B2C marketing automation software is a platform that allows businesses to automate marketing activities, including lead generation, nurturing, and customer retention campaigns.
The best B2C marketing automation tools support automation across websites, SMS, social media, and email.
What most businesses get wrong is jumping straight to picking an automation tool before defining the customer journey and the critical touchpoints they want to automate. This results in generic workflows based on what the tool can do, instead of strategic flows that respond to how customers shop and behave.
This article walks you through the critical role of defining the customer journey in creating personalized automation campaigns. We’ll then review the six top marketing automation platforms and their best use cases.
Key takeaways
- B2C marketing automation tools automate repetitive marketing tasks like lead capturing, contact scoring, customer segmentation, and post-purchase communications.
- Start your marketing automation strategy by mapping the customer journey to understand how customers engage with your brand and identify the crucial touchpoints you need to automate.
- To pick the right marketing automation tool, confirm it integrates with your existing tech stack, has an intuitive dashboard, supports multi-step workflows, and delivers revenue attribution and performance metrics. The best platform also offers multi-channel automation.
- GetResponse is an omnichannel marketing automation platform. It helps you automate the customer lifecycle and deliver tailored experiences through dynamic content, split logic, and AI-powered product recommendations.
| Tool | Best for | Key features | Pricing |
|---|---|---|---|
| GetResponse | Customer lifecycle automation | Multi-channel workflows Advanced audience segmentation Abandoned cart recovery Website behavior tracking Revenue attribution |
$48.38/mo for 1,000 contacts |
| Klaviyo | Ecommerce automation | Multi-step workflows Predictive analytics Personalized product recommendations AI-generated customer segments |
$45/mo for 1,500 active profiles |
| ActiveCampaign | AI-powered automation | AI-generated workflows Cross-channel automation Automation split testing Conditional content Predictive sending |
$79/mo for advanced automation features |
| HubSpot Marketing Hub | All-in-one platform | Conditional and split logic Omnichannel automation Dynamic content Social media automation AI-powered workflow creation |
$800/mo for advanced automation (2,000 contacts) |
| Omnisend | Online stores | Channel branching Personalized product recommendations AI-powered send-time optimization |
$41.30/mo for 2,500 contacts |
| Brevo | Affordable automation | Multichannel automation Advanced reporting Email A/B testing |
$31.50/mo for 1,500 contacts |
Mapping the customer journey for automation
A successful B2C marketing automation strategy starts by understanding the customer journey.
You must know the key decision points, milestones, events, and frictions shoppers encounter while interacting with your business.
Mapping the journey shows you the crucial events you should use as automation triggers. It also helps you anticipate customer behavior. So you know what should happen next when your automation system detects a particular customer behavior.
For example, say a customer’s purchase frequency decreases suddenly. That signal may indicate potential customer churn. You can use it to trigger an appropriate re-engagement workflow.
But an even better strategy is to analyze other signals and respond with the right messaging.
If you notice decreased order frequency and the customer hasn’t engaged with your brand anywhere, then a re-engagement campaign is the right next step.
If the order frequency has dropped but the customer browsed your website recently, an order replenishment reminder would be more appropriate.
Another scenario is when order frequency drops and the last engagement was a customer support complaint. That means the next action should address the customer’s issue, not sending a purely promotional email.
Finally, use customer journey mapping to identify the customer data you need for your workflow automations to work effectively.
Customer journey mapping tells you what triggers the automation tool must support, the customer behavior it needs to track, and the data it’ll need access to.
Check out our article on marketing automation across the customer journey for more insights into what workflows you should deploy at the different lifecycle stages.
Best B2C marketing automation software
Here are the best marketing automation tools for B2C businesses.
1. GetResponse – Best for customer lifecycle automation
G2 rating: 4.3 Capterra rating: 4.2
GetResponse is a marketing automation platform that lets you orchestrate entire customer journeys to deliver tailored experiences.
