B2B platform selection is harder than B2C because the requirements are less obvious. A B2C brand knows it needs abandoned cart emails. A B2B company needs lead scoring, CRM-triggered nurture, and account-level orchestration — capabilities that vary enormously between platforms. A tick next to “lead scoring” on a feature comparison page tells you almost nothing about whether it will work for your sales process.
In our X-Ray Approach to selecting marketing automation platforms, we introduced a five-layer capability framework — Data, Orchestration, Channel, Performance, and Governance — that replaces feature checklists with substance. In this post, we apply it to five B2B use cases, progressing from simple to complex, with specific questions to put to HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, Marketo, Pardot (Salesforce MCAE), and Mailchimp.
Use Case 1: Lead Magnet Delivery and Nurture
The baseline test. Every B2B platform should handle this. Evaluate how well, not whether.
🎯 Scenario: A VP of Marketing downloads your martech audit checklist. She gets the PDF, one follow-up email, then silence. Three days later she is comparing your competitors instead. Your lead magnet created interest — your nurture failed to sustain it.
A proper nurture is five to seven emails: deliver the asset, add context, introduce your perspective, and offer a soft next step. The platform requirements are straightforward — evaluate execution quality, not whether it is possible.
5-Layer evaluation
Capability Layer | What to Look For | Vendor Questions |
Data | Form capture with source tracking. Contact enrichment (company, role, size). UTM data. | Does the platform capture UTM and lead source natively? Can I enrich contacts without a third-party tool? |
Orchestration | Form-triggered sequences. Branching by asset topic. Goal-based exits. | Can I branch nurture tracks from a single form based on which asset was downloaded? |
Channel | Personalised email. Landing pages. Optional LinkedIn retargeting sync. | Does it include a landing page builder or do I need a separate tool? |
Performance | Download-to-MQL rate. Per-step engagement. Pipeline attribution. | Can I track which lead magnets produce revenue, not just downloads? |
Governance | Double opt-in. Processing consent. Unsubscribe preserving the CRM record. | If someone unsubscribes from nurture, is the contact preserved for sales? |
Most platforms handle this. The differentiator is whether form data connects to behaviour tracking and lead scoring downstream. If lead magnet delivery is a dead end, everything that follows is compromised.
Use Case 2: Lead Scoring and Sales-Ready Alerts
The first major divergence point. This single capability can determine your shortlist.
🎯 Scenario: Your sales team has 200 leads from last month’s webinar. They call all 200 in order of sign-up. Forty hours later, they’ve booked three meetings — and two of the hottest leads already went to a competitor who reached them first.
Without scoring, your team either calls everyone — wasting up to forty percent of their time on unqualified leads — or waits for inbound, missing ready buyers. Scoring assigns points on fit (role, company size, industry) and engagement (pricing page visits, email opens, asset downloads). When a threshold is crossed, a real-time alert fires to sales.
5-Layer evaluation
Capability Layer | What to Look For | Vendor Questions |
Data | Contact/company enrichment. Website behaviour tracking. Email engagement feeding the score. | Does scoring include website behaviour or only email engagement? |
Orchestration | Points-based scoring engine. Threshold alerts (CRM task, Slack). Score decay. | Does the score decay over time? Can I set different thresholds per segment? |
Channel | Internal alerts with full activity context. CRM handoff. Assignment routing. | Does the alert include the engagement timeline? Can I route by territory? |
Performance | Score-to-conversion correlation. MQL acceptance rate. MQL-to-opportunity time. | What percentage of high-scoring leads actually convert? |
Governance | Scoring transparency. GDPR tracking compliance. Marketing/sales consent distinction. | Can I audit what data points contributed to a score? |
This is where platforms diverge dramatically. HubSpot offers both rule-based scoring and predictive AI-powered scoring. ActiveCampaign has solid rule-based scoring. Marketo’s scoring is powerful but complex to configure. Pardot handles basic scoring but struggles with behavioural signals outside Salesforce. Mailchimp has no lead scoring at all.
Use cases 1 and 2 live inside your marketing team. From here, every use case requires sales alignment, CRM integration, and cross-functional agreement on process. If marketing and sales don’t share a common view of the pipeline, no platform can fix that.
Use Case 3: Opportunity Nurture (Sales Cycle Support)
The CRM integration depth test. Can marketing respond to what happens in the pipeline?
🎯 Scenario: Your rep closed a demo with a VP of Marketing at a mid-size retailer. Three weeks later the deal stalls — the CFO hasn’t seen the business case. Meanwhile, your marketing platform has no idea this deal exists, let alone that it needs a CFO-targeted ROI guide.
Opportunity nurture delivers content by deal stage: educational early, comparison mid, and social proof late. The trigger is the CRM deal stage, not the marketing score. This demands tight CRM integration.
5-Layer evaluation
Capability Layer | What to Look For | Vendor Questions |
Data | Bi-directional CRM sync (stage, owner, close date). Contact roles in opportunity. | Does the platform sync deal stage changes in real time? |
Orchestration | Stage-based triggers. Multi-contact enrolment per deal. Suppression on close or sales override. | Can I enrol all contacts on an opportunity simultaneously? Can a rep pause automation? |
Channel | Email from salesperson’s address. Content that feels personal. | Can automated emails send from the deal owner’s address with their signature? |
Performance | Influence on deal velocity. Content engagement by stage. | Can I compare close rates for nurtured vs non-nurtured deals? |
Governance | Salesperson visibility and control. Opportunity-level opt-out. | Can the rep see everything marketing sent to their contacts? |
The critical gap: CRM integration depth. HubSpot’s native CRM has an advantage here — stage triggers and multi-contact enrolment work out of the box. Marketo integrates deeply with Salesforce but requires significant configuration. Pardot is native to Salesforce but limited in multi-contact orchestration. ActiveCampaign’s CRM integration is improving but still contact-centric.
