Summary
If you're a B2B team trying to decide between HubSpot and Marketo as your email marketing & automation platform, the right choice often comes down to speed vs. scale. HubSpot excels at ease of use, faster execution, and ABM-friendly features for teams that need to move quickly. Marketo can offer more customization and flexibility but requires more technical resources and time to unlock its full potential.
This comparison breaks down how the two platforms compare across key email capabilities—template customization, A/B testing, deliverability, personalization, and reporting—to help you answer one of the most common questions in 2025: When it comes to HubSpot vs. Marketo for email marketing, which is better?
Why email marketing is still a top B2B growth channel
In a digital landscape filled with innovative and exploratory AI tools, email remains a cornerstone of B2B marketing because of its ability to drive consistent, stable and measurable results.
Email marketing can generate an average return of $36 for every $1 spent (Litmus), making it one of the highest-performing digital channels in terms of ROI. For B2B marketers, it enables scalable, personalized communication that builds long-term relationships, nurtures leads, and converts high-intent buyers.
Without the right platform, your campaigns risk being invisible due to spam filters, ineffective due to poor segmentation, or inefficient because of clunky tools and weak integrations—all of which slow down your conversions.
Why your email marketing platform choice matters
A great email tool should do more than just send messages. It should help your go-to-market team guide prospects through every stage of the customer journey, from awareness to decision, using timely, personalized communication.
Look for a platform that:
- Supports non-technical marketers with intuitive tools like drag-and-drop email builders, so anyone on your team can create polished, on-brand messages without writing code.
- Enables sales and GTM teams to see what’s working and who’s engaging so they can deliver more timely, relevant outreach.
- Makes A/B testing and optimization part of the workflow, not an afterthought, so you can improve performance with every send.
- Keeps emails out of spam folders with built-in deliverability tools and proper sending infrastructure.
- Provide campaign reporting that goes beyond surface metrics to see how overall messaging performs across channels and ties to pipeline and revenue.
- Maintain compliance and support privacy best practices, protecting your brand and customer trust.
Choosing the right email marketing platform for B2B is just as important as the message itself, especially when it needs to align with your team’s structure, skill sets, and broader Martech stack.
HubSpot vs Marketo: compare the top B2B email platforms
Here’s a head-to-head look at their core email marketing features:
- User Experience: measuring how effectively a marketing team can operate tools
- Strategic Control: measuring how autonomously a marketing team can use tools
- Functional Depth: measuring depth of tool functionality at scale
Email Builder & Personalization
| Category | Winner | Rationale |
| User Experience | HubSpot |
HubSpot’s drag-and-drop email builder is intuitive and fast, letting marketers build with minimal training. |
| Strategic Control | HubSpot |
Easy-to-configure modules, brand settings and personalization tools allow marketing teams to maintain control without developer help. |
| Functional Depth | Draw |
With developer support, both platforms offer deep customization. |
Segmentation
| Category | Winner | Rationale |
| User Experience | HubSpot |
With HubSpot’s native CRM, properties and connected tools, segmentation is faster and more intuitive across teams. |
| Strategic Control | HubSpot |
HubSpot’s flatter learning curve lets marketers build advanced segments without advanced ops support - letting teams launch campaign faster. |
| Functional Depth | Draw |
Marketo excels at nuanced logic and deeply layered segmentation, while HubSpot offers deep native data access through its built-in CRM. |
Automation
| Category | Winner | Rationale |
| User Experience | HubSpot |
HubSpot's automation is easier to use with full journey mapping, no-code setup, and visual triggers. |
| Strategic Control | Draw |
Both tools need operational and tool expertise to get full value of automation |
| Functional Depth | Marketo |
Highly customizable flows and triggers allow for deeper customization — with steeper complexity. |
Reporting
| Category | Winner | Rationale |
| User Experience | HubSpot |
Pre-built dashboards, visual reports, and drag-and-drop customization offer instant clarity. |
| Strategic Control | HubSpot |
Out of the box and AI-driven reporting tools allow marketers to build standard and complex reports autonomously within the platform. |
| Functional Depth | HubSpot |
HubSpot wins on reporting with native attribution, full-funnel visibility, and exec-ready insights—no custom setup required. |
A/B Testing
| Category | Winner | Rationale |
| User Experience | HubSpot |
Built-in A/B testing is simple to activate and manage from the email editor and pulls from CRM data points. |
| Strategic Control | HubSpot |
The native testing tools allow general marketers to run tests with minimal platform specific training. |
| Functional Depth | Marketo |
Marketo offers deeper A/B testing, which puts the platform ahead for complex enterprise needs. |
Deliverability Tools
| Category | Winner | Rationale |
| User Experience | HubSpot |
HubSpot’s email deliverability tools are built for visibility and ease-of-use, offering clean dashboards and health scores right within the tool |
| Strategic Control | HubSpot |
Both platforms offer robust email deliverability tools, but HubSpot's native email health tools allow teams to get instant analysis without configuration. Marketo requires more technical configuration to unlock full functionality. |
| Functional Depth | Draw |
HubSpot and Marketo are evenly matched on deliverability depth, each offering strong but different tools. |
Spam Protection
| Category | Winner | Rationale |
| User Experience | HubSpot |
Built-in spam testing tools, email health checks, and visual cues simplify compliance. |
| Strategic Control | Draw |
Both platforms can maintain strong spam protections natively, requiring minimal external support. |
| Functional Depth | Draw |
Both tools provide native and comparable spam protections adequate for a majority of businesses. |
Which platform is right for you?
So—which email marketing platform is right for your team: HubSpot or Marketo? Let’s break it down.
HubSpot is a better fit when:
- Your team values speed and ease of use
- You need comprehensive marketing campaign measurability
- You want non-technical users to launch campaigns independently
Marketo makes sense if:
- You have a dedicated marketing ops team
- You require highly complex automations
- You’re already embedded in the Adobe ecosystem
Looking to migrate from Marketo to HubSpot?
At accelant, we’ve helped dozens of fast-growing B2B companies navigate the choice between HubSpot and Marketo, and it’s rarely just about features. The right platform depends on your go-to-market motion, the maturity of your CRM setup, and the internal resources you need to run campaigns consistently.
Whether you're evaluating email marketing platforms or planning a migration from Marketo to HubSpot, our team can help you find the right fit for your B2B marketing strategy.
Final Showdown: HubSpot vs Marketo
See why fast-growing teams are ditching the bloat and scaling smarter with HubSpot. Could it be your move too?
Blog comments