Picking between marketing automation tools can feel like picking your favorite Avenger. Each has unique strengths and weaknesses; personal preference and outlying factors can tip the scales heavily in favor of one character (Iron Man). Do you wish you could crunch the numbers and see a leaderboard ranking? Look no further for an objective, quantitative assessment of Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (formerly Pardot) vs. HubSpot.
Our analysts determined that HubSpot takes the top spot in this match-up! Read on for a detailed analysis of each product’s features and capabilities.
Compare Pardot and HubSpot EMR Against Your Needs
Article Roadmap
Features Comparison
Modern problems (like picking between two excellent marketing automation tools) require modern solutions. With the help of our Express App, we’ve gotten our feature comparison down to almost an exact science. Here’s how HubSpot versus Pardot (excuse us, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement) stacks up!
Compare Pardot and HubSpot EMR Against Your Needs
Campaign Management
| Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement | HubSpot |
| Analyst Score: 85/100 | Analyst Score: 100/100 |
| Winner: HubSpot blazes its way to first place with its campaign collaboration, drag-and-drop landing page builder and targeted upselling campaigns. | |
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement makes tracking your ads on Google and Bing a breeze. Access metrics like total conversion revenue, post-click conversion and PPC data. Create and test landing pages with the editor using content layouts, templates and multivariate tests.
Amp up your website with search engine optimization and dynamic content. Use the Google Ad connector to create pay-per-click advertising. Identify key influential marketing efforts with two types of multi-touch attribution models. This solution does not support geotracking and campaign collaboration.
Marketing Could Account Engagement Campaign Builder. Source
HubSpot ticks all the boxes with ad tracking metrics for Bing and Google. Build landing pages with reusable sections and custom styles with the drag-and-drop editor. Optimize your site rankings with SEO tools, insert dynamic website content using personalization tokens and design custom CTA buttons for web pages, landing pages, blog posts and emails.
HubSpot’s Campaign Management. Source
Target marketing efforts with geo-tracking to map company and contract locations and multi-touch revenue attribution for customer journeys. Sync up your team with collaboration tools for tasks, comments and calendars. Create upsell and cross-sell campaigns for individual audience segments.
Compliance and Data Security
| Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement | HubSpot |
| Analyst Score: 100/100 | Analyst Score: 100/100 |
| Winner: Both solutions scored an A+ here, so we’ll call it a tie. | |
Keeping your users’ data safe is essential in the digital age. Salesforce Account Engagement complies with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the General Data Protection Rule (GDPR). Ensure data doesn’t fall into the wrong hands with single sign-on, two-factor authentication, data encryption and an audit table.
Marketing Cloud Account Engagement’s Security Settings. Source
HubSpot Marketing Hub meets the brief on CCPA and GDPR compliance. Ensure prospect data security with single sign-on access, two-factor authentication, advanced key encryption and audit trails for website changes.
Manage Your Account Security with HubSpot Security Health. Source
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Dashboard and Reporting
| Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement | HubSpot |
| Analyst Score: 92/100 | Analyst Score: 100/100 |
| Winner: HubSpot’s custom reports and bookmarking help it inch ahead when it comes to dashboards and reporting. | |
Make viewing notifications, reporting graphs, marketing calendars and active prospects a walk in the park with Account Engagement’s customizable dashboard. Dive deep into campaign performance with statistical, visual and comparative campaign overviews.
Access insights and analytics into web form performance, marketing and sales data and customer journey touchpoints. Generate and schedule various pre-built reports, including campaign reports, social post reports and landing page statistics.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement Customizable Dashboard. Source
Organize multiple reports in a single view with HubSpot’s ability to create, share, clone and delete dashboards. View and measure campaign metrics and web form data and access sales intelligence on e-commerce performance. Schedule and email reports and use a report library to generate standard reports.
HubSpot’s Sales Dashboard.
Get niche insights with the advanced report builder by creating and customizing reports for a single object, funnel or attribution. Visualize data with line, pie, bar, column charts and pipelines. Access key reports on demand by saving reports with specific filters and adding them to dashboards.
Email Campaign Management
| Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement | HubSpot |
| Analyst Score: 94/100 | Analyst Score: 97/100 |
| Winner: While both tools perform exceptionally here, automation and email optimization push HubSpot into the top spot. | |
Save time on follow-up with Marketing Cloud Account Engagement’s automated autoresponders and drip email campaigns. Optimize emails with A/B testing, personalized emails, mobile-optimized emails and an advanced email analytics package.
