Microsoft
Microsoft is driving the GenAI bandwagon forward, bringing many new capabilities to its Dynamics 365 Marketing platform. Automated content suggestions, image recommendations, and AI-driven image tagging are excellent examples – and Gartner commends the speed and innovation Microsoft has shown in releasing these tools. Moreover, the analyst notes its enterprise vision for integrating LLMs and geographic reach as significant plus points. Microsoft enables that reach by working with 7,000 resellers, accumulating 350 distributors, and making its platform available in 41 languages.
Adobe
Adobe Marketo Engage fits neatly into a complementary solutions suite, which includes Adobe Real-Time CDP, Workfront, and Experience Manager Assets. These add significant value to the B2B Marketing Automation Platform. For instance, the CDP adds data activation and integration capabilities, feeding the native AI with more data. Gartner gives plaudits to such value-add opportunities – alongside its customer success programs integrations with non-Adobe applications. Those applications cover technologies such as Salesforce Automation Platforms and AMS solutions.
Creatio
Marketing Creatio sits on a composable architecture, enabling greater customization – which the vendor further facilitates with its no-code platform. Gartner believes this proposition has paved the way for greater ease of use – sharing examples of how platform users can continually enhance the UI and integrate GenAI capabilities into their ecosystems. The analyst also commends Creatio for its lead scoring and qualification functionality and AI-assisted lead workflow design. That assistance includes AI suggestions for the next steps and recommended workflows for individual accounts.
HubSpot
HubSpot excels in its onboarding and training experience. Alongside its active community, the HubSpot Academy plays a central role here, offering over 35 certification courses in six languages across marketing, sales, and services. Gartner acknowledges all this before identifying the vendor’s "robust" customer journey analytics offering and pricing models as additional core strengths. That pricing model starts with a freemium option and works its way up to support more advanced customers with data management, governance, usability, and templating tools.
Oracle
Oracle Eloqua Marketing Automation differentiates through its campaign development functionality. That centers on its Guided Campaigns tool – a guided wizard that takes users on a step-by-step journey across the platform as they devise campaigns. In doing so, Oracle ensures that clients seep maximum value from all the available tools while the wizard suggests campaign content for targeted accounts. Gartner notes this feature as a significant strength alongside Oracle’s multichannel marketing management and vast set of complementary solutions and integrations.
Gartner Magic Quadrant Challengers
Challengers in the Gartner Magic Quadrant offer extensive portfolios that allow them to meet the objectives of global organizations across various verticals. Yet, they may lack depth in particular areas compared to market leaders. Moreover, they typically trail the top-right vendors in how they adapt their product roadmap to meet emerging market trends. This year’s challengers are:
Gartner did not place any B2B Marketing Automation Platforms providers in the challenger quadrant.
Gartner Magic Quadrant Visionaries
Visionaries in the Gartner Magic Quadrant seize upon disruptive trends like GenAI to drag the market forward and enable more unique customer engagements. Yet, they lag leaders in their customer experience, global operations, and/or marketing execution, with such vendors unable to pour the same resources into these areas as market leaders. This year’s visionaries are:
Zoho
Across enterprise tech, virtual assistants are all the rage. Zia by Zoho is an excellent example - detecting anomalies in sales trends, analyzing customer sentiment, and predicting customer behaviors. Indeed, the innovation impressed Gartner – in addition to Zoho’s campaign management feature set and user experience. Yet, the analyst has reservations about the vendor’s inability to create custom audiences for ad targeting on LinkedIn and Facebook. Moreover, it highlights limitations in its third-party CRM integrations, citing the absence of a bidirectional data flow.
Gartner Magic Quadrant Niche Players
Niche players in the Gartner Magic Quadrant often enjoy regional success by satisfying the requirements of customers in narrow market segments with a streamlined solution stack. Yet, their partner ecosystem and limited global presence restrict their growth. The lack of a divergent vision and disruptive product capabilities are also significant inhibitors. This year’s niche players are:
- SugarCRM
- BUSINESSNEXT
- Freshworks
- Act-On
SugarCRM
SugarCRM is a team player, tabling tight integrations with third-party solutions across marketing, sales, and service. For instance, it integrates with eight fellow CRM providers while serving additional functions via integration partners. Examples include Oktopost for socials and Triblio for ABM. Gartner recognizes this alongside other plus points, such as its native voice of the customer (VoC) insight collection and customer profile management tools. Nevertheless, the analyst cautions of missing features – including multitouch attribution and next best action suggestions.
BUSINESSNEXT
With its CRMNEXT offering, BUSINESSNEXT puts forward a composable system architecture with interchangeable components. That allows for improved configuration for various use cases, such as lead workflow design and next best action intelligence. The vendor also offers advanced AI, process automation, and machine learning capabilities. Its out-of-the-box models for predicting the next best offer exemplify the latter. While Gartner recognizes this, it cautions about the vendor’s geographical footprint and limited vertical reach – being heavily focused on banking, insurance, and credit unions.
Freshworks
Freshworks has embraced the GenAI juggernaut, quickly adding various LLM-powered features to its B2B Marketing Automation Platform. For example, it injects AI-generated subject lines into emails, crafted to reflect a specific tone of voice. Moreover, in 2024, the vendor plans to launch a natural language interface that brands can use to build personalized campaigns. Despite this core strength – alongside its mighty web analytics tool and high market responsiveness – its offering has notable gaps. The lack of A/B testing and third-party bidirectional CRM integrations are crowning examples.
Act-On
Act-on maintains an unwavering focus on usability. Its "straightforward" UI, "flexible" dashboards, and accessible AI intelligence features reflect this and drive fast adoption. Gartner recognizes this as a strength – as well as the vendor’s market responsiveness and email and SMS workflows. As an example of the latter, Act-On provides an email fatigue feature to avoid overwhelming prospects and existing customers with engagements. However, the provider’s lead workflow design capabilities are narrow, and its certification program is non-existent.
Catch up on a selection of our other rundowns of Magic Quadrant studies below:
