Marketing automation platforms for Healthcare

The selection of a marketing automation platform in the healthcare industry is unique, complex, and high-stakes. Unlike ecommerce or SaaS companies, healthcare providers, payers, and life sciences organizations must reconcile two opposing demands: the need for hyper-personalized, real-time patient engagement and the absolute, non-negotiable requirement of data privacy under regulations like HIPAA.

The right platform must serve as a compliant, scalable foundation that enables marketing teams to orchestrate patient acquisition, coordinate care, and manage long-term member relationships. An inadequate system creates not only fragmented patient experiences but also severe regulatory risk. Drawing on industry insights, we evaluate the leading platforms to help organizations choose a system that fuels strategic growth while maintaining ironclad security.

The non-negotiable mandate: Compliance first

Before evaluating features, any platform must first meet the criteria for handling Protected Health Information (PHI). This is not optional; it is the prerequisite for any marketing activity.

A compliant platform must offer the following:

• Business associate agreement (BAA): A legally required contract ensuring the vendor (the Business Associate) adheres to HIPAA’s security and privacy standards when handling PHI on behalf of the healthcare organization. Without a signed BAA, the vendor is disqualified.

• Data segregation and encryption: PHI must be protected with encryption both at rest and in transit. For modern systems, this includes field-level encryption, restricting access to sensitive attributes even within the platform’s interface.

• Audit logging and access control: The platform must provide granular role-based access controls to limit PHI visibility to authorized team members. Comprehensive audit logs are required to track every access or modification of PHI for mandatory compliance reviews.

With this mandate in place, we assess four market leaders using real reviews from G2 based on their specific strengths and application within the healthcare ecosystem.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud (and Health Cloud)

Salesforce is the choice for organizations requiring a platform that can handle sheer scale and deeply integrate with complex electronic health record (EHR) and clinical systems. Its Health Cloud solution provides a dedicated, vertical-specific data model built on the Salesforce core CRM.

What Salesforce Marketing Cloud is great at

• Deep EHR and clinical integration

• Enterprise scale and unified patient view

• Comprehensive security framework

What users like

Exceptional scalability to support millions of patients/members. The ability to unify disparate data sources into a single platform.

Additional user feedback

Using the Marketing Cloud with Health Cloud requires explicit configuration, often including "Tokenized Sending" to maintain compliance, and is only available for certain products. Implementation is complex, expensive, and typically requires specialized consulting partners due to the system's depth.

Best fit

Large hospital systems, regional payers, and major health networks where deep integration into the clinical data ecosystem is a non-negotiable requirement.

Braze

Braze is widely known for its exceptional capabilities in real-time, cross-channel journey orchestration, making it a favorite for digital health apps and specialized telehealth providers focused on engagement.

What Braze is great at

• Real-time multi-channel orchestration

• API flexibility and speed

• Mobile-first experience

What users like

The visual journey canvas is powerful and easy to use for creating complex workflows. Speed of data ingestion and low-latency message delivery.

Additional user feedback

The BAA signed by Braze includes a critical PHI limitation: customers may not use the service to send messages containing diagnoses, test results, or similar sensitive medical information. This makes it suitable for marketing/CRM messages (e.g., "Time to schedule your next annual checkup") but unsuitable for operational treatment-related messaging (e.g., "Your lab results are ready to view").

Best fit

Digital health startups, specialized wellness apps, and health technology companies whose primary communication purpose is marketing, retention, and engagement, and who can segment out or secure sensitive operational PHI messages elsewhere.

Iterable

Iterable is a direct competitor to Braze, known for its highly flexible data model and strong commitment to compliance across the entire customer engagement platform (CEP).

What Iterable is great at

• Flexible and adaptable data schema

• Strong compliance assurance

• Cross-channel journey mapping

What users like

Robust APIs for data ingestion and integration. Confidence in compliance backed by third-party audit reports.

Additional user feedback

While highly flexible, the platform can have a steeper learning curve than simpler tools. Pricing can quickly escalate as the volume of real-time data and the number of channels increase. Although compliant, deep integration with legacy EHR systems may still require significant custom API work.

Best fit

Mid-to-large health tech companies, large specialty networks, and organizations that prioritize a highly flexible, API-driven platform with strong, independently verified compliance controls for secure, high-volume messaging.

HubSpot Marketing Hub

HubSpot's platform is famous for its unified CRM and ease of use, making it popular for practices and growing clinics prioritizing inbound marketing and rapid deployment. However, leveraging it for HIPAA compliance requires a clear financial commitment and strict internal configuration.

What Hubspot Marketing Hub is great at

• All-in-one CRM and marketing engine

• Ease of use and fast deployment

• Inbound patient acquisition

What users like

The intuitive builders and drag-and-drop tools. The seamless alignment between marketing and sales teams using the shared CRM platform.

Additional user feedback

HIPAA compliance is strictly an Enterprise-tier feature and is not available on lower plans. Enabling PHI storage requires specific, manual configuration of "Sensitive Data properties," and certain platform features, such as personalization tokens, are restricted or unavailable when handling PHI to maintain compliance. The Enterprise subscription carries a significant cost, making it largely inaccessible to smaller, budget-constrained practices.

Best fit

Growing specialty clinics, mid-sized health practices, and health-related SMBs that prioritize an intuitive, unified platform and have committed to the Enterprise tier subscription and strict internal compliance protocols.

Final checklist: The platform selection framework

Choosing the right marketing automation platform is a high-stakes decision that must balance technical ambition with regulatory sobriety. The ideal platform aligns perfectly with the size, complexity, and growth stage of the organization.

To guide the final selection process, use this framework:

By rigorously evaluating marketing automation tools through the lens of compliance and data integration, organizations can confidently select a platform that acts as a true partner in patient care and long-term organizational growth. To ensure a compliant foundation is established before implementation, explore a guide to building a compliant healthcare marketing strategy as a foundational next step.