Marketing Automation Decoded: How Top Platforms Define the Terms That Drive Results

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI in marketing automation extends beyond simple rule-based logic to make informed decisions, create targeted content, and predict outcomes based on data-driven insights. Today, platforms are increasingly integrating three forms of AI: content creation via generative AI (GenAI), behavioral forecasting via predictive AI, and task automation via agentic AI.

The AI capabilities built into a platform can determine its speed, depth of personalization, and strategic flexibility. Some platforms focus solely on prediction, while others now utilize AI agents to launch or adjust campaigns in real-time autonomously.

Here’s how AI is deployed across platforms:

Act-On: Limited AI use; relies more on rules-based logic than predictive models.

Adobe Marketo: Uses AI in Dynamic Chat and content recommendations; early steps into agentic AI.

Brevo: Offers basic send-time optimization and some personalization tools.

HubSpot Marketing Hub: Includes Breeze (Generative), Predictive Scoring, and AI Agents (Agentic AI).

Klaviyo: Predictive analytics for churn, purchase intent; no generative AI built-in.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights: AI Copilot assists with personalization, scheduling, and email generation.

Omnisend: Basic predictive send-time and product recommendation AI.

Oracle Eloqua: Fatigue analysis, scoring enhancements, and content generation.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud: Einstein AI powers personalization, scoring, and campaign optimization.

Zoho CRM: Zia AI provides forecasting, scoring, and conversational assistance.

Asset Management

Managing marketing assets—such as images, PDFs, templates, snippets, and code blocks—is critical for scaling and organizing campaigns effectively. Asset management ensures that creative elements are version-controlled, accessible to the right teams, and reusable across workflows. In enterprise environments, it can include approval workflows, tagging systems, and access permissions.

A strong asset management system saves time, reduces errors, and promotes brand consistency. Some platforms offer built-in digital asset managers (DAM), while others rely on file libraries or integrations with third-party tools.

Here’s how each platform handles asset management:

Act-On: Provides a basic media library with file hosting for forms and emails.

Adobe Marketo: Offers modular assets (snippets, tokens, templates) and a shared library.

Brevo: Simple media library; no modular reuse features.

HubSpot Marketing Hub: Asset Marketplace and file manager support shared modules and smart content blocks.

Klaviyo: Basic image and product asset hosting; personalization is tied to catalog data.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights: Assets managed via Dynamics Marketing file manager; integration with SharePoint available.

Omnisend: Includes basic asset upload, with assets closely tied to e-commerce blocks.

Oracle Eloqua: Advanced shared content, file library, and reusable blocks.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud: Uses Content Builder to manage and reuse images, templates, and blocks.

Zoho CRM: File manager supports assets across campaigns; integrates with Zoho WorkDrive.

Campaign

Campaigns are structured, goal-driven initiatives that coordinate a variety of marketing assets, such as emails, text messages, ads, and landing pages, toward a common objective. These could include short-term launches, such as a product release, or ongoing efforts, like nurture streams. Campaigns help teams unify their messaging, allocate resources effectively, and report on performance holistically.

How platforms define and structure campaigns varies widely. Some platforms bundle assets solely for tracking, while others enable campaigns to dictate the logic and automation flow. Understanding these mechanics helps marketers align campaign strategy with the platform’s native functionality.

Here’s how the platforms structure and define campaigns:

Act-On: Campaigns can include email, social, and forms, tracked through engagement scores.

Adobe Marketo: Defines Smart Campaigns as automation logic tied to triggers and actions.

Brevo: Offers basic email campaign builder; more advanced campaign automation handled through workflows.

HubSpot Marketing Hub: The Campaigns group organizes assets for reporting, including emails, landing pages, and forms.

Klaviyo: Refers to these as Campaigns for batch sends and Flows for automation, with a focus on e-commerce.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights: Campaigns are tied to marketing journeys, often visualized via customer journeys.

Omnisend: Offers standard and automated campaigns, primarily focused on email and SMS.

Oracle Eloqua: Features a drag-and-drop Campaign Canvas for visual orchestration.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud: Utilizes campaigns across clouds, featuring deep segmentation and comprehensive reporting tools.

Zoho CRM: Campaigns are linked to emails and social marketing, with reporting integrated into CRM modules.

Conversion

A conversion represents a user action that advances a contact further along in the sales or engagement journey. This could include submitting a form, clicking a CTA, registering for a webinar, or completing a purchase. Conversions are typically tracked and reported as key performance indicators (KPIs) for campaigns.

