Marketing Software Resources

Articles and Discussions to expand your knowledge on Marketing Software

Resource pages are designed to give you a cross-section of information we have on specific categories. You'll find articles from our experts and discussions from users like you.

Contents

Marketing Software Articles

70+ Marketing Statistics to Shape Your Marketing Strategy in 2024

Things change over time, and that goes for how businesses approach marketing, too.

by Alexa Drake

2023 Trends: Making Your Marketing Win in Times of Loss

This post is part of G2's 2023 digital trends series. Read more about G2’s perspective on digital transformation trends in an introduction from Emily Malis Greathouse, director, market research, and additional coverage on trends identified by G2’s analysts.

by Victoria Blackwell

Marketing Software Discussions

What's the best mobile marketing platform for growth marketers who need to run push, in-app and SMS campaigns without relying on a data engineering team?

I've been looking into the best mobile marketing platform for growth marketers who need to run push, in-app, and SMS campaigns without relying on a data engineering team, and the engineering dependency question is one of the real differentiators between platforms. It usually shows up in three ways: needing dev help to set up event tracking, needing code changes to add new channels, and needing engineering time every time campaign logic gets more complex than a broadcast.

From reviews where marketing autonomy and engineering independence are specifically mentioned:

MoEngage: Multiple reviewers describe building, launching, and debugging campaigns without involving engineering. Event tracking is validated directly in the console, funnel drop-offs are visible without a data analyst, and segments are built visually.
Braze: Reviewers describe running omnichannel campaigns independently using the drag-and-drop canvas, though the Liquid personalisation layer creates some technical overhead for complex use cases.
CleverTap: Reviewers describe real-time event tracking and visual journey builders accessible to non-technical users once past the learning curve. Some noted campaign execution time dropped roughly 50% after moving to automated journeys.
OneSignal: Specifically described as clean and usable for non-technical users, with a short setup time and the ability to remove an entire infrastructure layer without significant cost.

For growth marketers who've been in this situation, which platform let you move fastest without filing a ticket every time you wanted to try something new? I'd really appreciate hearing what the actual handover looked like.

The visual builder usually isn't where engineering gets pulled back in, that part genuinely works, and marketers can build and branch journeys all day. The dependency lives upstream, in the data: a journey can only trigger on events the app was instrumented to send, so the first time you want to fire on something new ("finished level 3," "trial converted") you're back to a ticket to get that event tracked and passed in, no matter how no-code the builder is. So "without a data engineering team" holds for using the data you already capture; the real ceiling is how painful it is to add a new signal. When you needed a brand-new event, could you define it yourself, or did it mean an SDK change and a wait?

Answered: Amita Jain on July 13, 2026

Your answer

What's the best GDPR and CCPA-compliant mobile marketing platform for apps with users in Europe and California?

I've been evaluating the best GDPR and CCPA-compliant mobile marketing platform for apps with users in Europe and California, and compliance claims are much easier to make in a product brief than to verify in practice. What actually matters is consent management, data residency options, programmatic deletion and opt-out handling, and audit-ready reporting.

From reviews and product documentation where compliance is an explicit requirement:

MoEngage: Specifically lists GDPR, CCPA, SOC2 Type 2, ISO 27001:2022, and HIPAA compliance in its documentation. Reviewers who've been through enterprise compliance reviews call it out as a deciding factor.
Braze: References HIPAA support and reviewers describe using it in regulated contexts, though some flag the Salesforce integration not being native as a gap for teams needing unified compliance reporting.
CleverTap: Enterprise reviewers describe data governance and consent management as part of onboarding. BYOM capabilities get mentioned for teams that need to keep data within their own infrastructure.
Customer.io: Comes up for developer-friendly compliance tooling, with reviewers describing control over data flows and user deletion requests as straightforward via the API.

If you've been through a real GDPR or CCPA compliance review with any of these, I'd really appreciate hearing what held up and what needed workarounds.

The certification list is table stakes here (SOC2, ISO, the GDPR and CCPA checkboxes are on every brief, so they don't separate anyone. The part that bites in a review is that you're the data controller and the platform is just your processor, so you're on the hook for every copy of user data it creates, and a deletion or opt-out request has to reach all of them, not just the primary profile. That's where it gets real: when you fire a deletion through the API, does it also purge the records you synced to your warehouse and the ones sitting with the SMS sub-processor, or does it quietly leave orphaned copies you're still liable for? For anyone who's been through an actual audit, did a deletion request surface copies you'd forgotten the platform had spun off?

Answered: Amita Jain on July 13, 2026

Your answer

Is Braze actually worth the cost for an early-stage startup, or are there more affordable mobile marketing platforms with similar capabilities?

I've been trying to get a straight answer on whether Braze is actually worth the cost for an early-stage startup, or whether there are more affordable mobile marketing platforms with similar capabilities. The reputation is strong, but small business reviewers consistently flag that the pricing model, metered by MAUs and data points, gets unpredictable fast, and several describe the cost as hard to justify before product-market fit.

What early-stage teams say they actually need from a platform at this stage:

Multi-channel messaging (push, email, in-app) without paying for three separate tools
Behavioral triggers that work without a data engineer to configure them
Enough segmentation to run lifecycle campaigns, not just blasts
Pricing that doesn't penalise early user growth

Platforms that come up specifically in small business and startup reviews:

OneSignal: Reviewers describe the free tier as genuinely useful and setup as around 20 minutes. One reviewer called it "finally a push notification service that doesn't overcomplicate everything" and described meaningful reactivation results from month one.
MoEngage: Comes up for behavioral segmentation and journey building that doesn't require engineering to set up. Reviewers describe running campaigns fully independently of the dev team, which matters when the team is lean.
Customer.io: Frequently mentioned for startups that want reliable email and push with strong developer tooling and transparent pricing.
Braze: Small business reviewers who do use it call the capability unmatched, but consistently flag in-app and content cards priced separately, a separate onboarding fee, and some learning resources behind a paywall.

Is there a specific capability that made Braze worth it for your early-stage team, or a point where a cheaper alternative covered 90% of what you needed? I'd love to hear where that line was.

Honest version: before product-market fit the platform is rarely your constraint. Braze's edge (AI decisioning, per-user channel selection, Liquid) only earns its keep once you have enough users and distinct enough behaviour for per-user targeting to beat a good broadcast, and pre-PMF you usually have neither, so you'd be paying enterprise prices for capabilities sitting idle. Which means the upgrade trigger isn't ambition or how serious you are, it's data density: the point where your segments are big and different enough that decisioning actually outperforms a well-timed blast. For those who moved up to Braze, what actually tipped it: hitting that user and behavioural volume, or one specific capability the cheaper tool couldn't do at all?

Answered: Amita Jain on July 13, 2026

Your answer