Our solution integrates with popular business tools, including CRM solutions, Google Analytics, and eCommerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento. This gives it access to critical business context and customer data.
It allows GetResponse to track how customers behave on your site, for example. It can tell the products they browse, their purchase history, and even the carts they abandon.
Meanwhile, the CRM integration helps GetResponse track things like contact tags and scores. The email marketing automation tool also monitors opens, link clicks, and engagement rates.
All these signals are used as triggers to activate multi-channel workflows.
Yes, GetResponse automates campaigns across email, push notifications, and SMS. It even tracks a customer’s browsing behavior and purchase history and uses that data to tailor the products shoppers see when they revisit your site.
The GetResponse automation platform is also very easy to use. That’s one of the best things users love about GetResponse, as the G2 review by Miguel explains. Our platform helps you build powerful automations with complex customer journeys while remaining very user-friendly.
GetResponse features a drag-and-drop workflow editor with dozens of templates to get you started. You’ll find automation templates for every stage of the customer lifecycle, from lead generation and nurturing to customer retention campaigns that drive repeat purchases and brand loyalty.
It lets you build contact profiles, where you can score leads based on their actions and assign unlimited tags. This helps with customer segmentation, which further supports personalized automation campaigns.
The AI product recommendation engine also makes the GetResponse marketing automation platform a great option for ecommerce businesses. The engine uses artificial intelligence to track shoppers’ behavior and purchase history. It then recommends relevant products that each customer is most likely to buy.
Brands using AI product recommendations see their sales and average order values increase by up to 10% and 33%, respectively.
Tortli is one example of a brand that uses GetResponse AI product recommendations. €5,100 (about $5,923) worth of recommended products were added to the cart in just one month of using the tool. They also recovered €32,300 (about $37,164) in lost sales through abandoned cart recovery automation.
Here’s the full story of how the brand has used GetResponse marketing automation to grow their revenue.
Other key features
- Powerful ecommerce integrations – GetResponse supports one-click integration with major ecommerce platforms, like Shopify, Magento, PrestaShop, and BigCommerce. It also connects with payment processors like Stripe and PayPal.
- Website tracking – Track visitors’ behavior on your site and use those insights to activate relevant workflows and recommend the right products.
- Transactional emails – Send crucial transactional emails like order receipts, shipping updates, and password resets using the GetResponse transactional email service.
- Pop-ups and signup forms – Build interactive pop-ups and signup forms to convert website visitors into leads.
- Revenue attribution – Identify the specific workflows and campaigns driving sales for your business. This lets you track the exact ROI of your automations.
Limitations
- SMS marketing automation, mobile push notifications, and AI product recommendations are only available on the Enterprise plan.
Pricing
The GetResponse Marketer plan is perfect for most B2C businesses. It starts at only $48.38/mo for 1,000 contacts and unlimited email sends. You’ll notice other automation platforms on this list, like ActiveCampaign, Brevo, and HubSpot, limit the email volume based on your contact list size.
The Marketer plan supports email automation, unlimited workflows, advanced audience segmentation, abandoned cart recovery, unlimited web push notifications, and signup forms and popups. You also get promo codes and revenue reports.
The Enterprise plan offers advanced features like AI recommendations, SMS automation, transactional emails, mobile push notifications, and webinars.
The plan is ideal for larger businesses where a dedicated IP address, single sign-on, and dedicated sending domain are a priority. This plan also comes with a dedicated customer success manager.
2. Klaviyo – Best for ecommerce automation
G2 rating: 4.6 Capterra rating: 4.6
Klaviyo is an omnichannel marketing automation platform with a built-in customer data platform (CDP). This lets you import all your customer data into Klaviyo. It connects to over 300 data sources.
Klaviyo CDP unifies all the business and customer data, giving you a single source of truth. You can see a customer’s last interactions with all your teams, including customer support. This data allows you to run personalized automation campaigns at scale.
The extensive data also allows Klaviyo to predict customer behavior. It can predict their next order date and even detect potential churn. This allows you to anticipate future customer needs and create the right workflows for every moment.
