The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Automation

Do you feel overwhelmed by endless marketing tasks? Are you struggling with tighter budgets and shifting goalposts? 

Many marketing teams are being asked to do more with less amidst economic uncertainty, ever-changing consumer trends and rapid tech advancements. 

This pressure to deliver bigger results with fewer resources has made efficiency non-negotiable –and that’s where marketing automation comes in. 

At Make, we believe marketing automation is the key to delivering personalized campaigns that deliver results and open up new opportunities. 

This guide will reveal how you can offload tedious manual marketing tasks and free up your team to focus on meaningful growth by setting up simple-but-powerful automated workflows. 

What is marketing automation?

Marketing automation is using software to handle repetitive marketing tasks like measuring campaign performance, following up with leads or simply posting on social and sending emails. 

It allows marketers to deliver optimized and personalized campaigns, while offering major time and cost savings. 

Key benefits

Automation is the key to streamlining marketing workflows and achieving better results. Let’s look at some of the top benefits, along with real-world examples, to show how it can make a real difference to you and your team.   

1. Save time

Marketing automation eliminates repetitive tasks, enabling your team to focus on strategic and creative work. 

For example, instead of manually updating spreadsheets or tracking campaign metrics, no-code marketing automation tools like Make can automatically pull data from multiple platforms and consolidate it into a single report.

Or, instead of manually managing email campaigns, it’s possible to create a scenario that triggers nurture flows based on certain customer behaviors. 

These kinds of automations save countless hours of manual work and can dramatically boost efficiency. 

2. Easy personalization

Modern shoppers demand tailored experiences, and automation helps you deliver them effortlessly. A key trend for 2025 is using AI to provide highly personalized experiences, helping businesses stay competitive in a rapidly evolving market.

By integrating data from multiple sources using a platform like Make, you can create dynamic workflows that send personalized content based on user actions or preferences.

For instance, if a customer views a product but doesn’t purchase, an automated follow-up email with related recommendations can re-engage them effectively.

Or if a prospect downloads a whitepaper about a specific topic, they can automatically receive updates with related insights. The options are endless.

3. Cut costs

Automation not only saves time but also reduces costs by getting the most out of existing resources. 

Instead of hiring extra staff to manage growing campaigns, you can build smart workflows that handle complex tasks like lead nurturing, community management and content creation. 

For example, you can set up a process to automatically score leads and transfer them to your CRM, ensuring your team focuses only on the most promising opportunities. Or you can set up a scenario to help you automatically maximize your ROAS from Meta ads, boosting your bottom line. 

How marketing automation works

Setting up marketing automations might sound complicated, but it can be easier than you think. 

Most automation software works using triggers, actions and conditions to define how tasks are executed and how data flows between your systems. Triggers are events that start the automation, such as a form being filled out, an email being opened or a webpage being visited. 

Actions define what happens next – for instance, sending an email, adding a contact to a CRM or launching a nurture sequence. 

Conditions add rules to make the automation smarter and more customized, such as including or excluding leads based on certain criteria.

Combining these elements successfully can require some technical expertise – unless you use a tool that simplifies the process with a visual interface. 

As the leading visual no-code automation platform, Make gives you the power to connect, streamline and automate workflows across a huge range of CRMs, tools and systems using a unique drag-and-drop interface. 

Backed by 500,000 (and growing) ‘Makers’ across the globe, the software offers native integrations to 1,600+ apps alongside thousands of free workflow automation templates.

Scenarios are live with a click of a button and data is transferred in real-time, with powerful customization options to map, filter and transform it into any format.

Core features

Wondering what you can do with marketing automation? Here’s a snapshot of the most used features…

• Lead management: Capture, score and nurture leads through automated workflows, ensuring prospects move efficiently through your sales funnel.

• Email marketing automation: Design, personalize and schedule email campaigns at scale, delivering targeted content based on customer behavior.

• Social media management: Automate content generation and posting across platforms like X, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram to maintain consistent engagement.

• Analytics and reporting: Bring all your data together, create accurate reports and get automated insights to improve your campaigns.

• Event management: Streamline logistical tasks such as ticketing, attendee registration and event updates to enhance attendee experiences.

• Content creation: Automate your content creation process from ideation to publication, bringing in AI tools to further speed things along. 

• Community management: Handle tasks like moderating posts, updating calendars and sharing content to maintain active engagement.

• Lifecycle marketing: Build lasting customer relationships with your hard-won customers by automating workflows that deliver value throughout the customer lifecycle.

3 steps to start automating your marketing

1. Set clear goals

Decide what you want to achieve with automation – such as saving time, boosting engagement or converting more leads. Setting clear goals from the outset will help you focus and measure your success.

2. Map the customer journey

Before you jump into creating automations, it’s a good idea to have a clear understanding of the steps your customers take from discovery to purchase. Identify key moments, like when a customer signs up for emails or abandons their cart, where automation can have the biggest impact. 

3. Look for flexible, no-code solutions

The right tools can make all the difference. Look for platforms that integrate seamlessly with your existing systems and are flexible enough to grow with your business. Unless you happen to have a background in coding, be sure to choose a no-code automation platform.

How to choose the best marketing automation software

When weighing up marketing automation solutions, it’s important to know what to look for. The right platform should integrate seamlessly with your systems, be simple to use, and grow alongside your business. Here’s a breakdown of the top factors to consider:

1. Connectivity

The marketing automation software you choose needs to connect easily with the tools, apps and platforms you use daily, without long setup times or hidden integration costs.

Managing automations across channels in one place is essential, and seamless CRM connection is a must.

Integrating your marketing automation tool with your CRM eliminates manual data entry and reduces errors. It combines data from campaigns, sales and support into one up-to-date view, making it easier to deliver personalized experiences like targeted recommendations or follow-ups. 

As a leading marketing automation tool, Make connects out of the box with a huge range of CRMs, as well as other marketing software and apps.

2. Easy to use

A user-friendly interface is key, especially for teams without technical expertise – without it, setting up automation can feel overwhelming. A no-code, drag-and-drop platform is ideal as it makes building automations simple for anyone.

Look for features that support ease of use, such as ready-to-use scenario templates to help you quickly set up scenarios tailored to your needs.

Another key feature to look out for is quality training resources, along with excellent customer support. This will help you get the most from the tool you choose and be able to get the help you need, when you need it. At Make, we have a thriving online community to help you connect with other Makers and share ideas and tips, so you can maximize your automation potential.

3. Scalability

Your automation software should be able to grow with your business, handling both current and future needs. Ensure you opt for a software that offers ready-made connections to the tools you already use, as well as flexibility to add new ones as you grow. 

It’s important to choose a tool with advanced features that will support you as your automated workflows become more complex over time.

At Make, our powerful Scenarios feature allows you to seamlessly pass data from one scenario to another while maintaining full visibility and control. This is vital for collaboration across teams and entire businesses. 

Meanwhile, the new Make Grid provides a visual overview of your entire automation ecosystem, showing how tools are connected and how data flows through your organization. This centralized view helps teams manage complexity, collaborate more effectively and make confident adjustments at scale.

Start doing more with your marketing

Marketing automation is the key to saving time, cutting costs and delivering personalized experiences at scale. With the right marketing automation tool, you can effectively achieve more with less.

Ready to see how automation can transform your marketing? Get started with Make today.