15 Marketing Automation Case Studies: Brands That Used HubSpot, Eloqua, or Braze to Grow Faster
15 Marketing Automation Case Studies: Brands That Used HubSpot, Eloqua, or Braze to Grow Faster
Marketing automation isn't just for tech giants or mega budgets. From personalized emails to multi-channel workflows, smart automation helps businesses of all sizes work smarter—not harder.
Let's face it, though: automation can quickly become complex. We can help with that.
At Portage Labs, HubSpot, Eloqua, and Braze are some of the platforms we deploy to help businesses scale, optimize, and truly understand their marketing. To illustrate that, the following 15 real-world case studies show how effective these tools can be when paired with a knowledgeable team.
Key Takeaways
- Marketing automation works across industries and company sizes. From sports teams and real estate platforms to fintech startups and global retailers, these case studies show how different teams are driving impact with automation.
- The right platform and strategy can drastically improve results. Brands using tools like HubSpot, Eloqua, and Braze saw double- and triple-digit lifts in conversions, engagement, and revenue.
- You don’t have to DIY it. A partner like Portage Labs can set up, optimize, and maintain your automations so your team can focus on strategy and growth.
What Is Marketing Automation?
Marketing teams can automate repetitive tasks like email campaigns, social scheduling, lead follow-up, and performance tracking with the aid of marketing automation strategies and software.
One way to look at marketing automation is by considering it your back-end marketing engine. It’s about sending a welcome email as soon as someone subscribes to your newsletter, reminding a prospect of items they left in their cart, or notifying your sales team when a lead comes to your pricing page for the third time. These are just a few examples of how
marketing automation workflows
keep your brand responsive, relevant, and on time.
But it's not just a robot doing your to-do list. When done well, automation becomes the necessary personalization and insight in every stage of the funnel that represents the success of your business.
What Problems Does Marketing Automation Help Solve?
- Leads slipping through the cracks: one of the most important objectives of marketing automation is setting triggers and reminders aimed at capturing, nurturing, and following up with every single lead.
- Manual tasks that are eating up your day: as the name suggests, automation also frees you time by taking care of repetitive tasks such as sending follow-up emails, segmenting lists, and updating CRM records.
- No clear view of performance or ROI: use automation to create dashboards connecting marketing metrics and sales data, which gives you real-time insight into what’s working and where exactly to focus optimizations.
- Missed follow-ups and inconsistent messaging: a good portion of retention and acquisition rates relies on sending your leads and your customers consistent messages. Marketing automation also means having workflows in place that guarantee timely, consistent, and relevant communication.
15 Real-World Marketing Automation Case Studies
These examples illustrate how companies in various sectors are utilizing marketing automation tools like HubSpot, Eloqua, and Braze to expand more quickly and use more intelligent marketing.
HubSpot Case Studies
1. Instant Factoring: 4× Faster Lead Response Time
For Instant Factoring, speed meant success. As a fintech lender, every minute between a lead’s interest and a sales conversation could mean the difference between winning and losing business. This is where HubSpot came in. The tool enabled Instant Factoring to capture leads the exact moment they enter the website, enrich their profiles on the platform with all the important, must-know data, and rank them by company size and value. When a high-value lead appeared, sales would receive an immediate “go” signal. This allowed them to quickly reach those leads before other providers, resulting in a total of 75% faster response time and double the email engagement.
Read full case study.
2. HR Cloud: 3× Increase in Sales Opportunities
HR Cloud knew their marketing game was strong, but their sales follow-up? Not so much. Leads were coming in, but too many were left to chill in the inbox. HR Cloud knew they had a strong marketing game, but difficulty when it came to sales follow-ups. For them, this meant several leads coming in without the necessary attention, leaving too many “chilled” ones in the inbox. HubSpot’s CRM was used to trigger emails to these leads based on user behaviour, while lead scoring gathered the best prospects, and every click, open, and form fill became synced for cross-functional collaboration between sales and marketing. This resulted in a 3x increase in their sales-qualified opportunities. Read full case study.
3. Angel City FC: 350% Boost in Email Opens
The idea behind Angel City wasn’t that of launching a simple soccer team, but to begin an entire movement. But, in order to do that, what they needed was fans to show up, cheer loud, and keep coming back. HubSpot’s segmentation wizardry categorized prospects from ticket interest to merchandise browsing. Then came automated journeys with special deals and match-day hype. Email opens increased by 350% and fans felt like VIPs, demonstrating that loyalty can be built even before the first whistle blows. Read full case study.
4. Wahi Doubled Their Site Traffic and Conversion Rates
Wahi’s objective was to become Canada’s number one real estate platform. To get there, the primordial need was traffic and conversions that would match that dream. They were able to find high-intent searches using HubSpot’s SEO tools, and they converted visitors into leads with the help of slick conversion paths that included forms, CTAs, and chatbots. Prospects were kept interested by automating nurturing emails that described each stage of the buying and selling process. The “yeses” soon doubled along with the site traffic. Read full case study.
5. Peakflo Reached 80% Faster Onboarding Process
Peakflo’s challenge was their onboarding process. They felt it was slow, frustrating, and full of “stop-and-go” moments, which was slowing down other aspects of the business. With HubSpot, they automated welcome emails, pre-scheduled product demos, and provided gentle (but firm) reminders for incomplete steps. The CRM acted as a guide for tracking progress and flagging customers who needed a helping hand. This resulted in an 80% faster onboarding that conducted clients more quickly to success. Read full case study.
