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I had the pleasure of attending an ABBA debate on Marketing Automation last week.

Up until the conference I'll be honest and admit that I hadn't come across the phrase of Automated Marketing before, so other than having a quick look on the internet I went into the debate as a neutral.

For all those who haven't come across the term before in the most basic sense, Marketing Automation refers to automating the process of sending your marketing communications.

The Debate
There were two sides to the debate - for and against. At the beginning of the debate, 4 people were 'for' and 23 people were 'against' the notion of Automated Marketing

The side 'for' the process consisted of Ian Scarr from Silverpop (sponsors of the event) and Vaughn Armstrong of Market Nurturing. They put forward the ideas that instead of a manual process that's time-consuming and subject to human error, marketing automated solutions enable you to create sophisticated and engaging campaigns that automatically respond to customer/prospect behaviours, lifecycle segments and other criteria.

And on the 'against' team was John Stanton of Base One and Jaako Alanko from McCann Enterprise who argued that it can track sales and leads, but customer buying behaviour is too complicated to be managed by robots.

The panel presented their side of the argument and then it was passed over to the audience for their questions, opinions and experiences:

Will Marketing Automation suck creativity from the process? Or does Marketing
Automation in fact increase creativity? The power of the technology allows customisation and segmentation therefore the messaging is more targeted and relevant. But does this actually happen in practice?

Or are we eliminating our customers by telling them what they should do/purchase/feel? Is the targeting and segmentation so narrow and individual that it could in fact be wrong?

Is Marketing Automation over-hyped? CRM vendors are now acquiring Marketing Automation vendors - so is this becoming an extension of the last fad which was CRM?

Marketing Automation shouldn't become your marketing process - it should only be part of it. We still need to research our existing customers to get insights into the markets and buying behaviour. Therefore, is Marketing Automation the correct name for this? Or is it more of a process efficiency tool?

Which budget would Marketing Automation come from? Marketing budget? Sales Budget? Or even your IT budget?

Interestingly at the end of the debate 10 people were 'for' and 17 people were 'against' the notion of Automated Marketing.

After hearing both sides of the argument I am 'against' Automated Marketing. I feel that its place, but only a very small place in the whole of marketing. What's your opinion?