Marketing tools are a dime a dozen. There are more than 9,932 marketing tools available in 2022. So, how do you choose the best for your startups?

We’re here to help you make sense of it all. We’ll break down the different types of marketing tools for start-ups and show you which ones are right for your particular use case. Plus, we’ll show you which brands are using each tool so that you can see how they’re doing it: what they like about it, what they don't like about it, and how they're using it to grow their business.

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Digital First AI

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You never have to worry about losing track of your marketing goals. With Digital First AI, you can keep track of everything in one place. It's like having a personal marketing assistant who is always available and always working for you. It is used by over 5,000 entrepreneurs and businesses of all sizes around the world.

You can use Digital First AI for digital campaigns (AI-recommended marketing strategies) or for simple tasks like creating graphics or content in just one click for social media posts. There's no need to waste time logging into multiple tools when Digital First AI has everything you need in one dashboard!

It is a cloud-based marketing platform, so it will always be there when you need it. You can even collaborate with other members of your team on projects using our easy-to-use interface!

Top Features

• Create a marketing funnel in seconds and not a week or month.
• Manage all your marketing campaigns from a single tool
• Growth tactics that have generated over $325,000 in sales
• AI copywriting for websites, social media, e-books, etc with one click
• Generate graphics in multiple sizes in just one click

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Pricing

The Digital First AI platform has three different plans to choose from, so you can find the one that's right for your needs and budget. The basic plan starts at $59/month and allows you to manage up to 5 funnels management each month—400 AI credits. The expert plan goes up to $199/month, but that gets you 50 funnel management and 2500 AI credits.

And there's a free trial option available for 3 days, so you can explore the platform without any obligations!

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Mixpanel

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Mixpanel is a product analytics platform that helps you understand how to get the most out of your customers. It was designed with the idea that marketers and product teams should be able to easily track their own metrics, without having to rely on IT. It is used by 20,000+ customers worldwide, and they track over five trillion data points every year—that's a lot of data!

It helps you understand your engagement metrics, including how many new users sign up each day, how often they come back again after their first visit, and how often they engage with any given feature or functionality. You can also see which channels are driving the most traffic for your site.

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Top Features

• Visualize & break down engagement trends
• Build funnels & find key retention drivers
• See the impact of product launches & experiments
• Build custom dashboards in minutes
• A segment on any attribute, cohort, or action
• Dive deeper to uncover engagement drivers
• Import from your data warehouse

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Customer stories

Docusign - Read how DocuSign leverages Mixpanel to track key metrics for customer experience, resulting in more conversions, onboarding completions, and paid upgrades.

Uber - Read how Uber drives customer-focused innovation with Mixpanel

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Mixpanel for startups

They offer $50,000 in credits for eligible startups towards the Mixpanel Growth plan. It can track up to 430 million events per month for free. 

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Pricing

Mixpanel offers a free plan that includes all the features you'd expect. For example, you can get unlimited data history and seats, as well as core reports, a data dictionary, US or EU data residency, and monitoring & alerts. The growth plan starts at $25 per month. 

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ActiveCampaign

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Active Campaign is a great tool for crafting email newsletters, campaigns, and promotions that connect with your customers. They have a wide range of integrations, including Shopify, WordPress, and Zapier. They also have an easy-to-use interface that helps you set up welcome series with automated emails or segmented contacts.

They are used by over 180K customers across the globe and have saved them time and money with their simple workflows.

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Top Features

• Pre-built automation
• Email extensions for Chrome and Outlook
• Integrated and embeddable forms
• Excellent email deliverability
• Advanced marketing & sales reporting
• Create landing pages
• Segmentation
• Contact management

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Customer stories

Paperwall - Read how Paperbell Grew Using ActiveCampaign and Postmark

UBA - Learn how UBA IALAB increased efficiency by 500% using automation

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Pricing

Active Campaign offers $29/month for 1000 emails that include Email and CRM and it goes up to $149/month with multiple features. For transactional emails only, it costs $10/month for 10,000 emails and goes up to $1,200 for 5,000,000 emails.

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Google Analytics

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Google Analytics is a free web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. It's still one of the most popular tools in the world, used by businesses of any size.

It shows you how many people are visiting your site and where they're coming from, so you can see what types of marketing campaigns are working best for you.