Plus, you can segment customers on the customer data management platform for even better targeting.
The drawback is that the CDP is a separate add-on with pricing starting at $500/mo for 100K profiles.
Still, Klaviyo’s automation platform is pretty decent even without the built-in data management tool. You get a visual workflow builder that’s very easy to use. It lets you create multi-step workflows. It also tracks customers’ preferred channel. Campaigns are sent to that channel automatically for maximum engagement.
Prebuilt workflow templates for popular campaigns like welcome series, abandoned cart recovery, and browse abandonment are available.
You can also prompt Composer, one of Klaviyo’s AI agents, to build a workflow.
Klaviyo AI creates campaign content and segments customers. Plus, it provides campaign recommendations based on your customer and business data.
Other key features
- Klaviyo AI agents – Besides Composer, Klaviyo offers a customer support agent that’s trained on your data. The agent answers customer questions and can recommend relevant products inside conversations.
You can also connect Klaviyo to Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor using an MCP server.
- Business performance monitoring – The platform tracks key metrics proactively and sends notifications when something needs your attention.
- Automatic sending reputation repair – Monitors your sender reputation and repairs it when needed to ensure inbox placement.
- Analytics and revenue attribution – Track high-level metrics as well as granular data like how specific messages and channels perform.
The platform also supports custom and multi-touch revenue attribution models. You can get even more insights through Klaviyo’s Data Analytics add-on.
Limitations
- Composer and other AI agents are separate add-ons.
- Prices increase sharply as your email list grows.
Pricing
Pricing for the marketing solution starts at $45/mo for 1,500 active profiles and 15,000 monthly email sends. The plan includes marketing automation, personalized product recommendations, AI-generated content and customer segments, predictive analytics, and reporting dashboards.
The Composer Marketing agent starts at $14 for 2,000 credits.
Mobile messages and social marketing are separate add-ons. SMS marketing costs $15/mo for 1,000 SMS messages in the US. WhatsApp marketing (not available in the US) costs $105 for 1,000 WhatsApp messages.
Basic RCS costs $15/mo for 1,000 text-only RCS messages in the US.
3. ActiveCampaign – Best for AI-powered automations
G2 rating: 4.4 Capterra rating: 4.6
ActiveCampaign is a decent marketing automation option for any marketer who prefers a more hands-free platform.
The solution has a powerful AI called Active Intelligence that uses your prompts to create campaigns, audience segments, and workflows. So you don’t have to create any flows from scratch, even though that option exists.
The workflows support split and conditional actions. This lets you take shoppers through personalized journeys based on their actions and engagement behavior.
The AI actively tracks your business goals and delivers marketing strategy recommendations. The recommendations are not based on your data alone. The platform also offers some recommendations based on anonymized data from other businesses like yours.
ActiveCampaign’s marketing automation solution supports multichannel marketing. It offers SMS, WhatsApp, and email marketing automation. You can build a single workflow that activates across various channels depending on the recipient’s channel affinity.
Plus, it personalizes campaign content and send times based on the customer’s engagement signals.
ActiveCampaign offers basic CRM capabilities with the standard plans. It allows you to manage contact profiles, add tags, create lists, and use custom fields for segmentation.
Advanced CRM capabilities like pipeline management, lead scoring, and deal records are available with the Enhanced CRM add-on.
That said, users complain that ActiveCampaign has a steep learning curve.
Other key features
- Advanced segmentation – Segment customers based on their engagement levels, preferences, and behavior.
- Predictive insights – ActiveCampaign analyzes customer data and behavior to predict future customer needs and churn risk. It allows your team to intervene with the right messaging to optimize customer lifetime value and prevent churn.
- Site and event tracking – Monitor customer interactions with your site and campaigns and use the data insights to trigger relevant flows.
- Automation split testing – Test entire customer journeys to find the paths and touchpoints that generate the most revenue or hinder conversions. It also lets you A/B test emails and automatically send the winning version to the rest of your list.
