Written by , one of Marketo's Champions.
I often get asked where I do my research on various marketing automation and digital marketing topics. When I first started writing this post, I wanted to break out the top 5 blogs—then I gave up. It’s like picking players for the baseball Hall of Fame with only 1 pick.
The fact is there are a ton of great resources you can lean on for digital marketing and technology content. In the end, I broke out some of the blogs based on what I consider to be the core part of digital marketing technology–that’s marketing automation and its effect on driving leads through the funnel. Content is the fuel that fills that marketing automation engine so you’ll find several content blogs on the list. And yes, there are a couple miscellaneous blogs included because the content is so good.
What’s not included: There are some great general marketing, SEO and social blogs but they are not included in this list. And yes, I’m probably missing a bunch—I apologize in advance. If there are sites you find useful, please note them in the comments.
A special thanks goes out to our content manager Alyssa Reeves who helped pull together this nearly 2,000-word post.
The Blog Categories
I did however break up the blogs into categories.
- Top Overall – Expert Blogs. These blogs may fall across several categories but they rise to the top in the content they provide.
- Marketing Automation/Technology Vendor Blogs. There are hundreds of vendor digital technology blogs out there. I focused on marketing automation blogs as I view these platforms as the engine that everything else feeds into.
- Professional Services and Agency Blogs. Like the vendors, these blogs put out some great best practice content.
- Blogs with a Marketo Twist. I am a little biased to Marketo so blogs that highlight Marketo get a little extra attention.
Top Overall – Expert Blogs
These blogs rise to the top for blogs to check out.
There is some overlap with the agencies but the way I broke it out…if I think of the leader before the agency, the site falls into this bucket. Otherwise, the site drops into the Services category.
In alphabetical order…..
 | | Marketo Champion Steve Moody and his team give tips on everything marketing automation with a Marketo focus.
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 | | Brian Solis is a digital analyst, anthropologist, and futurist. Not sure I have ever seen those three words together. Brian’s blog focuses on digital marketing’s effect on transforming business.Brian’s blog is consistently ranked in the Top 10 of the Ad Age Power 150, and ranks among the top 1% of all blogs tracked by Technorat |
 | | Michael Brenner is the Head of Strategy for the leading content marketing platform, NewsCred.He created his blog to focus on emerging business and marketing strategy topics such as content marketing, lead generation, search marketing, digital media, and social media.B2B Marketing Insider is dedicated to sharing the ideas, topics and marketing strategies that drive real results. |
 | | Scott Brinker runs this blog on everything marketing technology including Marketing Automation. If you have seen that crazy Marketing Tech Landscape Supergraphicwith 1,876 vendors, that’s Scott’s baby. |
 | | Content is what fuels the marketing automation engine and CMI covers everything related to content. Over 100K subscribers. |
 | | Jay Baer is a marketing visionary who has worked with more than 700 brands. His blog is one of the top content marketing sites on the web. |
 | | Content is what fuels the funnel and John Jantsch gives useful advice on how to create content that drives brand. |
 | | Ed Unthank loves his whiteboard and puts it to great use bringing some key marketing automation concepts to life.Posts about once a month and the posts tend to be on the technical Marketo side. |
 | | Miles Austin spent 30 years in B2B Sales and Leadership roles. In addition to helping business with their demand gen needs, he now writes blog posts on email marketing for Fill the Funnel.Miles posts about Sales & Marketing tools and ways that they can be applied in your business. He also has a steady following of 11K. |
 | | Craig Rosenberg is the co-founder and Chief Analyst of TOPO. His blog was created so he can have fun talking about all things revenue.The Funnelholic focuses on sales, marketing and everything in between. |
 | | Matt Heinz is all over the place speaking on the importance of digital marketing. His blog covers everything from marketing automation to best practices in sales. |
 | | Although this site is not marketing automation at all, I had to drop it somewhere because their blog is just so good. They have great articles on analytics. |
 | | Marketing Land is a general digital marketing site that covers a wide variety of topics. It also has a great marketing technology section. |
 | | One of the biggest marketing blogs/portals on the web run by Ann Handley and team.Not marketing automation focused but it’s a must read for content marketers.600K+ members. |
 | | Don’t expect fancy graphics but Marketing Rockstar Guides gets my vote for the top Marketo-focused tips and tricks blog out there. Targeted at the Marketo practitioner.It is run by Marketo Champion, Josh Hill, and you get a 844+ page guide for signing up for blog updates–try reading that on the beach. |
 | | This blog was founded by Douglas Karr and has over 75K subscribers. It covers mainly marketing in new media but has a section focused on marketing automation. |
 | | Channeling your inner Brad Pitt, Moneyball Marketer is Zak Pines’s blog on data-driven demand generation and marketing best practices.Great blog to check out once a month as it updates once or twice monthly. |
 | | Chad Pollitt cofounded this site and grew it to 50K subscribers in six months (Read amazing story here).The blog brings in industry experts to share expertise on content marketing and promotion. |
 | | You are reading this post so you already know marketing technology is important to us. We cover everything digital that is related to moving leads through the funnel.At a deeper level, we also cover top tips for organizations leveraging Marketo.Primary contributor is Marketo Champion Jeff Coveney. |
 | | Digital blog with a Sales focus. Anthony Iannarinno is a publishing machine and gives great Sales process tips EVERY day. I keep waiting for him to miss a day but he’s the Cal Ripken Jr. of Sales blog writing.Technology is not a big focus of Anthony’s but his Sales process stuff is vital to overall marketing automation and funnel success. |
 | | Here’s another site that doesn’t quite fit into “digital marketing technology.” However SBI’s content on Sales and Marketing methodologies and best practices is central to any company trying to develop a marketing funnel. Updates daily. |
 | | Mark Sheridan runs this inbound marketing blog with a Hubspot focus. Great podcasts also.In six years, Mark went from pool seller to content marketing king. That’s a career path you wouldn’t expect.Read more on Mark’s pool story success. |
 | | Sirius Decisions is where all the smart people go to try to get smarter about optimizing the revenue funnel. You sometimes need a MIT degree to completely get all the concepts but their forward thinking enables you to plan for the future.Jay Famico is the go-to guy for technology and services so make sure to follow his posts. |
 | | This blog (and membership site) offers tons ofactionable digital marketing advice. There are plenty of planning templates, ebooks and online training courses. Some are no cost, others have a fee.There is a no-cost weekly newsletter I’d recommend signing up for. 80K+ members.Co-founded by Dr. Dave Chaffey, Dan Bosomworth and Stu Miller. |
 | | Topo Blog is UK-based and covers a mixture of sales, marketing and technology data and research. |
 | | Lee Odden’s blog is another extremely strong content marketing focused blog. I almost didn’t include it because the site is heavy on the social flavor and light on digital technology. The content stuff is just too good to leave off.Attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors and has over 50,000 subscribers. |
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