What are digital marketing tools?
Digital marketing tools are crucial applications that assist in planning, executing, and analyzing online marketing campaigns efficiently. The term “digital marketing tools” is frequently used, as it encompasses apps from various marketing areas, including social media, advertising, and content optimization.
Whether you’re just starting out or aiming to grow your career, the best online digital marketing training can help you master these essential tools. Simply put, you’ll need a variety of digital marketing tools — also known as a digital marketing tech stack — to achieve success.
Benefits of Using the Right Digital Marketing Tools
Agencies offering B2C and B2B digital marketing services can accelerate business growth. However, any business equipped with the right marketing tools can carve its path to success. Here’s how top online marketing tools can benefit you:
- Efficiency: The right marketing tools streamline workflows. For example, marketing automation software can increase sales productivity by 14.5%.
- Wide reach: Effective marketing tools enhance visibility. It’s no surprise that over 80% of businesses utilize Google Ads, and nearly 40 million businesses rely on Facebook Ads Manager.
- Cost-effectiveness: Investing in top digital marketing solutions pays off. Automation software can lower overhead costs by 12.2% while increasing ROI by 25%.
Best Digital Marketing Tools
1. Ahrefs
Pricing: Starts at $99
Ahrefs Free SEO Tools are capable of doing almost anything for a simple SEO operation, including keyword research, link building, ranking and traffic monitoring, and SEO audits. The full suite of free SEO tools, which includes a Free Keyword Generator (up to 150 keyword ideas), a Free Keyword Difficulty Checker (difficulty score, backlink estimate, and basic SERP analysis), and a Keyword Rank Checker, are included among other tools.
Although these free tools don’t offer the same in-depth data as those on a paid plan, they still offer a decent set of tools. You can always upgrade if your budget changes.
Key Feature of Ahrefs
- Site Explorer: Provides an in-depth look at the backlink profile, organic search traffic, and ranking keywords of any website or URL.
- Keyword Explorer: Allows users to discover and analyze keywords for SEO and PPC.
- Site Audit: Crawls websites to identify and fix SEO issues that could affect rankings.
- Rank Tracker: Monitors the ranking positions of keywords over time. Users can track their rankings against competitors and get regular updates.
2. MailChimp
Pricing: Starts at $13/month
The free online advertising and email marketing tool MailChimp uses its various features to manage and automate digital marketing campaigns. One of the best digital marketing tools for enhancing campaigns and tracking visitors is this. The platform can connect to a number of SaaS providers using a variety of interfaces. Email marketing is a great way to reach your intended audience because of this technology.
You can customize MailChimp’s email automation to send the appropriate emails to the right recipients at the right time. With your brand in mind, you can wow customers with welcome automation, order alerts, and automatic birthday messages, which is the most important aspect.
Key Feature of MailChimp
- Email Marketing: Offers a user-friendly interface for creating and sending email campaigns.
- Marketing Automation: Automates customer journeys based on user behavior, preferences, and actions.
- Analytics and Reporting: Provides detailed analytics on email campaign performance, including open rates, click rates, bounce rates, and conversions.
- Ad Campaigns: Supports the creation and management of ad campaigns on Google, Facebook, and Instagram.
3. HubSpot
Pricing: Starts at $15/month
HubSpot consistently occupies the top spot when it comes to marketing automation. One of the most comprehensive online marketing platforms today is its extensive range of products and solutions.
The smaller HubSpot solutions are the Marketing, Sales, Service, CMS, Operations, and Commerce Hub. The free CRM platform enables access to all of these hubs. You can manage all of your marketing and sales initiatives without resorting to a single dashboard. Drag-and-drop website builders, real-time chat support, and AI content writers are among its most well-liked features.
Another benefit of using HubSpot is its seamless integration with over 1,500 apps, including Facebook, Mailchimp, Xero, Salesforce, and Airtable, making it a top choice for marketing automation.
Key Feature of HubSpot
- Free CRM: HubSpot offers a free, fully integrated CRM that tracks and manages interactions with leads and customers, providing a complete view of the sales pipeline.
- Email Marketing: Create, personalize, and automate email campaigns with built-in analytics for performance tracking.
- Marketing Automation: Automate marketing workflows, lead nurturing, and customer journeys based on user behavior and lifecycle stages.
- SEO & Content Strategy: Built-in tools for keyword research, content optimization, and SEO performance tracking.
4. Buffer
Pricing: Starts at $6/month
Buffer is a great Hootsuite alternative that does the job well when you need to be on multiple channels and want to tailor your posts to each.
The AI Assistant automatically adjusts the output when you publish a new post based on your social media channel. You can cycle through more options after selecting the first one, request rewriting, or use the expand/shorten options as necessary.
The supporting cast’s strength is impressive, but so is the AI assistant. Multichannel campaigns can be run in the same way that drip campaigns for email marketing, achieving the ideal balance between regular content and fresh content.
Key Feature of Buffer
- Cross-Platform Posting: Supports posting to multiple social media platforms simultaneously, saving time and effort.
- RSS Feed Integration: Connect RSS feeds to discover and share relevant content from favorite blogs and websites directly through Buffer.
- Post-Performance Analytics: Provides insights into how posts are performing, with metrics such as likes, shares, comments, clicks, and overall engagement.
5. SEMrush
Pricing: Starts at $ 139.95 /month
An all-in-one marketing toolkit like SEMRUSH helps increase the company’s online visibility through SEO, content marketing, market research, advertising, social media management, and search engine reputation management.
7 million marketing professionals use SEMRUSH as their digital marketing tool, according to their official website. The best SEO software tool has been honored numerous times. The tool is simple to use, requiring only to search for and implement your keyword strategies.
Key Feature of SEMrush
- Keyword Magic Tool: Generates keyword ideas and suggestions, grouped by topic, for building effective keyword lists.
- Site Audit: Crawls your website to identify technical SEO issues, including broken links, duplicate content, and mobile usability.
- On-Page SEO Checker: Analyzes existing pages and provides actionable recommendations to improve rankings.
- Backlink Analytics: Offers insights into your website’s backlink profile, including referring domains, anchor texts, and new/lost backlinks.
- Traffic Analytics: Estimates competitor website traffic, sources, user behavior, and top pages.
6. Salesforce
Pricing: Starts at $ 1,250/month
Salesforce is regarded as the market leader for customer data platforms. Practically every solution to every problem businesses face in sales and marketing can be found in its robust ecosystem. All tools are integrated into the Marketing Cloud for marketing automation.
The tools for managing customer data, real-time personalization, customer engagement, and business intelligence are all included in this AI-powered digital marketing platform. For a more holistic and organized management of your business operations, it supports integration with a variety of apps and software.
Key Feature of Salesforce
- Reports and Dashboards: Create customizable reports and dashboards to visualize sales data, monitor KPIs, and track performance.
- Omni-Channel Routing: Automatically route cases to the most appropriate agent based on skill, availability, and workload.
- Field Service Management: Manage field technicians, schedule appointments, and track service delivery in real time.
- Email Marketing: Design and automate personalized email campaigns based on customer behavior, preferences, and engagement history.
7. Sprout Social
Pricing: Starts at $199/month
Sprout Social has been assisting companies in creating genuine connections on social media for more than 20 years. Users can access comprehensive solutions that enable them to expand their brand with ease thanks to its user-friendly platform.
Sprout Social is a powerful online marketing tool that can be used for social media management, brand awareness building, intelligence gathering, and customized consumer experiences. It offers social media tools for free, such as an image resizer, a tool for determining the “best times to post,” and multiple social network themes, even if the majority of its capabilities are only available through tiered programs.
Key Feature of Sprout Social
- Unified Smart Inbox: Consolidates messages, mentions, and comments from all your social media accounts into a single inbox for streamlined communication.
- Brand Monitoring: Track mentions of your brand, competitors, and industry keywords across social media to stay informed about relevant conversations.
- Trend Analysis: Identify emerging trends, hashtags, and topics to inform content strategy and engagement efforts.
8. Hootsuite
Pricing: Starts at $13/month
Hootsuite is a fantastic tool for users who want to organize all incoming social media communications into one platform. It allows users to publish and schedule posts, create account-based streams for better account management, and centralize all incoming content.
The “Inspiration” feature, which generates ideas for content, is one of Hootsuite’s key benefits as a social media marketing tool. OwlyWriter, an AI-based feature, can be used to repurpose high-performing content and give a fresh spin to outdated ideas.
Additionally, it has powerful analytics that automatically calculates ideal posting times, reducing the guesswork of ideal social sharing.
Key Feature of Hootsuite
- Bulk Scheduling: Upload and schedule multiple posts at once using a CSV file, saving time on content planning.
- Streams: Monitor social media feeds, keywords, hashtags, mentions, and messages in customizable streams, all within a single dashboard.
- ROI Measurement: Track the ROI of social media efforts, including the effectiveness of paid campaigns and organic strategies.
9. Google Analytics
Pricing: Starts Free
Content is published, shared via email marketing, and even managed on social media platforms. What comes next? What about interpreting all the traffic that a website receives into useful information?
Google Analytics is available now. This web analytics service is provided by Google. It has various criteria for monitoring and analyzing website traffic. A competent digital marketing team is knowledgeable about how to turn all the information collected by Google Analytics into useful action.
Google Analytics provides detailed information on website traffic, including audience behavior, site visitation time, bounce rate, peak traffic, and other factors. Whether it’s a blog or an online store, knowing what the customer actually does is very helpful. It is typically linked to a Google account.
Key Feature of Google Analytics
- Real-Time Reporting: Monitor user activity on your website as it happens, including page views, active users, locations, and traffic sources.
- Geographic Data: Analyze where your users are located, helping you to optimize your marketing strategy for different regions.
- Traffic Source Analysis: Track how visitors find your website (e.g., organic search, direct, social media, paid search, referrals) and understand the performance of each channel.
- Behavior Flow: Visualize the paths users take through your website, from landing pages to exits, helping you identify popular content and potential drop-off points.
10. Hotjar
Pricing: Starts Free
Understanding your users is the first step to maximizing conversions. This information is provided to you by Hotjar, who is knowledgeable about how to improve user experiences and revenue.
With visual heatmaps, users can identify where they drop off and get a full-funnel view of the site. Better understand user behavior when listening to recordings of their online interactions. Voice-of-customer surveys allow you to hear it directly from website visitors. With all of these features, you can understand your customers better, determine which channels they use to convert, and ultimately improve your marketing campaigns.
Integrate Hotjar with other tools and platforms like Slack, Zapier, Shopify, and WooCommerce for complete marketing automation.
Key Feature of Hotjar
- Click Heatmaps: Visualize where users click the most on your website, revealing popular elements and potential distractions.
- Filter Recordings: Filter recordings by device, location, user behavior, or actions to find insights quickly.
- Goal Tracking: Set up and track specific goals, such as sign-ups or purchases, to measure and optimize conversion rates.
- Field-by-Field Analysis: Identify problematic form fields that users struggle with or leave blank, providing opportunities for improvement.
