The online Master of Business Administration (MBA) with a specialization in Marketing program at St. Thomas University (STU) prepares graduates to apply marketing automation (MA) tools strategically across the full marketing function. MA software enables companies to streamline, automate and measure marketing tasks and workflows, increasing operational efficiency and accelerating revenue growth.
The global MA market reached $6.65 billion in 2024 and is on track to hit $15.58 billion by 2030, according to Grand View Research. Drivers for this projected growth include the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, cloud-based deployment that makes the technology accessible to organizations of all sizes, and mergers and acquisitions that continue to expand product capabilities. By developing fluency with these platforms, marketing professionals strengthen their productivity and employability in a field where automation skills are now a baseline expectation.
Why Is a Marketing Automation Strategy Essential for Today’s Marketers?
For professional marketers, this level of investment in marketing automation technologies sends a clear signal: Build fluency with these tools or fall behind. Manually executing tasks like email deployment and social posting is an outdated approach. Today’s marketing organizations seek professionals who understand specific processes, platforms and criteria within MA software.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), employment of market research analysts will increase 7% from 2024 to 2034, faster than the average for all occupations. In a field projected to generate 87,200 openings per year over the next decade, candidates with MA proficiency stand out in a competitive hiring market. Employers across industries increasingly favor job candidates who pair analytical skills with digital marketing technology expertise, making advanced MA training a meaningful professional differentiator.
Marketing Automation Examples: 5 Tools Deployed by Organizations Today
MA applies across an expanding array of channels and functions. Common application areas include market segmentation, email personalization, lead generation, lead nurturing and scoring, relationship marketing, cross-selling and upselling, account-based marketing, and website functions. The following five platforms represent widely adopted marketing automation tools that organizations deploy across industries:
- Constant Contact for email and multi-channel deployment: This platform enables marketers to build automated email campaigns, nurture “drip” sequences that target contacts based on prior interactions and engage audiences across email, SMS and social media channels. Its AI-powered tools and pre-built automation flows streamline campaign setup, making it a practical choice for organizations seeking accessible, multi-channel marketing automation.
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement for B2B customer relationship management: This platform enables business-to-business (B2B) marketing and sales professionals to collaborate while sourcing and nurturing leads and closing deals. The software combines email marketing with A/B testing, dynamic content delivery across online channels, third-party software integration, lead management and ROI reporting. AI-driven functionality ensures that companies reach the right leads at the right time, dramatically shortening sales cycles.
- HubSpot Marketing Hub for attracting visitors and managing campaigns: HubSpot Marketing Hub gives marketing and sales teams a centralized platform for managing website, email, social media and content activities. Designed for content creation, workflow automation, lead capture and sales pipeline mapping, it functions as an end-to-end MA platform for every stage of the customer journey, with AI-powered tools integrated across the platform.
- Oracle Eloqua for personalization across channels: Personalization is the standard that consumers expect, and this platform enables marketers to deliver more targeted content and messages through all channels. Oracle Eloqua provides extensive marketing segmentation possibilities, tracking reports and deep insights into customer journeys, with ongoing AI enhancements that help prioritize leads and optimize campaign timing.
- Adobe Marketo Engage for correlating investment to sales revenue: Efficient communication between marketing and sales professionals is a core business function. This platform helps marketing practitioners build robust campaigns, provides sales representatives with insight into digital behavior, and facilitates cooperation between marketing and sales pipelines to support data-driven decision-making. Integrated generative AI accelerates content creation and lead scoring across the full demand generation workflow.
Building the Skills to Lead in a Marketing-Driven World
Mastering marketing automation technologies allows professionals to focus on applying their natural talents, whether creative, strategic or analytical. Graduate-level marketing programs provide a structured environment to develop both the technical and strategic competencies that modern MA demands. STU’s online MBA in Marketing degree develops both the technical fluency and strategic judgment that modern MA platforms demand, from campaign architecture to data-driven decision-making.
Marketing automation represents one of the most consequential shifts in how organizations attract, engage and convert customers. Professionals who develop hands-on fluency with these platforms bring measurable value to any team and position themselves for long-term growth in a competitive field.
Learn more about STU’s online MBA with a specialization in Marketing program.
