Broadly speaking, marketing automation is the process of automating manual tasks like the sending of emails and text messages to contacts within your CRM. This automation is often the result of a contact performing a specific action (often referred to as a trigger).
Successful marketing automation is the result of understanding your audience and the specific journeys they take in relation to your business. Contacts are categorised in meaningful ways based off their personal details and the actions they’ve taken. From this information, contacts are assigned to specific campaigns with timed communications, custom built for them.