Introduction:
In today’s fast-paced business world, companies must depend on digital marketing tools to survive. While it might sound a bit dramatic, the truth is that businesses with a strong tech stack have a better chance of thriving in an increasingly competitive environment. The right tools encourage growth and ensure that businesses spend valuable time on must-dos rather than getting bogged down by tedious tasks. However, there’s a flip side: those who fail to take advantage of modern software risk lagging behind their competitors, which can quickly lead to falling behind in the race.
The good news is that there is no shortage of tools out there to help businesses automate the heavy lifting involved in digital marketing. These tools can be game-changers, allowing businesses to focus on what matters most, rather than trying to figure out the complexities of each task manually. If you’re not using the right tools, you’re simply wasting time and spending resources without seeing the growth your business deserves.
Digital marketing tools by strategy
We’ve put together a comprehensive list of digital marketing tools to help you achieve your business goals, no matter your budget. Whether you’re managing customer relationships, winning leads, or uncovering new opportunities, there’s a tool for every need. From free and freemium options to a powerful stack that can serve as the foundation of your strategy, you’ll find tools that are essential for success. Check out the categories below to get started!
SEO (search engine optimization) tools
In today’s digital landscape, SEO is crucial as over half of all website traffic comes from search queries. For companies looking to increase their online presence, having the right tools to optimize efforts is key. While SEO can feel daunting, there are plenty of up-and-coming tools that help businesses uncover new opportunities and improve their existing engine rankings. Whether you’re trying to beat the competition or enhance your digital marketing, these SEO solutions will support you every step of the way.
1. Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a tool that helps you analyze your website for SEO purposes. Unlike Google Analytics, which provides a broader view, Search Console focuses on what’s happening on-site. It tracks how your pages are performing, showing you impressions, clicks, and how your site is ranking for various keywords.
This tool allows you to see specific pages and their results, offering insights into which are receiving the most traffic. While not always 100% accurate, it’s invaluable for understanding your site’s performance.
2. Google Analytics
Google Analytics is an essential tool for any digital marketing arsenal. It’s a free tool that allows you to track your website activity and observe visitor patterns. By setting up an account and adding a simple piece of code to your site, you gain access to a powerful dashboard where you can view data about where your traffic is coming from and what’s going on across different pages.
With Google Analytics, you can uncover valuable findings to help you determine the effectiveness of your campaigns and optimize your marketing strategies.
3. Ahrefs
Ahrefs is the gold standard when it comes to competitive SEO analysis. It’s an incredible tool that helps you brainstorm keyword ideas and identify new opportunities to rank higher. With the Site Explorer, you can easily check any URL and see which top organic keywords it ranks for.
This allows you to estimate the traffic a site receives and discover which competitor is dominating a given search term. Ahrefs is also fantastic for uncovering top-performing content and tracking backlinks sources, helping you stay ahead in the competitive landscape. It’s a short yet fantastic tool for ensuring your SEO efforts are up to snuff.
4. Semrush
Semrush is an all-in-one digital marketing tool that can help improve a variety of campaign types, from email to social media and advertising. It places a particular emphasis on SEO, providing powerful features for auditing your website, finding the ideal keywords, and optimizing on-page elements. With Semrush, you can also track industry trends, monitor your competitors, and identify opportunities that will improve your performance in the SEO category.
Whether you’re managing a small or large campaign, this tool is designed to give you a complete view of your marketing efforts and help you stay ahead in a competitive landscape.
5. PageSpeed Insights
PageSpeed Insights is a free and powerful tool that helps you understand how fast your website loads on both desktop and mobile devices. With over 83% of internet users expecting web pages to load in three seconds or less, slow page speeds can feel like an eternity and often drive visitors away.
This tool provides you with a score between zero and 100, along with recommendations to optimize your site’s performance. By simply entering your URL, you’ll receive valuable data on how your site is performing and insights on what needs to be improved, ensuring your visitors have a smooth and fast experience.
Social media marketing tools
6. Loomly
Loomly is a self-described platform that makes managing your brand’s social media presence a breeze. Designed for smaller teams and solo businesses, it helps you organize, collaborate, and schedule posts effortlessly with its built-in calendars, deadlines, and workflows. Whether you’re brainstorming fresh content ideas or curating posts, Loomly’s clean, no-frills interface makes it easy to navigate.
As a bonus, it even tracks trending topics and curates content from Twitter conversations, giving you relevant ideas that keep your content aligned with what’s popular. With affordability and a user-friendly design, it’s an ideal tool for anyone looking to stay on top of their digital marketing efforts.