Send bulk emails, create customizable email templates, schedule campaigns and use a drag-and-drop email builder to create, edit and send campaigns. View email timelines, deliver validated emails and send test emails to lists or email addresses.
Send Pre-Approved Emails Directly from Account Engagement. Source
HubSpot allows users to manage and create workflows to trigger autoresponders. Streamline content testing by creating blocks of content and automating A/B testing.
Analyze campaign performance using metrics like open rate, click rate and click-through rate.
Email Campaigns. Source
Improve email delivery by previewing and optimizing how emails appear on multiple devices, using responsive templates for mobile devices and improving deliverability. Deliver optimized bulk emails, access a built-in email template library and schedule campaigns based on time zones.
Lead Generation
| Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement | HubSpot |
| Analyst Score: 90/100 | Analyst Score: 93/100 |
| Winner: HubSpot wins gold for its form testing and custom brand elements. | |
Salesforce Account Engagement’s lead generation capabilities include creating events and managing registrations through forms and landing pages, sharing surveys, embedding sweepstakes, and managing webinar campaigns. Generate new contacts by tracking anonymous page visitors and adding a website tracking code to view visitor behavior. Generate auto-fill forms with a drag-and-drop builder, create different forms, and view and edit the live preview.
Use Account Engagement to Create Custom Lead Capture Forms. Source
HubSpot perfects the art of fantastic leads and where to find them with custom survey generation, sweepstakes contest creation and an online form builder. Track and identify anonymous visitor activities based on previous visits and use traffic analytics tools to view website activity. Optimize forms with A/B testing, auto-population and custom brand elements.
Build landing pages with HubSpot’s drag-and-drop builder. Source
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Lead Management
| Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement | HubSpot |
| Analyst Score: 100/100 | Analyst Score: 95/100 |
| Winner: Account Engagement’s lead source tracking makes it the winner. | |
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement makes it easy to reach leads with a contact database for optimal prospects and the ability to search for a contact. Assign qualified leads to reps using custom rules, identify duplicate leads, track lead progress and sources and assign lead scores.
Organize leads by segmenting groups into static or dynamic lists that can be split into smaller lists, adding contact tags and setting automation rules for qualification.
Track the Lead Source in Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement. Source
HubSpot enables users to touch base with leads with a database for managing contact records, sales activity and contact searches. Use automated attributes-based workflows to assign leads to reps, deduplicate contacts with AI, set statuses to track leads and create custom lead scoring criteria.
Segment leads using contact information based on demographics, spending behavior and sales activity and add contact tags to identify their categories.
Track and manage leads from HubSpot’s central database. Source
Lead Nurturing
| Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement | HubSpot |
| Analyst Score: 67/100 | Analyst Score: 98/100 |
| Winner: HubSpot’s personalized, automated communication and ideal customer profile creation give it a landslide win. | |
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement allows users to create buyer personas with details like buyer role, pain points, goals and interests. Create customer journeys by dragging and dropping entry sources, activities and flow control. View a leads communication and engagement history via a dashboard and set automated triggers to follow up with custom emails.
HubSpot’s Automated Lead Nurturing Scenarios. Source
HubSpot makes lead nurturing fun by building buyer personas for accurate contact segmentation and personalized communication. Use workflow templates to define ideal customer profiles and build customer journeys. View communication history and automate email follow-ups from activity feed updates.
Mobile Capabilities
| Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement | HubSpot |
| Analyst Score: 40/100 | Analyst Score: 62/100 |
| Winner: HubSpot’s ability to add contacts from a mobile app gives it the edge for mobility. | |
Users can scan up to four business cards at a time and upload contacts to a review page using Account Engagement’s mobile app. View and add contacts via the card scanner, but not manually.
Account Engagement’s Card Scanner. Source
HubSpot Marketing Hub allows users to scan business cards, add new contacts and track your activity feed from a mobile device. Use the mobile app to collaborate with contacts through calls and emails and send push notifications.
HubSpot’s Mobile Inbox. Source
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Social Media Campaign Management
| Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement | HubSpot |
| Analyst Score: 50/100 | Analyst Score: 100/100 |
| Winner: Social media ad creation and social listening put HubSpot at the top of the leaderboard. | |
Use Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement to stay social by creating and posting social media posts and scheduling posts by setting a date and time. View and track social media metrics like prospects, conversions and page visits.
