Looking to increase productivity and blow your past performance metrics out of the water? Check out our rundown of the best sales automation tools for B2B outreach to reach your targets in no time.
The benefits of using sales automation tools
Sales automation software can transform the efficiency of your day-to-day processes, resulting in more leads, more revenue, and a 14.5% increase in sales productivity.
If you’re not tied up manually dialing hundreds of prospects, emailing back and forth 17 times to try and find a good meeting slot, or desperately trying to track LinkedIn outreach responses in a spreadsheet, you’re free to actually get on with the job that’ll get you commission: selling.
You need ways to streamline your work to get as many deals as possible across the dotted line. That’s where these sales automation tools come in.
We’ve scoured the internet in search of the best software for each part of the sales process. Below, you’ll find a complete sales automation tech stack, and our recommendations for the tools with the most complete features, best customer support, and best ease of use.
What counts as sales automation software?
We’re counting anything as sales automation software that removes manual effort from the sales process by replacing laborious tasks with technology.
Whether that’s VoIP diallers that can cold call a list of prospects, calendar integration tools that automatically update your availability, or email and LinkedIn automation software. Anything you can use in the background of your other activities to get more done and reach more leads makes the list.
Here are the best sales automation tools you can use in 2023.
The top sales automation tools for 2023 prospecting:
1. Salesflow
Best for
LinkedIn automation
How it works
Salesflow’s LinkedIn automation platform helps agencies, sales teams, and growing startups run effective LinkedIn outreach campaigns and generate quality leads.
Once you sync your LinkedIn account with the platform, you get access to a whole host of features to speed up your LinkedIn lead generation, from automated connection campaigns to up to 2,000 follow-up messaging sequences a month.
Native CRM integrations, advanced reporting and statistics, and a real-time AI-driven lead management inbox make it easy to track campaign outcomes for even better results.
Why use LinkedIn automation software?
LinkedIn automation boosts sales teams’ productivity, saving 4-6 minutes per lead and up to 90% of the time spent prospecting. When you don’t have to worry about manually following up with every lead, sorting through an unwieldy LinkedIn inbox, and finding the time to connect with new users, you’re free to focus on activities that will move more leads down the pipeline, faster.
What makes Salesflow the best?
Salesflow has native integrations with CRMs including Hubspot and Salesforce. It’s easy to export your leads from LinkedIn and keep up-to-date activity data in other systems.
Admin dashboard and a white-label dashboard for agencies make team management effortless. Plus, you can save even more time with industry-leading features like our AI copywriting feature and AI-driven inbox filters.
Overall, companies using Salesflow have seen a 10-20x ROI.
2. Aircall
Best for
Automated cold calling
How it works
Aircall’s automated calling software takes all the effort out of calling hundreds of prospects a day. Instead of manually typing out every number and getting stuck with dialing tone after dialing tone, features like its PowerDialer and Click-to-Dial functionality can save reps up to 2 minutes per call. Across a day, that adds up to hours saved prospecting.
CRM integrations mean it’s easy to access relevant contact details and previous call notes when you do get through to a prospect. Plus, the call activity automatically syncs with your CRM, so you don’t have to make a manual log afterward.
Why use VoIP software?
Manually calling hundreds of prospects is an incredibly frustrating experience. With the rise of remote working since Covid-19, office extensions frequently don’t work or go to voicemail. Personal phone numbers are great but have a low rate of accuracy when taken from sales intelligence tools. All this means traditional cold calling is incredibly inefficient.
Automated solutions like Aircall maximize your time with engaged prospects while dramatically decreasing the time wasted on frustrating parts of the process. Since cold calling is a numbers game, it’s a vital part of your sales automation software stack.
What makes Aircall the best?
Aircall stands out for quick and easy integrations with Slack, Intercom, Zendesk, and CRMs like Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. So you can call prospects directly from their contact record in the CRM and record and process the results.
Calling is as easy as one click from your CRM. With a higher plan, sales reps can access a power dialer to automate the process of calling multiple prospects.