Precise definition and attribution of conversions are critical for understanding campaign ROI, triggering automations, and informing lead scoring. Some platforms require manual setup of conversion goals, while others provide templates or use AI to suggest likely conversion paths.

Here’s how conversions are defined and tracked across platforms:

Act-On: Tracks conversions via form submissions, gated content access, or custom events.

Adobe Marketo: Uses Success steps in program statuses to define conversions.

Brevo: Conversion tracking handled via goal completions in workflows.

HubSpot Marketing Hub: Conversion events tied to form submissions, button clicks, and custom events via tracking code.

Klaviyo: Relies on ecommerce-specific conversions, such as checkout, purchase, or sign-up events.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights: Uses real-time journeys to track conversion goals via events and CRM sync.

Omnisend: Pre-built conversion tracking for ecommerce events like purchase and product view.

Oracle Eloqua: Enables conversion goals to be defined within campaign flows and tracked through listener steps.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud: Conversion tracking via completion actions and scoring thresholds.

Zoho CRM: Conversion defined as lead to contact/account conversion or specific form completions.

CRM Integration

CRM integration ensures sales and marketing systems share a common view of the customer. This means that marketing teams can view sales activity, and sales teams can track engagement and the source of leads, all of which are critical for coordinated outreach and accurate reporting.

Some platforms offer native CRM capabilities, while others require external integration. The level of sync (real-time, bi-directional, custom field support) determines how seamless the experience is.

Here’s how each platform integrates with CRM systems:

Act-On: Native integrations with Salesforce, MS Dynamics, and SugarCRM.

Adobe Marketo: Deep integrations with Salesforce and Microsoft CRM.

Brevo: Offers basic integrations with Zoho, Salesforce, and Pipedrive.

HubSpot Marketing Hub: Native CRM included; integrates with most third-party CRMs.

Klaviyo: Primarily integrates with e-commerce platforms (Shopify, Adobe Commerce).

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights: Natively integrated CRM and marketing in one platform.

Omnisend: Integrates with ecommerce CRMs and some custom APIs.

Oracle Eloqua: Advanced two-way CRM integration with Oracle and Salesforce.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud: Native connection to Salesforce Sales and Service Clouds.

Zoho CRM: Seamless internal integration with Zoho’s suite of marketing tools.

Custom Objects

Custom objects allow marketers to model data beyond standard contacts, companies, and deals. This is essential for organizations with unique data structures, such as courses, subscriptions, vehicles, or support cases, that influence marketing logic. Custom objects help extend personalization and workflow triggers to a broader array of entities.

Platforms that support custom objects offer greater flexibility for personalization, segmentation, and reporting. However, ease of use varies: some require developer configuration, while others provide no-code editors.

Here’s how custom objects are supported across platforms:

Act-On: No native support for custom objects; relies on field workarounds or CRM sync.

Adobe Marketo: Supports custom objects with relationships to leads and accounts; requires API configuration.

Brevo: Does not support true custom objects; relational data modeling is not available.

HubSpot Marketing Hub: Custom objects are fully supported in the Enterprise tier with no-code editor and workflows.

Klaviyo: No formal custom object system; product catalog acts as a pseudo-object model.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights: Supports fully customizable data models and object relationships.

Omnisend: No custom object support; data structure fixed around ecommerce use cases.

Oracle Eloqua: Allows custom data objects with full visual mapping and campaign integration.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud: Supports custom objects through Salesforce CRM extension and Engagement Studio.

Zoho CRM: Custom modules function as custom objects and can be fully integrated with campaigns and automation.

Email Automation

Email automation allows marketers to send the right message to the right person at the right time—without manual effort. It includes everything from welcome sequences and drip campaigns to transactional messages and event-triggered outreach.

There are typically two types of email automation: batch campaigns sent to a segment (e.g., a monthly newsletter) and behavior-based 1:1 emails triggered in workflows. Platforms differ in their support for personalization, A/B testing, and integration with sales data.

Below is how each platform approaches email automation:

Act-On: Enables scheduled blasts and automated nurture campaigns.

Adobe Marketo: Supports triggered and batch emails with dynamic content.

Brevo: Emphasizes transactional and marketing automations through workflows.

HubSpot Marketing Hub: Allows full personalization, triggered sends, and batch campaigns via workflows or campaigns.

Klaviyo: Robust ecommerce automations with A/B testing and dynamic blocks.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights: Automates emails across journeys with native editor.

Omnisend: Combines automation with SMS; ideal for product-based journeys.

Oracle Eloqua: Handles batch and triggered emails with granular scheduling.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud: Email Studio and Journey Builder support batch and event-driven sends.

Zoho CRM: Automation rules trigger messages from templates or custom content.

