You know you need software to help up your digital marketing game, but with thousands of apps out there promising to take your marketing strategy to the next level, how do you know which ones are right for you?
Here’s a comprehensive list of the 35 best digital marketing tools across various categories, along with their strengths and weaknesses, to help you build your digital marketing toolkit.
Keep scrolling to learn more about the top digital marketing tools, or click on a category to jump ahead.
The best digital marketing tools
How we evaluate and test apps
Our best apps roundups are written by humans who’ve spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. Unless explicitly stated, we spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it’s intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. We’re never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to any site—we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog.
What are digital marketing tools?
Digital marketing tools are apps that help you attract, engage, sell, and retain business online. You’ve likely heard the term thrown around a lot, and that’s because it can include apps in any category related to marketing—from social media to advertising to content optimization. You get the idea. It’s a broad-reaching term.
Whether you’re starting your first business or you’re looking to scale an existing one, you likely need a collection of digital marketing tools—a digital marketing tech stack—to help you succeed.
How to find the best tool for digital marketing
There’s no “best” digital marketing tool. Nor is there a one-size-fits-all starter pack. The best tool for digital marketing depends on various factors like budget, team size, and experience level.
So instead of purporting to have the list to rule them all, my goal here is to help you find the best tools for your unique needs. I’ll suggest apps across various categories you’re likely considering—and maybe some you didn’t even know you needed. And if the suggested apps don’t check all the boxes for you, you’ll also find useful links to the best apps for each of the categories, so you can explore other promising options.
How do we know these apps deserve to be on this list? The Zapier team and I have spent thousands of combined hours testing countless digital marketing platforms for our best apps lists, and these are the ones that came out on top.
The best digital marketing tools at a glance
Category |
Standout feature |
Pricing |
|
---|---|---|---|
Unsplash |
Website and social media graphics |
Robust library of high-quality images |
Free |
Canva |
Website and social media graphics |
Intuitive editor with built-in AI features |
Free plan available; from $12.99/month |
DALL·E 2 |
Website and social media graphics |
Easy-to-use AI image generator |
$15 for 115 image credits |
Adobe Photoshop |
Photo and image editing |
Powerful photo editing and design |
From $19.99/month |
Pixlr E and X |
Photo and image editing |
Easy-to-use AI photo editor |
Free plan available; from $4.90/month |
Buffer |
Social media management |
Straightforward social media scheduling |
Free option; from $5/month/channel |
Hootsuite |
Social media management |
All-in-one scheduling, monitoring, and analytics |
From $99/month |
Gamma |
Presentations |
Generative AI features for presentations |
Free plan available; from $16/user/month |
Beautiful.ai |
Presentations |
AI-powered automatic design modifications |
From $12/month |
Zoom |
Webinars |
Familiar user experience |
From $79/month |
Livestorm |
Webinars |
Lots of customization and rich features |
Free plan available; from $79/month |
Peech |
AI video creation |
AI-powered video generation and customization |
Free plan available; from $54/seat/month |
Wistia |
Video hosting |
Marketing-rich features, lead generation tools |
Free plan available; from $19/month |
YouTube |
Video hosting |
Existing viewership |
Free for uploading and hosting videos |
Wix |
Website builder |
AI-powered website creation |
Free plan available; from $14/month |
Shopify |
Website builder |
Quick setup, extensibility |
From $39/month |
Square |
Website builder |
Easy to sell in person and online |
Free plan available (plus transaction feels); from $29/month |
Carrd |
Landing page builder |
Free plan with core features |
Free plan available; from $19/year |
Unbounce |
Landing page builder |
A/B testing and targeting tools |
From $74/month |
Ahrefs |
Keyword research |
Free keyword research tools |
Free plan available; from $83/month |
ChatGPT |
AI chatbot |
Industry standard |
Free for GPT-3.5; From $20/month |
Google Bard |
AI chatbot |
Real-time responses based on current events |
Free |
Manychat |
Chatbot builder |
