The marketing tools worth knowing.

HubSpot

All-in-one CRM with marketing, sales and service hubs. Generous free tier and the default for many SMB and mid-market teams.

Salesforce

The enterprise standard. Endlessly customisable, deep ecosystem of apps and integrations - powerful but heavier to set up and run.

Zoho CRM

Affordable CRM with a wide product suite (mail, books, projects). Strong fit for small businesses watching costs.

Pipedrive

Sales-first CRM built around the pipeline. Loved by small sales teams who want simple deal tracking.

Attio

Modern, data-driven CRM with a Notion-style feel. Popular with startups that want flexibility without legacy clutter.

Folk

Lightweight relationship CRM for agencies, founders and partnerships work. Strong LinkedIn and inbox integration.

Close

CRM built for high-velocity inside sales teams - calling, SMS and email all in one place.

Copper

CRM that lives inside Google Workspace. Good fit for teams already running on Gmail and Google Calendar.

Mailchimp

The classic small-business email tool. Easy templates, decent automation and a strong free tier to get started.

Brevo

Email and SMS in one platform with transactional sending built in. Pricing scales by volume rather than contacts.

Campaign Monitor

Beautiful drag-and-drop email builder favoured by brands that care about design polish.

Klaviyo

The default for ecommerce email and SMS. Deep Shopify integration and best-in-class segmentation.

ConvertKit (Kit)

Built for creators, newsletter writers and course sellers. Simple automations and a clean editor.

Beehiiv

Modern newsletter platform with growth tools, recommendations and ad network baked in.

ActiveCampaign

Powerful automations and lightweight CRM. A solid pick for SMBs with more complex lifecycle needs.

Customer.io

Event-based messaging across email, SMS and push. Popular with product-led B2B and SaaS teams.

HubSpot Marketing Hub

B2B marketing automation tied to HubSpot's CRM. Strong forms, workflows and reporting out of the box.

Marketo Engage

Enterprise-grade B2B automation now part of Adobe. Powerful but typically needs dedicated ops resource.

Braze

Cross-channel customer engagement (email, push, in-app, SMS). A favourite for consumer apps at scale.

Iterable

Lifecycle marketing platform with flexible journey building. Strong fit for growth teams in B2C and product-led companies.

Pardot (Account Engagement)

Salesforce's B2B automation. Best when you're already deep in the Salesforce ecosystem.

Zapier

The easiest way to connect SaaS tools without code. Great for ad-hoc automations and lightweight integrations.

Make

Visual automation builder with more control than Zapier. Suits more complex multi-step workflows.

n8n

Open-source workflow automation you can self-host. Popular with teams that want full control over data.

Semrush

All-in-one SEO and competitive intelligence suite. Strong on PPC and content tools alongside the core SEO data.

SE Ranking

Solid SEO toolkit at a friendlier price point. Good rank tracking and a usable interface for smaller teams.

Ahrefs

Best-in-class backlink data and keyword research. The go-to for serious SEO and content teams.

Moz

Long-standing SEO platform with strong on-page tools and a friendly learning community.

Screaming Frog

Desktop crawler that's the de facto standard for technical SEO audits.

Sitebulb

Visual technical SEO audit tool with prioritised recommendations - great for client reporting.

Google Search Console

Free first-party data on how your site performs in Google search. Non-negotiable for any SEO programme.

Surfer SEO

On-page content optimisation based on what's already ranking. Popular with content teams briefing writers.

Clearscope

Premium content optimisation tool focused on quality briefs and editor-friendly workflows.

Google Analytics 4

Free web and app analytics from Google. The default, even if its UX divides opinion.

Plausible

Lightweight, privacy-friendly web analytics. Cookie-free and simple by design.

Fathom

Privacy-focused analytics with a clean dashboard and no cookie banner needed in many regions.

Matomo

Open-source web analytics you can self-host for full data ownership.

Mixpanel

Product analytics built around events and funnels. Strong for SaaS and consumer apps.

Amplitude

Enterprise product analytics with deep cohort, retention and experimentation features.

PostHog

Open-source product analytics, session replay, feature flags and experiments in one platform.

