What is inbound marketing automation?
Inbound marketing automation refers to the use of tools and workflows to automate, streamline and scale your inbound marketing efforts like content distribution, lead capturing and lead nurturing.
With the right automation in place, you can capture and qualify leads more efficiently, reduce manual effort and errors, and significantly improve the speed and quality of your lead nurturing process. Ultimately, this leads to higher ROI by enabling more targeted, consistent and scalable engagement throughout the customer journey.
How to use automation in inbound marketing
Inbound marketing isn’t just about attracting traffic, it’s about turning that traffic into long-term relationships. The process typically follows a clear path:
First, you drive visitors to your website through valuable content and optimized distribution across search engines, social media and other channels. The real impact happens when you convert these visitors into leads by making them take some meaningful action and collecting their information. Then, you nurture those leads to convert them into paying customers.
The first step of the process, where you publish the valuable content to attract traffic, can’t really be automated; and it’s best not to, because producing high-quality and relevant content needs human intervention. However, automation becomes highly essential in the other two parts of the inbound marketing strategy.
Let’s explore them both and discuss what kind of automations you can set up for each part of the process.
1. Converting traffic into leads
The goal at this stage is to turn anonymous visitors into known leads. This is where automation helps you. Let’s explore the different aspects of this stage that you can automate.
1. Collection of data
The key aspect of converting visitors into leads is the collection of data. You can automate data capture by using a variety of forms and embedded elements across your website, blog and landing pages.
You can then configure them to send data to your CRM for lead qualification, ESP for maintaining an email list or even just collect and store data externally in Google Sheets or any other database you might want to maintain. You can also use APIs or webhooks to send these data.
These forms could be of different kinds and formats. Here are a few you can use:
Inline forms: Inline forms are forms that are embedded within the content of your blog posts or landing pages.
Popups: Popups are overlays that can also contain a form to collect data and can be triggered by time on page, scroll depth or exit intent.
Banners: Banners are static or dynamic elements that appear at the top or bottom of a page to promote offers or capture leads.
Slide-ins: Slide-ins are small windows or overlays that slide into view from the side or bottom of the screen, typically used to show content without disrupting the user experience.
Notifications: Notifications are brief, non-intrusive messages that alert users about new offers and updates or prompt them for action.
You can use tools like Jotform, Typeform, and SurveySparrow to create and embed these forms in your website. They offer customizable forms that integrate seamlessly with your CRM or email marketing platform.
2. Conversion rate optimization
Conversion rate optimization refers to the process of improving the percentage of visitors who fill up and submit the forms you’ve embedded on your website pages and get converted into leads. Let’s take a look at what kind of automation you set up here.
A/B testing: A/B testing is automated by default, where different variations are tested with two sets of visitors to identify the optimal one. All you need to do is supervise the entire process and learn from the results for future marketing efforts.
Landing page personalization: You can also automate the personalization of the landing pages based on the visitor’s intent and context. You can personalized and show different headlines, CTA copy, website copy, etc., for different visitors.
You can use tools like Customfit and Mutiny to automatically personalize landing pages based on user behavior, source, or profile without needing much developer effort.
2. Converting leads into customers
Once you’ve captured leads, the next phase is to convert them into paying customers. Automation helps you in this phase as well. Let’s take a look at the different aspects you can automate in this stage.
1. Lead scoring and qualification
Automated lead scoring assigns points to leads based on demographic data (like company size or job title) and behavioral signals (like clicking emails or visiting high-intent pages). Lead qualification uses these scores to identify which contacts are ready for sales engagement and which leads need more nurturing or to identify which leads are more likely to convert and should be prioritized.
You can use tools like HubSpot Sales Hub, Leadfeeder, and Freshsales to easily score and qualify your leads.
2. Lead nurturing
Once the leads are qualified, you can then nurture the right leads to convert them into paying customers. The most commonly used and convenient way of nurturing leads is email automation.
Email automation allows you to set up automated emails tailored to different lead segments. You can create:
Drip campaigns that send a predefined series of emails over a set period.
Trigger emails that are sent automatically when a lead completes a specific action (like downloading a resource or visiting the pricing page).
Behavior-based workflows that adjust messages dynamically based on user actions or engagement.
Take a look at this behavior-based workflow for instance.
Here are a few different types of automated emails you can set up:
Welcome emails: Sent when someone signs up, introducing them to your brand and the next steps you want them to take.
Educational content: Tips, guides, or articles that help leads understand your product or problem space.
Re-engagement emails: Sent to dormant leads to bring them back into the funnel.
Conversion nudges: Sent to leads to nudge them to convert with limited-time offers, testimonials, or invitations to book a demo.
You can use tools like Mailmodo, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, Customer.io or ConvertKit to set up and run these automated email flows.
We recommend using Mailmodo because it makes the entire process easy to set up and is easy to use. Here are a few features it offers:
Interactive emails with embedded forms, polls, and surveys to drive engagement directly from the inbox.
Conditional email flows with behavioral triggers to send emails based on user actions like sign-ups, clicks, or page visits.
Personalization options to tailor subject lines, content blocks, and product recommendations.
In-depth analytics to track opens, clicks, and conversions across your campaigns.
CRM integrations to sync lead data and automate responses based on lifecycle stages.
Inbound marketing automation best practices
To get the most out of inbound marketing automation, you must refine your process thoughtfully. Here are some key best practices to ensure your automations drive real results:
Give users something valuable right after they sign up, whether it’s a helpful resource or a personalized welcome.
Tailor content, emails, and offers based on what users are doing and where they are in their journey.
Check your automation flows regularly, fix what’s broken, streamline what’s clunky, and keep improving.
Don’t forget the human element; sometimes, a quick message from a real person makes all the difference.
Test your emails, timing, and CTAs. Small tweaks from A/B tests can lead to big gains in engagement.
Case study: how Whop boosted conversions with email automation
Whop, a digital product marketplace, wanted to help its sellers grow by improving their customer engagement and sales. With limited internal resources, they turned to Mailmodo to create automated, interactive email journeys.
Using Mailmodo, Whop set up behavior-based email flows with personalized product recommendations. These AMP emails allowed users to engage directly from their inbox, reducing friction and boosting conversions. Mailmodo’s team helped Whop implement and manage these automations without needing a full-time email marketer.
Read the full case study here.
Conclusion
Inbound marketing automation lets you focus on strategy while workflows handle repetitive tasks. The key is balancing efficiency with authenticity, using tools to deliver timely, relevant experiences without losing the personal touch that builds real connections. Automate smartly, and you’ll turn leads into loyal customers effortlessly.
