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35+ Marketing Automation Statistics: The Definitive Guide [2025]

January 28, 2025·

Damaris Hinga·10 min

Ask any marketer about their biggest challenge, and you'll hear the same story.

There's never enough time, budget, or resources to meet increasingly demanding campaign goals. And it's only getting worse with customers now expecting personalized experiences across dozens of touchpoints. Traditional manual marketing approaches are crumbling under this pressure.

To tackle this challenge, smart, tech-savvy marketers are automating some parts of marketing to free up time, money, and resources needed to achieve their goals.

That’s why in today's post, we’ll reveal the updated marketing automation statistics of 2025 so you can also discover how companies are automating their marketing and how you can, too.

Key takeaways

The marketing automation market is projected to reach $15.62 billion by 2030, with a 15.3% annual growth rate.
91% of company decision-makers report increasing automation requests from business teams.
Organizations see a $5.44 return for every dollar spent on marketing automation.
77% of marketers leverage AI-powered automation for personalized content creation.
98% of B2B marketers consider marketing automation crucial for success.
Nearly 40% of marketers now have mostly or fully automated customer journeys.

Growth and market trends

As of 2024, the global marketing automation market was valued at $6.65 billion. One analysis estimates that this market will grow 15.3% annually until 2030.

If we calculate the growth at this rate, the marketing automation industry will be worth $15.62 billion in 2030. Other analyses are even more optimistic, suggesting it could reach $18.06 billion by that year. That’s no small change!

How are companies responding to this trend?

One study by Salesforce and Vanson Bourne found that 91% of company decision-makers are getting bombarded with automation requests from their teams. Everyone wants in on the action, and for good reason.

Let's break down where these requests are coming from:

Research and development teams are leading the charge at 39%
Administrative and operations teams aren't far behind at 38%
Customer service teams make up 33% of requests
Marketing departments account for 26%

Speaking of budgets (because that's where the rubber meets the road), marketing leaders are putting their money where their mouth is.

About 70% of marketing decision-makers plan to increase their automation budgets next year. While 20% are keeping things steady, only 11% are pulling back.

What's driving all this growth in the marketing automation industry?

The ongoing push toward digital everything, more people spending time online, the explosion of mobile devices, and let's not forget the customers who increasingly expect personalized advertising that speaks directly to them.

It’s clear that marketing automation is a big deal for organizations that want to stay ahead of the competition. In fact, 98% of B2B marketers now term this technology as ‘crucial for success.’

ROI and business impact

Some of the biggest selling points of marketing automation is that it actively helps companies:

Personalize customer journeys
Generate more qualified leads
Achieve a better and faster ROI for marketing efforts
Increase productivity of teams

But how much ROI does this automation technology give back?

Here’s what we found out when compiling this list of marketing automation statistics.

A comprehensive study by Nucleus Research found that companies are seeing a $5.44 return for every dollar spent on marketing automation over three years. Even better, most companies start seeing returns in less than six months.

Research by VentureBeat analyst Andrew Jones sheds a better light on how this ROI comes to be. According to their study, implementing marketing automation has helped companies boost their performance by generating 80% more leads and achieving 77% higher conversions.

Overall, the success rates of incorporating marketing automation are pretty encouraging.

In a 2024 study, Statista discovered that only a tiny fraction (about 3%) consider their automation efforts unsuccessful. On the flip side, 30% of companies report their automation initiatives as ‘very successful.’

Marketing automation implementation and usage patterns

How exactly are companies using marketing automation?

Here’s what the marketing automation statistics tell us.

According to HubSpot’s 2024 State of Marketing & Trends Report, 77% of marketers use automation tools to create personalized content for their audiences. This aligns closely with customer experience initiatives, where 72% of companies use automation to deliver personalized experiences.

The impact of this automation is significant.

In fact, 71% of marketers report improvements in overall customer experience, with an equal percentage noting better customer understanding.

Customer journey automation shows varying levels of maturity across organizations.

While 40% of marketing teams have achieved mostly or fully automated customer journeys, the majority (60%) are still in partial automation stages.

The broader picture of automation implementation becomes more apparent when looking at specific marketing functions. Data shows that marketers are automating across multiple channels.

How companies use automation across marketing operations

Email marketing leads adoption at 58%
Social media management follows at 49%
Content management and paid ads see significant automation at 33% and 32%, respectively
Channel-specific automation like SMS marketing (30%) and landing pages (27%) show steady adoption

While marketing automation has made significant progress, many organizations are yet to implement this technology’s full potential across their marketing operations.

Marketing automation platforms

Now, let's talk about what's happening with marketing automation platforms(MAP) right now.

Who are the industry leaders in the marketing automation industry?

What are customers looking for in a MAP solution?

And most importantly, which integrations do marketers find most useful for these automation platforms?

Here’s what the marketing automation stats say:

According to a recent Adobe study of 600 marketing leaders, the sentiment is pretty interesting. While 90% of companies are happy with their current platforms, about a third (29%) are looking around for something better.