Google Analytics also breaks down user activity on your site into categories like visits, conversions (sales or signups), goals (traffic to specific pages), social interactions (likes, shares), etc., so you can see which elements on your site are performing well and which aren't getting visitors' attention as much as others do.

Top Features

• Built-in Automation - Predictive Capabilities, Proactive Insights
• Reporting - Real-Time Reporting, Acquisition Reports, Engagement Reports, Monetization Reports, Data Freshness (Analytics 360 Only) etc
• Advertising Workspace - Attribution
• Explorations - Funnel Exploration, Cohort Exploration, User Exploration etc
• Data Collection and Management
• Integrations - Google Ads, Display & Video 360, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Integration, and more

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Customer stories

Westwing - Learn how Westwing uses Universal Analytics to Better Understand Customers' Purchase Path

WatchFinder - Learn how Watchfinder clocks 1,300% ROI Using Precision Remarketing With Google Analytics

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Pricing

Google Analytics has two price plans: free and 360 (for enterprise)

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GetResponse

GetResponse is a popular email marketing tool. It’s used by a lot of startups, and it’s often recommended as an affordable and easy-to-use option for companies just getting started with their marketing efforts.

GetResponse offers all the features you need to build your business: advanced analytics, autoresponders, landing pages, branded emails, campaign management, social media integration, and more. It integrates with most other tools (including Zapier) so you can easily create complex workflows without having to code or hire developers.

If you want a simple solution that will grow as your startup as it grows, GetResponse might be right for you!

Top Features

• Autoresponders
• Unlimited landing pages
• Unlimited Website Builder - Get all the advanced features inside the website builder and enjoy a bigger bandwidth for your website.
• Basic segmentation based on contact details stored in your account.
• Email Scheduling
• Integrations and API
• Event-based automation
• Abandoned cart recovery
• Web push notifications

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Customer stories

Submission Technology - Learn how Submission Technology achieved 7.31% unique click-through rate with Getresponse.

Beauty Sleep - Learn how Beauty Sleep achieved a 25% sales rate with a 6-email abandoned cart series with systematic A/B testing

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Pricing

The pricing starts with a free subscription for Up to 500 contacts. Basic plans start at $15.58/month which includes 1000 contacts with tons of features and goes up to $97.58/month. 

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Buffer

Buffer is a social media scheduling tool. It allows you to schedule posts for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+.

Buffer has a free plan which includes 1 account and 3 scheduled posts. There is also an upgraded paid plan which allows you to add team members, access analytics and set up multiple accounts. Buffer can be used in desktop versions of Chrome or Firefox browsers as well as on mobile devices with the app available on iOS and Android devices.

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Top Features

• browser extension
• Clip and queue text and images
• Send your tweets at the perfect time
• View, track, and recycle your top-performing posts
• Compare your most important metrics
• Integrate Buffer with your most-used apps

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Customer stories

Car Next Door - Learn how Car Next Door use Buffer to build trust on social media.

Foster Coffee Co - Learn how Foster Coffee Co use Buffer to grow their business

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Pricing

Here’s the Buffer pricing breakdown;

• Free $0 per channel
• Essentials$5/mo per channel
• Team$10/mo per channel
• Agency$100/mo for 10 channels

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HubSpot CRM

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HubSpot CRM is a customer relationship management (CRM) tool that helps you organize and manage your contacts, leads, and opportunities.

With HubSpot CRM, you can:

• Keep track of all of your leads in one place.
• Send automated emails based on actions taken by people who visit your website or receive an email from you.
• Follow up with people via phone calls or emails based on what they've done with respect to your business' offerings (e.g., opened an email message or clicked on a link in it).

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Customer stories

Avision Young - Learn how Avision Young Increases CRM adoption from 23% to 90% in four months by implementing the HubSpot CRM platform. 

Crunch Fitness: Learn how Crunch Fitness increases leads and signups with HubSpot CRM. 

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Pricing 

HubSpot's CRM has everything you need to organize, track, and build better relationships with leads and customers and it is 100% free. 

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Slack

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Slack is a team communication app. It's basically a messaging platform that allows you to create different channels for various topics, be it project management, customer support or internal communications. For example, you can have a channel for sales support and one for marketing automation campaigns, or even an event planning channel for your next retreat! You can also integrate other services like Google Calendar and Dropbox into Slack so all your files are organized in one place.

If you're looking for a tool that will help keep everyone on the same page regarding deadlines and deliverables without having to send out individual emails each time something changes with the project or meeting room schedules get shuffled around—this is it!