Manage Your Social Media Profiles via HubSpot. Source
HubSpot puts the spotlight on social media marketing by syncing with Facebook, LinkedIn and Google ads for ad creation. Track the ROI and paid advertising spend for major social media platforms and analyze social media metrics. Schedule and post to multiple platforms and use social listening to monitor social interaction with contacts in the database.
Winner: Social media ad creation and social listening put HubSpot at the top of the leaderboard.
Text Campaign Management
| Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement | HubSpot |
| Analyst Score: 50/100 | Analyst Score: 57/100 |
| Winner: While both tools offer limited text campaign capabilities, HubSpot’s campaign tracking gives it the edge. | |
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement allows users to create a WhatsApp account to set up campaigns and communicate with clients. Integration with text messaging software like Mogli, SMS Magic and RingCentral enables automated follow-ups, personalized texts and creating and scheduling text campaigns.
HubSpot’s Personalized Text Feature. Source
Set up a WhatsApp business account using HubSpot and send welcome messages, automated reminders about abandoned carts and custom texts based on purchases. It offers integration with MessageMedia, EZ Texting and Pro Texting for text automation, personalization, scheduling, campaign creation and campaign tracking.
AI Capabilities
| Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement | HubSpot |
| Analyst Score: 100/100 | Analyst Score: 79/100 |
| Winner: Einstein AI is Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement’s secret weapon with robust campaign insights, communication send time optimization and engagement model. | |
Salesforce Account Engagement brings AI assistance in a big way with Einstein AI. Enhance customer segmentation, access real-time campaign insights, engage with customers using Einstein chatbots, recommend optimal email send times and utilize content recommendations. Use Einstein’s engagement model to improve lead scoring and target ideal prospects.
Salesforce’s Einstein AI Lead and Behavior Score. Source
HubSpot offers machine learning to aid customer segmentation and AI to show adaptive content for highly qualified leads. Create chatbot sequences without coding, score and qualify leads, access recommendations for target accounts and prioritize accounts based-on intent.
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Other Considerations
If you thought we’d stop at weighing up the features HubSpot and Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement provide, think again. Each business is different, and each solution provides a certain je ne sais quoi. Here are a few other factors to remember before you make a final software decision.
| Feature | Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement | HubSpot |
|---|---|---|
| Alerts and Notifications | Fully supported out of the box | Fully supported out of the box |
| Workflow Automation | Fully supported out of the box | Fully supported out of the box |
| Marketing Calendar | Fully supported out of the box | Fully supported out of the box |
| Document Repository | Fully supported out of the box | Fully supported out of the box |
| Unified Inbox | Fully supported out of the box | Not supported |
| Integrations | Analyst score: 87/100 | Analyst score: 56/100 |
Alerts and Notifications
Increase visibility with Account Engagement’s real-time alerts on prospect activities. Stay on track with tasks and don’t let leads fall through the cracks using HubSpot’s ability to set email notifications for sales visits, lead email activities and follow-up tasks.
Workflow Automation
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement allows users to automate workflows by setting custom triggers for segmentation lists, prospect lists, welcome journeys and customer onboarding. HubSpot offers a more task-based approach by automating workflows for lead rotation, task creation and follow-up emails and reminders.
Marketing Calendar
Don’t miss a beat in your marketing symphony with Account Engagement’s dashboard-linked marketing calendar. View scheduled and past emails and social posts along with events via third-party integrations. Optimize campaign management with HubSpot’s calendar, where you can track, create and edit campaign tasks.
Document Repository
Putting all your eggs in one basket is a plus for branding and efficiency if by eggs, you mean documents. Account Engagement allows users to store files centrally. HubSpot provides a tool to build a library of content and supports uploading, sharing, deleting and organizing documents in multiple file formats like fonts, audio files, images and PDFs.
Unified Inbox
HubSpot allows users to view, manage and respond to messages across multiple channels with a universal inbox. Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement does not support this feature.
Integrations
Both solutions offer in-built API access to create custom integrations with third-party applications. However, HubSpot provides native integration with CRM, CMS, ecommerce platforms, payment gateways, form builders and design software, while Account Engagement offers these integrations via a third party like Zapier.
Compare Pardot and HubSpot EMR Against Your Needs
Next Steps
Finding a formula for choosing between Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement versus HubSpot is like unearthing a map to El Dorado. HubSpot came out on top, but finding a solution that meets your unique needs is important. We hope our in-depth analysis, helps you hit the brief.
Want to see how the two systems match up price-wise? Download our free pricing guide and compare costs against other leading solutions.
What key features do you look for when comparing HubSpot against Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement? Let us know in the comments!