Should you build marketing automation?
Email campaigns, lead nurturing, workflows. Almost no one should build this themselves. Here's why.
What marketing automation includes
A real marketing automation platform covers a lot of ground:
- Email delivery — Not just sending, but deliverability: SPF, DKIM, DMARC, IP reputation, bounce handling
- Campaign builder — Templates, drag-and-drop editor, A/B testing
- Lead capture — Forms, landing pages, pop-ups
- Automation workflows — Visual builder, branching logic, delays, triggers
- Segmentation — Dynamic lists, behavioral triggers
- Analytics — Opens, clicks, conversions, attribution
- CRM integration — Bi-directional sync with sales
Email deliverability alone can take a team 6+ months to get right. It's a constantly moving target.
The tools
Why building is a bad idea
Deliverability is its own discipline. Getting emails into inboxes (not spam folders) requires dedicated expertise. IP warming, feedback loops, complaint handling, blocklist monitoring. It's a full-time job.
You're competing with decade-old products. HubSpot has 7,000 employees and has been building this for 15 years. You won't catch up.
Compliance is complex. GDPR, CAN-SPAM, CCPA. The rules change. The fines are real.
Our take
Buy. Period.
Unless you're building a marketing automation product to sell, there's no good reason to build this yourself. The complexity is immense, the expertise is specialized, and off-the-shelf tools are genuinely excellent.