Marketing Automation Landscape in India

Sourabh Mathur
5 min readOct 23, 2019

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The story of marketing automation in India is still being written as it is in its early stages. Fewer than 10% of companies have shifted to global marketing software platforms such as Hubspot, Twilio, MailChimp, Marketo, Pardot and Eloqua, but marketing automation adoption is slowly but consistently gaining momentum in India.

As per Grand View Research, globally the marketing automation software industry will be worth over $7.63 Billion by 2025, and within the Asia Pacific, the growth rate will be somewhere around 13.5%. This would result in an explosion in the marketing automation industry in India, with estimates showing it to be worth over USD 500 million by 2025.

India currently comes in at number #3 in terms of marketing automation solutions providers, following the USA and UK. But this is all set to change, with studies predicting that India will soon be at par with the USA in terms of usage of MarTech. Here’s a look at the current scenario of marketing automation in India and how it will change in the coming years.

Usage of Marketing Automation

Marketing automation seamlessly combines marketing and technology. Such technology includes any software or tool that harnesses technology to accomplish marketing goals. It could mean anything from software used to collect data, to ones used for analyzing marketing campaigns. The primary uses of such automation software are:

  1. Creation and nurture of leads
  2. Reduce churn
  3. Retain customers
  4. Boost conversion rates
  5. Handle social media campaigns
  6. Draft personalized content
  7. Better customer satisfaction rates
  8. Increase productivity
  9. Analyze market trends

Do you want to include marketing automation in your MarTech stack? Get in touch with Esanosys which can help you get started, by helping you choose the right marketing automation platform for your business, implement it and help you streamline your marketing campaigns.

Marketing Automation Story in India

Around the time, marketing automation started getting popular in India, marketers had already figured out that a “one-size fits all” strategy employed by big chains would not work in India. Therefore, marketers started venturing into more niche fields to address a variety of problems that marketers in India faced. For instance, CleverTap foresaw the industry demand for marketing automation to improve mobile user engagement and communication.

But the marketing automation story in India began with several email marketing service providers offering transactional and promotional email marketing solutions to companies in India a decade back. The scene has changed since then, and today, apart from the many home-grown marketing automation companies, the industry has grown to attract several international players as well.

MarTech solution providers like Esanosys got into the game quite early on and have helped several large and mid-sized companies adopt marketing automation. Esanosys is partnered with Oracle, IBM, Adobe, Zoho and plays a critical role in helping companies choose the right martech stack to implement the marketing automation solution including integration with the existing applications.

Marketing Automation Vendors Globally and in India

The main marketing automation vendors on an international level are Hubspot, Adobe, Marketo, Eloqua, and Pardot. A study found that HubSpot was the most used technology with a market share of around 30%. They were followed closely by Marketo, and InfusionSoft closed up the top three spots by coming in third with a market share of 13%. Eloqua also witnessed considerable growth, growing at double the rate to get to 6%.

Recently, they have been making inroads into the Indian market as well. Translating these numbers to the Indian audience saw HubSpot having over 4288 clients, Marketo coming in second with around 1305 customers. InfusionSoft has also established a presence in India with over 1000 customers.

Other remarkable niche performers in India are Octane, Visual Website Optimiser, Lead Squared, and WebEngage, which have also witnessed considerable adoption in the past few years. Other Indian players in the space include CleverTap, Netcore, Leadsquared, MoEngage, and Betaout.

Marketing Automation Boom in India

India has produced very few homegrown companies which provide robust marketing automation platforms. Until recently, most companies ran their promotional campaigns without smart Martech tools.

Indian companies who needed marketing automation turned mostly to foreign cloud-based marketing automation software providers like Pardot, Eloqua, Hubspot, Infusionsoft amongst others. But all of this has changed and will continue to do so in the years to come. So why has there been a sudden boom within this industry? Here’s a look at why marketing automation is going places in India.

Need for Real-Time Marketing

Customers nowadays expect instant gratification, and as a result, real-time marketing has become the gold standard. The shelf life of lead generating platforms such as Zomato is in moments, and real-time bidding platforms get advertisements out in minutes. Such real-time promotional campaigns compulsorily require the use of automation software.

Hyper-personalized Targeting

Dynamic content which evolves as a result of the consumer’s triggers and actions has now become a norm. Most companies want to personalize interactions to better their conversion rates and improve their brand value. The ability to re-target visitors who are potential customers via customized ads or content based on their behavior is one of the most vital tools marketing automation provides us with.

Need for Multi-Channel Marketing

Even within the digital environment, there are multiple digital channels that brands and companies have to target to gain more recognition. Maintaining and running promotional campaigns across online marketing channels is a highly resource-intensive process that becomes complicated if handled by individuals. Marketing automation helps companies streamline their marketing campaigns across multiple channels such as email, social media, push, SMS and even on-demand video channels.

Real-time Reporting & Analysis

Having the right kind of data allows companies to analyze the metrics behind their promotional campaigns. Marketing data regarding how many people came in contact with the campaign, and how many conversions resulted in help marketers understand the effectiveness of a campaign. Marketing automation provides this data almost instantly, leading to better analysis and optimization.

Future of Marketing Automation in India

Marketing automation still has a long way to go in India. But it certainly will go the distance as it helps with persuasive engagement, which is a thumb rule of marketing.

How far are you in marketing automation adoption? Do you use marketing automation tools to it’s fullest potential or are you planning to start using one soon?

Do you see a huge demand for marketing automation in India anytime soon? If you want to join the bandwagon, and automate your marketing, head on over to our website, and let us help you get started.

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Sourabh Mathur

I Marketer I Business Strategist I Passionate Intrapreneur I Thinker I Traveler I