Drag-and-drop editor and audience segmentation |
Free plan available; from $15/month |
Google Forms |
Forms and surveys |
Simple, powerful, and free |
Free |
Typeform |
Forms and surveys |
Conversational forms, advanced customization, and embeddable chatbots |
Free plan available; from $25/month |
Jasper |
AI-powered content writing |
Brand voices and integration with SEO and performance ranking tools |
From $39/month |
Writesonic |
AI-powered content writing |
GPT-4 content generation |
From $12.67/month |
Grammarly |
AI-powered content editing |
Custom style guide and plagiarism checker |
Free plan available; from $12/month |
Benchmark Email |
Email marketing |
Intuitive editor, landing page builder, and robust analytics |
Free plan available; from $8/month |
Mailchimp |
Email marketing |
Approachable, all-in-one marketing tools |
Free plan available; from $13/month |
ActiveCampaign |
Email marketing |
Advanced drip campaign automations |
From $29/month |
Zoho CRM Plus |
CRM and lead management |
All-in-one solution |
From $57/month/user |
HubSpot |
CRM and lead management |
Vvisual customer journey builder and extensive integrations |
Free plan available; from $30/month |
Brevo |
Marketing automation |
Automation for email, SMS, chat, and WhatsApp |
Free plan available; from $22/month |
Klaviyo |
Marketing automation |
User-friendly drag-and-drop interface |
Free plan available; from $30/month |
The best digital marketing tools to create website and social media graphics
Eye-catching visuals can make or break your company’s digital presence and branding. The good news is you don’t have to hire a designer or break the bank to get these scroll-stopping graphics. Here are the best tools to help you create high-quality visuals that will capture your target audience.
Unsplash for free stock photos
With over three million photos to choose from, Unsplash offers the most robust library of high-quality images across a wide range of categories, including Business & Work, Travel, and People. Unlike other free stock photo sites, Unsplash also allows you to curate photos you come across into personal collections—like “Festive” and “Mental health”—to use in future campaigns or projects.
Unsplash also comes with an iOS app, so you can find and download images on the go. And its API is integrated into tools like Figma, WordPress, and Squarespace, which makes it easy to find stock photos without leaving your favorite platforms.
Unsplash pricing: Free
Canva for template-based designs
Let’s say you need to add simple text overlays to stock photos. Or perhaps you want to edit your own photos to be shared across different social media platforms. With its intuitive drag-and-drop editor, Canva makes this easy to do—even if you have zero background in design.
Canva also offers pre-made design templates for every asset you could possibly need, including Instagram Reels, YouTube thumbnails, and presentations. This way, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel with every design. And for an even faster workflow, take advantage of their AI-powered tools to do things like generate and edit images using only text prompts.
Canva pricing: Free for limited access to most of the features you need, including design templates, stock photos, and AI-powered design tools; $12.99/month (billed annually) for Canva Pro, which offers unlimited access to more design templates, stock photos, and AI tools.
DALL·E 2 for an easy-to-use AI image generator
DALL·E 2—one of the first AI image generators to reliably create interesting images—has a lot going for it. But what makes it stand out is that it’s ridiculously simple to use. Enter your prompt (what you want DALL·E 2 to create), click Generate, and within a few seconds, you’ll have four AI-generated variations to choose from.
But don’t let DALL·E 2’s simplicity fool you. It also comes fully loaded with powerful features like the image editor (beta), which enables you to expand any image and create larger works of AI art using inpainting and outpainting.
DALL·E 2 pricing: $15 for 115 image credits, which amounts to approximately $0.13 per prompt or $0.0325 per image variation; starts at $0.016/image for the more complex API pricing.
The best digital marketing tools for editing photos
While AI image generators are fun to play with, more often than not, what you really need is an app to make your photos shine. Here are the best digital marketing tools for manually editing photos or with an assist from AI.
Adobe Photoshop for a powerful photo editing and design app
When it comes to image-editing tools, Adobe Photoshop is the industry standard for a reason: it’s the most powerful full-featured image-editing and design app around—and that extends to its AI features.
