The rising adoption of digital marketing, surging social media usage across the globe, and increasing implementation of marketing automation software among smaller companies are the major growth drivers for the global marketing automation market. Due to the aforementioned factors, the industry is projected to generate $14,180.6 million revenue by 2030, advancing at a CAGR of 12.3% during 2020–2030.
Digital channels have played a key role in companies’ growth during the pandemic, by helping maintain relationships with customers. In the present scenario, the customers are able to communicate with brands and evaluate and purchase products and services on digital platforms. Because of this, marketing automation has presented an opportunity to companies to differentiate themselves, for example, through remote customer assistance or post-sales activity management. Thus, the COVID-19 has affected the market for marketing automation, positively.
The marketing automation market is categorized into cloud and on-premises, on the basis of deployment. Of these, the cloud category dominated the marketing automation market during the historical period (2015–2020), and it is expected to retain its dominance during the forecast period (2021–2030). The increasing use of public cloud services is contributing toward the rising cloud spending. Thus, it provides a lucrative opportunity to the market players to introduce cloud-supported marketing automation solutions offering data analytics and insights, which, in turn, will drive the market growth in the coming years.
Moreover, the market for marketing automation is categorized into solutions and services, on the basis of offering. Out of these, the services category is expected to witness the faster growth during the forecast period. This can be mainly attributed to the surging demand for additional services, including system integration, support and maintenance, and installation, in order to streamline project lifecycle, improve resource productivity, and ensure regular updates of the software.
Globally, North America was the largest contributor to the marketing automation market in 2020. This is because several market players are concentrating on mergers and acquisitions, partnerships, and client wins, which also drive the market growth. For instance, in March 2020, a U.S.-based customer relationship management (CRM) company Pipedrive Inc. acquired Mailigen International Limited, a provider of email marketing automation solutions. This acquisition supports the former company in providing a better email marketing experience to its customers via effective lead generation and improved communication.
Whereas, the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region is expected to witness the fastest growth in the market for marketing automation during the forecast period. This is mainly due to the growing internet penetration, rapid inclination toward social media platforms, growing retail & e-commerce industry, surging developments in the IT sector, and increasing focus of brands on marketing products on online platforms.
Players in the marketing automation market have been involved in mergers and acquisitions to remain competitive. For instance, in March 2021, Upland Software Inc. completed the acquisition of BlueVenn, a marketing-automation-centric customer data platform, for $54.3 million in cash. With this acquisition, Upland Software Inc. enables users to improve consumer engagement and conversions on multiple channels, including email, mobile application, SMS, and web.
Similarly, in November 2019, U.S.-based provider of marketing automation services SharpSpring Inc. acquired a digital advertising platform, Perfect Audience, from Marine Software Incorporated for $4.6 million. With this acquisition, the former company provides enhanced lead management services to digital marketing agencies and corporate houses.
The major players operating in the global marketing automation industry are SAP SE, Salesforce.com Inc., Oracle Corporation, Adobe Inc., Teradata Corporation, HubSpot Inc., SharpSpring Inc., SAS Institute Inc., ActiveCampaign LLC, and Act-On Software Inc.