An idea uttered during a brainstorm or a whiteboard doodle can be the spark that ignites a full-fledged marketing campaign. To see the campaign through to success, marketing teams need advanced tools to manage, monitor, analyze, and refine their campaigns.
That’s where campaign management software comes in. With features designed to simplify campaign management, this software is an indispensable ally to marketers.
This article explores seven top campaign management software options for marketing teams to handle their campaigns from concept to reality. Plus, you’ll learn the key features to look for when considering software.
What is marketing campaign management software?
Marketing campaign management software helps you plan, execute, and monitor your marketing strategies across various channels, including email, social media, and search engines. It streamlines the process of managing marketing campaigns by offering scheduling, targeting, personalization, and analytics features.
Marketing campaign management software helps businesses and marketing professionals create more effective campaigns. It provides a centralized platform for organizing their efforts, analyzing performance data, and optimizing based on insights.
Benefits of campaign management software
The best campaign management tools simplify and improve marketing efforts. Here are their primary benefits:
Improved organization and planning
Campaign management software consolidates campaign-related data and resources in a centralized platform, simplifying access and improving organization. This centralization can streamline your campaign planning process, making campaign execution more manageable for sales and marketing teams by allowing accurate scheduling.
Better targeting and personalization
Campaign management tools offer advanced customer segmentation features, letting marketers target specific audiences with personalized content. Additionally, built-in A/B testing capabilities help optimize various campaign elements—like landing page headers and newsletter subject lines—ensuring that the most effective versions reach the right audience. These features can lead to more focused and successful marketing campaigns.
Ability to track campaign results
Top campaign management tools provide real-time analytics, letting you track and adjust campaigns. Customizable reporting allows you to analyze the key performance indicators (KPIs) relevant to your business. Great campaign software also measures return on investment (ROI) for marketing campaigns, offering insights into their financial effectiveness. This analytical power supports making data-driven decisions and helps users refine future marketing campaigns.
Key features of campaign management software
The right campaign management tools equip marketing teams with the capabilities to execute and monitor their campaigns. Here are essential features to look for in your next campaign management tool:
User-friendly interface
A user-friendly interface has a clean design, with visual cues and consistent layouts. A user-friendly campaign management tool helps teams easily navigate the platform from day one. Features like intuitive navigation, drag-and-drop capabilities, and a clear, well-organized dashboard improve accessibility.
Integrations
Integrations enable a holistic approach to campaign execution. They support the flow of data across systems, ensuring every aspect of a campaign—from lead generation to final analysis—is informed by real-time insights.
For example, marketing teams might want integrations with customer relationship management (CRM) platforms to align sales and marketing efforts. Integrations with analytics tools such as Google Analytics can track campaign performance and AI tool integrations can help with predictive modeling and customer segmentation.
Collaboration
Collaboration features within marketing campaign management tools enable team members to work together remotely. Collaborative software might let you assign responsibilities, set deadlines, and track progress in real time, ensuring team members are aligned and accountable.
Integration with project management tools, like Jira or Asana, can further improve collaboration because teams can access all campaign assets—from creative assets to budgets—in one place for smoother campaign execution.
Reporting
Reporting features in a campaign management tool provide marketing teams with the insights to evaluate their efforts across various channels.
For social media campaigns, reporting often includes analytics on engagement metrics, audience growth, and campaign reach. Similarly, many tools can dissect email marketing metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and conversions, while influencer marketing campaigns require reporting on content performance and influencer ROI.
Scalability
Scalability in a campaign management tool lets you execute more campaigns over time without investing additional time and energy. A scalable campaign management solution adapts to changing business demands, from small-scale, focused efforts to extensive, integrated campaigns across various channels and markets.
This adaptability allows marketing teams to confidently manage and execute campaigns, knowing their tool can scale with their company’s ambitions.
Popular campaign management software tools
Choosing the right campaign management software can improve your team’s marketing operations. Here are seven top tools, based on customer reviews:
HubSpot
HubSpot is an all-in-one inbound marketing software for customer relationship management (CRM), search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing, and content management. Its Campaigns product helps you create, manage, and track campaigns across multiple channels, including social media, search engines, and email.
It’s best suited for businesses looking to generate leads, build customer relationships, and scale up their marketing efforts.
