Imagine a world where your marketing campaigns run like clockwork. Where every new lead is greeted with a personalized welcome, every abandoned cart gets a gentle nudge, and your team is freed from repetitive tasks to focus on what they do best: strategy and creativity. This isn't a distant dream; it's the reality that marketing automation creates.
In today's fast-paced digital landscape, marketing automation has evolved from a simple "nice-to-have" tool to a strategic cornerstone for businesses aiming to grow and scale effectively. It’s the engine that powers personalized communication, nurtures customer relationships, and delivers measurable results.
If you're looking for inspiration, you've come to the right place. In this guide, I’ll walk you through powerful marketing automation examples that you can implement today. We will explore everything from essential email automation to sophisticated CRM marketing automation examples to help you transform your strategy and drive meaningful engagement.
Understanding marketing automation
Before diving into specific use cases, it's important to have a solid grasp of what marketing automation is and why it's so critical for modern businesses. It's more than just software; it's a methodology for streamlining, automating, and measuring marketing tasks and workflows.
What is marketing automation?
At its core, marketing automation refers to the use of software and technology to execute marketing actions automatically. Instead of manually sending every email or posting on social media, you can set up an automation workflow that handles these tasks for you based on predefined triggers or schedules.
But true marketing automation goes far beyond simple scheduling. It’s about creating intelligent, responsive systems that nurture leads through a personalized customer journey. It involves segmenting your audience, scoring leads based on their engagement, and delivering the right message at the perfect moment to guide them from initial awareness to loyal advocacy. These automated campaigns ensure no opportunity is missed.
Why is marketing automation important?
Implementing marketing automation is no longer a luxury—it’s a necessity for staying competitive. The benefits are transformative and address some of the biggest challenges marketing teams face.
Boosted efficiency and productivity. By automating repetitive tasks like email follow-ups, social media posting, and data entry, you free up your team’s valuable time. This allows them to focus on higher-impact activities like strategic planning, content creation, and campaign analysis.
Enhanced personalization at scale. Customers now expect experiences tailored to their interests and behaviors. Marketing automation tools collect and analyze user data to enable deep customer segmentation and personalized messaging. Whether it's a welcome email triggered by a signup or a product recommendation based on browsing history, you can make every customer feel seen.
Improved lead nurturing and conversion rates. Not all leads are ready to buy immediately. Marketing automation allows you to create structured drip campaign and nurturing sequences that educate and engage prospects over time. Through lead scoring, you can identify the most sales-ready leads and pass them to your sales team at the optimal moment, significantly improving the conversion rate.
Data-driven decision-making. One of the most powerful aspects of marketing automation is the wealth of analytics it provides. You can track how every campaign performs, measure your return on investment (ROI), and gain clear insights into customer behavior. This data empowers you to stop guessing and start making informed decisions to continuously optimize your strategy.
Types of marketing automation
Marketing automation isn't a single, monolithic concept. It encompasses a wide range of applications and marketing automation use cases that can be tailored to your specific goals. Here are a few common types:
Email automation. This is often the first step for many businesses. It includes welcome email series for new subscribers, post-purchase emails to gather feedback, and abandoned cart reminders to recover lost sales.
Lead management. This involves automating the entire process of capturing, scoring, and nurturing leads. Workflows can assign leads to sales reps, add them to specific email sequences, and update their status in your CRM based on their actions.
Social media automation. This helps you manage your presence across multiple social platforms by scheduling posts in advance, monitoring brand mentions, and analyzing engagement metrics to optimize your content strategy.
Workflow and process automation. Beyond customer-facing campaigns, automation can streamline internal processes. For example, you can create automated workflows for content review and approval, ensuring consistency and speed without manual back-and-forth.
A unified platform like Lark excels here, allowing you to build powerful, automated workflows in Lark Base that manage everything from lead nurturing to internal campaign approvals seamlessly in one place.
Key features to look for in marketing automation
With so many tools on the market, choosing the right one can feel daunting. To make an informed decision, it helps to focus on the core features that will provide the most value to your enterprise. I believe a great marketing automation platform should be powerful yet intuitive, allowing your team to build, execute, and measure campaigns with confidence.
Here are the key features I recommend looking for:
A powerful and intuitive workflow builder. The heart of any automation platform is its workflow builder. Look for a tool with a visual, drag-and-drop interface that allows you to easily map out customer journeys. It should be flexible enough to handle complex, trigger-based logic and multi-step sequences without requiring a developer.
Advanced segmentation and personalization. Your ability to send the right message depends on how well you can segment your audience. The best platforms offer advanced segmentation based on demographics, engagement history, purchase behavior, and more. Also, look for dynamic content capabilities, which allow you to tailor parts of a single email to different segments.