Photoshop includes the advanced tools professional designers need, like layers, masking, blending modes, and RAW support. In terms of what photo editing tasks Photoshop can’t do…that’s still to be seen. To take the app’s capabilities even further, you can integrate it with a wealth of third-party plug-ins and extensions. The only downside? There’s a steep learning curve.
Adobe Photoshop pricing: From $19.99/month for the Photography Plan, which includes Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. (Lightroom is another great image editor in its own right, but it doesn’t have the same deep AI feature set as Photoshop.)
Pixlr E and X for an easy-to-use AI editor
To clarify, Pixlr E and Pixlr X are two different apps: Pixlr E is the “advanced editor,” while Pixlr X is the beginner-friendly option. But, honestly, both apps are easy to use.
As shown in the picture above, Pixlr E is a convincing replica of the industry leader, Photoshop. From tool selection to layers and even features like blending modes and opacity settings, every Pixlr E feature works just like you’d expect it to in Photoshop. Pixlr X is the equivalent of Adobe Express (i.e., it’s a great alternative for power users and graphic newbies alike to perform quick and easy edits).
Both Pixlr E and X are featured here because of how they save you time when used together. For example, since Pixlr saves projects in a combined library, you can pop a photo into Pixlr X for a quick retouch, then switch back to Pixlr E for more advanced editing.
Pixlr E and X pricing: Free to use both; the Premium plan, which includes both apps, is $4.90/month (billed annually) for one person, or $9.91/month for teams of five or more.
The best digital marketing tools for social media management
Social media is one of the most powerful tools you can use to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, and engage with customers. But doing all of this is next to impossible using regular consumer apps. To do it effectively, you need a social media management app. Here are the best social media management tools that allow you to automate, analyze, and manage your social media presence all in one place.
Buffer for straightforward social media scheduling
If you need a dead simple content scheduling tool, look no further than Buffer. Without paying a penny, you can line up about a week’s worth of posts across multiple platforms (up to three), including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
For a more comprehensive social media management solution—or if you need to manage more than three social media accounts—you can unlock more channels, get detailed analytics, and use audience engagement tools by upgrading to any of their paid plans.
Another feature that sets Buffer apart from apps is Start Page: it allows you to create a simple landing page of sorts where you can host links to your website, products you want to sell, and other important links. You can even track the link clicks for greater insights.
Buffer pricing: Free plan includes three channels, 30 scheduled posts, and 50 AI credits; $5/month/channel (billed annually) for the Enterprise plan, which includes 2,000 scheduled posts, engagement tools, detailed analytics, and 150 AI credits.
Hootsuite for an all-in-one social media management solution
If you need a robust social media management platform and you have the budget, Hootsuite is the robust social media management platform you need.
While Hootsuite offers the same features available on most other social media management apps, including AI-powered tools, Hootsuite does a better job of laying everything out. For example, Hootsuite Streams enables you to create a custom social media dashboard where you can manage activity across all your accounts, engage with your audience, and even monitor social topics, trends, and profiles (within the bounds offered by social media companies).
Since Hootsuite is one of the more expensive apps out there, it’s better geared toward businesses that can convert social engagement into revenue.
Hootsuite pricing: No free option, but you can do a 30-day free trial of any Hootsuite plan; $99/month (billed annually) for the Professional plan, which includes one user, up to 10 social accounts, and unlimited scheduled posts.
The best digital marketing tools for making presentations
Creating polished presentations is a tedious and time-consuming task—and that’s after you’ve outlined your slides. If you’re delivering a basic presentation, the classics like Microsoft PowerPoint and Google Slides will do the trick. But if you want to quickly create professional-looking slideshows that actually keep your audiences engaged, here are the best apps for making presentations.
Gamma for generative AI features
With Gamma, you can leverage the power of AI to generate a fully fleshed-out deck in a matter of seconds. All you need to do is give the app a topic—or upload an outline, notes, or any other document—pick a presentation theme, and watch as your slides come to life.
