The 6 reasons to choose an open-source marketing automation solution
If you are looking for a new email marketing or marketing automation solution, there are many options available to you. Some systems are free and open source. Just like in the CMS or e-commerce world, MarTech companies are increasingly fond of these open technologies.
Why should you (or should you not) opt for an open-source marketing automation software?
Here are the questions you may be asking yourself and what you need to consider before getting started.
What is open-source marketing automation software?
Before going into the details, it is good to know exactly what open source means.
An open-source software project consists of developing software that allows anyone to access the source code free of charge. You can review the code, host it yourself, or integrate it into another application. You can even develop additional features, depending on your needs.
Open-source marketing automation software looks a lot like other marketing automation tools. But you have access to the source code, and you can use it however you like. In addition, a large active community allows you to exchange best practices.
Open-source projects are now part of your daily life. Think of WordPress, Magento, Drupal, and Prestashop websites. Google, Facebook, and Microsoft make the majority of their frameworks (code libraries) open source. Even proprietary applications are based on open-source languages such as PHP, Java, or Ruby.
6 reasons to choose an open-source marketing automation solution
Let’s start with the 3 main reasons to choose open-source marketing automation software from the user’s point of view:
- Faster project rollout.
- A wide choice of operational skills.
- Providers with the right service/price ratio.
1. Faster rollout of your projects
The number of marketing technologies has grown from 150 to more than 7,500 solutions over the past 7 years. Especially since, when choosing your marketing automation solution, you do not (always) know the other software (CRM, social networks, ERP, HRIS) with which you will need to synchronize your new application. Agility is therefore crucial.
With an open-source marketing automation solution, it is likely that another user had the same need before you and has already worked on the right connector and the appropriate process. If not, the community may be interested in working on the subject.
“When the La Poste group wanted an integration with its Webikeo webinar system, we delivered an operational response in 6 weeks. Normally, making a functional request to a software vendor takes much longer; you might even wait 6 weeks just for a simple acknowledgment that your request has been received!” Annick Costa – Marketing and Communications Director at Docapost
2. Many qualified marketing and technical skills
Inbound marketing and marketing automation are fairly recent practices and technologies that are evolving quickly. You may find it difficult to find the right people to manage your project when you decide to get started. And if resources are scarce, the cost of those resources will be very high!
With open-source projects such as Mautic, many agencies or hosting companies provide services and qualified staff to move your project forward. There are more people with experience and expertise. In particular, many freelancers are interested in the project. With proprietary software, it is the vendor that decides who has the right to claim the brand in order to sell their skills. And that comes at a cost that you will find again in the final invoice!
It should be noted that recruiting skilled talent is one of the main obstacles to the strong growth of software vendors.
The best value for money
Automation platforms such as Hubspot, Adobe Marketo, Salesforce Pardot, or Oracle Eloqua are known for their premium pricing. Below €2,000 per month for a database of 10,000 contacts, you do not really have a complete marketing automation solution. Then add operating costs and your budget quickly explodes. With an open-source solution (or one based on an open-source component), you can get the features almost for free if you want to manage on your own, or pay a fair price with a hosted solution of your choice (as we do at Webmecanik). It is the pooling of efforts, which is in the DNA of open source, that makes it possible to achieve competitive costs, just like the still-recent revolution in the CMS world.
The long-term advantages of using open-source marketing automation software
Beyond operational aspects and costs, there is also the long term to consider. Here are 3 reasons why open source is also a long-term asset.
4. An open roadmap
An open-source project allows everyone to contribute. This places the user at the center of the roadmap and leverages the full potential of the project.
In fact, everyone can contribute to the project so that all other users can benefit from it. This is what we call an open-source community. Administrators animate the community and make sure that feature proposals move in a logical and useful direction while considering maintainability. For example, some of our employees at Webmecanik are part of the “core” team of the open-source Mautic project along with dozens of other people, in order to ensure development and consistency.
An example of efficiency? Webmecanik Automation software is available in 22 different languages
5. Collective management of updates
Each new major version moves the solution a big step forward in terms of features or performance. This happens, for example, with Mautic 3 during the update of the Symfony framework, including a structural redesign of certain elements of the application to make it more modern, efficient, and sustainable.
Vendors using proprietary technology must manage all code updates themselves and ensure functional developments. With an open-source project, you can contribute to it and improve it according to your expectations. The collective takes part and shares its anticipated needs. The vendor orchestrates everything and ensures the availability of a common and stabilized version
6.Flexibility and compatibility with integrations
An open-source project has openness in its DNA. Beyond the community-based way of operating, there are technical benefits. Contributors want to be able to master these technologies as well as possible by connecting them to their own software. The more the number of community users grows, the more synchronizations and integrations with other applications and software increase! Data is at the center of your organization, which means that you need full compatibility with your current applications as well as the future software you will equip yourself with.
In other words, it will less often be necessary for these integrations to be fully customized and maintained by your teams. This is a source of savings and speed of execution.
When should you not choose open-source marketing automation software?
Although open-source software offers more choice in terms of functionality compared with similar proprietary offerings, there is no need to be too dogmatic about it. Sometimes, choosing proprietary software makes sense. Here, on the contrary, are a few reasons why you might choose a proprietary solution:
- Most open-source software cannot offer 24/7 international support. Only large multinational vendors can afford to provide such a service.
- If you use proprietary hardware, for example if you want to synchronize your marketing automation with an in-store POS (Point Of Sales) checkout system requiring a specialized driver; most of the time, these are proprietary code and available only from the equipment manufacturer.
- If warranties and liability indemnities are an important point for your business, most major proprietary vendors can offer this in their contract.
- If you are looking for very specific features that are in proprietary software but are not (yet) found in open-source software.
- If you are an agency, other considerations may come into play – such as profit margins and co-promotion and sponsorship opportunities offered by the exclusive vendor.
In conclusion, remember that a good selection of your marketing automation and email marketing software must first be based on the software best suited to your organization. This is a truism to say that there is no universal choice. Therefore, knowing your company’s needs is a priority before any other consideration.