Hotjar

Heatmaps, session recordings and on-site surveys to see how users actually behave.

Microsoft Clarity

Free heatmaps and session recordings from Microsoft. Hard to beat on price.

Looker Studio (Google Data Studio)

Free dashboarding tool from Google. Easy to plug into Google Ads, Analytics and Sheets.

Looker

Enterprise BI built on a modelled data layer. Powerful for governed, company-wide reporting.

Power BI

Microsoft's BI platform. Strong if your stack already runs on Excel, Azure and Microsoft 365.

Tableau

Industry-standard data visualisation. Great for richly interactive, exploratory dashboards.

Metabase

Open-source BI that's friendly for non-technical users. Quick to set up on top of any database.

Mode

Analyst-focused BI with SQL, Python and R notebooks alongside dashboards.

Supermetrics

Pulls marketing data from 100+ platforms into Sheets, Looker Studio or your warehouse.

Funnel.io

Marketing data warehouse and connectors. Useful when you want a single source of truth for all paid channels.

Asana

Clean, flexible project and task management. A long-standing favourite of marketing teams.

Monday.com

Colourful, customisable work OS. Strong for cross-functional teams that want visual boards.

ClickUp

Highly configurable PM tool that tries to be many things at once - powerful if you invest in the setup.

Notion

Docs, wikis and lightweight project tracking in one workspace. Great for content and brand teams.

Trello

Simple kanban boards. Perfect for small teams or a lightweight content calendar.

Jira

Built for engineering teams but used by marketing ops where dev workflows overlap.

Linear

Fast, opinionated issue tracker. Increasingly used by modern marketing teams alongside engineering.

Basecamp

Calm, all-in-one PM with messages, to-dos and docs. Suits agencies and distributed teams.

Airtable

Spreadsheet-database hybrid. Brilliant for content calendars, asset libraries and campaign trackers.

Canva

Templated design for non-designers. The fastest way to ship social posts, decks and simple brand assets.

Adobe Express

Adobe's quick-win design tool. Templates, brand kits and AI-powered generation in one place.

Figma

Collaborative design and prototyping. The default for product, web and modern marketing teams.

Adobe Creative Cloud

Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and the rest. The professional standard for high-end creative work.

Sketch

Mac-only vector design tool. Still loved by some product teams for its simplicity.

Affinity

One-time-purchase alternative to Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. Great value for in-house teams.

Pixlr

Browser-based image editing with AI tools. Handy when you don't want to install anything.

VistaCreate

Templated design tool with a strong stock library. A budget-friendly Canva alternative.

Grammarly

Grammar, tone and style suggestions across the apps you already write in.

Hemingway Editor

Free editor that flags long, dense sentences. Useful for tightening up marketing copy.

Notion

Flexible workspace for drafting, briefs and content calendars all in one place.

Google Docs

The default collaborative writing tool. Easy to share and review with stakeholders.

Frase

Content briefs and SEO-driven outlines built from live SERP data.

Jasper

AI writing platform with brand voice controls. Built for marketing teams producing at volume.

Copy.ai

AI tool for marketing and sales copy, with workflows for repeatable use cases.

WordPress

Powers a huge share of the web's content. Endlessly extensible CMS for blogs and marketing sites.

Buffer

Simple, well-loved scheduler for small teams and solo marketers.

Hootsuite

Long-standing social management platform with publishing, listening and reporting.

Sprout Social

Premium social suite with strong inbox, listening and analytics for mid-market and enterprise teams.

Later

Visually-led scheduler popular with Instagram, TikTok and creator-led brands.

Loomly

Calendar-style social planner with built-in approvals - good for agencies and clients.

Metricool

All-in-one scheduling, analytics and ad reporting at an SMB-friendly price.

Agorapulse

Social management focused on team inbox and collaboration. Strong for customer care.

Brandwatch

Enterprise social listening and consumer intelligence. Used for large-scale brand and trend research.

Google Ads

Search, Performance Max, YouTube and display ads from Google. The largest single ad ecosystem.

Meta Ads Manager

Run paid campaigns across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Audience Network.

