Proven Tips For Getting Started With Marketing Automation

Marketing automation delivers powerful capabilities to target, nurture, convert and optimize customer outreach. But for organizations new to marketing automation, getting started with effective configuration can seem daunting.

Follow these proven tips to pave the runway for marketing automation success in your organization, step-by-step:

Audit Your Processes, Data & Technology

First, perform an audit assessing your current processes, data infrastructure, and technology stack. Document key workflows for lead routing, nurturing, and sales enablement. Catalog current data sources, integrations, and accessibility challenges. To identify gaps, a database management consulting partner could help reconcile through consolidation initiatives.

This audit will uncover what works and what can improve – illuminating where marketing automation can make the biggest impact. B2B marketing consultant and marketing automation consultant can provide invaluable outside perspectives, assessing landscapes and setting the strategic vision for optimization during this discovery phase as well.

Select The Right Platform

With audit insights in hand, the next step involves selecting the right marketing automation platform that matches organizational maturity, growth goals, and technical expertise. Study leading providers like HubSpot, Marketo, and Pardot assessing capabilities for email marketing, lead nurturing, CRM / MAP/e-commerce integrations, analytics, workflows, and other required functions.

Consider the strengths of in-house marketers as well to ensure the platform has enough self-service usability without overextending internal resources early on. Don’t forget about long-term scalability too as new divisions, geographies, and customer segments enter expansion plans.

Prioritize Early Use Cases

Resist doing everything marketing automation enables all at once initially. Prioritize building 3-4 foundational workflows automating current high-effort tasks, bringing quick wins first.

For example, early successes may involve automating aspects of email campaigns, consolidating web form leads management, introducing chatbot lead qualification, or new lead assignments for sales. Early steps don’t necessarily need to tackle huge challenges right away. Go after the crucial quick wins within reach.

Focus On Change Management

Marketing automation only takes hold through organizational adoption. Proactively get executives, sales leaders, and marketers excited, educated, and enrolled. Clarify impacts to roles during training sessions. Celebrate early automation successes publicly.


Listen closely to feedback and concerns raised throughout the transition, too. Continually reinforce messaging around how marketing automation ultimately helps every team convert and serve customers even better.

Clean & Structure Your Data

Marketing automation relies on clean, well-structured data to trigger personalized messaging at scale. Before workflows start, clean outdated, duplicated, and disconnected data from siloed sources.


Implement tight data governance protocols going forward covering data compliance, security, backup, formatting, and sharing conventions across departments to maintain integrity. The less ongoing data cleansing needed down the line, the better marketing automation can focus on value-added analysis and optimization.

Start Building Workflows

With use cases defined and data prepared, officially launch your first automated workflows across targeted engagement areas. Use A/B testing tools and analytics to monitor performance, and incrementally tweak variables improving outcomes over time.

Patience is key; anticipate needing 3–6 months before seeing a definitive workflow lift after the initial launch period. But don’t leave engines idling either - continue expanding automation across new channels, campaign types, and customer segments.

Charge Automation Champions

Appoint internal automation champions across both marketing and sales, focused on both adoption and idea cultivation for platform enhancement. They help embed utilization through training and peer sharing of successes. They also continually uncover new ways to push capabilities based on team insights.

This hybrid adoption and innovation role is crucial for cementing an automation-first mindset that carries your organization forward rather than maintaining the status quo.

Never Stop Optimizing

Marketing automation is never “set it and forget it.” View it as an always-on effort requiring monitoring, maintenance, enhancement, and strategy alignment improvements over time. Assign ownership to continually analyze performance, apply learnings across programs, overhaul dated legacy workflows, and commission new automation unlocking additional efficiencies.

With the right vision, preparation, foundation setting, and amplification of capabilities - marketing automation transforms marketing and sales productivity almost immediately while setting the stage for long-term revenue impact at scale.

What tips are proving valuable in your early marketing automation efforts? Share your insights and advice so we can all learn!