Boost Sales Productivity with the Best Sales Automation Tools for 2024 

“Automation applied to an efficient operation will amplify the efficiency.” We’ve all heard Bill Gates saying this. And this could not be more true for every sales professional today. 

For today’s sales teams, automation is a game-changer. According to HubSpot, nearly 60% of sales professionals believe AI and automation tools are essential to their strategy.

Automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks frees your team to focus on what matters—closing deals. But with so many options, how do you choose the right sales automation tool? Worry not! We’ll break down the essentials and help you find the perfect solution.

First, let’s get down to the basics.

A quick snapshot of the 10 best sales automation tool

1. Uniqode: Best for Automating lead collection at events, conferences, and exhibitions
2. Sender: Best for Email marketing automation for lead nurturing
3. GetResponse: Best for Marketing automation with CRM integration
4. Velaris: Best for Enabling customer success through automation 
5. Reply.io: Best for Automating multi-channel sales outreach
6. CloudTalk: Best for Call center automation for cold-calling
7. Dux-Soup: Best for LinkedIn prospecting and lead engagement
8. Cognism: Best for sales prospecting automation
9. Salesforce Sales Cloud: Best for Large-scale CRM automation tool
10. HubSpot Sales Hub: Best for Integrated sales CRM automation tool
11. Elevate: Best for sales commission automation

What makes a good sales automation tool

Because sales is a vast field and your business needs can be at any end, it’s hard to point out a blanket list of features that make a good sales automation tool. Nevertheless, we have identified a few critical aspects you must consider that can help virtually any business. You may not need all of them at once, but you can prioritize: 

1. Smooth integration: Your sales automation tool must integrate with your existing CRM and data management systems. This ensures a smooth workflow and removes data silos.
2. Contact management: A good automation tool will help you store and manage customer information, interactions, and notes in a centralized location from where you can process them further.
3. Lead scoring: The tool should be capable of qualifying leads by engagement, demographics, and behavior, helping sales teams focus on high-potential prospects.
4. Email marketing: You must be able to create and send personalized email campaigns to nurture leads and drive conversions.
5. Pipeline management: You must get a clear view of your sales pipeline, track deal progress, and identify bottlenecks.
6. Marketing campaigns: You must be able to create and execute targeted marketing campaigns to generate leads and drive sales.
7. AI capabilities: Your tool can significantly boost productivity if it offers AI for automating and optimizing sales processes, predicting customer behavior, and personalizing interactions. With the advent of tools like Chat GPT, AI capabilities have been leveraged in sales for endless use cases.
8. User-friendly interface: A tool is only as good as its usability and simplicity. Make sure it’s intuitive and easy to navigate.
9. Analytics and reporting: Your tool must return in-depth data analytics to track campaign performance, measure ROI, and get practical insights. For example, a tool that provides detailed reports on lead conversion rates, sales pipeline performance, and customer engagement metrics will enable business growth.
10. Sales calls: Conversation intelligence tools can quickly summarize your calls, including key topics, action items, and competitor mentions. They also provide AI-powered insights into the opportunity.

Sales automation tools—a quick comparison: features, pricing, use-cases

We’ve put this table together to give a bird’s-eye-view of all the options and help you prioritize features and pick a tool that matches your needs:

Now, let’s look at these tools in depth.

10+ Best sales automation tools in 2024

1. Uniqode digital business card—best for automating lead collection from offline sources

⭐G2 rating: 4.8/5 based on 36 reviews

Even though sales today are unthinkable without digital channels, offline sales still hold a lucrative market share in the US. As a sales rep, you may rely on offline networking at trade shows, events, and conferences for new leads and connect with existing ones. 

Your existing process might involve exchanging paper business cards and exporting the leads into CRMs. If this is relatable, let us tell you that you don’t have to do it manually. 

Uniqode offers digital business cards that can automate your lead collection without investing time and effort in setting up new processes. All you have to do is share your cards with prospects. The two-way contact-sharing feature nudges your recipient to share their contact details through a form on the card you shared with them. 

As you keep networking and exchanging digital business cards, more leads flow into a digital address book in the dashboard, where you can analyze and categorize them. The best part is that you can integrate Uniqode with your existing CRMs and set automatic follow-ups such as sending greetings, drip emails, or anything related to your business. 

