing capability that allows businesses to engage with their customers across various channels such as email, mobile push notifications, SMS, in-app messages, and more. This multi-channel approach enables businesses to deliver consistent and personalized messaging across the customer journey, increasing the chances of capturing user attention and driving conversions.
Integrations include Google Analytics, Zendesk, Twilio, and LeadsBridge. You can connect Iterable to a paid Zapier account to access other premium apps.
Pros
- Versatile cross-channel marketing
- Robust automation & personalization
- Cart abandonment targeting
Cons
- Reporting is limited
- Slow loading sometimes
CleverTap
Best for customer retention
CleverTap is a comprehensive marketing software that empowers businesses to engage and retain their mobile app users. With its advanced segmentation, automation, and personalization features, CleverTap enables marketers to deliver targeted messaging, analyze user behavior, and optimize their mobile marketing campaigns.
Why I Picked CleverTap: CleverTap excels as marketing software, particularly in the realm of user retention tools. With its robust capabilities, CleverTap helps businesses drive user engagement, increase retention, and maximize customer lifetime value. It offers features such as personalized push notifications, in-app messaging, and automated campaigns that are designed to re-engage and retain users. CleverTap's powerful segmentation and targeting capabilities enable marketers to deliver relevant and timely messaging to specific user segments, ensuring personalized experiences that resonate with individual users. By leveraging these user retention tools, businesses can foster long-term customer relationships, reduce churn, and ultimately drive sustainable growth.
CleverTap Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include AI-powered personalization engine enables dynamic and hyper-personalized messaging for each user. With its advanced machine learning algorithms, CleverTap can analyze user behavior, preferences, and historical data to deliver tailored recommendations and targeted campaigns. CleverTap's multi-channel messaging capabilities allow businesses to reach users through various channels such as push notifications, in-app messages, email, SMS, and web push. This omnichannel approach ensures consistent and cohesive messaging across multiple touchpoints.
Integrations include SendGrid, Twilio, Branch & Tune, and the Facebook Audience Network, among others.
Pros
- Powerful personalization engine
- Multi-channel messaging capabilities
- Robust analytics & reporting
Cons
- Complex pricing structure
- Technical effort for integrations
Optimizely
Best for testing & optimizing
Optimizely is a digital experience platform with a content management feature to create personalized content for different user segments. Its mobile and SMS marketing automation feature automatically sends messages based on customer actions or behaviors to help you maximize sales opportunities.
Why I Picked Optimizely: Optimizely excels in mobile marketing for big businesses by offering a robust and scalable platform that enables advanced experimentation and personalization within their mobile apps. With a focus on big businesses, Optimizely provides powerful A/B testing capabilities, allowing them to optimize user experiences and maximize conversions. The platform's ability to deliver dynamic and personalized content based on user data and behavior empowers big businesses to create tailored experiences that drive engagement and loyalty. Optimizely's integration capabilities and comprehensive analytics provide valuable insights, enabling big businesses to make data-driven decisions and continuously optimize their mobile marketing strategies for optimal results.
Optimizely Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include its Full Stack capabilities enable businesses to experiment and personalize not only in the frontend of their websites and mobile apps but also in the backend systems and APIs. This allows for comprehensive testing and optimization across the entire customer journey. Optimizely's AI-powered analytics, known as Stats Engine, leverages machine learning algorithms to provide real-time, accurate insights without the need for lengthy test durations. Optimizely's Program Management feature offers a centralized hub for managing and coordinating experimentation programs, providing visibility, collaboration, and scalability for enterprise-level organizations.
Integrations include Acumatica, Aprimo DAM Connector, Coreware, Delighted, FullStory, Magento, OpenPay, PunchOut, Shopify Plus, and Weld.
Pros
- Allows marketers to conduct A/B testing
- Powerful audience targeting
- User-friendly interface
Cons
- Pricing plans are confusing
- May be too technical for some
Leanplum
Best for marketing your app
Leanplum is a mobile engagement platform that empowers businesses to deliver personalized and data-driven mobile marketing campaigns. With its advanced features such as A/B testing, in-app messaging, push notifications, and personalized content, Leanplum enables marketers to optimize user experiences, increase user engagement, and drive app conversions.