Multi-channel campaign management. Your customers exist across multiple channels, and your marketing should too. A top-tier tool will allow you to orchestrate campaigns across email, SMS, social media, web push notifications, and even direct mail, all from a single dashboard. This ensures a consistent and cohesive customer experience.
Seamless CRM and third-party integrations. Your marketing automation tool shouldn't be an island. Deep integration with your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is non-negotiable, as it enables a smooth flow of data between your marketing and sales teams. This is the foundation for effective CRM marketing automation examples. Also, check for integrations with other tools in your stack, like e-commerce platforms or analytics software.
Robust analytics and reporting. To prove the value of your efforts, you need clear and comprehensive reporting. A good platform will provide real-time dashboards that track key metrics like open rates, click-through rates, conversions, and revenue attribution. This allows you to measure ROI and make data-driven optimizations.
Lead management and scoring. A crucial feature for B2B and high-consideration B2C businesses is the ability to automatically score leads based on their profile and engagement level. This helps your sales team prioritize the hottest leads, increasing their efficiency and closing more deals.
Scalability and enterprise-grade security. Choose a platform that can grow with your business. It should be able to handle an increasing number of contacts and campaigns without a drop in performance. Furthermore, with data privacy being more important than ever, ensure the platform offers robust security features and compliance with regulations like GDPR.
Lark addresses these needs by integrating a flexible workflow builder and CRM functionalities within Lark Base, ensuring your automation is both powerful and deeply connected to your team's collaborative efforts.
8 best marketing automation examples for your business
Choosing the right tool can feel overwhelming, but I’m here to guide you. I’ve selected eight of the best marketing automation examples on the market today. Each platform offers unique strengths, from all-in-one collaboration hubs to specialized B2B powerhouses. We’ll explore what makes each one stand out so you can find the perfect fit for your business needs.
1. Lark: An all-in-one platform for collaborative marketing automation
Overview
Lark is more than just a marketing automation tool; it's a comprehensive collaboration platform designed to unify your entire workflow. It seamlessly integrates communication, project management, and powerful automation features into a single, intuitive hub. For marketing teams, this means you can strategize in shared documents, manage campaign tasks in a visual database, and execute automated workflows without ever switching apps. Lark is built on the idea that the best marketing happens when teams are perfectly aligned, and it provides the tools to make that a reality, connecting internal collaboration directly to external marketing execution.
Key features
Automated marketing workflows. Built on Lark Base, you can create sophisticated, zero-code automations to manage the entire customer journey. You can set up triggers that automatically move leads through your sales pipeline, update customer segments based on their engagement, send personalized post-purchase emails, and sync campaign data across different views and dashboards.
Flexible campaign approval processes. With Lark Approval, you can design multi-level review and approval sequences for all your marketing content. This ensures every piece of collateral meets brand standards and gets the necessary sign-offs without the manual chaos of chasing down stakeholders.
Real-time data insights. The dashboards in Lark Base offer AI-powered analytics that provide up-to-the-minute insights into your campaign performance. You can visualize KPIs, track conversions, and monitor lead flow in real-time, allowing you to make quick, data-driven decisions.
Integrated multi-channel communication. Lark brings together chat, email, video meetings, and collaborative docs in one place. You can launch an email campaign with Lark Mail, discuss the results in a dedicated Lark Messenger group, and plan your next steps in a shared document, all within the same ecosystem.
Customizable marketing bots. You can use intelligent bots to automate notifications, alerting your team in real-time about new leads, task updates, or campaign milestones. This enhances responsiveness and keeps the entire team in sync.
Pre-built marketing automation templates. To help you get started quickly, Lark offers a wide selection of ready-made templates for everything from email automation and lead nurturing to social media planning and customer journey mapping.
Pricing
Starter ($0/month): Perfect for small teams. Includes up to 20 users, 18 months of message history, 100GB storage, and 1,000 automated workflow executions per month. No credit card needed.
PRO ($12/user/month, Billed Annually): Best for growing teams. Includes everything in Starter, plus support for up to 500 users, unlimited message history, 15TB storage, and 50,000 automated workflow executions per month.
Enterprise (Custom Pricing): For large-scale operations. Includes everything in PRO, plus unlimited users, Supergroups (up to 50,000 users), single sign-on (SSO), and advanced security controls. Contact sales for details.
Best for
Businesses and enterprises that want to break down silos and integrate their marketing automation directly with their core team collaboration and productivity tools, creating a truly unified and efficient workflow.