Landing Page

A landing page (LP) is a standalone web page created specifically for a marketing campaign. Its goal is to encourage visitors to complete a focused action—such as signing up, downloading an asset, or making a purchase—without the distractions of broader site navigation.

While some platforms offer comprehensive landing page builders with dynamic personalization and testing tools, others provide basic forms that must be embedded elsewhere. The level of customization and reporting integration varies greatly.

Below are landing page capabilities across platforms:

Act-On: Provides a drag-and-drop builder with gated content forms.

Adobe Marketo: Advanced customization with form pre-fill, dynamic content.

Brevo: Basic landing page builder with email integration.

HubSpot Marketing Hub: Fully integrated with forms, CRM data, and reporting.

Klaviyo: Uses embedded forms and product blocks rather than traditional landing pages.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights: Landing pages built in Power Pages or through integrations.

Omnisend: Limited to embedded forms and signup boxes.

Oracle Eloqua: WYSIWYG editor and form integration via the canvas.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud: Requires integration with CloudPages or Experience Cloud.

Zoho CRM: Landing page functionality is part of Zoho Marketing Automation.

Lead

A lead is the starting point of nearly every sales journey—an individual or organization that has expressed interest in your company. This expression of interest may take various forms, such as completing a contact form, signing up for a webinar, or downloading a white paper. In most automation systems, these interactions trigger workflows that determine how— and whether —to move the lead toward sales qualification.

Not all platforms treat leads the same. Some systems view every contact as a lead, while others maintain strict distinctions between raw inquiries and qualified prospects. These differences shape how sales teams manage outreach and how marketing teams structure their nurturing efforts.

Below are nuanced definitions of lead across the top marketing automation platforms:

Act-On: Leads are primarily tracked through behavioral interactions, with automatic scoring used to determine sales readiness.

Adobe Marketo: Every person in the database is a lead by default, regardless of qualification stage.

Brevo: Utilizes contacts universally, with lead status assigned based on scoring rules.

HubSpot Marketing Hub: Differentiates between contacts and qualified leads via lifecycle stages.

Klaviyo: Refers to all users as profiles but allows segmenting based on lead-like behavior.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights: Leads are part of the Sales module, tied closely to AI-driven scoring.

Omnisend: Operates with subscribers rather than formal leads, focused more on engagement.

Oracle Eloqua: Uses contacts and assigns lead status through implicit/explicit scoring.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud: Treats leads as a standard object that can convert into accounts, contacts, and opportunities.

Zoho CRM: Maintains distinct modules for leads and contacts, enabling customized automation per stage.

Lead Scoring

Lead scoring is a method for ranking leads based on their perceived value and likelihood of conversion. Businesses use scoring models to assess the quality of each lead by assigning numerical values based on behavioral indicators, such as email clicks or form fills, and demographic characteristics, including industry or company size. The goal is to focus time and resources on the leads most likely to become customers.

Scoring systems differ in complexity. Some platforms support dual scoring models that assess both engagement and profile data, while others rely on simple point-based models or AI-driven predictions. The flexibility and granularity of lead scoring can significantly impact how quickly leads are qualified (MQL) and handed off to sales.

Below are the lead scoring methods used by each platform:

Act-On: Score Sheets allow for point allocation based on digital behaviors and firmographics.

Adobe Marketo: Offers both demographic and behavioral scoring, with custom fields.

Brevo: Lacks native lead scoring; scoring must be implemented manually with workflows.

HubSpot Marketing Hub: Utilizes both positive and negative scoring criteria, which are customizable by the user.

Klaviyo: No native scoring, but engagement metrics and predictive analytics can be used similarly.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights: Offers AI-driven predictive lead scoring with ranking models.

Omnisend: Offers basic engagement scoring centered on e-commerce behaviors.

Oracle Eloqua: Utilizes dual scoring—combining profile and engagement—linked to sales-readiness thresholds.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud: Offers Einstein Lead Scoring integrated with CRM for prioritization.

Zoho CRM: Includes rule-based lead scoring across custom fields and campaign interactions.

Personalization Token

Personalization tokens dynamically insert user-specific information into emails, landing pages, or ad copy, allowing for targeted messaging. Common examples include a user’s first name, company name, or recent activity. They enhance engagement by making communications feel tailored and relevant.

More advanced implementations enable conditional logic and fallback values, as well as entire sections of content that render based on segmentation rules. Platform flexibility in token management has a direct impact on message customization.

Here’s how personalization tokens are implemented across platforms:

Act-On: Supports merge fields in emails and landing pages; limited conditional logic.

