Marketing automation and campaign management
Asked as “marketing automation platform”, and as “marketing automation and campaign management tool”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B software company. 47 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, six models each.
01The standing
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all six models, for a mid-market B2B software company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
Show the seven products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its vendor page.
Head to head
Recommended versus criticized
Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.
Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
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11Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative70%
Key
01HubSpot Marketing Hub55%
HubSpot Marketing Hub55%02Brevo26%
Brevo26%03ActiveCampaign13%
ActiveCampaign13%04Adobe Marketo Engage4%
Adobe Marketo Engage4%05Klaviyo0%
Klaviyo0%06Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement0%
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement0%07Customer.io0%
Customer.io0%08Omnisend0%
Omnisend0%09Salesforce Marketing Cloud0%
Salesforce Marketing Cloud0%10Oracle Eloqua0%
Oracle Eloqua0%11Mailchimp0%
Mailchimp0%02What they warned about
A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Adobe Marketo Engage45%
20 of 44 labels negative · 10 of 6 models · 5 hard negative
“Approach with Extra Caution (Especially for SMBs or Beginners): Adobe Marketo Engage ... Steep learning curve, outdated/non-intuitive UI ... expensive pricing” Grok 4.1 Fast, negative prompt
Mailchimp59%
16 of 27 labels negative · 10 of 6 models · 5 hard negative
“Mailchimp has become a major source of complaints among growing businesses... Accounts are frequently suspended without prior warning” Qwen 3.7 Flash, negative prompt
HubSpot Marketing Hub19%
11 of 57 labels negative · 7 of 6 models · 6 hard negative
“HubSpot — Pricing escalation & contract lock-in ... **Avoid if:** You're a small business on the Starter/Free tier expecting to scale cheaply” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt
Salesforce Marketing Cloud57%
8 of 14 labels negative · 6 of 6 models · 3 hard negative
“SFMC is notoriously complex — it requires SQL and proprietary AMPscript to use fully. "The UX is absolutely terrible..."” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt
03What they cite
Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: four of the six in this edition.
Sites the answers cite
19 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 4 of 6 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 5 of those lists are Google grounding redirects that name no site and are left out of the counts. 183 links across 103 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page. The other 2 models searched through a gateway that returned no source list on this edition.
6 answers · 10 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Drip6 answers · 6 citations · 2 models
6 answers · 6 citations · 2 models
5 answers · 7 citations · 2 models
vendor site · HubSpot4 answers · 6 citations · 2 models
4 answers · 4 citations · 1 model
vendor site · Gartner4 answers · 4 citations · 2 models
vendor site · HubSpot3 answers · 3 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Brevo3 answers · 3 citations · 2 models
3 answers · 3 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Gumloop3 answers · 3 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Hey Sid3 answers · 3 citations · 2 models
Pages the answers cite
The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.
6 answers · 2 models
6 answers · 2 models
5 answers · 2 models
4 answers · 1 model
4 answers · 2 models
4 answers · 2 models
4 answers · 1 model
3 answers · 2 models
3 answers · 2 models
3 answers · 2 models
04How they answered
Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ModelDirect“What is the best marketing automation platform for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which marketing automation and campaign management tool would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top marketing automation platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best marketing automation platform for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating a marketing automation platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which marketing automation platforms should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Opus 5no first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Claude Opus 4.8no first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
GPT-6 Astrano first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
GPT-5.6 Solno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.1 Prono first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Perplexity Sonar Prono first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against
05The record
One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Zero rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
| Prompt | Model | Version string | Time (UTC) | Searched | Sources | Latency |
|---|
Noise floor in this category
Flips between the edition run and its calibration repeat. Six prompts per model is a small sample; the index-wide floor is the number to trust.
Normalization in this category
Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.
Category-scoped readings
HubSpot read as HubSpot Marketing Hub
HubSpot (Marketing Hub) read as HubSpot Marketing Hub
Salesforce read as Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement
Zoho read as Zoho Marketing Automation
Unresolved, counted raw
ActiveDEMAND
HubSpot Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise
Leadsquared Marketing Automation
Listmonk
Salesforce MC
Zoho CRM / Zoho Marketing
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.