2. HubSpot Marketing Hub: The all-in-one inbound marketing and sales platform
Image source: hubspot.com
Overview
HubSpot Marketing Hub is one of the most well-known platforms in the industry, offering a comprehensive suite of tools designed to help businesses attract, engage, and delight customers. It combines powerful automation with a robust CRM, making it an excellent choice for teams looking to align their marketing and sales efforts seamlessly. Its user-friendly interface makes it accessible for growing businesses, while its enterprise-level features provide the scalability large organizations need.
Key features
Visual automation builder. A drag-and-drop workflow editor allows you to design complex nurturing sequences without needing to write any code.
Email marketing and personalization. You can create highly targeted campaigns with dynamic content that changes based on a recipient's properties or behaviors.
Lead scoring and segmentation. Automatically prioritize leads and segment your audience to deliver tailored and timely messaging.
Integrated CRM. Every action is tracked in the HubSpot CRM, giving both marketing and sales teams a complete view of every contact.
Pricing
Free tools: Up to 2 users.
Marketing hub starter: Starts from $9/seat/month.
Starter customer platform: Starts from $9/seat/month.
Marketing hub professional: Starts from $800/month, includes 3 core seats.
Marketing hub enterprise: Starts from $3600/month, includes 5 core seats.
Best for
Growing businesses and enterprise teams that want an intuitive, all-in-one platform to manage the entire customer journey and tightly integrate their marketing and sales functions.
3. ActiveCampaign: For behavior-driven personalization and sales alignment
Image source: activecampaign.com
Overview
ActiveCampaign excels at creating highly personalized customer experiences through sophisticated and behavior-driven automation. It combines email marketing, CRM, and machine learning into a single platform that allows businesses to build intricate workflows that respond dynamically to user actions. It’s a favorite among small to mid-sized businesses that want enterprise-level personalization power without the enterprise-level complexity.
Key features
Advanced automation workflows. Build multi-step sequences that are triggered by a wide range of user actions, enabling truly one-to-one experiences.
Predictive sending. An AI-driven feature that optimizes email send times for each individual contact to maximize engagement.
Lead scoring and contact management. Automatically score and organize your contacts to help your sales team prioritize the most valuable leads.
CRM and sales automation. The platform includes a built-in CRM to help align marketing and sales processes by automating follow-ups and pipeline management.
Pricing
No free plan; offers a free trial.
Starter: Starts from $15/month.
Plus: Starts from $49/month.
Pro: Starts from $79/month.
Enterprise: Starts from $145/month.
Best for
Businesses that want to implement sophisticated, behavior-driven marketing automation with a strong focus on personalization and sales alignment.
4. Marketo Engage: The enterprise B2B marketing automation powerhouse
Image source: adobe.com
Overview
Marketo Engage, an Adobe company, is a robust and highly customizable marketing automation platform built for enterprises with complex marketing and sales cycles. It specializes in lead management, account-based marketing (ABM), and multi-channel campaign orchestration. With its deep analytics and scalability, Marketo is designed to help large organizations manage sophisticated buyer journeys and prove marketing’s impact on revenue.
Key features
Advanced lead management. Includes powerful lead scoring, nurturing, and routing capabilities to manage long and complex sales cycles.
Account-based marketing (ABM). Tools designed to help you target, engage, and measure campaigns aimed at high-value accounts.
Cross-channel engagement. Automate campaigns across email, web, mobile, social media, and live events.
Powerful analytics and revenue attribution. Gain deep insights into campaign effectiveness and track marketing's contribution to the sales pipeline.
Pricing
Marketo offers custom pricing based on database size and feature needs. It is positioned as a premium enterprise solution.
Best for
Large enterprises, particularly in the B2B space, that require a feature-rich, scalable platform for complex lead nurturing and account-based marketing strategies.
5. Pardot (Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement): For B2B companies using Salesforce CRM
Image source: salesforce.com
Overview
Pardot, now known as Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, is Salesforce's B2B marketing automation solution. Its greatest strength is its deep, native integration with Salesforce CRM, which allows for unparalleled alignment between marketing and sales teams. It's designed to help marketers generate high-quality leads, automate personalized nurturing campaigns, and track marketing ROI from within the Salesforce ecosystem.
Key features
Seamless Salesforce CRM integration. Data syncs effortlessly, providing a single source of truth for all lead and customer information.
Lead nurturing and scoring. Automate tailored campaigns based on prospect behavior and use dynamic lead scoring to identify sales-ready leads.
Engagement and ROI tracking. Measure the performance of your campaigns and directly see their impact on your sales pipeline and revenue.
