# Marketing automation and campaign management: what AI models recommend, September 2026 Gane, the publisher, sells software in this category. Every product here is measured by the same method as in every other category. Gane Index, September 2026 Edition. Asked as "marketing automation platform" and as "marketing automation and campaign management tool", six framings each, to twelve models with search on, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/marketing/marketing-automation/2026-09 This is the permanent record of the September 2026 Edition, published September 15, 2026 and superseded since. The current standing: https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/marketing/marketing-automation/index.md **Standing:** HubSpot Marketing Hub leads with 57% of first choices; verdict clear leader. 47 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts. ## First-choice share | Rank | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels | |---|---|---|---|---| | 1 | [HubSpot Marketing Hub](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/hubspot-marketing-hub/index.md) | 57% | 19% | 58 | | 2 | [Brevo](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/brevo/index.md) | 26% | 0% | 28 | | 3 | [ActiveCampaign](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/activecampaign/index.md) | 13% | 5% | 56 | | 4 | [Adobe Marketo Engage](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/adobe-marketo-engage/index.md) | 4% | 45% | 44 | | 5 | [Klaviyo](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/klaviyo/index.md) | 0% | 12% | 26 | | 6 | [Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/salesforce-marketing-cloud-account-engagement/index.md) | 0% | 17% | 29 | | 7 | [Customer.io](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/customer-io/index.md) | 0% | 0% | 19 | | 8 | [Omnisend](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/omnisend/index.md) | 0% | 0% | 16 | | 48 | [Salesforce Marketing Cloud](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/salesforce-marketing-cloud/index.md) | 0% | 57% | 14 | | 50 | [Oracle Eloqua](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/oracle-eloqua/index.md) | 0% | 60% | 10 | | 51 | [Mailchimp](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/mailchimp/index.md) | 0% | 59% | 27 | Rank is by share of first choices among all 51 products named; products with the same share are tied, and the order among them carries no meaning. The table lists those with at least 10 labels. ## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt - Claude Haiku 4.5: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives Adobe Marketo Engage, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement - GPT-5.4 mini: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives Adobe Marketo Engage, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement - Gemini 3.5 Flash: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives Act-On, ActiveCampaign, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement - Perplexity Sonar: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives ActiveCampaign, Adobe Marketo Engage, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement - Grok 4.20: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives Act-On, ActiveCampaign, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement - Mistral Small: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives ActiveCampaign, Adobe Marketo Engage, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement - DeepSeek V4 Flash: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives 6sense, ActiveCampaign, Customer.io, Demandbase - Llama 4 Maverick: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives ActiveCampaign, MarketBetter, Ortto - Qwen 3.7 Flash: ActiveCampaign, HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives Brevo, Customer.io, MarketBetter, Ortto - Kimi K2: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives ActiveCampaign, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement - GLM 4.7 FlashX: ActiveCampaign, HubSpot Marketing Hub - MiniMax M2.5: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives Act-On, ActiveCampaign, Adobe Marketo Engage, Braze ## Sources the answers cite 19 of 72 answers came back with a source list, from 4 of 12 models. Sites named in the most answers: - drip.com: 10 answers, 10 citations - ventureharbour.com: 8 answers, 8 citations - insiderone.com: 7 answers, 9 citations - toolradar.com: 6 answers, 10 citations - bloomreach.com: 5 answers, 5 citations - heysid.com: 5 answers, 5 citations - hubspot.com: 4 answers, 6 citations - youtube.com: 4 answers, 6 citations Pages named in the most answers: - https://drip.com/blog/best-marketing-automation-platforms (10 answers) - https://ventureharbour.com/marketing-automation-software (8 answers) - https://insiderone.com/best-marketing-automation-tools-smbs-enterprises (6 answers) - https://bloomreach.com/en/blog/best-marketing-automation-software (5 answers) - https://heysid.com/resources/best-b2b-marketing-automation-platforms (5 answers) - https://toolradar.com/blog/marketing-automation-software-comparison (5 answers) - https://6sense.com/blog/best-b2b-marketing-automation-platforms (4 answers) - https://digitalapplied.com/blog/marketing-automation-platform-comparison-2026 (4 answers) - https://gartner.com/reviews/market/b2b-marketing-automation-platforms (4 answers) - https://marketbetter.ai/blog/best-b2b-marketing-automation-platforms-2026 (4 answers) ## Warned against - Adobe Marketo Engage: 20 of 44 labels negative. "Approach with Extra Caution (Especially for SMBs or Beginners): Adobe Marketo Engage ... Steep learning curve, outdated/non-intuitive UI ... expensive pricing" (Grok 4.20, negative prompt) - Mailchimp: 16 of 27 labels negative. "Mailchimp has become a major source of complaints among growing businesses... Accounts are frequently suspended without prior warning" (Qwen 3.7 Flash, negative prompt) - HubSpot Marketing Hub: 11 of 58 labels negative. "HubSpot — Pricing escalation & contract lock-in ... Avoid if: You're a small business on the Starter/Free tier expecting to scale cheaply" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt) - Salesforce Marketing Cloud: 8 of 14 labels negative. "SFMC is notoriously complex — it requires SQL and proprietary AMPscript to use fully. "The UX is absolutely terrible..."" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt) ## Record - Method: https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/methodology - License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as Gane Index, September 2026 Edition, www.gane.ai/index/gtm.