Why I Picked Leanplum: Leanplum excels in providing tailored marketing solutions for gaming, subscription, and on-demand apps. For gaming apps, Leanplum offers features like dynamic in-app messaging and personalized push notifications to engage users, deliver game updates, and encourage in-app purchases. For subscription-based apps, Leanplum enables marketers to optimize user onboarding, send targeted offers to increase subscription conversions, and implement personalized re-engagement campaigns to reduce churn. In the case of on-demand apps, Leanplum facilitates personalized communication to keep users informed about promotions, encourage app usage, and drive repeat purchases.
Leanplum Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include a comprehensive in-app messaging platform that allows marketers to engage with users directly within the app. This feature enables real-time communication, personalized promotions, and dynamic content updates, creating a seamless user experience and driving higher engagement. Plus, Leanplum's advanced A/B testing and optimization capabilities empower marketers to test different variations of campaigns, messages, and user experiences.
Integrations include Unity, Amplitude, Mixpanel, and Segment.
Pros
- Robust personalization features
- Comprehensive mobile app marketing
- Detailed analytics & reporting
Cons
- Some integration challenges
- SMBs may be out-priced
Marketo
Best for marketing automation
Adobe Marketo Engage is a leading marketing automation platform that enables businesses to drive personalized engagement and deliver seamless customer experiences. With its powerful features, including lead management, email marketing, analytics, and account-based marketing, Marketo Engage empowers marketers to generate and nurture leads and optimize mobile marketing campaigns.
Why I Picked Adobe Marketo Engage: Adobe Marketo Engage excels as a mobile marketing tool, particularly in the realm of marketing automation. With its robust automation capabilities, Marketo Engage enables businesses to streamline and optimize their mobile marketing efforts. Marketers can automate various processes, such as lead nurturing, personalized messaging, and triggered campaigns, ensuring timely and relevant interactions with mobile app users. This automation helps businesses deliver targeted content, track user engagement, and drive conversions effectively.
Adobe Marketo Engage Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include advanced account-based marketing (ABM) capabilities, allowing businesses to target and engage key accounts with personalized messaging and campaigns. This feature enables marketers to align their marketing efforts with sales strategies, identify high-value accounts, and deliver tailored experiences. Marketo also Engage provides comprehensive analytics and reporting functionalities that offer deep insights into marketing performance, campaign effectiveness, and customer behavior.
Integrations include Adobe Audience Manager, Adobe Advertising Cloud, Facebook Ads, and Google AdWords.
Pros
- Powerful marketing automation
- Advanced account-based marketing
- Integration with Adobe Ecosystem
Cons
- Steep learning curve
- Complexity for simple campaigns
Oracle Responsys
Best cross-channel campaign management
Oracle Responsys is a leading marketing automation platform that empowers businesses to deliver personalized and targeted cross-channel marketing campaigns. With its comprehensive features, including email marketing, SMS messaging, mobile push notifications, and behavioral segmentation, Responsys enables marketers to engage with their customers effectively and drive meaningful interactions.
Why I Picked Oracle Responsys: Oracle Responsys excels in mobile marketing, particularly in cross-channel campaign management. The platform enables marketers to seamlessly manage and orchestrate campaigns across multiple channels, including email, SMS, and mobile push notifications. With a unified interface, marketers can design and execute cohesive cross-channel campaigns, ensuring consistent messaging and coordinated customer experiences. Responsys also offers advanced targeting and segmentation capabilities, allowing marketers to personalize campaigns based on user behavior and preferences.
Oracle Responsys Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include powerful AI-driven personalization capabilities. The platform leverages machine learning algorithms to analyze user behavior, preferences, and engagement data, enabling marketers to deliver highly targeted and personalized marketing campaigns. Responsys also provides robust data integration and segmentation capabilities. Marketers can seamlessly integrate customer data from multiple sources, create granular segments based on various criteria, and deliver tailored messaging to specific customer groups.
Integrations include other Oracle programs, Adobe Analytics, NetSuite, Salesforce, SAP, EBS, PeopleSoft, Siebel, Hyperion, and dozens more that you can find in their Apps Marketplace.