👍 Why choose Uniqode

• Share digital business cards at events and conferences using Apple Wallet, Google Wallet, or Go Mobile—without any paper or physical contact
• Automate lead collection as you share your digital business cards with two-way  contact-sharing 
• Integrate Uniqode with your CRM and send automated welcome emails and follow-up campaigns to nurture and drive conversions
• Create digital business cards for any number of team members using Uniqode’s secured APIs—never lose an opportunity to collect leads
• Use the bulk creation to generate large batches of cards, say over 2,000, in minutes

🤔 Possible drawbacks

Uniqode doesn’t provide NFC business cards. However, you can share your digital business card by scanning a QR Code or clicking a URL, along with wallet passes and the built-in Go Mobile feature.

💰 Pricing

You can try Uniqode free for 14 days. Full features plans begin at $4 per user monthly, billed annually.

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2. Sender—best for email marketing automation for lead nurturing

⭐ G2 rating: 4.4/5 based on 52 reviews

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Sending separate emails each for sales pitches, event invites, and product updates to prospects is tedious, lengthy, and backbreaking. Sender is a budget-friendly email automation tool for startups, small businesses, and online stores to automate marketing emails. 

If you are new to marketing, Sender’s easy-to-use interface will help you quickly get up to speed and send professional automated emails. Its drag-and-drop email builder and responsive templates make it simple to design emails in minutes.

Unlike other tools, it provides a free plan with all email automation features, such as ready-to-use email workflows, customizable triggers, steps, segmentation, personalization, etc.

For example,you can capture leads with pop-ups, group customers, and send personalized messages to boost engagement and sales. 

You can combine Sender’s SMS campaigns with email marketing to maximize impact. You can customize the communication flow with triggers based on the user’s engagement with these campaigns.

👍 Why choose Sender

• Automate email and SMS marketing campaigns
• Automatically send trigger-based email and text 
• Use the drag-and-drop email builder with responsive templates
• Get advanced segmentation and personalization options
• Find detailed analytics and reports on campaigns
• Get 24/7 exceptional customer service
• Smoothly integrate with Shopify, WordPress, WooCommerce, etc.

🤔 Possible drawbacks

• Limited customization options and templates

💰 Pricing

Free forever plan for up to 15,000 monthly emails and 2,500 subscribers. Paid plans start at $19 monthly (billed monthly) with additional features such as SMS campaigns.

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3. GetResponse—best for marketing automation with CRM integration

⭐ G2 rating: 4.3/5 based on 717 reviews

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Next on the list is a tool that automates large-scale marketing campaigns, making life easier for marketers and sales professionals. 

GetResponse is a marketing automation tool that can improve your sales strategy from passive to active, data-driven growth engine through AI. Here are some features that you can find: 

• Automatic product recommendations 
• Recovering abandoned carts 
• Web push notifications 
• Third-party integrations 
• In-built AI content generator etc 

Let’s say you are a sales representative at a software company. Using GetResponse, you can create automated email sequences to nurture leads. 

For example, you could set up a sequence that sends emails to prospects who download a free trial of your software. These emails will highlight key features, provide additional resources, and address common questions.

With customizable email templates and CRM integrations, GetResponse also helps you grow your audience and boost sales conversions.

👍 Why choose GetResponse

GetResponse provides:

• AI-powered landing page, email content creator
• Drag-and-drop editors to create sales pitches
• AI product recommendation engine for increased conversions
• Smart Email and SMS automation
• 170+ third-party integrations

🤔 Possible drawbacks

• Expensive compared to its competitors
• Customization options in the basic plan are limited

💰 Pricing

GetResponse provides four main paid plans: Email marketing, Marketing automation, Ecommerce marketing, and MAX.

Email marketing plan at $15 monthly is good if you’re starting with email marketing. For more advanced automation or ecommerce integrations, consider Marketing automation or Ecommerce plans. Larger organizations needing customized contracts and advanced features such as SSO or dedicated IPs should explore the MAX plan.

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4. Velaris—best for customer success through automation

⭐ G2 rating: 4.7/5 based on 111 reviews

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According to Deloitte, a challenge that customer sales success teams face is the amount of time they spend on manual data entry such as for customer onboarding, renewal reminders, etc. 

A sales automation tool that solves this problem is Velaris—a Customer Success (CS) tool built by CS experts for CS experts. With its intuitive drag-and-drop interface, you can create workflows that automate repetitive tasks such as manual data entry. 

For example, consider a tech company’s sales team overwhelmed by manually identifying hot leads. With Velaris, sales teams can automate lead scoring based on factors such as industry and location, identify upsell opportunities, and close deals efficiently.

As Stephanie Hanakova, customer success manager at Staysafe, says, “With Velaris’ automation features, it’s like having an extra set of hands, always keeping us one step ahead.”