LinkedIn Campaign Manager

B2B-focused ad platform with job title and company targeting you can't get elsewhere.

TikTok Ads Manager

Self-serve platform for short-form video ads on TikTok. Strong for brand awareness and Gen Z reach.

Microsoft Advertising

Search ads on Bing, Yahoo and partner sites. Often a cheaper supplement to Google Ads.

Reddit Ads

Community-driven advertising. Powerful when paired with niche subreddits and authentic creative.

Smartly

Enterprise creative automation and paid social management. Built for high-volume DTC and brand teams.

AdEspresso

Meta and Google ad creation, A/B testing and reporting in a friendlier UI than the native tools.

Unbounce

Drag-and-drop landing page builder with strong A/B testing and AI copy tools.

Instapage

Premium landing page platform geared at paid teams - personalisation, experiments and ad mapping.

Leadpages

Affordable landing page and lead-capture tool aimed at small businesses.

Webflow

Visual website builder that outputs production-grade code. Used for marketing sites and landing pages alike.

Framer

Modern site builder with stunning animations and a fast workflow for marketing pages.

VWO

Experimentation platform covering A/B testing, personalisation and behaviour analytics.

Optimizely

Enterprise experimentation and DXP. The serious choice for large CRO programmes.

Convert

Privacy-friendly A/B testing and personalisation, popular with agencies and CRO consultancies.

Loom

Quick screen and webcam recordings for async updates, demos and sales follow-ups.

Descript

Edit video and audio by editing the transcript. A game-changer for podcast and video teams.

Riverside

Studio-quality remote recording for podcasts and video interviews.

CapCut

Free, easy short-form video editor. The default for many TikTok and Reels creators.

Adobe Premiere Pro

Industry-standard video editor for high-end production work.

Wistia

Marketing-focused video hosting with player customisation, lead capture and analytics.

Vimeo

Ad-free video hosting with strong privacy controls. Good for branded content and gated assets.

Zoom Webinars

Reliable webinar platform with registration, Q&A and integrations into most marketing stacks.

Muck Rack

Modern PR platform for journalist discovery, pitching and coverage tracking.

Prowly

PR CRM with media database and press release distribution at SMB-friendly pricing.

Cision

Enterprise PR suite covering media database, distribution, monitoring and analytics.

Meltwater

Media monitoring and social listening at scale. Used for brand tracking and competitive intel.

Notified

Press release distribution, IR and broadcast comms in one platform.

Aspire

Influencer marketing platform with discovery, briefs, contracts and payments.

CreatorIQ

Enterprise creator marketing platform used by global brands to manage large influencer programmes.

Upfluence

Influencer marketing and affiliate tools, including ecommerce-focused integrations.

ChatGPT

OpenAI's general-purpose AI assistant. The default starting point for writing, research and ideation.

Claude

Anthropic's assistant. Often praised for long-form writing, reasoning and a careful tone.

Gemini

Google's AI assistant, with deep ties to Search, Workspace and YouTube.

Perplexity

AI answer engine with cited sources. Great for fast research and competitive scans.

Midjourney

Premium AI image generation. Beloved for editorial-quality visuals and concept art.

Runway

AI video generation and editing. Useful for short-form social and creative experiments.

ElevenLabs

AI voice generation and dubbing. Used for narration, ads and multilingual content.

Shopify

The default ecommerce platform for DTC brands. Huge app ecosystem and fast time-to-launch.

WooCommerce

Open-source ecommerce plugin for WordPress. Flexible and self-hosted, with full control over the stack.

BigCommerce

SaaS platform aimed at mid-market and B2B sellers, with strong multi-channel selling features.

Squarespace Commerce

Built-in commerce for Squarespace sites. A clean fit for small brands and creators.

Wix eCommerce

Drag-and-drop store builder bundled with Wix. Good for small businesses already on the platform.

Shopware

European ecommerce platform popular with mid-market and enterprise brands needing customisation.

Commerce Layer

Headless, API-first commerce for teams building custom storefronts on a modern stack.

Stripe

Payments infrastructure that powers checkout, subscriptions and billing for most modern stores.