As the ecommerce industry matures and changes, the importance of having an effective marketing strategy continues to grow.

​​Because of today’s need to be “always on,” implementing a reliable and efficient SaaS marketing automation platform can greatly impact your business’s overall growth and profitability. It enables companies to streamline repetitive tasks, target audiences more precisely, and analyze critical metrics for continuous improvement. 

In this blog, we’ll break down the core functionalities to look for when selecting a SaaS marketing automation platform and help you ask the right questions before committing to a particular solution so you can be confident in the tool you select for your ecommerce business. 

Understanding Marketing Automation

Marketing automation is the use of software to automate repetitive marketing tasks, such as email campaigns, social media posts, and ad management. This encompasses customer segmentation, lead nurturing, campaign management, and analytics.

Marketing, a role often demanding constant revision, tweaking, and updating, can be made more efficient using marketing automation tools. These tools can save companies time and resources by automating away the most repetitive and time-consuming tasks, allowing you to focus on more strategic aspects of your business. 

They work around the clock, ensuring that your customers receive the most targeted, timely communications from your business, even when you're not physically present. In our current age, companies not running automation campaigns to keep their customers engaged and moving down the sales funnel will have a difficult time staying afloat when all their competitors are automating repetitive tasks and meeting their customers wherever–and whenever, they are, 

Key Features to Look for in a SaaS Marketing Automation Platform

While every business might be looking to get something different out of their marketing automation SaaS solution, there are a few features that we’d suggest ecommerce businesses prioritize in their search for their winning tool. These are:

1. Integration Capabilities: Ensure the platform integrates with your existing ecommerce stack (e.g., Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce) and other tools.

2. Multi-Channel Marketing Support: Look for support across email, SMS, social media, and more. The best marketing automation tools are capable of meeting your customers wherever they are most active. 

3. Personalization and Dynamic Content: Deliver tailored content to different customer segments without too much manual work and input.

4. Advanced Analytics and Reporting: Access comprehensive data to track campaign performance and ROI so you can learn what works and what doesn’t and act accordingly. 

5. CRM and Customer Journey Mapping: Manage customer relationships and visualize their journey with your brand so that you can find drop-off points and make changes.

6. A/B Testing and Campaign Optimization: Test different strategies to see what works best for your audience.

7. Audience Segmentation: Break your contact lists down into smaller groups to save money in your marketing budget and ensure the right people are receiving the right messages. 

The tool you choose should be able to meet your company where you are today, as well as where you see your business going in the future. 

Evaluating Platform Options - Questions to Ask Yourself When Selecting an Ecommerce Marketing Automation Tool

While there’s no shortage of tools out there billing themselves as the best tools for marketing automation, the real best tool is the one that does the job you need it to do. Here are a few questions you should ask when reviewing your options to help you find the right one for your needs:

What Features are the Most Important?

You’ll want to list all the features you need your tools to offer and then sort by most to least important. Decide which are non-negotiables and which are nice-to-haves, and start whittling down your options as you look further into each tool on your list. 

Some tools emphasize certain features while offering more bare-bones versions of others they deem less important. In contrast, others focus on a more holistic feature set, doing many different jobs well but not being great at any. 

Discuss these features with the rest of your team if they will also spend time with the software to ensure everyone is on the same page and can make the most of whichever application you choose. Remember, the needs of your sales team–if you have one—will differ from those of the marketing team or customer service.  

How Well Does it Integrate into My Existing Tech Stack?

Many SaaS software tools will advertise easy integrations with the tools your team uses every day, but some are much better than others. Not every marketing automation solution will slot well into your company’s stack because every stack is different. 

When we look into tools for ecommerce businesses, the number one integration our winning automation tool must get right is with our client’s chosen ecommerce platform. If a tool does a poor job of integrating with, say, Shopify or Adobe, we move on as we understand the importance of a perfect match here. 