The study also revealed interesting priorities in platform selection. Customer Data Platform (CDP) integration has become the leading requirement, with 98% of marketers ranking it as crucial. This edges out CRM integration, which still commands a strong 94% priority rate among users.

What are market leaders considering when switching marketing automation platforms?

Marketing leaders are primarily focused on getting better innovation, smoother integrations, and more advanced features. While teams still care about price and ease of use, they're more focused on what these platforms can actually do for them.

Content capabilities are becoming increasingly central to platform choice. Among 22 key automation features, dynamic, personalized content ranks sixth in importance, with content supply chain integration following closely at seventh place.

As for market leaders in the B2B marketing automation space:

Adobe leads with a 36% market share
Microsoft at 24%
Salesforce at 17%
HubSpot at 15%
Oracle at 8%

When considering the overall global marketing automation market, the hierarchy shifts. HubSpot is the leader and commands nearly 35% of the worldwide share. Following HubSpot are Oracle Marketing Cloud (7.31%), Welcome (7.24%), and Adobe Experience Cloud (7.05%), each holding smaller but significant portions of the market.

What are the biggest challenges in marketing automation?

Like any other technology, adopting marketing automation has not been smooth sailing. A study by Liana Technologies revealed some eye-opening challenges.

Perhaps surprisingly, technology itself isn't the biggest hurdle. Instead, it's the human element that poses the greatest challenges.

Nearly half (48.6%) of professionals cited a lack of expertise and know-how as their primary challenge.

This makes sense.

Marketing automation is powerful, but only if you know how to use it effectively.

Close behind, 43.2% pointed to insufficient human resources. After all, even the best automation tools still need skilled people to drive them.

Usability issues ranked third at 35.1%, suggesting that while platforms are becoming more sophisticated, they're not necessarily becoming easier to use.

What's particularly interesting is that 30.6% of respondents admitted to lacking a clear marketing automation strategy. Unfortunately, this challenge is so fundamental that no amount of sophisticated technology can fix it.

The data also reveals some operational pain points: 27.9% struggle with insufficient customer data, while 26.1% face various technical difficulties.

More concerning is that 16.2% reported poor company commitment, and 15.3% lack of appropriate content.

Financial constraints (19.8%) and falling behind schedules (18.9%) round out the mid-tier challenges, while finding suitable partners (8.1%) appears to be less of a concern.

Future outlook: What do marketing automation statistics say?

The future of marketing automation looks promising.

Interest in marketing automation has been on an upward trajectory since 2004. Google Trends data reveals that interest has more than tripled in the past decade, and this momentum shows no signs of slowing down.

Marketing automation interest from 2004 to present

marketing automation in Google Trends — *Source: Google Trends*

AI, especially foundation models, is transforming marketing automation. According to Gartner, by 2026, more than 80% of enterprises will be using generative AI in their applications. The technology is fundamentally reshaping how marketing automation functions.

Arun Chandrasekaran, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner, says that these foundation models represent a significant leap forward, particularly in their ability to enhance workforce productivity and automate customer experiences.

By 2027, these models will power 60% of natural language processing use cases.

This increase means we're about to see a shift in how marketing automation platforms manage everything from content creation to customer interactions.

For marketing teams, this convergence of traditional automation and AI capabilities means more sophisticated, intelligent tools that can better understand and respond to customer needs.

As these technologies mature, we're likely to see even more innovative applications that push the boundaries of what marketing automation can achieve.

FAQs

How effective is marketing automation?

Marketing automation has been shown to yield an ROI of $5.44 for every dollar spent. 65% of marketers also feel that their marketing automation strategy is very effective.

How big is the marketing automation market?

According to the latest marketing automation statistics, this market is worth $6.65 billion in 2024 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 15.3% annually.

Is marketing automation in demand?

Yes, marketing automation is in high demand as businesses continue to adopt it to boost productivity and revenue. According to Google Trends data, interest has more than tripled in the past decade.

What is the future trend in marketing automation?

Marketing automation will focus on AI for personalized content and predictive insights. It will also streamline tasks like data transfers and review management.

How many companies use marketing automation?

As of 2021, 76% of companies were using marketing automation, according to a Hubspot report.

Which marketing automation is best?

The best marketing automation platform will depend on your needs. That said, Hubspot and Adobe are some of the most used options. However, there are other niche solutions, such as Cropink, that can help you automate parts of your marketing, like catalog ads.

What is the biggest obstacle to marketing automation?

The biggest obstacle to marketing automation is a lack of expertise, according to a study by Liana Technologies. Nearly 49% of marketing professionals cited this as their primary challenge.

Wrapping up

This $6.65 billion industry will only continue to grow. Hopefully, this extensive list of marketing automation statistics has provided a better picture of what’s working and how your company can also benefit from the automation.

It’s an investment worth making.

If you’re ready to try marketing automation, niche solutions like Cropink can help you automate specific tasks like ads without overwhelming your team.

Contact us for a free demo.