7. Audiense
Audiense takes social listening to the next level by helping companies identify trends and better understand their audiences. This powerful tool focuses primarily on Twitter, making it easier to dig deeper into customer personas, demographics, and even personality traits.
By segmenting your audience more effectively, Audiense helps you run laser-targeted ad campaigns, ensuring your marketing efforts reach the right people. Whether you’re a B2B brand or B2C company, this platform allows you to learn more about your potential customers than ever before, enabling you to make data-driven decisions for better engagement.
8. Hootsuite
Hootsuite is one of the top tools designed to help businesses manage and automate their social media campaigns. With scheduling features, you can plan and post content in advance, making it easy to stay consistent and engage your audience.
It also offers valuable insights for measuring ROI by integrating with Google Analytics, allowing you to track and compare the performance of your posts. If you’re looking for a tool to streamline your social media strategy, Hootsuite is an excellent choice that can help you take control of your online presence.
If you’re considering the best ways to drive performance on Facebook check out our detailed comparison of Facebook vs Google Ads. Alternatively, if you’re optimizing your TikTok campaigns, you can learn more about what is a good CTR for TikTok Ads.
Conversion optimization tools
Conversion optimization tools are essential for making smallest changes that can lead to the biggest difference in your business’s success. Whether it’s adjusting the color of a call-to-action button or improving your site’s layout, these tools help convert visitors into customers. With features like scoring and free trials, you can easily identify low-hanging opportunities that will increase revenue and reduce bouncing. If you want to take your digital marketing efforts to the next level, using conversion optimization software is a smart choice.
9. Unbounce
Unbounce is a powerful tool for building and publishing landing pages that convert visitors into customers. With features like A/B testing, you can experiment with different variants of your page to see what works best.
The platform provides analytics to help you track top performers, and offers customizable templates to serve as a jumping-off point for your design. Whether you’re testing calls-to-action or adjusting page elements, Unbounce makes it easy for marketers and designers to create high-performing pages that drive results.
10. Optimizely
Unbounce is a powerful tool that lets you easily create and publish high-converting landing pages. With its no-code platform, you can design and make major or minor edits to your pages without the need for developers.
It also allows you to run experiments and tests to optimize your pages’ performance by fine-tuning visual elements and targeting specific audience segments. This makes it easy to make minor adjustments or undertake major changes, ensuring your site is always performing at its best.
11. Hotjar
Hotjar is a powerful platform that helps you understand your visitors’ actions and behaviors in real-time. By using heatmaps, video recordings, and clicking patterns, you can easily track how users interact with your site.
It allows you to visualize the customer journey and discover what they need. This tool helps businesses sync data and make improvements based on actual visitor feedback and recordings of their site experience.
Lead enrichment tools
When managing your website and trying to convert visitors into leads, it’s important to have the right business intelligence tools to help you understand your audience. Lead enrichment tools are particularly powerful in B2B marketing, as they can help you gather and highlight key information about your leads. These tools allow you to reach out to prospects who have shown interest by providing a holistic view of your traffic. Instead of relying on data that might be outdated, you can use these tools to supercharge your prospecting efforts and make outbound pushes more efficient.
Many visitors fail to provide enough data, but these tools ensure you have enough information to make informed decisions. By filling in the gaps, you can focus your outreach on the right prospects, avoiding the guesswork and significantly improving your lead conversion rates.
12. Clearbit
Clearbit is a marketing platform that leverages data from over 100 sources, including Salesforce, to create a detailed profile of your leads. Instead of having to dig for information or rely on outdated data, Clearbit ensures that the details gathered, such as company, role and company size are always up to date. The platform automatically updates every 30 days, ensuring your data stays fresh and ready for effective outreach.
With this updated data, you can prospect with confidence, saving valuable time and improving your outreach efforts. By providing a clear picture of your leads, Clearbit makes the process of connecting with potential clients smoother and more efficient, helping businesses make better decisions in less time.
13. Datanyze
Datanyze is a powerful platform that helps uncover crucial contact information about your on-site leads, making it easier to build your digital rolodex. Similar to Clearbit, it helps you gather valuable social data on decision-makers to enhance your prospecting efforts. One of its standout features is its ability to pull data from LinkedIn, providing you with deeper insights into potential leads.
This tool simplifies the process of gathering information, helping you discover important contact details quickly. By using Datanyze, you can ensure that your outreach is targeted and efficient, giving you the advantage of having the right data at your fingertips when you need it most.