Key product features include
- CRM integration. Offers integration with its own CRM system to manage and track your campaigns.
- Collaboration tools. Provides built-in tools like tasks, comments, and calendars for collaboration among team members.
- Real-time analytics and reporting. Delivers real-time campaign reporting and performance insights to measure, iterate, and optimize campaign effectiveness and ROI.
Salesforce
Salesforce is a cloud-based platform focusing on sales and customer relationships. It includes campaign management capabilities and can help create multichannel marketing campaigns—from email marketing to social advertising.
Salesforce is ideal for enterprises that need advanced CRM and customer interaction tracking.
Key product features include:
- Lead management. Track and manage prospective customers through scoring and advanced segmentation.
- Campaign Influence. Quantify campaign ROI by attributing sales opportunities to specific marketing efforts using the Campaign Influence object to link contacts, campaigns, and opportunities.
Marketo Engage
Marketo Engage, part of Adobe Experience Cloud, is a marketing automation platform tailored for account-based marketing, including email, mobile, social, digital ads, web management, and analytics. You can create personalized campaigns targeted to specific accounts or audience segments.
Marketo is well-suited for enterprises seeking a platform for complex marketing strategies.
Key product features include:
- Lead nurturing. Automate the process of engaging with leads at various stages of the sales funnel.
- Cross-channel marketing. Coordinate campaigns across various channels, including email, social, webinars, and in-person.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is an email marketing service provider offering tools for email campaigns, automation, and audience segmentation. Its platform supports creating targeted email campaigns based on customer behavior and preferences.
Mailchimp is best for businesses looking for an easy-to-use platform for email marketing and basic automation.
Key product features include:
- Email campaign builder. Create regular, plain-text, A/B-testing, and automated emails with a drag-and-drop interface and pre-designed templates.
- Audience segmentation. Divide your audience into segments for targeted messaging based on audience and contact information.
- Performance tracking. Get reports with metrics like opens, clicks, and conversions to measure email campaign success.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign combines email marketing, marketing automation, sales automation, and CRM. It’s useful for creating automated email marketing campaigns that respond to user actions.
ActiveCampaign is suited for businesses looking for advanced email marketing features with some CRM capabilities.
Key product features include:
- Marketing automation. Design complex and automated marketing workflows that react to customer behaviors.
- Ecommerce integration. Connect to platforms like Shopify to plan abandoned carts, cross-selling, and discount campaigns.
- Contact and lead scoring. Identify the most engaged leads and customers to prioritize follow-up and resources.
Klaviyo
Klaviyo is an email and SMS marketing platform focusing on ecommerce businesses and integrates with platforms like Shopify. It specializes in data-driven campaigns using customer data for personalized marketing messages.
Klaviyo is best suited for ecommerce businesses aiming to increase sales through targeted email and SMS campaigns.
Key product features include:
- Omnichannel campaigns. Manage SMS, email, and mobile push campaigns along with automated flows, consolidating data within a single platform.
- Segmentation and targeting. Use advanced segmentation capabilities to deliver personalized content to prospective and current customers.
- ROI-based reporting. Track the direct sales impact of marketing campaigns to measure ROI.
Sprout Social
Sprout Social is a social media management tool that helps you manage your social media presence, schedule posts, analyze data, and engage with your audience. It supports campaign planning and tracking across multiple social platforms.
Sprout Social is ideal for businesses needing a comprehensive tool for social media strategy and analytics.
Key product features include:
- Campaign link and tag tracking. Monitor your campaign’s effectiveness by tracking the web traffic it generates, providing insights into visitor behavior and campaign performance.
- Social listening. Receive insights into social conversations and trends to inform your campaign strategies.
- Engagement analytics. Get detailed reports on audience engagement and campaign performance on social media.
Campaign management software FAQ
What is a campaign management tool?
A campaign management tool is software designed to help marketers plan, execute, analyze, and optimize their marketing campaigns.
What is the difference between campaign management and project management?
Campaign management specifically focuses on marketing operations, while project management includes a broader range of objectives and business functions.
Does Shopify offer campaign management software?
The Shopify App Store offers a variety of campaign management apps that integrate with Shopify stores to help merchants plan, track, and optimize their marketing campaign efforts.