Marketing Automation RFP: Complete Guide

January 26, 2026

Evie Secilmis

Picking the wrong marketing automation platform is one of those mistakes that haunts you for years. You're stuck in a contract, your team has built workarounds on top of workarounds, and every time someone suggests switching, everyone groans because they remember how painful the last implementation was.

A good RFP process helps you avoid that fate. Not a check-the-box, 200-question monster that vendors answer with canned responses—but a thoughtful evaluation that surfaces what actually matters for your team. Here's how to write a marketing automation RFP that leads to a decision you won't regret.

Why Bother with an RFP?

Let's address the elephant in the room: RFPs are work. They take time to write, time to evaluate, and they slow down what could otherwise be a quick decision based on demos and gut feel. So why do it?

Because marketing automation platforms are sticky. Once you've migrated your data, built your automations, trained your team, and integrated with your CRM, switching costs are enormous. The platform you choose will shape how your marketing team works for the next three to five years minimum. That's worth getting right.

An RFP also forces clarity you might not otherwise achieve. Writing down your requirements—actually writing them down—reveals gaps in your thinking. It surfaces disagreements between stakeholders before you've committed to a vendor. And it gives you a framework for comparing options that goes beyond 'which demo looked cooler.'

Before You Write Anything

The biggest RFP mistake happens before anyone starts typing: jumping straight to requirements without aligning on what you're actually trying to accomplish. Features are not goals. You need to know why you're buying this thing before you can evaluate how well different platforms would serve those reasons.

Get your key stakeholders in a room—marketing ops, demand gen, content, sales (yes, sales), and whoever owns your CRM. Ask the simple question: what do we need this platform to do for us in the next two years? Not what features do we want, but what outcomes do we need to achieve?

Maybe it's improving lead scoring accuracy so sales stops complaining about garbage leads. Maybe it's reducing the time to launch campaigns from two weeks to two days. Maybe it's finally getting visibility into multi-touch attribution. Whatever it is, write it down. These goals will guide every requirement you include and help you evaluate whether vendor responses actually address what matters.

What to Include in Your Marketing Automation RFP

Now for the meat of it. A good marketing automation RFP covers several categories, but remember: the goal is getting useful responses, not demonstrating how thorough you can be. Every question you add is a question vendors have to answer and you have to evaluate. Be ruthless about what actually matters.

Company Context and Goals

Start with enough background that vendors can assess fit. Your company size, marketing team structure, current tech stack, and the goals we just talked about. Include relevant metrics: how many contacts in your database, how many campaigns you run monthly, what channels you're using. This helps vendors self-select and tailor their responses to your actual situation.

Be honest about your current state, including the pain points. If your current platform's email deliverability is terrible, say so. If your team struggles with the complexity of your current solution, mention it. Vendors can only solve problems they know about.

Core Functional Requirements

This is where most RFPs balloon out of control. Resist the urge to list every feature you've ever heard of. Focus on what you'll actually use in the next 12-18 months. Everything else is nice-to-have at best and noise at worst.

Email marketing is table stakes, but dig into the specifics that matter to you: template flexibility, personalization depth, A/B testing capabilities, deliverability tools and reputation management. If you're sending millions of emails, deliverability infrastructure matters a lot more than if you're sending thousands.

Campaign automation is where platforms really differ. How sophisticated are the workflow builders? Can you branch based on behavior, engagement scores, CRM data? How easy is it to build and modify automations without a computer science degree? Ask vendors to show you how they'd build a specific automation you actually need—that tells you more than any feature list.

Lead management is critical if you're B2B. Scoring models, lifecycle stages, routing rules, handoff to sales. How does the platform track engagement across channels? How does it handle the messy reality of multiple contacts at the same company? How does it sync with your CRM?

Integration Requirements

Here's where things get real. Marketing automation doesn't exist in a vacuum. It needs to talk to your CRM, your website, your advertising platforms, your content management system, your data warehouse—maybe all of the above.

Be specific about what needs to integrate and what data needs to flow where. Native integrations are almost always better than custom API work, so prioritize platforms with strong connections to the tools you already use. And ask about the depth of integration, not just the existence of it. A Salesforce 'integration' that only syncs basic contact data is very different from one that handles campaigns, opportunities, and custom objects.

→ See how Iris integrates with your existing stack

Security and Compliance

If you're in a regulated industry or handle sensitive data, this section matters a lot. If you're a startup selling to other startups, maybe less so. Calibrate accordingly.

At minimum, ask about SOC 2 certification, GDPR compliance, and data handling practices. If you have specific requirements—HIPAA, data residency, specific access controls—spell them out. This is one area where being detailed upfront saves everyone time, because platforms that can't meet your compliance requirements shouldn't be investing effort in the rest of their response.