Pros
- Cross-channel campaign management
- AI-powered personalization
- Robust data integration & segmentation
Cons
- Steeper learning curve
- Slow customer service response
Vibes
Best for SMS/MMS campaigns
Vibes is a leading mobile marketing software that specializes in helping businesses engage and communicate with their customers through personalized mobile experiences. With its robust features and capabilities, Vibes enables marketers to deliver targeted messages, drive customer engagement, and build lasting relationships through mobile channels.
Why I Picked Vibes: Vibes excels in mobile marketing, particularly in SMS/MMS campaigns. The platform provides marketers with powerful tools to create and execute highly effective SMS/MMS campaigns, enabling personalized and engaging interactions with customers. With Vibes, marketers can leverage advanced targeting and segmentation capabilities to deliver relevant messages to specific customer segments. The platform also offers automation features, allowing for the scheduling and automation of SMS/MMS campaigns based on customer behaviors or specific triggers. This level of personalization and automation, combined with comprehensive analytics and reporting, empowers marketers to drive customer engagement, increase conversions, and achieve their mobile marketing goals effectively.
Vibes Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include a comprehensive Mobile Wallet solution that goes beyond traditional SMS/MMS campaigns. With Mobile Wallet, Vibes enables businesses to create and distribute digital wallet passes, such as coupons, loyalty cards, and event tickets, directly to customers' smartphones.
Integrations include Salesforce, Adobe software, Marketo, Apple iOS, Google platfoms, Sparkfly, Oracle solutions, Responsys, Crowdtwist, HCL, Paytronix, Bluecore, Snowflake, and over 180 other options with a focus on ecommerce, marketing, and loyalty program integrations.
Pros
- SMS/MMS & push notifications
- Detailed reporting & analytics
- Excellent customer support
Cons
- Long implimentation cycle
- Some customization challenges
Swrve
Best for mobile popups
Swrve is a mobile marketing automation platform that helps businesses engage and retain their mobile app users. With its advanced targeting and personalization capabilities, Swrve allows marketers to deliver relevant and tailored experiences across various mobile channels.
Why I Picked Swrve: Swrve excels in mobile marketing with its ability to craft highly effective mobile popups. The platform provides marketers with intuitive tools to design and customize eye-catching popups that capture users' attention and deliver targeted messages. Swrve's advanced targeting capabilities enable marketers to show these popups at the right moment, such as when users are most likely to engage, convert, or take a specific action. This precise timing combined with compelling popup designs and personalized messaging helps maximize user engagement, drive conversions, and enhance the overall effectiveness of mobile marketing campaigns.
Swrve Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include real-time A/B testing and optimization capabilities, allowing marketers to experiment with different variations of their mobile campaigns and quickly identify the most effective ones. Swrve also provides robust in-app messaging and push notification personalization. Marketers can dynamically customize and personalize messages based on user behavior, preferences, and real-time data, resulting in highly relevant and targeted communications.
Integrations include Salesforce, Oracle Eloqua, Oracle Responsys, Amplitude, Movable Ink, Mailjet, Mailchimp, Mandrill, Adobe Analytics, Qminder, Sendgrid, Shopify, and Twilio. You can also build your own connectors using their custom REST API integration.
Pros
- Simple design tools for in-app messaging
- Granular audience segmenting
- Native integrations + developer-friendly
Cons
- Complex data may slow it down
- SMBs may be priced out
The Mobile Marketing Software Summary
Tool | Free Option | Price | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Salesforce CRM Best for customer relationship management (CRM) | 14-day free trial | From $25/user/month (billed annually) | Visit Website |
2 | Textedly Best for collecting customer reviews | 14-day trial (50 msg free) | $26/month (500 msg) | Visit Website |
3 | Iterable Best for beginners | Not available | Visit Website | |
4 | CleverTap Best for customer retention | 30-day free trial | From $99/month | Visit Website |
5 | Optimizely Best for testing & optimizing | Free demo available | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
6 | Leanplum Best for marketing your app | 14 dayd free trial | From $330/month | Visit Website |
7 | Marketo Best for marketing automation | Free demo | From $895/month | Visit Website |
8 | Oracle Responsys Best cross-channel campaign management | Not available | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
9 | Vibes Best for SMS/MMS campaigns | Not available | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
10 | Swrve Best for mobile popups | Not available | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
Selection Criteria for Best Mobile Marketing Software
Selecting a top 10 list of the best mobile marketing software is difficult. There are dozens of options with different strengths and weaknesses. To create the list you see here, I started by gathering software options that have great user reviews, maybe even won an award or two, or are a leader in their industry. Then, I dove in. I researched each mobile marketing software by scouring their website, testing free trials, and watching tutorial videos. This helped me narrow the list down to what felt, looked, and worked the best. I used my professional experience in marketing to consider what people like me would need out of a tool.
