In the world there are more and more companies using marketing automation. According to the data provided by HubSpot, already 70% of companies use such tools or are planning to implement them. Unfortunately, not always using automation results in the desired effects. Why is this happening? Let's look at the most common mistakes made while implementing marketing automation!

In automation, as in any issue related to internet marketing, a strategy is necessary. Meanwhile, many companies are still starting to implement promotional activities without proper preparation. First of all, they forget about defining business needs to be satisfied thanks to the use of this modern technology. This need may be, for example, the emergence of new communication channels with clients, the improvement of existing ones or reaching a new group of recipients. The analysis of already used technologies is also important. Without this, new tools will not be compatible with the old ones, thus bringing more losses than benefits. At the end, though not the least important, is the analysis of available technologies. Solutions available on the market differ not only in terms of price but, above all, in functionalities. It is worth adjusting them in terms of the individual needs of our business, choosing from more or less specialised tools.

Professional tools are not enough. An essential element of marketing automation is high quality content. Lack of content tailored to customer needs and the shopping cycle in which it is located, is a big risk. Even the best automated campaigns, which lack valuable content, have no chance of success. Therefore, it is necessary to create a solid plan for creating and distributing content, taking into account individual customer segments. It is also worth considering such elements as content format, size and graphic presentation. This will reduce the costs of preparing the communication, but it will remain coherent.

Sometimes marketing automation is confused with e-mail automation. Meanwhile, e-mail automation is only a part of the possibilities offered to online businesses by modern MA systems. Marketing automation tools allow you to program practically every interaction with a customer – in social media, on a website, through contact forms and more. Limiting only to sending e-mails reduces the chances of success of the whole project. Therefore, when planning an investment in marketing automation, it is worth to look at all available tools and their functionalities and choose the ones that will work best in the case of a given activity.

The last of the errors that reduce the effectiveness of marketing automation, is the omission of the analysis of the results. According to MarketingProfs data, 15% of marketers do not regularly check the opening rates of emails sent, while 23% admit that in reality there is no fixed way to measure the targets set in advertising campaigns. This is a straightforward way to not achieve them at all. Why? Even if the goals were set correctly, without further tracking of their implementation, it is not possible to assess their impact on business, plan further activities or modify the adopted assumptions.