👍 Why choose Velaris

Let’s say you’re a CSM juggling multiple customer accounts. With Velaris, you can:

• Automate data entry based on custom triggers
• Create automated workflows to welcome new customers and ensure a smooth onboarding process
• Set up automated renewal reminders and follow-up actions to increase retention and identify upsell opportunities
• Organize and track projects and tasks with ease
• Share information and work together with your team smoothly

🤔 Possible drawbacks

• Needs a crash course to understand advanced features

💰 Pricing

Custom pricing based on your needs.

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5. Reply.io—best for automating multi-channel sales outreach

⭐ G2 rating: 4.6/5 based on 1310 reviews

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If you struggle to keep your sales outreach personal and efficient, Reply.io is your sales automation tool. It can help you find the right leads, engage them in multi-channel conversations, and close more deals—all on autopilot.

Its AI SDR (Sales Development Representative) feature actively creates hyper-personalized emails at scale, analyzing each prospect’s unique data and behavior for personalized email sequences, and multi-channel touchpoints. The software even automatically responds to inquiries.

For example, suppose you want to invite a large crowd to your company’s annual conference. In that case, you can use Reply.io to automatically reach hundreds of potential prospects with personalized emails, LinkedIn or WhatsApp messages, and SMS. Reply.io’s AI helps personalize each message on each platform based on the recipient’s data, automating follow-ups and saving time without compromising quality. 

👍 Why choose Reply.io

• It uses an AI-powered Assistant (Jason) to personalize messages based on each prospect’s data and behavior, automate follow-ups, and even book meetings
• You can automate tasks based on specific events or conditions. 
• Automated triggers can move contacts through sequences, ensuring timely and relevant follow-ups without manual intervention
• Manage as many email accounts as you need and keep your sender reputation high with its automated warm-up features
• Automatically enrich chat-generated contacts with additional data points
• Capture qualified leads and keep them engaged with interactive AI chatbots featuring engaging video avatars
• Schedule meetings directly from your Reply sequence for prospects
• Keep all your sales conversations organized in one central location for easy access and quick responses
• All plans integrate hassle-free with popular CRMs and email providers, and custom solutions are available for larger teams
• Boost engagement with personalized videos from Vidyard. Add these videos to your Reply emails to make your outreach more compelling

🤔 Possible drawbacks

• The contact finder and Chrome extension features are glitchy occasionally
• Expensive

💰 Pricing

Reply.io offers various plans to fit your budget and needs. Its base plan starts at $49/month.

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6. CloudTalk—best for call center automation for cold-calling

⭐ G2 rating: 4.3/5 based on 1,079 reviews

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According to research, cold-calling remains impactful for lead generation (just in case you have doubts). CloudTalk is a leading cloud-based contact center and business phone system that can help you automate meeting notes, queue up calls, provide interactive and automated voice responses (see features below), and deliver exceptional customer service.

With its user-friendly interface and advanced automation features such as VIP queues, automated workflows, automated redialing, and callback, CloudTalk is a trusted choice for organizations of all sizes.

For example, sales reps can automate call center operations by routing calls to the right agent based on availability, and CloudTalk can automatically transcribe conversations, log meeting notes, and update the CRM. 

👍 Why choose CloudTalk

• Enjoy high-quality calls with guaranteed low latency and minimal jitter
• Improve workflows with intelligent call routing for efficient handling
• Redial calls until connected to a sales agent with callback features
• Redirect calls during busy hours or when outside the office
• Keep your number private with call masking feature
• Integrate with popular tools such as HubSpot and Zendesk, as well as 35+ other helpdesk, ecommerce, and CRM systems
• Use automatic redialing so that no call is missed, increasing the chances of connecting with potential customers
• Review calls, identify areas for improvement, and improve sales techniques
• Automates the dialing process and reach more potential customers in less time

🤔 Possible drawbacks

• Voice delays or echoing during calls

💰 Pricing

CloudTalk provides a cost-effective platform for businesses of all sizes, starting at just $25 per user/month.

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7. Dux-Soup—best for LinkedIn prospecting and lead engagement

⭐ G2 rating: 4.3/5 based on 75 reviews

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Dux-Soup is a pioneer in LinkedIn automation, helping businesses of all sizes optimize outreach and generate more leads on the professional networking platform. So if you do a lot of sales activity on LinkedIn, this could be your choice. 

With over 80,000 active users worldwide, it’s a trusted solution for automating campaign workflows and optimizing conversion rates. For example, a sales rep can use Dux-Soup to automate cold outreach to potential ICPs on LinkedIn.

