Marketing automation
Marketing automation refers to software platforms and technologies that marketing departments and organizations use to automate repetitive tasks and to run campaigns across channels such as email, SMS, chatbots, and social media, including tracking, web analytics, lead scoring, campaign management,
Marketing automation is covered here in 6 connected parts: Marketing automation, Robotic process automation, Automation Workflow in the Philippines, History of Automation Workflow, Culture and traditions of Automation Workflow, Automation Workflow: key facts and timeline.
Marketing automation
Marketing automation refers to software platforms and technologies that marketing departments and organizations use to automate repetitive tasks and to run campaigns across channels such as email, SMS, chatbots, and social media, including tracking, web analytics, lead scoring, campaign management, and reporting. It often integrates with customer relationship management (CRM) and customer data platform (CDP) software.[1]
Overview
Marketing automation tracks top-of-funnel activities to drive prospects to sales. This is contrasted with CRM, which manages information about the prospect and their position in the sales cycle.[1]
Rules-based automation and agentic systems
Rules-based marketing automation runs a predetermined action when a condition is met. A common case is an email series or other message sent because a person did something specific, such as viewing a product and leaving the site.[1]
Effects of GDPR on marketing automation
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took effect in the EU on 25 May 2018. It changed how marketing teams can handle consumer data. An organization that uses marketing automation to process personal data needs a lawful basis.[1]
California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) took effect on 1 January 2020. As later amended, it gives California residents the right to know what personal information a business collects, how that information is used and shared, and to opt out of the sale or sharing of it.[1]
Impact of marketing automation on consumers
Marketing automation personalizes products and messages from data people provide and from behavior companies observe. Klaus Wertenbroch has described that personalization as a commercial opportunity for firms, including finer price discrimination, and as a risk to consumer surplus, equality of opportunity, and personal autonomy and dignity.[1]
Functionality
Campaign and customer analysis help organizations create appropriate offers and gain insights from information collected during previous campaigns.[1]
Examples of automation
After a user visits a merchant's website and navigates away, an automated email can be triggered to be sent out to that user. They can be reminded of an abandoned shopping cart, a subscription that is about to expire, or be welcomed if they are a new customer. Coupons and messages can be tailored based on past purchases.[1]
Market size
According to Gartner, the B2B marketing automation market grew 15% in 2020, to $2.1 billion. In that September 2021 Magic Quadrant, Gartner placed the following vendors in the Leaders quadrant:[1]
Related: Robotic process automation · Automation Workflow in the Philippines · History of Automation Workflow · Marketing automation
External references: [1][2][3]
Robotic process automation
Robotic process automation (RPA) is a type of business process automation that automates tasks within business and IT processes using scripts that mimic human interaction with application user interfaces. RPA should not be confused with artificial intelligence as it is based on automation technology following a predefined workflow. It is sometimes referred to as software robotics (not to be confused with robot software).[4]
Historic evolution
As a form of automation, the concept has been around for a long time in the form of screen scraping, so long that to early PC users the reminder of it often blurs with the idea of malware infection. Yet compared to screen scraping, RPA is much more extensible, consisting of API integration into other enterprise applications, connectors into ITSM systems, terminal services and even some types of AI (e.g. machine learning) services such as image recognition.[4]
Use
The hosting of RPA services also aligns with the metaphor of a software robot, with each robotic instance having its own virtual workstation, much like a human worker. The robot uses keyboard and mouse controls to take actions and execute automations. Normally, all of these actions take place in a virtual environment and not on screen; the robot does not need a physical screen to operate, rather it interprets the screen display electronically.[4]
RPA actual use
Voice recognition and digital dictation software linked to join up business processes for straight through processing without manual intervention[4]
Impact on employment
According to Harvard Business Review, most operations groups adopting RPA have promised their employees that automation would not result in layoffs. Instead, workers have been redeployed to do more interesting work. One academic study highlighted that knowledge workers did not feel threatened by automation: they embraced it and viewed the robots as team-mates.[4]
Impact on society
Academic studies project that RPA, among other technological trends, is expected to drive a new wave of productivity and efficiency gains in the global labour market. Although not directly attributable to RPA alone, Oxford University conjectures that up to 35% of all jobs might be automated by 2035.[4]
Unassisted RPA
Unassisted RPA, or RPAAI, is the next generation of RPA related technologies. Technological advancements around artificial intelligence allow a process to be run on a computer without needing input from a user.[4]
Hyperautomation
Hyperautomation is the application of advanced technologies like RPA, artificial intelligence, machine learning (ML) and process mining to augment workers and automate processes in ways that are significantly more impactful than traditional automation capabilities. Hyperautomation is the combination of technologies that allow faster application authorship (like low-code and no-code) with automation technologies that coordinate different worker types (i.e. human and artificial) for intelligent and strategic workflow optimization.[4]
Outsourcing