AI-powered lead qualification. Leverage Salesforce's Einstein AI to identify leads that are most likely to convert.
Pricing
Growth: Starts from $1,250/month
Plus: Starts from $2,500/month
Advanced: Starts from $4,000/month
Best for
B2B companies that are deeply invested in the Salesforce ecosystem and are looking for tight marketing-sales alignment and automated lead nurturing.
6. Mailchimp: The accessible starting point for email automation
Image source: mailchimp.com
Overview
Mailchimp is one of the most popular and accessible marketing automation tools, especially for small businesses and beginners. While it started as a simple email marketing service, it has since expanded to include a range of automation features, such as welcome series and abandoned cart reminders. Its user-friendly interface and pre-designed templates make it easy for anyone to start creating professional-looking automated campaigns.
Key features
Email automation workflows. Set up simple but effective automated campaigns like welcome series, birthday emails, and re-engagement campaigns.
Audience segmentation. Group contacts based on their demographics, behavior, and engagement to send more targeted messages.
Pre-designed templates. A vast library of templates and a drag-and-drop editor make it easy to build emails without any coding skills.
Basic CRM tools. Manage your contact information and track customer interactions all in one place.
Pricing
Free: $0/month; limit of 500 contacts.
Essentials: Starts from $13/month for 500 contacts.
Standard: Starts from $20/month for 500 contacts.
Premium: Starts from $350/month for 10,000 contacts.
Best for
Small businesses and beginners who want a straightforward and user-friendly platform to get started with email marketing automation.
7. GetResponse: The all-in-one platform with webinar capabilities
Image source: getresponse.com
Overview
GetResponse positions itself as a versatile, all-in-one marketing automation platform that is particularly well-suited for small to medium-sized businesses. It combines email marketing, landing pages, conversion funnels, and webinar hosting into a single, affordable package. This integrated approach allows marketers to manage the entire customer journey and automate engagement across multiple touchpoints from one platform.
Key features
Marketing automation builder. A visual, drag-and-drop editor allows you to design triggered campaigns based on user actions like clicks, subscriptions, or purchases.
Webinar automation. A standout feature that lets you run automated webinars, complete with integrated marketing campaigns for lead generation and nurturing.
Conversion funnels. Pre-built funnel templates to help you automate lead generation, sales, and post-purchase follow-ups.
Advanced segmentation. Group your audience based on their behavior and demographics to deliver highly targeted messaging.
Pricing
No free plan; offers a free trial.
Starter: Starts from $9/month.
Marketer: Starts from $26.1/month.
Creator: Starts from $44.1/month.
Enterprise: Custom pricing.
Best for
Small to medium-sized businesses that are looking for an affordable, all-in-one marketing automation platform, especially those that use webinars as a key part of their marketing strategy.
8. Brevo: For simple email and SMS automation workflows
Image source: brevo.com
Overview
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is a versatile marketing platform designed to help businesses engage their audience across multiple channels, including email, SMS, and chat. It focuses on providing a powerful yet affordable solution, combining essential automation features with robust communication tools. This makes it a great fit for businesses looking to streamline their marketing efforts and enhance customer relationships without a hefty price tag.
Key features
Multi-channel automation. Create workflows that automate messaging across email, SMS, and chat for a consistent customer experience.
Drag-and-drop campaign builder. Easily create professional-looking emails and landing pages without needing to code.
Transactional messaging. A reliable system for sending automated order confirmations, password resets, and shipping notifications.
Contact segmentation. Filter and categorize your contacts to send highly targeted and personalized campaigns.
Pricing
Free: $0/month; limit of 300 emails/day.
Starter: Starts from $8.08/month.
Business: Starts from $16.17/month.
Enterprise: Custom pricing.
Best for
Small businesses and startups that are looking for a simple but effective platform for email and SMS marketing automation on a budget.
Why Lark is the optimal choice for marketing automation
While there are many excellent marketing automation tools available, I believe Lark stands out because it solves a deeper problem that most marketing teams face: the disconnect between automation, collaboration, and project management. Marketing doesn't happen in a vacuum, and Lark is the only platform that truly unifies these critical functions.
Here’s why I find it to be an optimal choice:
Seamless collaboration and content creation. In Lark, your marketing automation lives right alongside your team's conversations and creative work. You can brainstorm a campaign in a shared document, get instant feedback in a Lark Messenger thread, and then build the automation workflow in Lark Base—all without switching applications. This breaks down silos and dramatically speeds up the content creation process.