Top Features

• Makes remote work easier.
• Know team availability.
• Set reminders.
• Get notified.
• Voice and video calls.
• Apps and integrations.
• Privatization of channels.
• Channel details.

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Customer stories

Flatiron - Learn how Flatiron 1,200-plus employees build stronger connections with Slack Atlas.

Xtreme Express: Learn how Xtreme Express stays on the cutting edge of logistics with Slack

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Pricing

Slack has a free plan that includes 90 days of Message and file history and 10 app integrations. The basic plan starts at $8.75 USD per person/month that includes:  

• Unlimited message history
• Unlimited apps and integrations
• Unlimited lightweight, voice-first huddles
• Secure work with other companies using Slack Connect channels

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The pricing goes up to $15/person per month and they also have an enterprise grid pricing on request. 

Monday.com

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Monday.com is a project management tool that can be used to manage projects, tasks, and files. It's a great tool for tracking workflows, setting deadlines, communicating with team members and more.

The software has been used by companies like Microsoft, Adobe, eBay, and Cisco—and it even helped one startup win the World Cup in 2022! The software is used for project management needs such as managing teams (to keep track of who’s working on what), creating action plans (for each step of your own task) and following up on progress throughout the week.

Top Features

• Customizable templates, boards, and workflows
• Real-time collaboration features (chat, notifications, etc)
• Built-in reporting
• Third-party integrations with the apps and tools
• Work, assignment, and notification automation
• Native mobile app for remote and on-the-go work

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Customer stories

FarFetch - Learn how FARFETCH saves 42,084 hours per year using monday.com Work OS.

Zippo - Learn how Zippo Manufacturing Company achieved 8x ROI with monday.com Work OS for project management.

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Pricing

Starting from $8 per user per month, monday.com's pricing has a plan for everyone

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Zapier

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Zapier is a very helpful and easy-to-use marketing automation tool, which can be used to automate a lot of tasks for your business. You can easily automate work in 4,000+ web apps. It allows you to connect all of your apps together, so that one action can trigger another action. For example, if I receive an email from a client who wants to order some products from me, then Zapier will automatically send them an invoice through PayPal.

This is done by connecting different apps together through "zaps". A Zap is simply a connection between two apps that lets you create a rule for how they should interact with each other. You can create custom zaps based on whatever actions are relevant for your business and what needs automating. For example, if a new lead comes into your CRM system then automatically add them as a customer to Mailchimp so they get added to their mailing list when they sign up.

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Top Features

• Build your own app integrations - More than 5000+ integrations
• Customize your Zap with webhooks
• Move bulk data on demand
• No-code editor

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Customer stories

Streak - Learn how Streak brings the Zapier journey to life for users.

Clickup - Learn how ClickUp became one of Zapier's fastest-growing apps.

Unbounce - Learn how Unbounce drives long-term growth by partnering with Zapier.

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Pricing

Zapier offers a free plan that includes 100 tasks per month and 5 Zap. The starter pricing starts at $19.99 USD/month 750 tasks/month and 20 Zaps and goes up to $799 USD. 

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Typeform

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Typeform is a great survey tool for marketing and brand research. With over 120 integrations and people-friendly forms, quizzes, surveys, and asynchronous video solutions, Typeform helps you gather feedback from your customers through the most effective means possible. Typeforms can be customized to match your brand's style and look great anywhere you choose to display them. They're also mobile-friendly so you can reach your customers no matter where they are!

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Top Features

• Unlimited forms & surveys.
• Logic Jump feature.
• Data Export options.
• Hidden fields.
• Design your own themes.
• Option to use templates.
• Answer Piping.
• Tons of Integration

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Customer stories

CurlMix - Learn how CurlMix reinvented itself by focusing on customer feedback.

SparkToro - Learn how SparkToro used Typeform to beta test his new audience intelligence search tool and to identify core users.

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Pricing

Typeform offers a free plan to test the tool that includes unlimited Typeforms, 10 questions per form, and responses per month. The basic plan starts at $25 USD/month and goes up to $83 USD/month.

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Typeform for start-ups

Startups that register by the end of 2022 can now get 75% off one full year of a Typeform Business plan.

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Viral Loops

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Viral Loops is a template-based viral and referral marketing platform. It integrates with Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, Segment, Mixpanel, Slack, MailChimp, Typeform, Mailjet and Zapier.