👍 Why choose Dux-Soup

• Automate tasks and focus on high-value activities on LinkedIn
• Create customized drip campaigns with custom delays and choose from 12 action sequences, including connection invitations, messages, InMails, follows, visits, and endorsements
• Track campaign performance with A/B testing, conversion rate monitoring, and the Funnel Flow dashboard
• Connect LinkedIn to your CRM (HubSpot, Pipedrive, SharpSpring, Woodpecker, or others) using native integrations or API webhooks
• Manage multiple LinkedIn accounts and share campaigns for collaborative team outreach with the Agency Dashboard and Team Campaigns features
• Fill your sales pipeline with qualified leads
• Reach more prospects and increase your outreach
• Benefit from regular updates and new features

🤔 Possible drawbacks

The queued activity feature has limitations. For example, if you discover a typo after 50 messages were sent out of a 1000 list import, you pause the campaign, edit it, and resume. However, the message with the typo is invariably sent to all 1000 people.  

💰 Pricing

Choose from four plans to fit your needs:

• Free Starter: Basic features for individual users 
• Pro: Advanced features for individual users starting at $14.99/month.
• Turbo: This is for power users with unlimited campaigns and contacts at $55/month.
• Cloud: Dedicated server for maximum performance and security at $99/month.

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8. Cognism—best for automating prospecting via emails and direct dials 

⭐ G2 review: 4.6/5 based on 721 reviews

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Of the many facets of sales, prospecting is one time-consuming part. Sales representatives already spend time researching, tracking prospects, and contacting them. Then comes the data capturing part. 

Cognism is a sales intelligence automation platform that many large teams use to automate prospecting. The tool can cut off time spent in recurrent tasks such as direct dials and drip emails to nurture leads after capturing. 

Once the leads are in, Cognism can automatically enrich the lead data with additional information like social media profiles, company news, and recent funding.

For example, if you’re a sales rep of a leading manufacturing company trying to reach the VP of Marketing at a large enterprise. With Cognism’s automated, verified database, you can instantly find their mobile number, learn about their company’s recent funding, and see if they’ve been researching similar products as yours. This exposure to information gives you a huge advantage when you reach out.

Plus, you can use Cognism prospect automation for email campaigns to nurture leads. One of the best features of Cognism is its ability to integrate with your phone system to automatically dial leads, saving you time and effort. 

👍 Why choose Cognism

• Integrate with your phone system to automate direct dials 
• Access a vast database of automatically updated B2B contacts, company information, and sales triggers
• Target prospects worldwide with international sales intelligence coverage
• Benefit from verified mobile numbers and emails. Cognism has an 87% phone-verified mobile number accuracy rate
• Connect Cognism to your existing CRM and sales tools for a streamlined workflow
• Use advanced AI algorithms to identify and qualify high-quality leads
• Improve your existing contact data with additional insights, such as technographics and firmographics
• Automate repetitive tasks and increase your team’s productivity

🤔 Possible drawback

While Cognism strives for data accuracy, some contact information may occasionally become outdated.

💰 Pricing

Custom pricing based on your needs.

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9. Salesforce Sales Cloud—best for large-scale CRM automation

⭐ G2 review: 4.4/5 based on 20,423 reviews

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One of the most widely used sales automation tools is Salesforce Sales Cloud. It’s arguably the leading CRM automation solution to automate your sales processes through lead scoring, pipeline management, email campaigns, etc.

With Salesforce Sales Cloud and its built-in AI, you can automate: 

• Lead and opportunity management such as lead scoring, lead routing, opportunity staging, and sales forecasting 
• Sales processes such as workflow rules, approvals, and tasks
• Sales reports generation and distribution to keep stakeholders informed
• Email sequences to send follow-ups based on lead engagement levels
• Proposal generation by creating and sending proposals automatically based on product configurations and customer information
• Contract renewal reminders to send reminders to customers approaching contract renewal dates

👍 Why choose Salesforce Sales Cloud

• Organize and track customer interactions smoothly through Activity Management
• Lead Management feature helps you capture, nurture, and convert leads into opportunities
• Manage sales pipelines, forecast revenue, and handle products/pricing
• Plan, execute, and track marketing campaigns
• Get insights into sales performance and team productivity
• Promote teamwork and information sharing
• Access customer data and manage deals on the go
• Connect with other Salesforce Clouds and third-party apps
• Use collaborative dashboards to help your sales team with the tools they need
• Quote automated contract proposal drafts

🤔 Possible drawback

Quite expensive for small businesses. Needs a learning curve.

💰 Pricing

Try free for 14 days. Paid plan starts at $24/user/month.