The results will likely need some fine-tuning—Gamma’s much more geared toward the iterative chatbot experience (à la ChatGPT)—but it still provides a useful jumping-off point. Gamma also offers a couple of practical features that help you keep your audience focused on the topic at hand:
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Content blocks: group your content into collapsible blocks directly on your slide, expanding them only when you’re ready to present.
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Spotlight: highlight one talking point at a time, while Gamma automatically fades out the rest.
Gamma pricing: Free Starter plan includes unlimited users, 400 AI deck credits, and basic analytics; $16/user/month (billed annually) for the Pro plan (“coming soon” as of this writing) includes unlimited AI credits, no “Made with Gamma” badge, and advanced theme customization.
Beautiful.ai for AI-powered design
If you need help making your data and ideas look as good as they should, then Beautiful.ai is for you. As the name suggests, Beautiful.ai uses AI to automatically modify your presentations—from layouts to alignment to granular spacing issues. Need to edit your slides further? The platform is a little different from most presentation software, but it’s still intuitive to use. For example, to resize an image, simply drag a handle to make it bigger or smaller.
And if you use Google Drive, you can connect it with Beautiful.ai to quickly save all your presentations in your go-to cloud storage app, making it more convenient for sharing and team collaboration.
Beautiful.ai pricing: $12/month for the Pro plan (billed annually) includes unlimited slides, AI content generation, and PowerPoint import/export; $40/user/month for the Team plan includes extra collaboration and workspace features like a shared asset library, and custom brand controls.
The best digital marketing tools for webinar hosting
Webinars are a great way to increase your brand awareness, move leads through the sales funnel, and amplify your brand’s authority. But there’s more to hosting a webinar than simply creating compelling content—you also need to invite and manage attendees, interact with your audience, and actually run the webinar. This is where webinar software comes in. Here are the best webinar hosting platforms to help you streamline and automate all the logistics related to running a successful webinar.
Zoom for a familiar user experience
Chances are you’re already familiar with Zoom for video conferencing. But the same features that make it great for connecting with your teammates also make it ideal for hosting webinars, especially if you’re presenting a lot of videos or featuring multiple panelists.
Since Zoom is such a popular tool, it’s safe to assume that everyone already has it installed on their computer and configured to work. This means that joining your webinar is as simple as clicking a link.
Once your webinar’s live, Zoom offers additional features to create a dynamic webinar, including side-by-side views and engagement-boosting tools like Q&A, polling, and reactions. You can even connect Zoom with Facebook and YouTube, so you can extend your reach, or connect Zoom to Zapier to automate your webinar workflows.
Zoom Webinars pricing: Starts at $79/month (or $690/year), which includes up to 500 attendees and limited event analytics and reporting.
Livestorm for managing multiple webinars
If you host webinars on a regular basis, you need an app that automatically tracks your event schedule, so you don’t have to. Enter: Livestorm. In addition to webinar schedule management and an easy-to-use interface, Livestorm comes fully loaded with all the features you need to host a webinar and keep your audience coming back for more:
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Customizable registration forms that you can send via email, share via link, or embed right on your website.
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Pre-built, automated email flows for every event, which you can edit or send as is.
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Custom call-to-actions that can be pushed live any time during the event.
Livestorm also offers in-depth event analytics, so you can fine-tune your webinar based on what’s working for your audience—and what’s not.
Livestorm pricing: Free plan includes up to 20-minute sessions and 30 live attendees per event; Pro plan starts at $79/month (billed annually), which includes up to four hours per session, 100 live attendees per event, and HubSpot integration.
The best digital marketing tools for video creation and hosting
As social media platforms increasingly favor videos over still images, successful businesses need to jump on the video train if they want to get in front of their customers. While adding another medium (and all its related efforts) sounds daunting, AI video generators and video hosting platforms can help you streamline the process. Here are the best tools for the job.