We think Aircall is pretty awesome. But if you’re looking for other call automation options, Dialpad, Cloudtalk, and RingCentral can all help you do the trick.
3. Hubspot Sales Hub
Best for:
Inbound email automation
How it works:
Hubspot’s Sales Hub is part of its CRM offering. While the platform has many features, Hubspot’s tool excels with its features for inbound lead nurturing.
Hubspot lets users set up and run automated email cadences to existing users, prospects, or opted-in lists. It includes templates to automate your email nurturing at scale and sequences that let you build different user funnels and flows to give prospects the best experience with your product.
Plus, its email tracking functionality sends alerts whenever a prospect opens, clicks on, or replies to your messages. You can track these statistics over time to A/B test your cadences and improve results.
Why use automated email campaigns?
Up to 90% of leads aren’t ready to buy immediately. Automated email campaigns are just one (vital) tool for nurturing these leads and moving them down the lead funnel. Messaging each inbound lead individually would be impossible: you’d soon end up sending generic, bland messages or missing leads completely. Hubspot’s automated cadences give you the best of both worlds. You can add leads to different campaigns or segments based on their profile features or lead score to achieve personalization at scale.
What makes Hubspot the best?
The main pull of Hubspot’s Sales Hub is the ability to send sophisticated automatic email campaigns right from within your CRM. This allows you some handy capabilities, such as the ability to trigger certain cadences based on deal progression or activity stage.
Hubspot’s Sales Hub also comes with all the usual features you’d expect from an email nurturing tool, including email tracking, segmentation, and the ability to add manual follow-up tasks to otherwise automated workflows to get the best mix of personalization and efficiency.
Hubspot Sales Hub is great for smaller organizations that want a simple, flexible solution they can access right within their CRM. Organizations further along their sales engagement journey could consider leveling up to a dedicated sales execution platform like Salesloft or Outreach.
4. Salesforce
Best for:
Customer management
How it works
Salesforce’s customer relationship management software has everything you need to engage existing leads, track and progress deals, and keep current customers happy.
Its feature-rich solution brings all your customer data together in one place for a central source of truth. Sales teams and managers can track KPIs, customer insights, and notes from every call with little manual effort.
The platform also has several automated features to speed up your workflow, such as automatic lead assignment.
Why do you need a CRM?
This one might be obvious, but as soon as your business has any traction, you need a CRM to track customer interactions, deal progression, and lists of contacts. Even the smallest organizations should consider a CRM over manually updating a spreadsheet or other customer list.
To save even more time, most CRMs now offer several automatic workflows, especially for new leads or progressing a deal through the pipeline stages.
What makes Salesforce the best?
Salesforce is a market leader in software integrations with other platforms. While Hubspot and Pipedrive have their share of integrations too, neither beat Salesforce for innovation, user experience, or collaboration with other software/systems.
Salesforce beats out the competition for advanced functionality. Features like lead scoring and collaborative forecasting save heaps of time once you start attracting complex deals with multiple stakeholders or seriously scaling your activity. However, if your budget is tight or you want a simple user interface, Hubspot or Pipedrive might better suit your needs.
5. Calendly
Best for:
Effortless meeting scheduling
How it works:
Calendly’s calendar integration software makes coordinating meetings and discovery calls easy.
Rather than going back and forth with prospects about suitable meeting times – and losing leads in the process – the tool’s simple interface syncs with your work calendar to update your availability in real-time. Prospects can book a call of a pre-specified length whenever works best for them.
Why do you need scheduling software?
Scheduling software reduces some of the inherent friction that comes with coordinating meetings with busy prospects. This is especially crucial early on in your interactions and can make all the difference as to whether a lead decides they’re willing to spend time learning about your offering. With one click, they can easily assess how your availability fits their schedule. Automatic meeting reminders also decrease the chance of no-shows without any extra manual admin.
While scheduling software is useful for all reps, it’s a vital piece of the puzzle if you’re working across time zones. The tool automatically displays your availability in your prospect’s time, so you don’t make a mess of conversions.
