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The 6 reasons to choose an open source marketing automation solution
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The 6 reasons to choose an open source marketing automation solution

The 6 reasons to choose an open-source marketing automation solution

If you’re looking for a new email marketing or marketing automation solution, you have many options. Some systems are free—this is what we call open source. Just like in the CMS or e-commerce world, MarTech companies are increasingly drawn to these open technologies.

Why should you (or shouldn’t you) opt for an open source marketing automation software?

Here are the questions you might ask yourself, and what you need to consider before you get started.

What is open source marketing automation software?

Before getting into the details, it’s 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 for free. You can view 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 very similar to other marketing automation tools. But you have access to the source code, and you can use it however you see fit. In addition, a large active community lets you exchange best practices.

Open source projects are now part of your everyday life. Think of WordPress, Magento, Drupal, and Prestashop websites. Google, Facebook, and Microsoft offer that most of their frameworks (code libraries) be 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 perspective:

  • Faster project kick-off.
  • A wide range of operational skills.
  • Vendors with the right service / price ratio.

1. Faster kick-off for your projects

The number of marketing technologies has grown from 150 to more than 7,500 solutions over the past 7 years. Moreover, at the stage of choosing your marketing automation solution, you don’t yet know (always) the other software (CRM, social networks, ERP, HRIS/SIRH) with which you’ll need to synchronize your new application. Agility is therefore crucial.

With an open source marketing automation solution, it’s likely that another user had the need before you and has already worked on the right connector and the appropriate process. If that’s not the case, the community may be interested in working on the topic.

“When the La Poste group wanted an integration with its webinar system, Webikeo, we provided an operational response in 6 weeks. In normal circumstances, making a functional request to a software vendor takes much longer—you could even wait 6 weeks for a simple acknowledgment of your request!” Annick Costa – Marketing and Communication 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 personnel 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’s the vendor who decides who has the right to use the brand to sell their expertise. And that comes at a cost you’ll see in the final bill!

Note that hiring skills is one of the main obstacles to the rapid growth of software publishers.

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 don’t really have a complete marketing automation solution. Then add the operational costs, and your budget quickly explodes. With an open source solution (or one based on an open source building block), you can get the features for almost free if you want to manage on your own or pay the fair price with a hosted solution of your choice (as we do at Webmecanik). It’s the pooling of efforts—open source’s DNA—that makes it possible to achieve competitive costs, just like the still fairly recent revolution in the CMS world.

The long-term advantages of using open source marketing automation software

Beyond operational aspects and costs, there’s the long term to consider as well. Here are 3 reasons why open source is also a long-term advantage.

4. An open roadmap

An open source project allows everyone to contribute. It puts the user at the center of the roadmap and makes use of the project’s potential.

In practice, 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 run the community and ensure that feature proposals move in a logical and useful direction while taking maintainability into account. For example, some of our colleagues at Webmecanik are part of the “core” team of the open source Mautic project alongside dozens of other people, to ensure the developments and their 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 forward significantly in terms of features or performance. This happens, for example, with Mautic 3 when updating the Symfony framework, including a structural redesign of some parts of the application to make it more modern, more efficient, and more future-proof.

Proprietary technology publishers must manage all code updates themselves and ensure functional development. With an open source project, you can contribute and improve it based on your expectations. The group participates and shares its anticipated needs. The publisher orchestrates and ensures the availability of a common, stabilized version

6. Flexibility and compatibility with integrations

An open source project has openness in its DNA. Beyond the community operating model, there are also technical benefits. Contributors want to be able to best adapt these technologies by connecting them to their own software. The more community users accelerate, the more the number of synchronizations and integrations with other applications and software increases! Your data is at the center of your organization, which means you need full compatibility with your current applications as well as the future software you’ll adopt.

In other words, it will be less often necessary for these integrations to be fully customized and maintained by your teams. This is a source of cost savings and faster execution.

When not to choose an open source marketing automation software?

Although open source software offers more functional choices than similar proprietary offerings, there’s no need to be overly dogmatic about it. Sometimes choosing a proprietary software makes sense. Here are a few reasons why you might choose a proprietary solution:

  • Most open source software cannot offer 24/7 and international support. Only large multinational providers can afford to offer such a service.
  • If you use proprietary hardware—for example, if you want to synchronize your marketing automation with an in-store point-of-sale system (Point Of Sales), which requires a specialized driver; most of the time, they are in proprietary code and available only from the equipment manufacturer.
  • If guarantees and liability indemnities are an important point for your business, most large proprietary vendors can offer them in their contract.
  • If you’re looking for very specific features that are in the proprietary software but not (yet) in the open source software.
  • If you’re an agency, other considerations may apply—such as profit margins and co-promotion and sponsorship opportunities offered by the exclusive vendor.

In conclusion, remember that choosing your marketing automation and email marketing software should first be based on the software that best fits your organization. This is a self-evident statement: there is no universal choice. Therefore, understanding your company’s needs must come before any other consideration.

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