Marketing automation
Also: MA, marketing automation platform, MAP, campaign automation, automatisation du marketing, marketing automatisé
Using software to automate repetitive marketing tasks and campaigns, enabling personalisation at scale across channels like email, web, and social.
What it is
Marketing automation refers to software platforms that execute repetitive marketing tasks and multi-step campaigns without manual intervention for each step. Instead of sending emails one by one or manually tagging leads, teams define rules, triggers, and workflows once, then let the system run them continuously.
Typical capabilities include:
- Triggered messaging across email, SMS, push, and in-app channels
- Lead scoring and lifecycle stage management
- Segmentation based on behaviour, attributes, and engagement
- Landing pages and forms with automated follow-up
- Campaign orchestration across multiple touchpoints
- Reporting on conversion, attribution, and pipeline contribution
Why it matters
Manual marketing does not scale. When you have thousands or millions of contacts, personalisation by hand is impossible. Automation lets a small team deliver the right message to the right person at the right time, which improves conversion while reducing cost per outcome.
- CMO: drives efficiency, consistency, and measurable pipeline contribution.
- CDO: depends on clean, unified customer data to function correctly; feeds behavioural data back into the warehouse.
- CFO: turns marketing spend into trackable, forecastable return with clearer attribution.
- AI: modern platforms increasingly embed models for send-time optimisation, content generation, and next-best-action.
How it is used in practice
Teams design workflows (also called journeys or flows). Each starts with a trigger, applies conditions, then executes actions, often with delays and branches.
1. Define the goal (for example, convert trial users to paid).
2. Choose a trigger (user signs up).
3. Add branching logic (did they activate a key feature?).
4. Sequence actions (send email, wait, notify sales, update score).
5. Measure and iterate against a control group.
Worked example
A B2B software company runs a trial nurture flow:
- Trigger: a user starts a 14 day free trial.
- Day 0: welcome email with a setup checklist.
- Day 3, branch: if no login, send a re-engagement email; if active, send an advanced tips email.
- Day 7: lead score crosses 60, so a sales rep is auto-assigned a task.
- Day 12: if not converted, send a discount offer.
- Result tracked: trial to paid conversion rate versus a holdout group.
This single workflow replaces dozens of manual emails and handoffs, running identically for every trial user while adapting to each person's behaviour.