Use Case 4: Account-Based Re-engagement
The account-level orchestration test. Can the platform think in accounts, not contacts?
🎯 Scenario: You lost a £40K deal with a logistics company six months ago — budget freeze. Last week, a different person from the same company downloaded your integration guide. Your platform didn’t connect the two events because it thinks in contacts, not accounts.
Account re-engagement monitors entire companies for intent signals: new contacts visiting your site, stalled contacts re-engaging, company news indicating changed circumstances. The sequence references account history and offers a fresh entry point.
5-Layer evaluation
Capability Layer | What to Look For | Vendor Questions |
Data | Account-level activity aggregation. CRM deal history. Intent signals: domain visits, job changes, news. | Can the platform aggregate activity across all contacts at one company? |
Orchestration | Account-level triggers (any contact from Company X visits pricing). Deal history in dynamic content. | Can I trigger from any contact at an account, or only a specific contact? |
Channel | Personalised outreach referencing history. Direct mail for high-value. LinkedIn committee targeting. | Can I target a specific buying committee on LinkedIn from within the platform? |
Performance | Reactivation rate. Revenue from re-engaged deals. | Can I track reactivation from automation vs sales-initiated outreach? |
Governance | GDPR erasure across account data. Sales ownership routing. | If one contact requests erasure, what happens to account-level automation? |
Account-level orchestration separates marketing automation from ABM platforms. HubSpot Enterprise supports account-based workflows natively. Marketo has ABM capabilities via its Target Account Management module. Pardot offers some account-level features within Salesforce but lacks independent ABM orchestration. ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp cannot do this. If named accounts drive your revenue, this is a fundamental architecture decision.
Use Case 5: Customer Expansion and Advocacy
The multi-system data convergence test. The most demanding use case for any B2B platform.
Expansion automation monitors product usage, support patterns, renewal timelines, and satisfaction scores to surface upsell opportunities and advocacy candidates. The trigger model is entirely different from acquisition: usage milestones, renewal timing, and satisfaction signals.
5-Layer evaluation
Capability Layer | What to Look For | Vendor Questions |
Data | Product usage via API. Support history. Renewal dates. NPS/CSAT per account. | Can I push product usage data in via API and combine it with CRM and support data? |
Orchestration | Multi-signal triggers (usage + renewal + NPS). Marketing-CS coordination. Advocacy workflows. | Can I trigger only when multiple conditions are true simultaneously? |
Channel | In-app messaging. Email from CS manager. Advocacy portal. | Does it support in-app messaging natively or do I need a separate tool? |
Performance | NRR by segment. Expansion pipeline from automation. Referral contribution. | Can I attribute expansion revenue to specific automated touchpoints? |
Governance | Marketing-CS-Sales ownership alignment. Product-to-marketing data sharing. | How is conflict between marketing and CS outreach prevented? |
This is the most technically demanding use case on the list. It requires product telemetry, CRM, support, and satisfaction data to converge. No marketing automation platform does this out of the box. You need either a CDP or a well-architected integration layer. At this level, the conversation moves into data architecture and AI readiness.
Platform Verdict at a Glance
Based on native capabilities at standard B2B-relevant tiers. Your mileage will vary with custom integrations and add-ons.
Use Case | HubSpot | ActiveCampaign | Marketo | Pardot | Mailchimp |
Lead Magnet Nurture | Strong | Strong | Strong | Strong | Adequate |
Lead Scoring | Strong | Strong | Strong | Partial | Weak |
Opportunity Nurture | Strong | Partial | Strong | Strong | Weak |
Account Re-engagement | Strong* | Weak | Partial | Partial | Weak |
Customer Expansion | Partial | Weak | Partial | Weak | Weak |
* HubSpot Enterprise tier. Professional tier drops to Partial for account-based re-engagement.
Key takeaway: every platform handles lead magnet nurture. By the time you reach account-based re-engagement and customer expansion, only one or two platforms remain viable without significant custom work. This is why evaluating on use case one alone — which is what most feature checklists test — gives you a dangerously incomplete picture.
How to Use This Framework
Step 1: Identify your use cases. The five here are common but your business may weight them differently. Our SMB’s Guide to Building a Modern Demand Gen Stack helps identify which capabilities matter at your maturity stage.
Step 2: Run each through all five layers. Use the tables above as your template.
Step 3: Score every vendor against the full picture. The verdict table gives you a starting point. Adjust for your specific use cases and integration landscape.
Download the scorecard: We have packaged the twenty-five evaluation criteria from this post into a spreadsheet you can use in live vendor conversations. [Link to downloadable scorecard — use as lead magnet / gated asset]
What to Do Next
This is exactly the process our Martech Stack Planning service runs for clients — mapping capabilities across your actual use cases, scoring platforms, and producing a prioritised roadmap. We do it across your entire stack, drawing on 200+ business capabilities from two decades of consulting.
If your evaluation is revealing data layer gaps, our AI Strategy for Marketing assessment identifies which AI-powered capabilities are realistic given your data maturity.