A good tip when vetting the integration capabilities of these marketing automation solutions is always to take the sales demo and ask for a demonstration on the call. Just because a company claims to integrate with your social media pages, for example, doesn’t mean that they can manage every aspect of your social media team’s day-to-day in a way that warrants using the tool as a main social media hub. 

Is it Easy to Learn and Use?

One issue with the more powerful tools is that they are often quite difficult to learn how to use. More complex tools have more complex features, with more content and menus to navigate and understand. Depending on the size of your company and your needs, you might not need all the bells and whistles, especially if they come at the expense of a high learning curve to actually use.  

Choosing a tool that offers more than you need could even hinder your team's ability to onboard new employees and ensure that current ones are up to speed on making the most of it in their roles at the company. 

If you want to automate email marketing campaigns, but your tool makes accessing your email templates and creating a personalized experience for potential customers a chore that takes a long time to set up, then you’re not really benefiting from using one of these services in the first place. 

How Customizable is it?

An out-of-the-box SaaS marketing automation tool usually has a few pre-made workflow and email templates to get you started. Still, you’ll want to have full control over the look and feel of your emails and be able to create workflows and lists from scratch with a high level of granularity. 

Review how customizable everything is and how easy everything is to modify. We suggest you find a tool with a drag-and-drop editor for your less tech-savvy staff that also allows you to view and edit the HTML/CSS code for maximum customization if you have a developer on staff or work with an ecommerce/marketing agency. 

Test the software yourself to ensure it connects with your regular data sources, marketing channels, and other analytics tools. Experiment with creating workflows and modifying templates to assess how well you can tailor them to your specific needs.

Making the Final Decision

Once you’ve evaluated a few platforms, you’ll hopefully have an idea of what you want and need from your chosen tool. If you’re still unsure, here’s a checklist to help you select the right SaaS marketing automation tool for your ecommerce business:

1. Evaluate integration capabilities with existing systems.

2. Assess multi-channel marketing support.

3. Ensure personalized messaging and dynamic content features.

4. Check advanced analytics and reporting tools.

5. Confirm CRM and customer journey mapping capabilities.

6. Look for A/B testing and campaign optimization tools.

7. Verify support and training resources.

8. Consider customization and scalability.

9. Allow users to create automated workflows for nurturing leads. 

10. Ensure scalability to make sure the tool can grow with your business.

Remember, you’ll want to pick a tool that does whatever you primarily need it to do really well while also offering some nice-to-have features that you can test out and consider working into your team’s day-to-day. 

Our Agency’s Recommendation for Ecommerce Merchants

As an ecommerce agency that has vetted and set up many different tools for our clients, we believe Klaviyo to be the best marketing automation tool for small and mid-size companies looking to build out a marketing automation strategy and integrate seamlessly with the rest of their ecommerce tech stack.

With the ability to create highly personalized emails, advanced lead management features, AI-driven automation and writing tools, and more, Klaviyo can handle your SMS and email lists with care, improving your communication with customers and increasing your company’s overall marketing success.   

Klaviyo also integrates directly with our recommendation for an automated customer experience tool with similar features but for your customer service and help desk, Gorgias, so that you can deliver personalized interactions with your customers and use the data from both tools to build comprehensive profiles on everyone who interacts with your business, be it through marketing or CX channels. 

Conclusion

Incorporating the right SaaS marketing automation platform into your ecommerce business can yield significant rewards in terms of operational efficiencies, cost reductions, and heightened customer engagement. Identifying key features, weighing available options against specific requirements, and carefully considering factors influencing compatibility and ease of use are integral components of a successful implementation. 

At Blue Badger, we have the experience and expertise you need to get set up with the right marketing automation tool for your business, but we don’t have to stop there. In addition to marketing, we offer services like designing and developing custom Shopify themes, strategy, conversion rate optimization, performance marketing, and more. Let us help you build an ecommerce ecosystem that you can rely on. Get in touch with us today to learn more.