- Analytics and reporting tools – Get actionable insights, including automation reporting, conversion tracking, subscriber reporting, and ecommerce reporting.
Limitations
- Relatively steep learning curve
- Quite expensive, especially if you need important features like conditional content and predictive sending.
Pricing
Marketing automation is available on the Starter plan at $15/mo for 1,000 email contacts.
But that plan doesn’t support multichannel marketing. It doesn’t include conditional content or predictive sending, either. Segmentation is also limited, and automations are capped at five actions per workflow.
You can add up to 15 business goals on the Starter plan. These are the goals the AI can track and suggest actions on.
The Plus plan starts at $49/mo. This offers additional features like generative AI capabilities, cross-channel marketing, 25 business goals, and unlimited automation actions.
Conditional content, which is really crucial for personalized campaigns, is only available on the Pro plan. That plan goes for $79/mo. For context, the same feature (dynamic content) is available on the $48.38 GetResponse Marketer plan.
ActiveCampaign’s Pro plan also comes with predictive sending, an automation map to track how different workflows are connected, and tracking for up to 200 active goals.
The Enterprise plan goes for $145/mo. It supports single sign-on, premium CRM integrations (like Microsoft Dynamics and Salesforce), premium segmentation, HIPAA support, and unlimited inbox testing for previewing how each email will look in your subscribers’ inboxes.
4. HubSpot Marketing Hub – Best all-in-one marketing tool
G2 rating: 4.4 Capterra rating: 4.5
HubSpot can be a great B2C marketing automation platform, especially if you also use its CRM.
Quality data has always been vital for successful automation campaigns. The built-in CRM solution means HubSpot’s automation tool has easy access to the real-time customer data needed for personalized campaigns.
Additionally, it means less reliance on integrations that might break and stop your workflows from activating. Or poor integrations that slow data syncing, which would delay automated campaigns and result in lost sales.
That said, HubSpot is one of the more expensive marketing and sales automation tools on this list. Pricing for the Professional marketing plan starts at $800/mo. The CRM starts at $45/mo/seat.
The price tag aside, HubSpot’s automation platform offers advanced features, including conditional and split logic as well as omni-channel automation. You can build the flows easily with the drag-and-drop editor.
It supports email, WhatsApp, social, and SMS automation. It tracks the pages customers visit, the campaigns they click, and their engagement levels. The data activates relevant workflows with dynamic content. Dynamic or conditional content delivers personalized messages that align with each recipient’s preferences.
HubSpot provides an AI assistant called Breeze AI. The AI creates workflows and customer segments based on your prompt.
Breeze AI has access to your customer records and business data, so it can answer questions on things like campaign performance.
Lastly, HubSpot offers advanced analytics to help you track automation and campaign ROI. It connects revenue to specific campaigns with revenue attribution.
The platform shows your highest ROI conversion paths you can double down on to reduce your customer acquisition costs.
Other key features
- Business tools – HubSpot gives you access to multiple business tools within a single platform. You get customer relationship management, marketing, sales, customer support, data, and revenue solutions in one place.
- Agent Hub – Gives you access to HubSpot’s marketing agent, prospecting agent, data agent, and customer agent. These agents automate repetitive tasks, allowing your sales and marketing teams to focus on strategic initiatives.
- Customer journey analytics – See the impact of every customer touchpoint. It shows you where deals stall or customers drop off.
- Visual automation builder – Use the drag-and-drop editor to create multi-step workflows. It also has prebuilt workflow templates.
Limitations
- Expensive
- Steep learning curve
Pricing
The $7/mo Starter plan supports simple marketing automation for email campaigns. It also includes CRM segments, live chat, ad management, and the data agent, which is in beta.
You need the Professional plan to access advanced omnichannel marketing automation. That plan starts at $800/mo for 2,000 marketing contacts. It includes three core seats, a marketing studio for campaign planning, and video creation and editing.