Oracle Eloqua Case Studies
6. Aon’s Global Campaigns with Local Precision
Aon’s large global campaign required the business to target wide and deep at the same time, the equivalent of “think globally, act locally,” only for marketing. Eloqua gave them the tools to coordinate campaigns across over 20 countries while letting local teams add the required personalization. This resulted in cutting campaign development time in half while maintaining global consistency that didn’t come at the cost of local relevance. Read full case study.
7. Australian Red Cross Lifeblood: 67% More Engagement from Donors
Lifeblood’s mission is all about saving lives, and they knew connecting with donors was critical. Using Eloqua’s dynamic content and segmentation, they sent targeted, relevant updates that resonated with different donor groups. Engagement jumped by 67%, turning one-time donors into repeat lifesavers. Read full case study.
8. Hyster-Yale: 200% Increase in Email Engagement
Hyster-Yale wanted their communication model to be based on educating their customers but without overwhelming them. They used Eloqua’s behavior-based workflows to send the right educational content at the right time, without making this education feel “pressured.” Through this, they attained a 200% lift in engagement. They were able to show that learning about forklifts does not have to be terribly boring. Read full case study.
9. Visma: 4x Lead Qualification Accuracy
Visma grew from a small player to a global software provider in a short period of time by acquiring a series of companies. The challenge here, however, was that as these companies were acquired, they did not have a centralized data silo for insights into all this data that was coming in, leaving data scattered across different legacy platforms. They had data, but lacked ways to generate insights. Eloqua helped them clean, centralize, and segment their customer information, making it 4x more accurate when qualifying leads. Less guesswork, more conversions. Read full case study.
10. FlexPay: 50% Faster Campaign Deployment
FlexPay’s campaign process was moving at a snail’s pace, and they knew it. The idea was to make sure that the customer engagement process driven by marketing was generating sales opportunities. Eloqua’s automation tools and reusable templates gave them a serious speed boost, cutting deployment times in half and giving them the control they needed to run successful campaigns. With branding intact and quality maintained, they could finally make sure that no lead was unattended and these generated opportunities were being taken care of. Read full case study.
Braze Case Studies
11. Gympass: Seamless Campaign Execution Across Channels
Gympass was juggling campaigns across multiple tools, and it felt like trying to play a symphony with half the instruments missing. After switching to Braze, they brought email, push, in-app, and SMS into perfect harmony. Even with just a two-person marketing team, they were able to launch dozens of personalized campaigns every week. By doing so, they succeeded in the hard task of putting in place a marketing operation that kept pace with their global brand. Read full case study.
12. Central Retail’s 90% Uplift in Purchases
Central Retail wanted to talk to customers like a trusted friend who knows exactly when you’re ready to buy. With Braze’s real-time triggers and personalization magic, they could send offers the moment shoppers were most likely to say yes. This resulted in a 90% spike in purchases, proving that timing isn’t just everything—it’s the only thing. Read full case study.
13. Canadian Tire’s 217% Increase in Push Notification Engagement
Canadian Tire noticed that they were losing engagement from their push notifications. They felt a little out of touch and evasive. Using Braze’s segmentation and Liquid personalization, they sent dynamic and interest-based notifications that made customers actually want to tap. Engagement soared by 217%, and those push messages went from being ignored to being anticipated. Read full case study.
14. Dafiti Attaining 300% More Revenue Per User
Dafiti, a leading fashion retailer in Latin America, decided to ditch one-size-fits-all campaigns and focus on personalization instead. With Braze’s cross-channel personalization, each shopper got offers and updates tailored to their browsing and buying habits. This resulted in a 300% increase in revenue per user. This is a clear case of personalization’s crucial role in marketing and how automation tools can make it a reality. Read full case study.
15. Jobplanet’s Increased App Engagement with Behavior-Based Messaging
Jobplanet’s robust targeting needs, which required them to target both individuals and businesses, created difficulties in tailoring communication, which resulted in losing app engagement. Braze’s behavior-based triggers let them send timely prompts, through careful personalization and resting, that got users back into the experience right when they were most likely to engage. Retention climbed, interactions deepened, and the app became part of users’ daily routines. Read full case study.
How to Get Started with Marketing Automation
Here’s the truth: most platforms are powerful. But when it comes to marketing automation, what matters most is how you set them up. That’s where we come in.
At Portage Labs, we help you:
- Pick the right platform (we work with HubSpot, Eloqua, Braze, and more)
- Map the right strategy for your goals
- Build smart marketing automation workflows
- Set up dashboards and marketing metrics that actually tell a story
- Keep your team in sync across marketing and sales
Let’s turn your tech stack into a growth engine.
Work with us
FAQs
How fast will I see results from marketing automation?
Improvements like faster follow-up or better segmentation often show up within weeks. Pipeline and revenue gains usually come within 1–3 months, depending on your sales cycle.
What tools do you work with at Portage Labs?
HubSpot, Eloqua, Braze, Marketo, Simon, Adobe Experience Manager, tableau, amplitude and more.
Is automation worth it for small teams or startups?
Absolutely. If anything, it’s more valuable. Automation lets lean teams scale without hiring five more people.
