Automation study of online businesses: 1000+ experts reveal how and where they use it 

Automating business processes has long been a luxury for larger organizations, but it is quickly becoming an essential requirement for companies of all sizes to maintain their competitive edge.

In this article, we have collected responses from 1000+ experts and surveyed 2500+ online businesses from different industries to answer some of the compelling questions about automation.

This revealed a lot of interesting things about how and where businesses of different niches are using automation, and what benefits they are enjoying after incorporating automation into their processes.

So, without any ado let’s dive right in. 

What makes these businesses adopt automation? 

Well, there could be myriad reasons for adopting automation. But let’s look at the top ones and see what experts are thinking about this.

Automation allows employees to focus on more creative and demanding tasks

You might not be able to operate profitably or experience sluggish growth if your productivity declines or grows more slowly than that of your rivals. 

Our study found that a whopping 98% of the online businesses we surveyed believe they can boost the productivity of the employees by using automation which also allows them to focus on tasks that significantly impact the outcome. 

“Reliability, cost-effectiveness, and higher productivity levels for our employees pushed us into automation. We love automated systems because they help maintain uniform practice, while also allowing our lean staff to avoid some repetitive tasks.” Linda G Thompson (Founder, Notta.ai)

Emails are an integral part of modern businesses 

The staggering statistics of email marketing show that it is next to impossible for any online business to operate without the use of emails. From internal employee communication to sending proposals to clients, emails are everywhere in the process. 

There are so many types of emails that can be automated and can save a ton of hours for businesses on a daily basis. For example – welcome/onboarding emails, cold outreach emails, abandoned cart emails, and so on. 

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In our study; Out of 1153 online businesses, 1037 said that they use email automation for a variety of purposes. This means that more than 90% of those businesses are using email automation in some way. 

“Automation in emails helps us carry out streamlined email campaigns to generate leads for our business by reaching the right subscribers at the right time. New subscribers to my business website are sent welcome emails to create a good impression and help them feel valued. Without automation, it will take too much time to craft every single email for the customers, and there are chances that we may miss sending it to some of them.” Joshua Rich (CEO & Founder, Bullseye)

Automation proved to be a magic bullet for software testing

Automation in software development testing is really a lifesaver for many QAs out there as it offloads most of their tedious tasks, thanks to all those innovative and advanced software testing tools in the market. 

That being said, here is what we found about automated software testing

63% of software development businesses that we asked, relied on automated testing services for the development of their web and mobile applications. 

What industries and which of their teams use automation the most?

Automation is something that every industry is embracing, and for all good reasons. After surveying 2500+ online businesses, we’ve ranked each of the industries and their respective departments on the basis of their involvement in automation. 

The industry that uses automation the most is IT (Information Technology). E-commerce ranks second followed by Real Estate. 

Speaking of the department, 73% of these businesses believe that it is their marketing and sales department which uses automation more than any other team. 

“The marketing team uses the most automation. By automating the multiple stages that occur between marketing and sales, your team will have more time to focus on overall strategy and developing the leads that have the most potential. This translates to more leads and customers. Marketing automation can also help you get a more complete view of what your potential customers are thinking.” Lattice Hudson (Founder, Lattice & Co)

While 19% of companies admitted that their Customer Service teams dominate the usage of automation in their processes followed by Software Development teams that have a share of the remaining 8%. 

Budget allocated by online businesses for automation

The budget plays really a crucial role while incorporating automation. Though boosting productivity is invaluable but at the same time, these online businesses need to ensure that they are not burning their pockets deep and are maintaining a healthy ROI.

We asked 1000+ people that including CEOs and team leads about which automation tool they use and how much money they spend on automation, and here is what we’ve got. 

To our surprise, 16% of the online businesses we asked admitted that they spend more than 1000 USD per month on automation. On other hand, 44% spend up to $100 per month, and 40% of businesses spend between $100 to $1000. 

The budget depends very much upon the size of the company and the automation tools we use. And in order to map out a budget friendly strategy, we’ve listed some of the top budget-friendly automation tools recommended by experts in each niche. 

Sales & Marketing 

• Salesmate  
• HubSpot 
• Omnisend 

Customer Service 

• HiverHQ 
• Zendesk 
• Olark 

Software Development 

• Linx 
• GeneXus 
• Embold 

“We have a budget of roughly $1000/month for automation tooling but are flexible because an additional $50/month subscription that offsets 4+ hours of employee time will always be worth it.” – Blake Burch (Co-Founder, Shipyard)

Conclusion: 

Our study yields some significant numbers on how modern online businesses are utilizing automation in their day-to-day task and these numbers are only going to increase in the future. 

SaaS product companies are on their toes and introducing something new to the world every once in a while. And now the onus is on these online businesses to adopt those automation trends which suit their workflows.