That plan includes HubSpot credits for use with the AI agents.
The Enterprise plan starts at $3,600/mo for 10,000 marketing contacts and 5,000 HubSpot credits. It offers additional features like multi-touch revenue attribution, customer journey analytics, and behavioral event triggers and reporting.
There’s also a one-time onboarding fee of $3,000.
5. Omnisend – Best for online stores
G2 rating: 4.6 Capterra rating: 4.7
Omnisend is an ecommerce marketing automation platform designed for push notifications, SMS, and email marketing campaigns.
It also provides lead generation tools like pop-up and sign-up form builders to help you capture shoppers’ email addresses and phone numbers.
Omnisend’s automation platform features an easy-to-use workflow builder. It supports drag-and-drop functionality and includes various prebuilt automation workflows.
The workflow editor lets you build personalized customer journeys through split and conditional logic. You can set time delays between automation actions to ensure customers receive your messages at the right time.
Omnisend also offers AI features, including generative AI that helps with writing email content and subject lines. It lets you import your brand assets like logos, fonts, and colors. These are used to generate on-brand email and SMS campaigns.
The AI assistant can build signup forms, segment your audience, pick the perfect send times for individual recipients, and recommend the right products based on each customer’s preferences.
It also analyzes your customer database and flags at-risk customers.
The Omnisend MCP lets you connect the platform with your favorite AI tool. It pulls your Omnisend data, allowing you to analyze campaigns and execute commands from AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT.
Like other top marketing automation tools, Omnisend provides comprehensive analytics showing campaign performance. Automation reports show performance metrics like opens, clicks, and conversions at each step of your automation workflows. It helps you identify friction points within flows where customers stall.
The platform also offers revenue attribution, which shows how much revenue each workflow generates.
Other key features
- RFM analysis – Omnisend AI helps with RFM analysis, which allows you to segment customers based on how recently they bought from you, how often they shop, and how much they spend.
- A/B testing – Test different versions of an email inside an automation to optimize conversions.
- Channel branching – Reach customers across different channels from a single automation workflow. You don’t have to build different flows for each channel.
- Ecommerce integration capabilities – Syncs with popular ecommerce platforms, like Shopify, Woo, Ecwid, BigCommerce, and nopCommerce.
Limitations
- Several customers, like this one on G2, have complained that the Omnisend mobile app is not very robust.
- Limited customization for some of their features is another recurring complaint.
Pricing
Omnisend’s free plan supports email and push notification automation. However, this plan is limited to only 250 contacts and 500 email sends per month, which is too little for most businesses.
Paid plans start at $11.20/mo with the standard plan. This is for 251 to 500 contacts. Monthly email sends are capped at 12x the contact list size. It supports both email and push notification automation. But you don’t get SMS automation.
Additionally, it doesn’t include the personalized product recommender.
The Pro plan starts at $41.30/mo. It offers unlimited email sends, the product recommendation tool, advanced reporting, and SMS automation.
SMS marketing is only accessible with the Pro plan, but SMS credits are sold separately. Prices start at $50/mo for 5,882 SMS messages/mo in the US.
Prices vary based on where you send the SMS campaigns. For example, the same $50 gets you only 2,128 SMS/mo in Canada and 1,176 SMS/mo in the UK.
6. Brevo – Best for affordable automation
G2 rating: 4.5 Capterra rating: 4.6
Brevo supports marketing automation across email, SMS, WhatsApp, and push notifications. It also comes with a built-in customer data platform. This unifies customer data, giving you a 360-degree view of each customer.
It pulls data from your website, CRM, mobile app, POS, and other data sources. The platform lets you activate that data through accurate contact scoring, precise customer segmentation, and campaign personalization.
But the CDP is sold separately.
Brevo comes with a visual editor for creating workflows. You can use AI to create flows or pick from several pre-made automation templates, like welcome series, re-engagement, abandoned cart recovery, and anniversary campaigns.
