# Marketing automation and campaign management: what AI models recommend, October 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, October 2026 Edition. Asked as "marketing automation platform" and as "marketing automation and campaign management tool", six framings each, to fourteen models with search on, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/marketing/marketing-automation/2026-10

This is the permanent record of the October 2026 Edition, published October 1, 2026 and superseded since. The current standing: https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/marketing/marketing-automation/index.md

**Standing:** HubSpot Marketing Hub leads with 63% of first choices; verdict clear leader. 52 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) | 63% | 15% | 73 |
| 2 | [Brevo](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/brevo/index.md) | 21% | 8% | 24 |
| 3 | [ActiveCampaign](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/activecampaign/index.md) | 6% | 7% | 58 |
| 7 | [Mailchimp](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/mailchimp/index.md) | 2% | 43% | 30 |
| 8 | [Klaviyo](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/klaviyo/index.md) | 0% | 12% | 33 |
| 9 | [Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/salesforce-marketing-cloud-account-engagement/index.md) | 0% | 21% | 39 |
| 10 | [Omnisend](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/omnisend/index.md) | 0% | 8% | 13 |
| 11 | [Braze](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/braze/index.md) | 0% | 0% | 12 |
| 13 | [Adobe Marketo Engage](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/adobe-marketo-engage/index.md) | 0% | 39% | 57 |
| 14 | [Salesforce Marketing Cloud](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/salesforce-marketing-cloud/index.md) | 0% | 27% | 15 |
| 46 | [Oracle Eloqua](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/oracle-eloqua/index.md) | 0% | 44% | 18 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 59 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 ActiveCampaign, Adobe Marketo Engage
- GPT-5.4 mini: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives Adobe Marketo Engage, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives ActiveCampaign, Adobe Marketo Engage, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement
- Perplexity Sonar: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives 6sense, ActiveCampaign, Adobe Marketo Engage, Customer.io
- Grok 4.20: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives Adobe Marketo Engage, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement
- Mistral Small: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives Act-On, ActiveCampaign, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives ActiveCampaign, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement
- Llama 4 Maverick: no first choice; alternatives Act-On, Adobe Marketo Engage, HubSpot Marketing Hub
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives ActiveCampaign, Adobe Marketo Engage, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement
- Kimi K2: ActiveCampaign, HubSpot Marketing Hub
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives ActiveCampaign
- MiniMax M2.5: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives ActiveCampaign, Adobe Marketo Engage, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement
- GPT-6 Luna: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives Adobe Marketo Engage, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement
- Muse Glimmer 30B: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives ActiveCampaign, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement

## Sources the answers cite

73 of 84 answers came back with a source list, from 14 of 14 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- pipeline.zoominfo.com: 22 answers, 38 citations
- ventureharbour.com: 22 answers, 25 citations
- digitalapplied.com: 22 answers, 22 citations
- blog.hubspot.com: 20 answers, 22 citations
- improvado.io: 17 answers, 19 citations
- klaviyo.com: 16 answers, 16 citations
- hubspot.com: 15 answers, 21 citations
- brevo.com: 15 answers, 19 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://digitalapplied.com/blog/marketing-automation-platform-comparison-2026 (22 answers)
- https://ventureharbour.com/marketing-automation-software (21 answers)
- https://improvado.io/blog/marketing-automation-tools (16 answers)
- https://pipeline.zoominfo.com/marketing/b2b-marketing-tools (15 answers)
- https://brevo.com/blog/best-marketing-automation-software (14 answers)
- https://klaviyo.com/blog/best-marketing-automation-platforms (14 answers)
- https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/marketing-automation-software-tools (13 answers)
- https://make.com/en/blog/best-marketing-automation-tools (13 answers)
- https://pipeline.zoominfo.com/marketing/b2b-marketing-automation-platforms (13 answers)
- https://zapier.com/blog/best-marketing-automation-software (13 answers)

## Warned against

- Adobe Marketo Engage: 22 of 57 labels negative. "The three platforms I'd most strongly caution against ... 1. Marketo — unless you're a large enterprise with dedicated admin staff." (DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt)
- HubSpot Marketing Hub: 11 of 73 labels negative. "Most businesses shouldn't use HubSpot... For everyone else, it's a trap." (Claude Haiku 4.5, negative prompt)
- Mailchimp: 13 of 30 labels negative. "skip cheap ones (Mailchimp) if you need robust compliance/deliverability" (Grok 4.20, negative prompt)
- Oracle Eloqua: 8 of 18 labels negative. "It has a high total cost of ownership... Eloqua is generally only suitable for massive Fortune 500 companies" (Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt)

## Movement since September 2026

Floor: 11 points of share, measured on the calibration repeat.
Same leader: HubSpot Marketing Hub at 61%.

- ActiveCampaign: 13% to 7%, −6. Inside the floor by 5 points · rank 3 of 51, unchanged.
- HubSpot Marketing Hub: 57% to 61%, +4. Inside the floor by 7 points · rank 1 of 51, unchanged.
- Adobe Marketo Engage: 4% to 0%, −4. Inside the floor by 7 points · rank 4 → 14 of 51.
- Brevo: 26% to 23%, −3. Inside the floor by 8 points · rank 2 of 51, unchanged.
- Mailchimp: 0% to 2%, +2. Inside the floor by 9 points · rank 51 → 6 of 51.
- Klaviyo: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 5 → 7 of 51.
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 6 → 8 of 51.
- Omnisend: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 8 → 9 of 51.
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 48 → 12 of 51.
- Customer.io: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 7 → 15 of 51.
- Oracle Eloqua: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 50 → 48 of 51.

## Record

- Method: https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/methodology
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as Gane Index, October 2026 Edition, www.gane.ai/index/gtm.