Your marketing needs grow with your business's growth, which also increases the need for increased scalability. And that leads you to question whether to choose marketing automation or email marketing. There are numerous marketing automation software, with many promising to provide both marketing automation and email marketing features. So, let’s explore the key differences between email marketing and marketing automation, to help you make the right choice. 

Key Differences Between Email Marketing and Marketing Automation

• Email Behavior Tracking vs. Web Behavior Tracking

The majority difference between email marketing and marketing automation evolves from the type of data collected by both platforms. Email marketing automation software generally monitors a recipient's behavior within your email campaign. On the other hand, marketing automation software tracks the overall interaction that a customer or prospect has with your company. Therefore, marketing automation software provides you with the full picture of a customer’s journey through your marketing and sales funnel to help you plan targeted campaigns based on observed behavior. 

• Single Path vs. adaptive Customer-Centre Messaging 

Once you build a basic email marketing campaign, you will be able to send out typical emails to everyone in your contact list. Besides, depending upon the sophistication of the email marketing automation software you are using, you might get the option of sending the same email to different segments of your list with dynamic content being applied to the emails automatically to send slightly different messages or offers to different segments. 

However, the choices of diversifying emails in marketing automation platforms are more.  Marketing automation software will enable you to build automated programs with multiple choices and options. Besides, you can also benefit from drip campaigns that let you send a series of messages over time which you can set up to go to people automatically as they engage with your website. 

• Static Information vs. Dynamic Lead Scoring 

Another difference is that marketing automation enables you to do lead scoring, whereas email marketing software only uses data about your lead that is given by you, which is often just the contact data of customers. Meaning that if you are only using email marketing you will not be able to gather groundbreaking insights. On the other hand, marketing automation collects robust data about leads, which can help you score leads based on their firmographic data and behavioral cues. 

Conclusion 

Both email marketing and marketing automation can leverage your business to increase competitive advantage and drive successful outcomes. You should choose which type of tool to use based on what you need or want for accomplishing your leads before they are moved to the sales team. 

However, it is suggested that you choose a CRM software that will provide you with both marketing automation and email marketing features. Apart from using various data that marketing automation features can provide; it should be noted that even today email is considered as an efficient way of communication. Using email marketing will help you cater to a wider range of customer base and drive results. Therefore, it is suggested that you choose an inexpensive marketing automation and email marketing providing CRM software that provides both email marketing and marketing automation features.