What makes Calendly the best?
While there are other scheduling tools available, Calendly stands out due to its advanced features and integrations.
Meeting links can be set to individual, round-robin, or team settings, streamlining lead assignment. This makes the tool great for later negotiation or demo stages.
The tool also integrates with Zoom, Webex, Google, and Outlook. So whatever tech stack you’re currently using, you can seamlessly add its scheduler.
What makes Calendly stand out to us, however, is its streamlined interface and just how easy it is to use. Because when it comes to booking prospect demos, the less friction, the better.
If you really need an alternative? Consider Hubspot Meetings, Drift, or Doodle.
6: Gong
Best for:
Call recording and coaching
How it works:
Autodialers are great for cold calling at scale. But if you want to improve the success of your discovery meetings and progress more deals, you need a video call recording tool like Gong.
Gong automatically records your web-based meetings with prospects, creating automated transcription and removing the need to take notes.
As well as reducing huge swathes of time from your manual tracking (no need to log the call to your CRM, add manual notes, and rely on your memory for crucial call details), it can really elevate your training and development.
Existing call recordings can be used to train new reps, and playlists make it easy to find good examples of tactics like objection handling. The tool is also optimized for coaching moments, with admin seats available for sales leaders.
Why do you need call recording software?
Let’s face it, manually taking notes during every single sales call is bad for your concentration and energy levels. You don’t want to be focused on remembering the exact figures for company X’s revenue shortfall when you could be building crucial rapport with a key stakeholder instead.
Call recording software removes the burden of memory while giving you reams of material to learn from and improve your selling techniques. It’s a win for both sales reps and managers, who can see exactly where to coach and train their team for the best results.
What makes Gong the best?
While other call recording tools like Jiminny are also top-tier, the accuracy of Gong’s transcriptions and detailed call analysis gives it a slight edge.
Gong also has some great features like scorecards and leaderboards to make the process of improving call performance tangible and fun. Plus, its intuitive, user-friendly interface makes it easy to integrate into your sales stack.
7. Lusha
Best for:
Sales intelligence and data enrichment
How it works:
Lusha is a sales intelligence solution that gives you a database of B2B companies, enriched with their contact data. Marking and sales teams can use it to discover which companies are most interested in their offering, taking the guesswork out of knowing who to target.
Once you’ve found your target companies, Lusha can give you access to key information you’ll need to reach your prospects, such as their phone number, email address, and LinkedIn profile. Its browser extension integrates with both LinkedIn and CRMs: with one click you can use it to populate extra data on an ideal lead.
Why do you need sales intelligence software?
Working out which companies should be at the top of your prospecting list can be a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack. Lusha’s intent signals can help you discover those most likely to buy before you begin a long outreach campaign – meaning you don’t waste time on prospects unlikely to convert. Plus, by engaging leads ready to buy, you increase your chance of success with each prospecting activity.
But that’s only half of it. The real value of a tool like Lusha is its ability to enrich contact records with much-needed emails and phone numbers for leads at your target accounts. And with its ISO27001 compliance, you can sit back and relax knowing everything’s above board.
What makes Lusha the best?
In our experience, Lusha stands out for its accuracy and range of data. The sales intelligence side of the product also has some snazzy features that can help you hone your prospect list: from alerts on prospect job changes to the ability to filter leads by the tech stack they’re using.
Best of all, it’s super easy to use. Lusha states it’s possible to onboard your whole team in just 10 minutes.
If Lusha’s not the right choice for you, though, there are other options for automatically sourcing contact info. Some alternatives include ZoomInfo, RocketReach, and Clearbit.
Improve your workflows with sales automation
So there you have it – a list of all the sales automation tools you could ever need to streamline your lead generation and customer management. If you want to improve your productivity or conversion rates (and let’s face it, who doesn’t?), consider adding one or more of the products above to your workflow.
To get ahead and give Salesflow a go, get started with a free 7-day trial: