As marketers today, we’re fortunate to have a huge number of free and low-cost digital marketing tools to give us insight into our customers, competitors, and markets.
These strategic digital tools help us to compete to win and retain customers by delivering automated relevant, real-time marketing communications, integrated across digital devices and traditional marketing channels.
To help highlight the range of great options available, our updated essential digital marketing tools infographic recommends 30 categories of marketing technology and our pick of the most popular 5 in each category.
A new category for 2024 - we have included 5 Generative AI tools as well. As the original break-through AI chatbot, we've put ChatGPT in first place for our 2024 edition. But you can read a full breakdown of other recommended AI tools below:
Business Members can also access Quick Wins for practical demonstrations and strategic advice on using AI for marketing:
You can see the free infographic below. We’ve grouped these 30 tools across our RACE Growth System for managing digital marketing, so you can review where you could make better use of the tools across the customer lifecycle.
Click on the infographic below to see a larger version, or, free members can download our free Essential digital marketing tools guide to learn more about how and why we created it and how to use it.
Essential digital marketing tools
Discover useful MarTech tools to effectively manage your digital marketing with Smart Insights Essential digital marketing tools guide.
Access the Essential digital marketing tools
We use many types of digital marketing services and insights tools to run and improve SmartInsights.com and because of this, we love to try out new tools when they are suggested to us.
We were inspired by Scott Brinker’s Marketing Technology landscape which does an excellent job of defining different types of ‘enterprise’ tools for managing digital marketing, but can be difficult to read because of the sheer number of tools. There are nearly 10,000 is the latest edition...!
Also, we wanted to include more low-cost and free ‘hands-on’ insight tools which are important for managing activities like search, social media, and conversion rate optimization. These don’t tend to be included on Scott’s landscape.
We also wanted to highlight the most popular, well-regarded services, and give an indication of how they can be used to add value. Business Pro Members can also read our full recommendations in our updated professional marketing technology selection guide.
Marketing technology selection guide
Read our detailed breakdown of every tool listed in our infographic. This guide gives you the insights you need to put together a technological toolkit that will support your business and boost your online performance.
Access the Marketing technology selection guide
If you were doubting the number of tools available, just look at the growth in the number of marketing technology applications over the last few years.
To further complicate the landscape, we've recently seen new challenger tools doing a better job than established tools, due to their innovative nature.
The sheer number of tools, which vary enormously in cost and quality, means it's a challenge to keep on top of the latest developments in MarTech. It can be hard to select and manage digital marketing tools, and track their contribution to your marketing results.
To help, our infographic breaks down these essential digital marketing tools into different categories of use and shows you which products you should be considering for different marketing activities across our RACE Growth System.
If you're interested in learning more about the differences between individual tools, and how they can help your business then you'll want to download our marketing technology selection guide, for Business Pro Members. Our popular guide contains reviews and information on key features for all of the tools on the infographic, that's 150 tools in total!
Plus, if you're looking to inform and optimize your digital marketing with the latest data-driven techniques, don't miss our free Digital marketing plan template to quickly build your RACE digital marketing strategy and improve your performance.
Free digital marketing plan template Our popular marketing planning template is structured across the Smart Insights RACE Framework. Join Smart Insights as a Free Member to download our digital marketing plan template today Access the Free digital marketing plan template
By Dave Chaffey
Digital strategist Dr Dave Chaffey is co-founder and Content Director of online marketing training platform and publisher Smart Insights. 'Dr Dave' is known for his strategic, but practical, data-driven advice. He has trained and consulted with many business of all sizes in most sectors. These include large international B2B and B2C brands including 3M, BP, Barclaycard, Dell, Confused.com, HSBC, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, M&G Investment, Rentokil Initial, O2, Royal Canin (Mars Group) plus many smaller businesses. Dave is editor of the templates, guides and courses in our digital marketing resource library used by our Business members to plan, manage and optimize their marketing. Free members can access our free sample templates here. Dave is also keynote speaker, trainer and consultant who is author of 5 bestselling books on digital marketing including Digital Marketing Excellence and Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. In 2004 he was recognised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as one of 50 marketing ‘gurus’ worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing. My personal site, DaveChaffey.com, lists my latest Digital marketing and E-commerce books and support materials including a digital marketing glossary. Please connect on LinkedIn to receive updates or ask me a question.
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