Back office clerical processes outsourced by large organisations - particularly those sent offshore - tend to be simple and transactional in nature, requiring little (if any) analysis or subjective judgement. This would seem to make an ideal starting point for organizations beginning to adopt robotic automation for the back office. Whether client organisations choose to take outsourced processes back "in house" from their business process outsourcing (BPO) providers, thus representing a threat to the future of the BPO business, or whether the BPOs implement such automations on their clients' behalf may well depend on a number of factors.[4]
Benefits
The typical benefits of robotic automation include reduced cost; increased speed, accuracy, and consistency; improved quality and scalability of production. Automation can also provide extra security, especially for sensitive data and financial services.[4]
Related: Marketing automation · Automation Workflow in the Philippines · History of Automation Workflow · Marketing automation
External references: [4][5][6]
Automation Workflow in the Philippines
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Related: Marketing automation · Robotic process automation · History of Automation Workflow · Marketing automation
History of Automation Workflow
Historical development
The development of the workflow concept occurred across several loosely defined, overlapping eras.[7]
Related: Marketing automation · Robotic process automation · Automation Workflow in the Philippines · Marketing automation
External references: [7][8][9]
Culture and traditions of Automation Workflow
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Related: Marketing automation · Robotic process automation · Automation Workflow in the Philippines · Marketing automation
Automation Workflow: key facts and timeline
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Related: Marketing automation · Robotic process automation · Automation Workflow in the Philippines · Marketing automation
Images
See also
References
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j “Marketing automation”. Wikipedia. Text adapted from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewrite it in your own words where you can. Encyclopedia Retrieved 2026-10-31
- ↑ ^ “gdpr.eu / what-is-gdpr”. gdpr.eu. Link found on the Wikipedia page. Open it, check it and fix this title before relying on it. Web page Retrieved 2026-10-31
- ↑ ^ “csbweb01.uncw.edu / people/howe/classes/mkt441/marketing%20automation%20with%20sas.pdf”. csbweb01.uncw.edu. Link found on the Wikipedia page. Open it, check it and fix this title before relying on it. Academic Retrieved 2026-10-31
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k “Robotic process automation”. Wikipedia. Text adapted from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewrite it in your own words where you can. Encyclopedia Retrieved 2026-10-31
- ↑ ^ “www.hfsresearch.com / Robotic-Automation-as-Threat-to-Traditional-Low-Cost-Outsourcing”. hfsresearch.com. Link found on the Wikipedia page. Open it, check it and fix this title before relying on it. Web page Retrieved 2026-10-31
- ↑ ^ “www.kpmg-institutes.com / content/dam/kpmg/sharedservicesoutsourcinginstitute/pdf/2015/robotics-improve-legacy-sourcing.pdf”. kpmg-institutes.com. Link found on the Wikipedia page. Open it, check it and fix this title before relying on it. Web page Retrieved 2026-10-31
- ↑ a b “Workflow”. Wikipedia. Text adapted from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewrite it in your own words where you can. Encyclopedia Retrieved 2026-10-31
- ↑ ^ “www.iso.org”. iso.org. Link found on the Wikipedia page. Open it, check it and fix this title before relying on it. Organization Retrieved 2026-10-31
- ↑ ^ “doi.wiley.com / 10.1002/cpe.1461”. doi.wiley.com. Link found on the Wikipedia page. Open it, check it and fix this title before relying on it. Web page Retrieved 2026-10-31
Further reading
- “www.gartner.com / en/documents/4005959/magic-quadrant-for-b2b-marketing-automation-platforms”. gartner.com. Link found on the Wikipedia page. Open it, check it and fix this title before relying on it. Web page Retrieved 2026-10-31
- “www.cmswire.com / marketing-automation/what-is-marketing-automation-and-how-does-it-help-marketers”. cmswire.com. Link found on the Wikipedia page. Open it, check it and fix this title before relying on it. Web page Retrieved 2026-10-31
- “api.semanticscholar.org / CorpusID:233744767”. api.semanticscholar.org. Link found on the Wikipedia page. Open it, check it and fix this title before relying on it. Organization Retrieved 2026-10-31
- “oag.ca.gov / privacy/ccpa”. oag.ca.gov. Link found on the Wikipedia page. Open it, check it and fix this title before relying on it. Government Retrieved 2026-10-31
- “www.futuretech.ox.ac.uk / news-release-oxford-martin-school-study-shows-nearly-half-us-jobs-could-be-risk-computerisation”. futuretech.ox.ac.uk. Link found on the Wikipedia page. Open it, check it and fix this title before relying on it. Academic Retrieved 2026-10-31
- “www.youtube.com / watch”. youtube.com. Link found on the Wikipedia page. Open it, check it and fix this title before relying on it. Web page Retrieved 2026-10-31
- “www.techworld.com / careers/technology-is-not-about-steal-your-job-3634370”. techworld.com. Link found on the Wikipedia page. Open it, check it and fix this title before relying on it. Web page Retrieved 2026-10-31
- “www.nytimes.com / 2012/12/12/opinion/global/jobs-productivity-and-the-great-decoupling.html”. nytimes.com. Link found on the Wikipedia page. Open it, check it and fix this title before relying on it. News Retrieved 2026-10-31
- “www.workflowpatterns.com”. workflowpatterns.com. Link found on the Wikipedia page. Open it, check it and fix this title before relying on it. Web page Retrieved 2026-10-31
- “www.wfmc.org”. wfmc.org. Link found on the Wikipedia page. Open it, check it and fix this title before relying on it. Organization Retrieved 2026-10-31
- “doi.acm.org / 10.1145/1094855.1094965”. doi.acm.org. Link found on the Wikipedia page. Open it, check it and fix this title before relying on it. Organization Retrieved 2026-10-31
- “www.ftb.ca.gov / aboutFTB/Projects/ITSP/BPM_Glossary.pdf”. ftb.ca.gov. Link found on the Wikipedia page. Open it, check it and fix this title before relying on it. Government Retrieved 2026-10-31
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