Adobe Marketo Review (2024): Features, Uses, and Pricing

Marketo Engage is a powerful marketing automation software offered as a standalone product or as part of a suite of Adobe tools. While not a standalone CRM software, Marketo can be integrated with major CRM vendors for additional marketing features and support.

Marketo is a unique solution that can generate, segment, and even nurture new leads and customers—all features that align closely with most marketing CRM software. I’ll highlight key features and compare Marketo to similar marketing CRM tools to help you decide if it’s worth investing in a standalone tool for advanced lead generation.

Marketo Pricing

Marketo’s pricing structure is slightly different than regular CRMs, as each plan has a maximum number of available users. Marketo can be purchased through Adobe Suite or as an individual product. For all plan levels listed below, you need to contact them for a quote.

These are the levels for Marketo as a standalone solution:

• Growth: For up to 10 users and 20,000 calls per day. Provides basic email marketing and segmentation features with limited automations.
• Select: For up to 25 users and 50,000 calls per day. Offers essential marketing automations and measurement tools.
• Major: For up to 25 users and 50,000 calls per day. It offers lead-based marketing and features advanced journey analytics and AI-powered personalization.
• Last: For up to 25 users and 50,000 calls per day. Includes Marketo’s most advanced marketing automations with premium attribution and Marketo Measure.

Marketo Features

Commitment map

An interaction map is an integrated visualization of all customer interactions and engagement. They are used to manage, evaluate, and adjust cross-channel, interconnected campaigns. Marketo’s interaction map displays out-of-the-box visuals, campaign configurations, workflow assessments, and even sharing capabilities. An advanced feature like this allows teams to validate and expand successful smart campaigns.

Email Marketing

Adobe Marketo Engage email marketing can help create the email itself and also create and update lead segments in real-time. Once this is done, the email marketing feature can send personalized communications to leads based on their activity on other channels. Real-time triggers will automatically send emails and also generate performance metrics and data reports.

Generative AI

Marketo Engage users can also utilize Adobe Sensei GenAI. This generative AI tool can be used in chatbots, making it a brand ambassador for your company with relevant responses and tone. This tool can also collect conversation summaries that help sales reps prepare for customer meetings. A third benefit of the tool is conversation and dialogue support that generates a comprehensive library of topics, questions, and answers for your generative chat or your reps and during live chat conversations.

Marketing analysis

Marketo’s marketing analytics tracker will automatically connect and organize data from all customer touchpoints across all channels and campaigns. Users can select pre-built tiles and dashboards that report on channels, campaigns, and even specific pieces of content. With these data insights and advanced analytics, businesses can improve strategy and campaigns at every stage of the funnel.

Advantages of Marketo

• Integrates with popular CRM providers.
• Users report that the templates are highly customizable.
• Advanced lead segmentation and scoring tools.

Disadvantages of Marketo

• Real users report outdated UX/UI.
• Marketo Measure reports are only available at the highest paid tier.
• There is no advance pricing information.

Marketo Alternatives

HubSpot

HubSpot is a top-tier free CRM and a great solution for small businesses. It also offers a suite of marketing tools, such as email campaigns, web forms, ad management, and more. Compared to Marketo, HubSpot also has a sales and service solution. This makes it a fully-functional marketing CRM and not just a marketing automation tool.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is an email marketing and automation platform similar to Marketo. Mailchimp also offers social media, SMS, and website marketing, but its core service is email marketing. Compared to Mailchimp, Marketo offers more advanced predictive analytics and reporting.

Active campaign

ActiveCampaign also features all the key marketing automation tools such as web forms, email campaigns, A/B testing, and generative content. Unlike Marketo, ActiveCampaign has a CRM built into the tool that can further track all of these marketing campaigns. This pipeline and engagement CRM add-on is only available on the Plus, Pro, or Enterprise plans. Otherwise, it can be integrated with Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, and others.

Review methodology

To evaluate Marketo as a marketing and lead generation solution, I analyzed the platform’s key offerings, pricing, and other aspects in comparison to industry standards. I consulted Adobe’s online materials, my own experience with CRMs, and reviews from real users. All of this helped me identify standout features and ideal use cases for the software.

Below are the criteria I used to rate Marketo:

• Cost: Weighted 25% of the total score.
• Main features: Weighted 25% of the total score.
• Customizations: Weighted 15% of the total score.
• Integrations: Weighted 15% of the total score.
• Ease of use: Weighted 10% of the total score.
• Customer Service: Weighted 10% of the total score.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Can you use Marketo as a CRM?

Marketo cannot be used as a CRM software itself, but rather as a marketing automation tool. Marketo can be integrated with a CRM to share data, campaign results, and funnel generated leads. The two CRMs it can be directly integrated with are Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics.

Is Marketo worth it?

If your company is looking for a powerful marketing automation tool to supercharge your marketing efforts, you're already a Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics user, and you can fit the budget, Marketo is worth a look. If all of those factors are met, it can be a great addition to your sales technology stack. In case you're looking for a simpler CRM with these features built in, there are other options like Freshsales, HubSpot, or Zoho CRM.