Here's a further breakdown of what I considered when deciding what to put on the top list.
Core Functionality
Let's break it down to the basics. Each mobile marketing software will work differently, have somewhat different features, and even target different audience types. But to be on this list, they must cover the following functionalities.
- Offer comprehensive tools for creating, managing, and analyzing mobile marketing campaigns; for example, features like mobile messaging (SMS, MMS, push notifications), mobile advertising, mobile email marketing, and mobile app marketing
- Provide robust analytics and tracking capabilities; for example, key insights metrics such as user engagement, app installs, click-through rates, conversions, and revenue generated
Key Features
Here are the key features I look for when selecting mobile marketing software.
- SMS Marketing: Able to design and launch text message marketing campaigns via SMS text services
- Email Marketing: Many users now primarily use mobile devices for email upkeep; being able to craft mobile-optimized email campaigns is ideal
- Marketing Automation: Ability to automate pesky repetitive tasks to free up team brainpower for the bigger picture stuff
- Push Notifications: Option for customers to get push notifications on their device when you launch new product messages and campaigns.
- Bulk SMS: Send SMS marketing messages to multiple users, or groups of users, at once
- Social Media Marketing: Mobile-optimized campaigns for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok (etc.) apps
- Marketing Insights & Attribution: Know who is clicking through your campaigns + an idea of ROI per campaign
- Contact Management: Track your customer list and how you can best reach them (email, phone number, in-app banners, landing pages)
Usability
A marketing platform's usability determines how easily and intuitively users can navigate its features and accomplish tasks. A highly usable mobile marketing software should have a clean and intuitive interface, clear navigation, and streamlined workflows that enable marketers to quickly and effortlessly execute their campaigns. For example, a user-friendly software would provide drag-and-drop functionality for designing mobile ad creatives, offer pre-built templates for campaign setup, and have an easy-to-use dashboard for monitoring campaign performance. Usibility can also incorporate customer support responsiveness and helpfulness.
Software Integrations
Two-way integration capabilities allow mobile marketing software to connect with other essential platforms, such as customer relationship management (CRM) systems, email marketing software, analytics tools, and advertising platforms. For instance, integrating mobile marketing software with a popular CRM like Salesforce or HubSpot enables the synchronization of customer data, empowering marketers to create personalized mobile campaigns based on customer insights. Integration with analytics tools like Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics helps marketers track and analyze the performance of mobile marketing campaigns.
Customizability
A highly customizable mobile marketing platform should offer options to modify various elements, such as branding elements, message templates, campaign workflows, and user roles and permissions. For example, businesses may want to customize the appearance of their mobile messages, such as the colors, fonts, and logo, to align with their brand identity. They may also need the flexibility to create and modify message templates to suit different campaign objectives and target audience segments. Additionally, the ability to customize campaign workflows allows businesses to define specific automation rules and triggers based on their unique requirements.
People Also Ask
Here are a few questions I wanted to answer before winding down the article.
What are the benefits of mobile marketing software?
What are the types of mobile marketing?
How much does mobile marketing software cost?
The Takeaway
Just as a master chef expertly combines ingredients to create a delectable feast, the finest mobile marketing software seamlessly blends intuitive usability, robust features, and seamless integrations to serve a tantalizing experience for marketers. Whether you're a small startup or an established enterprise, finding the best mobile marketing software requires careful consideration of ingredients: features, usability, integrations, and customization.
Remember, the best mobile marketing software is not just a tool but a catalyst for success, empowering you to connect with your mobile audience, drive conversions, and build lasting customer relationships. So, explore, evaluate, and choose wisely, as the right mobile marketing software can be a game-changer in your marketing endeavors.