The platform also provides a drag-and-drop builder where you can create your own custom campaigns. You can also import campaigns from other platforms and create new ones with the built-in editor.

You can use Viral Loops to engage your users by sharing content across different social media channels (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn), emails (MailChimp) or simply by sharing it on your website.

Top Features

• Account-Based Marketing.
• Content Marketing.
• Conversion Rate Optimization.
• Customer Data Platform (CDP)
• Demand Generation.
• Digital Analytics.
• Email Marketing.
• Event Management.

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Customer stories

Revolut -  Learn how Revolut grew 150x with referral marketing with Viral-Loops. 

Frank Body - learn how Frank Body made $20M selling leftover coffee.

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Pricing

Here’s the breakdown of Viral Loops Pricing: 

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Start-up - $49/Up to 1,000 Participants 

Growing - $69/Up to 3,000 Participants

Power - $208/Up to 25,000 Participants.

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SEMrush

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SEMrush is one of the best-known SEO tools available. More than 10,000,000 marketers have already tried Semrush. It has a really good SEO site audit tool built into it, which makes it easy to do things like find out how many backlinks you have, where they are coming from, and what keywords those links are targeting.

SEMrush has 471,000 users. Companies like Forbes, Ebay, Paypal, Pipedrive, and Philips use SEMrush to manage their SEO campaigns.

Top Features

• Position Tracking.
• On-Page SEO Checker.
• SEO Content Template.
• Organic Traffic Insights.
• Site Audit.
• Keyword Magic Tool.
• Keyword Gap Analysis.
• Keyword Overview.

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Customer stories

Monday.com - Learn how monday.com Increased Page Rankings for 49% of Content.

Artisan Bakery - Learn how an SEO Agency Helped an Artisan Bakery Increase Mobile Organic Traffic by 460%.

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Pricing

SEMrush pricing starts at $119.95/month and goes up to $449.95 /month

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How to choose marketing tools for your startups?

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When it comes to marketing tools, you have a lot of choices. But with all those options, how do you know which tool is right for your start-up? Below, we'll go over how to choose marketing tools and how to test different tools out so that you can make an informed decision about what will work best for you (and your team).

Know your budget

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• Find out what your budget is. What is the budget for this project? How much do you want to spend on marketing tools?
• What's your long-term plan? How much do you want to spend on marketing tools over time?
• Are there any costs associated with using these platforms that have not been accounted for in your budgets, such as training and support costs?

Think about the size of your team

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• If you have a small team and aren't keen on using complicated tools, look for something that's easy to use and has (or can be customized) simple features.
• If you have a large team and need to manage multiple campaigns at once, look for tools with robust reporting capabilities.
• If your business falls somewhere in the middle of these two extremes, chances are that most solutions will work just fine.

Find tools that integrate well with other programs or apps

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One thing to consider is whether or not the tool you're considering will integrate well with other apps. If there's one thing that can be frustrating for businesses, it's having to use multiple tools for every task. It's hard enough when you have just one or two programs to keep up with; if you use many different applications, it can feel like the whole world has been turned into a giant Rubik's cube that only makes sense in small chunks.

The integration allows for seamless communication between various parts of your business so that everything works together and you don't have to worry about losing important data or missing out on valuable opportunities because no one told each other what they needed to know. And speaking of opportunity...

Ask around, and see what others in your field are using

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It's a good idea to ask around and see what others in your field are using. You can also check out reviews online.

In the end, you'll want to look for tools that have a good reputation and is easy to use.

Test out different software before making a decision

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The best way to find out if a piece of marketing tool is right for you is to test it out first. This can be done in a few ways:

• Test the tool with a small group of people who will be using it, such as by inviting them to a free demo session. This will give you an idea of how easily users learn how to use the program and what their overall impressions are.
• If possible, try out the software in an environment that mimics your actual business set-up as closely as possible—this is especially important if you’re looking at buying enterprise-level solutions that require installation on networks or servers. The more realistic your testing process feels the better able you’ll be to gauge whether or not this type of solution would benefit your company!

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It's a wrap

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We hope you've found this article helpful. There are a lot of marketing tools out there, but we believe these 14 are your best bet for scaling your startup's growth. If you're looking for a way to improve your digital marketing, try Digital First AI. Just give it a try—there's a free trial for 3 days!

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