Implementation and Support

Don't treat this as an afterthought. Implementation experience varies wildly across vendors, and a bad implementation can poison the whole relationship. Ask about methodology, typical timelines, what resources they expect from your side, and what training looks like.

On support, ask about response time commitments, available channels, and whether you get a dedicated resource or go into the general queue. Talk to references specifically about their support experience—what happens when something breaks at a bad time.

Pricing

Ask for detailed pricing that covers your current state and realistic growth scenarios. Per-contact pricing can get expensive fast if your database grows. Email volume tiers matter if you're a heavy sender. Feature packaging differs across vendors, so make sure you're comparing equivalent configurations.

Don't forget implementation costs, training costs, and what happens at renewal. Some vendors offer aggressive first-year discounts that disappear when you renew. Get the full picture.

What to Leave Out

Just as important as what you include is what you don't. Here are some common RFP sections that often waste everyone's time:

Exhaustive feature checklists where every item is marked 'required.' If you require 200 features, you don't actually know what you require. Focus on what matters and let vendors differentiate on the rest.

Detailed questions about company financials and stability—unless you're in an industry where this is genuinely a concern. For most buyers evaluating established platforms, this is bureaucratic filler.

Requirements for features you won't use for years. You're buying a platform to solve today's problems and near-term goals. The market will look different in three years anyway.

Evaluating Responses

You've sent the RFP, responses are rolling in, and now you've got a pile of documents to evaluate. Here's how to make this manageable.

Create a scorecard before you read any responses. Weight criteria based on importance to your goals. Have multiple stakeholders evaluate independently before discussing. This structure prevents the loudest voice from dominating and keeps you focused on what you said mattered, not what looked flashy in a particular response.

Look for responsiveness to your specific situation, not just polished generic answers. Did they address your stated pain points? Did they reference your industry or use case? Vendors who took time to customize their response are signaling something about how they'll treat you as a customer.

Shortlist two to four vendors for demos and deep dives. More than that becomes overwhelming; fewer doesn't give you enough comparison. When you do demos, insist on seeing your actual use cases, not the vendor's greatest hits. And include the people who will actually use the platform daily, not just the executives who'll sign the contract.

The Reference Call Cheat Sheet

Reference calls are goldmines if you ask the right questions. Vendors obviously provide references they expect will say good things, but you can still learn a lot.

Ask about implementation: Was it on time? What surprised them? What would they do differently? These questions get past the 'everything is great' default and into useful territory.

Ask about what they don't use. Every platform has features that sound good but don't get adopted. Learning what references found disappointing or abandoned tells you about real-world limitations.

Ask if they'd choose the same vendor again. And watch for hesitation. An enthusiastic yes is different from 'I mean, it's fine, we've invested a lot in it at this point.'

→ Talk to us about your marketing automation evaluation

Frequently Asked Questions

How many vendors should we include in our RFP?

Four to six is the sweet spot. Fewer than that and you don't have enough comparison. More and you're creating a ton of work for yourself and the vendors without proportionally better outcomes. Do your homework upfront to identify vendors worth evaluating rather than casting a wide net and drowning in responses.

Should we share our budget?

Yes, at least a range. It helps vendors provide realistic proposals and self-select if they can't meet your price point. Without budget guidance, you'll get responses ranging from $20K to $200K and waste time evaluating options that were never going to work financially.

How long should the evaluation take?

Plan for 8-12 weeks from RFP to decision. That's 2-3 weeks for vendors to respond, 2-3 weeks to evaluate and shortlist, 2-3 weeks for demos and references, and 2-3 weeks for final decision and negotiation. Complex enterprise evaluations might take longer, but try not to let it drag. Momentum matters.

What if requirements change during the process?

Small adjustments are normal—communicate them to all vendors equally. If requirements change dramatically, you probably started the RFP before you were ready. It's better to pause, get aligned internally, and restart than to muddle through with shifting targets.

How do we handle vendor questions?

Set a deadline for questions and share all Q&A with all vendors. This maintains fairness and often reveals what vendors are thinking about. Good questions from vendors can even help you refine your requirements—if multiple vendors are confused about something, maybe it wasn't clear.

The Decision

After all this process, making the final call often comes down to less quantifiable factors. Which vendor seemed to understand your business best? Which team would you actually want to work with for the next several years? Whose product felt like it fit how your team thinks?

Trust those instincts, but check them against your scorecard. If your gut says vendor A but your evaluation clearly points to vendor B, figure out why. Maybe your criteria were wrong. Maybe there's something about vendor A you haven't articulated. Or maybe you're being swayed by a great salesperson and should stick with the data.

Either way, make a decision and move forward. Analysis paralysis is real, and a good vendor implemented well beats a perfect vendor stuck in evaluation purgatory.

→ Ready to start your evaluation? We're here to help.

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