Comprehensive project management. Marketing campaigns are complex projects with many moving parts. Lark offers robust project management tools like Lark Base and Lark Tasks, allowing you to track every stage of your campaign, assign tasks, and monitor progress with real-time dashboards. Your automation workflow is no longer a separate entity; it's an integrated part of your overall project plan.
AI-powered insights that make your team smarter. Lark embeds AI throughout the platform to enhance efficiency. You can use AI in Lark Base to automatically categorize leads or generate ad copy. During a strategy session, Lark Minutes can automatically transcribe your meeting and create a summary, ensuring no great idea is lost. This helps your team work smarter, not just harder.
A user-friendly, unified interface. By bringing everything into one platform, Lark reduces the "tool fatigue" that plagues many marketing teams. There’s no need to pay for and learn multiple disconnected systems. This not only simplifies your tech stack and reduces costs but also makes it incredibly easy for your entire team to stay aligned and productive from any device, anywhere.
Future trends for marketing automation examples
As we look to the future, the world of marketing automation is set to become even more intelligent, personalized, and integrated. Technology is advancing at a breathtaking pace, and I see a few key trends that will shape the next generation of marketing automation examples.
Hyper-personalization powered by AI
We're moving beyond basic personalization like using a customer's first name. The future is about hyper-personalization, where AI analyzes vast amounts of behavioral data to deliver truly one-to-one experiences. Imagine automated campaigns that can dynamically change content, offers, and even the entire customer journey in real-time based on an individual's actions.
Enhanced predictive analytics
Instead of just reacting to what customers have done, future marketing automation tools will increasingly predict what they will do next. Predictive analytics will forecast churn risk, identify customers who are likely to make a repeat purchase, and even recommend the next best action to take for each individual lead. This will allow marketers to be proactive rather than reactive.
Deeper and more seamless integrations
The "all-in-one" suite will become even more important, but so will the ability to seamlessly connect with a wider ecosystem of tools. Automation platforms will serve as the central nervous system of a company's entire tech stack, pulling in data from sales, customer service, e-commerce, and even IoT devices to create a truly unified view of the customer.
Ethical AI and data transparency
As we collect more data, the ethical use of that data will become a major focus. Customers will demand more transparency and control over how their information is used. The leading marketing automation platforms will be those that prioritize data privacy, build their AI on ethical principles, and make it easy for businesses to maintain compliance and build trust with their audience.
Lark's position in the future
As these trends demand deeper integration and smarter collaboration, Lark is uniquely positioned to lead the way. By already having data management, communication, and AI-powered workflows woven into a single, seamless platform, Lark is built for the future of marketing. It addresses the need for integrated, intelligent, and collaborative automation today, making it an ideal choice for businesses looking to stay ahead of the curve.
Conclusion
In today’s competitive landscape, marketing automation has firmly established itself as an essential strategy for any business looking to grow. By automating repetitive tasks, you not only boost your team’s efficiency but also open the door to creating deeply personalized and timely experiences for your customers. The marketing automation examples we’ve explored, from simple welcome emails to complex lead nurturing sequences, demonstrate the immense power these tools have to drive engagement and deliver measurable results.
However, the true potential of automation is unlocked when it’s seamlessly connected to the rest of your team’s workflow. Disconnected tools can create silos, but an integrated platform can foster alignment and accelerate your entire marketing engine. Choosing the right solution is a critical step in transforming your strategy from a series of disconnected tasks into a cohesive and powerful growth machine.
If you’re ready to not just automate your marketing but to unite your team and streamline your entire process, I highly recommend exploring what Lark can do for you. It’s a platform built for the future of collaborative work.
FAQs
What is marketing automation and examples?
Marketing automation is the practice of using software to automate repetitive marketing tasks and create personalized experiences. Common marketing automation examples include sending a welcome email series to new subscribers, sending abandoned cart reminders in e-commerce, or running lead nurturing campaigns that deliver targeted content over time.
What is an example of automation?
A great example is a lead management workflow in Lark. When a potential customer fills out a contact form, the system can automatically create a new lead record in Lark Base, assign it to a sales representative, and send an instant notification to the team’s group chat for immediate follow-up.
What's the best marketing automation tool?
The "best" marketing automation tool really depends on your specific business needs, team size, and budget. However, for businesses looking for a powerful solution that combines marketing automation with team collaboration and project management, Lark is an excellent choice. It unifies your entire workflow in one seamless platform.
What is AI automation in marketing?
AI automation in marketing uses artificial intelligence to make automated processes smarter and more effective. Instead of just following simple rules, AI can analyze data to predict customer behavior, personalize content recommendations in real-time, or determine the optimal time to send an email to each individual for maximum engagement.
