Planning to implement marketing automation and considering Pardot? We advice to look at resembling software to make a decision.

When customers choose marketing automation app, most often they are looking for functionality for email builder, marketing lead database, website builder, lead nurturing, A etc.

Comparing Pardot with competitors users pay attention to the automation builder, marketing lead database, help desk, conversations, survey builder, segmentation, number of triggers and actions and so on.

We’ve made a list of top 10 competitors that are very similar in cost and features to Pardot. The list is based on similarity, so if Pardot doesn’t suit you in any way, here you can easily choose the best variant for you.

E2 Shop System

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We help shops and manufacturers of all kinds and sizes work smarter for improved efficiencies, greater flexibility and bigger profits.

Google Analytics Events

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Use Events to collect data about interactions with your content. Events are user interactions with content that can be measured independently from a web-page or screen load. Downloads, link clicks, form submissions, and video plays are all examples of actions you might want to analyze as Events.

ConstantContact

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Constant Contact is an email marketing platform, used by more than 500,000 small businesses to build and deliver email campaigns to their customers. You can design, send and track emails with a simple set of tools and easy to use interface.

Newired

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Newired is a Digital Adoption Solution which allows you to design and create a guidance overlay to help users of virtually any web-based software. Newired introduces an interactive guidance layer which enhances user experience, boosts application adoption and guides customers or employees through any task, providing contextual help in an easy-to-use interface.

Zoho Recruit

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Zoho Recruit's Applicant Tracking System (ATS) helps you simplify and streamline your entire end-to-end recruitment process.

MailChimp

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Mailchimp is a software which gives you the ability to create and manage mailing lists, newsletters, automated campaigns and more. It puts you in the driver's seat and lets you have full control over your email marketing efforts from beginning to end. Mailchimp is simple and easy to use and its software gives you access to an array of email marketing tools all conveniently located in one place. There are several advantages that Mailchimp provides over other competitors in the industry which make it a top choice for businesses looking to get their foot in the door with email marketing.

ConstantContact

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Constant Contact is an email marketing platform, used by more than 500,000 small businesses to build and deliver email campaigns to their customers. You can design, send and track emails with a simple set of tools and easy to use interface.

Tribe

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Customizable online community platform to connect, engage, and retain users.

ActiveCampaign

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ActiveCampaign is a platform that helps businesses automate customer experiences and build meaningful connections with their customers. Since 2003, ActiveCampaign has created tools that are both powerful and easy to use – because growing businesses don't always have the time to set up new tech. Today, 80,000+ businesses use ActiveCampaign for their email marketing, marketing automation, or CRM.

ZapERP

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ZapERP is a multi-channel eCommerce Inventory management software helps business to manage their inventory, Sales, Purchases, and warehouses. ZapERP Integartes with Shopify, Amazon, eBay, WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, Etsy, and Flipkart. Push all the invoices and Bills to your accounting software like Xero QuickBooks automatically using ZapERP.

Emburse Chrome River INVOICE

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Chrome River is part of Emburse, a global leader in expense management and AP automation solutions, which is trusted by more than 4.5 million users in more than 120 countries.

How to choose Pardot substitute

Many marketing automation tools are similar to each other. Platforms with identical features can differ in cost by 2 times. The first feature you should look at is the availability of funnel builder. This is a basic feature of marketing automation apps and if it doesn’t include this feature, most likely this app isn’t formed yet. All funnel builders look almost the same. It's important not to look at the UX, but pay attention to the functionality.

In a month, you'll get used to the UI, but the lack of features will always spite you. Changing marketing automation apps is very expensive. If you have the usual email set up, it's not that difficult to switch to another tool. But if you've already configured integrations, workflow, and have complex funnels, it can take months to change the tool. That's why you should be attentive to choosing an alternative.

What to look for when analyzing the automation builder? It has 4 important features categories.

1. Triggers. For instance, "Form submit" is a trigger that launches a business process. The most often used triggers are: opening an email, clicking a link in an email, reaching a goal, adding or removing a tag, closing a deal, visiting a page, etc. In each platform for marketing automation this set is different. The more, the better.
2. Action. For example, "Send email". This is the most simple action you can have. The most often used actions are: add or remove a tag, send a text message, send a messenger message, set a salesperson task, update a transaction, notify someone by email, move a transaction to another stage, etc.
3. Delay. For instance, "Wait 2 days. Customer fill in the form on the website and get in the marketing automation app (Trigger), the software sends a Welcome email (Action). Then the app waits 3 days (delay) and sends a second email. This is the most simple automation. But there are other options. For example, "Wait until something happens". Or wait until November 30th, or wait until 9 PM in the subscriber’s time zone.
4. If/else. For instance, "If a client, has the tag "Bought product #1", send the email, if the subscriber doesn't have the tag "Purchased product #1", wait 2 days and send the email. The most often used if/else parameters are: was on the site page, bought certain items, opened certain emails, user field the contact card matches some requirements. This is information according to which you can segment the contact base.

Analyzing the automation builder, you need to look carefully at all four categories of functions. The more, the better. Often it appears that good-working marketing automation software with the biggest number of features look uncomfortable. New systems look nice, but they have few functions. You need to the tool you plan to implement very deeply. Otherwise, it will be very painful to change it in the future.

Once you've analyzed the automation builder, you understand whether there are integrations with the apps you need. Fortunately, Apiway can help you. Usually, tools like Pardot are the center of business IT infrastructure. It's kind of digital hub for all your subscriber. This kind of software is like an octopus, which is putting its tentacles into other system. App like Pardot need to integrate with most other ones. Or you’ll have to waste a lot of money and time developing custom integrations.

Also those who are looking for alternatives to Pardot use tools from other categories like email marketing software, chat on website software, CRM system, lead management software