The platform offers several AI agents for automating various sales and marketing efforts. This includes the AI marketing agent that generates campaign content, optimizes send times, and segments customers.
There’s also an AI conversations agent that can help you enhance the customer support experience.
Additionally, Brevo connects with AI platforms via an MCP server. This allows you to create campaigns and analyze performance directly from Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini.
Other key features
- Automated lead scoring – Score leads based on behavioral signals and engagement levels for better targeting.
- Forms and pop-up builder – Build GDPR-compliant sign-up forms and pop-ups to grow your email list.
- Transactional emails – Send transactional campaigns like order confirmations and shipping updates via email and SMS.
- Email frequency management – Set the maximum number of campaigns a contact receives within a given period to prevent campaign fatigue.
Limitations
- The jump from Standard ($16.17) to the Pro plan ($449.08/mo) is massive, yet you need it if you want access to vital features like email frequency management and reusable content sections.
- It’s not very good at building complex workflows, as this user explains.
Pricing
Automation across multiple channels is available from the free plan, but it limits you to only 300 emails per day and 2,000 contacts. Still, you get an AI content generator, dynamic content, and multiple automation entry points.
But campaigns on the free plan will have the Brevo branding.
Paid plans start at $8.08/mo with the Starter plan. Multi-channel automation is available on this plan, making Brevo a good automation tool for small businesses with a limited budget.
Automation on that plan is limited to 2,000 contacts, and you must pay extra to remove the Brevo branding. But you get more monthly email sends, up to 100,000.
You’ll need at least the Standard plan to get unlimited multichannel automation and advanced reporting and analytics. This plan costs $16.17/mo and extends monthly email sends to up to 1M. It removes the Brevo branding, and you get additional features like email A/B testing and AI send time optimization.
The Professional package goes for $449.08/mo. It offers additional features like email frequency management, reusable content sections, pop-ups, dedicated IP as an add-on, and multi-branch testing.
It’s worth noting that pop-ups are only available on the expensive Pro plan. Also, the Standard plan lets you create only one landing page, while the Pro plan supports up to 10 landing pages. Compare that to GetResponse, which supports unlimited pop-ups and landing pages on all plans, including the $15.58/mo Starter plan.
WhatsApp campaigns, mobile push notifications, and pop-ups are only available on the Professional Brevo plan.
A custom plan is available if you want unlimited users, a custom monthly email volume, a dedicated IP, and a dedicated customer success manager. The plan also lets you manage multiple business accounts. It’s available at a custom price.
Marketing automation for B2C businesses
B2C marketing automation improves team efficiency and helps you deliver personalized customer experiences at scale. But before picking any tool, map your customer journey to understand where automation can have the biggest impact. Use those insights to identify the right automation tool for your specific needs.
Our solution, GetResponse, is a great option if you want a platform that automates the entire customer journey. Recognized as a 2026 finalist in the Best SaaS Product for Workflow Automation, our platform supports complex workflows with conditional logic and dynamic content.
It’s also very easy to use, and our responsive customer support team is always available to help when you get stuck.
Start with a free trial today, which gives you access to the premium automation features. No credit card required.
B2C marketing automation platforms FAQs
1. What is the best marketing automation software?
HubSpot, GetResponse, and Klaviyo are the best marketing automation software solutions. However, the right marketing automation tool for you will depend on your specific automation needs and budget.
2. What is the best marketing automation software for small businesses?
GetResponse is a good marketing automation software solution for small businesses because it supports automation across the entire customer journey while staying very budget-friendly. Prices start at just $48.38/mo, and you get unlimited automations and monthly email sends.
3. How much does marketing automation typically cost?
Effective marketing automation typically starts in the $40/mo price range, but the exact price hugely depends on your contact list size. That price usually gives you the advanced automation capabilities you’d need to run personalized automations that drive revenue. GetResponse’s advanced automation features are available from $48.38/mo for 1,000 contacts, while ActiveCampaign’s start at $49/mo for 1,000 contacts.