Adobe Marketo: Tokens can pull from multiple objects and support velocity scripting.

Brevo: Supports basic field insertion with fallback text; no advanced logic.

HubSpot Marketing Hub: Offers personalization tokens across contact, company, deal, and custom objects.

Klaviyo: Dynamic blocks use profile data and event variables for deep personalization.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights: Tokens available in real-time marketing emails; integrates with Power Automate.

Omnisend: Offers personalization options for both email and SMS, including product and cart data.

Oracle Eloqua: Advanced personalization using field merges, conditions, and data lookups.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud: Uses Handlebars Merge Language (HML) for personalization in emails and landing pages.

Zoho CRM: Tokens available in email templates; supports conditional expressions via Deluge script.

Segmentation

Segmentation is the practice of dividing your audience into meaningful groups based on characteristics like behavior, demographics, or lifecycle stage. It’s a foundational component of modern marketing automation, as it enables more personalized and relevant messaging at scale.

Dynamic segmentation enables you to adjust lists in real-time based on user actions, whereas static segments remain fixed. Some platforms take it a step further, integrating AI to create segments based on the likelihood of conversion or response, and automatically respond accordingly. Effective segmentation improves performance across email, ads, and web personalization.

Here’s how each platform handles segmentation:

Act-On: Supports dynamic lists using behavioral and demographic filters.

Adobe Marketo: Uses Smart Lists for dynamic, real-time segmentation.

Brevo: Segments can be based on contact attributes and past behavior.

HubSpot Marketing Hub: Utilizes static and dynamic lists, supporting advanced filtering.

Klaviyo: Offers pre-built and custom segments based on user behavior and attributes.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights: Segments are built using query logic within the Customer Insights module.

Omnisend: Offers filter-based segments tailored for e-commerce KPIs.

Oracle Eloqua: Supports dynamic segments within the Campaign Canvas.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud: Audiences can be segmented using filters, data extensions, and AI modeling.

Zoho CRM: Uses Views and filters to create segments within modules.

Trigger

A trigger is the starting condition that activates an automation. It may be due to user behavior (e.g., clicking a link), a date and time event, or a data change (e.g., lifecycle stage update). Triggers define when and how a workflow begins, playing a vital role in ensuring relevance and timing.

Different platforms vary in trigger flexibility. Some allow nested or compound triggers, others provide only basic event conditions. The more sophisticated the trigger logic, the more precise the automation can become.

Here’s how triggers are managed across platforms:

Act-On: Behavior-based triggers, such as webpage visits or email clicks, initiate automation.

Adobe Marketo: Uses Triggers in Smart Campaigns; supports complex logic and filters.

Brevo: Triggers include user behavior, attribute changes, or webhook signals.

HubSpot Marketing Hub: Workflows can be triggered by form submissions, field changes, or event completions.

Klaviyo: Triggers include ecommerce events, profile updates, or external integrations via API.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights: Real-time journeys begin from customer events or attribute changes.

Omnisend: Triggers include product views, cart abandonment, and signups.

Oracle Eloqua: Triggered by form submissions, field changes, or API calls within the campaign canvas.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud: Triggers based on list membership, field updates, or activity tracking.

Zoho CRM: Workflow triggers based on record creation, edits, field values, or scheduled conditions.

Workflow

A workflow automates a sequence of actions based on user behavior or predefined rules. These sequences allow businesses to personalize communication at scale, welcoming new leads, assigning sales reps, delivering content, or triggering internal tasks. Workflows are critical for ensuring timely and relevant engagement.

What makes workflows unique across platforms is how they are constructed, visualized, and extended across marketing, sales, and service functions. Some offer drag-and-drop interfaces, while others rely on rule-based logic or embedded code.

Below are workflow implementations across platforms:

Act-On: Offers behavior-based workflows and progressive nurturing automation.

Adobe Marketo: Workflows are configured using Smart Campaigns, which utilize triggers, filters, and flow steps.

Brevo: Workflows are visually designed and event-driven, with E-commerce triggers.

HubSpot Marketing Hub: Workflows span marketing, sales, and service; allows branching, delays, and property updates.

Klaviyo: Flows are event-driven automations with built-in templates and ecommerce triggers.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights: Workflows are part of Real-Time Marketing and can trigger actions across records.

Omnisend: Uses visual automation workflows triggered by subscriber behavior.

Oracle Eloqua: Features a Program Canvas for database flows and a Campaign Canvas for customer flows.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud: Uses Journey Builder to create visual, multi-channel workflows.

Zoho CRM: Workflow Rules automate tasks, email sends, and field updates based on triggers.