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10. HubSpot Sales Hub—best for integrated sales 

⭐ G2 review: 4.3/5 based on 11,531 reviews

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Last, but certainly not least, HubSpot Sales Hub is a popular and user-friendly CRM tool to automate your sales process through optimized prospecting, personalized email sequences, automated workflows, and detailed performance analytics. 

With its personalized email sequences and automated follow-ups, you can nurture leads and increase your chances of conversion. 

HubSpot’s tracking and analytics tools provide practical inputs into your team’s performance, helping you reconsider your sales strategy.

For example, if you own a marketing agency with a growing client base, you know the value of time. HubSpot’s Sales Automation can free your team from administrative tasks like scheduling meetings and sending follow-ups.

👍Why choose HubSpot Sales Hub

• Visualize your sales pipeline, set goals, and forecast revenue
• Simple lead scoring and management
• Automate follow-ups and nurture leads with customizable email templates
• Organize and manage your contacts, create custom fields, and track interactions
• Get insights into sales performance with customizable dashboards and reports
• Centralize your sales tools and information for a more efficient workflow
• Build stronger relationships with potential customers through personalized email campaigns using Hubspot Sequence
• Schedule meetings with prospects using Hubspot meetings
• Record calls, activity, take notes with Deal Management Automation

🤔 Possible drawbacks

Expensive for small business owners who could use some of the advanced features.

💰 Pricing

The tool starts at $15 per month.

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11. ElevateHQ – best for sales commission automation with CRM integration

⭐ G2 rating: 4.7/5 based on 239 reviews

Next on the list is a tool that automates sales commissions for any team that typically has a commission structure, such as sales and customer success.

ElevateHQ is a sales commission automation tool that can improve transparency among sales folks as they can view the commissions they are earning in real-time. Here are some features that you can find: 

• Real-time earnings tracking
• Goal and quota tracking
• Detailed payout calculations 
• Automated alerts and notifications
• Access to historical and predictive analytics 

As a sales representative using ElevateHQ, you can take control of your commission tracking and stay motivated to hit your targets. With ElevateHQ, you have real-time access to your earnings data, goal progress, and deal-specific breakdowns, making it easy to stay on top of your performance.

For example, they can view approval status, any adjustments made to statements and view and download documents and, performance statements.

👍 Why choose ElevateHQ

ElevateHQ provides:

• Integrates with your current tools, such as CRMs and spreadsheets
• Use the in-built chat to ask queries
• An easy-to-use platform that also motivates you to make sales with a leaderboard and simulations
• Transparent commission calculation

🤔 Possible drawbacks

• Training might be needed to use the platform that ElevateHQ offers

💰 Pricing

The tool starts at $30 per month per user (billed yearly)

How to choose the right lead-generation tool? Use our rule of 3

It’s simple to figure out the best sales automation tools. Follow the rule of three and pay attention to the three most critical aspects of sales: 

1. Business objective (what you want to achieve)
2. Budget (how much are you ready to spend)
3. Target audience (who are your leads?)

Once these answers are clear, you can use the following answers as a checklist and shortlist a few tools: 

• Does the lead generation tool come within the available budget?
• Can you target channels your audience frequents using the tool? If not, there’s no point
• Does the tool require extensive training? If it’s a steep learning curve, you must ensure it’s worth the grind
• Does the tool provide a way of attributing leads? This will help you map the ROI from your efforts
• Can the tool scale up with your business? You don’t want to have to switch the tools as and when your team grows
• How are the leads scored or qualified? Do you need to build a qualification process outside the tool?
• Does the tool integrate with your existing technology stack? It’s essential to have a uniform workflow

This simple exercise will ensure you’re investing in the right lead-generation tool. 

Frequently asked questions 

1. What is sales automation?

Sales automation uses technology to ease and improve sales processes, from lead generation to closing deals. It can increase efficiency, improve lead management, enhance customer relationships, and boost sales revenue.

2. How do I choose the right tool for my business?

You must consider factors such as your business size, budget, specific needs, and the tool’s compatibility with your existing systems.

3. What are the key features to look for in a sales automation tool?

Essential features include data security, integration capabilities, personalization options, marketing automation integration, user-friendliness, scalability, and detailed analytics.

4. How long does it typically take to implement a sales automation tool?

The implementation timeline differs based on the complexity of the tool and your business processes. It can range from a few weeks to several months.

5. Can sales automation replace human interaction?

No, sales automation is designed to complement human efforts. It can automate repetitive tasks, freeing up sales folks to focus on building relationships. 

• Author Details

Author Details

Sonali Gupta

Enthusiastic about marketing and improving the ROI of businesses.

sonali@gmail.com