A digital marketing platform uses strategy, planning, and excellent market understanding to help your organization create online marketing campaigns that create brand, product, or service awareness. Some tools, such as email marketing, analytics, web forms, and CRM, provide more foundational capabilities. But other tools, such as design tools and keyword rank trackers, are more specialized.
Your digital marketing plan will benefit your company’s organic growth online. 49% of businesses say their best marketing ROI is through organic growth. So, it makes sense to focus on digital marketing, and using digital marketing tools will help your business. The good news is there’s no shortage of software available to do the heavy lifting for your digital marketing needs, and I put a list of these platforms together for you.
Best Digital Marketing Platforms Shortlist
Here’s the shortlist of the best tools that I’ll cover in this article.
What is a Digital Marketing Platform?
A digital marketing platform is a tool that provides various internet marketing functions. These platforms spread your brand’s message throughout multiple online channels, such as web search engines, social networking sites, email, mobile applications, web pages, and other digital media. They typically don’t provide support for every form of digital marketing, instead it will cover specific functionality, such as performance measurement and optimization, media buying, email marketing, or brand tracking.
The primary goal of digital marketing platforms is to create multiple conversion-oriented messages for customers to interact with throughout your sales process. The best tools enable you and your teams to monitor any changes to your messages’ performance. Afterward, you’ll be able to separate your effective strategies from the underperforming ones.
How I Selected the Best Digital Marketing Platforms
Perhaps you're wondering how I selected the best digital marketing platform for this list? To build this top 10 list, I evaluated and compared a wide range of digital marketing platforms with positive user ratings.
After determining my long list of top choices, I further honed my list by using the selection criteria below to see how each platform stacked up against the next one. I also drew on my years of marketing experience to pinpoint the features that add a lot of value.
If you have general questions about digital marketing strategy or how to pick the best digital marketing platform for your organization, take a look at our frequently asked questions section below. Or, you can skip directly to my detailed software summaries, if that's what you need the most.
Selection Criteria
Here’s a short summary of the main selection and evaluation criteria I used to develop my list of the best digital marketing platform for this article:
User Interface:
When using some of the best digital marketing tools, you can expect advanced functionality that requires users to navigate and find whenever they need to use it. This is especially true when using a platform that provides many features. I look for software that’s easy for you and your teams to navigate when searching for one of the tool’s specific functions.
Usability:
This might be obvious, but the software you choose to implement in your business should be easy for everyone to use. Depending on the amount of experience you and your teams have with these tools, you will need some training to ensure you’re getting the most from the platform. I look for tools that don’t require much training for new users. Also, a free trial or demo should be available to help you understand if it’s easy to use.
Customer Service:
If you’re having issues with the digital marketing platform you choose, it’s crucial to know if the vendor has a reliable customer support team you can reach out to. Sometimes you might experience some difficulty using the platform for various reasons beyond your control, which negatively impacts your team’s productivity. I look for platforms with a customer support team you can contact when you need help.
Software Integrations:
Your systems need to interact with each other to help promote your business on the digital marketing channel you choose. The software you use should be able to fully integrate with your current systems so your teams can be more efficient with sharing information between each tool. I look for software that can integrate with many different systems to help increase your teams’ productivity.
Pricing:
It’s important to understand prices when choosing a digital marketing platform. You should know how much your business can spend on digital marketing. I look for software that provides a clear pricing structure. Also, it should let users know the costs for extra features and add-ons.
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Overviews of the 10 Best Digital Marketing Platforms
You can use the simple overviews of each tool below to understand how each tool stands out from other digital marketing platforms.
1. Google Analytics - Best for website analysis
Google Analytics helps businesses conduct in-depth website analysis to determine who’s visiting their website.
Why I picked Google Analytics: At first, the platform might appear to be advanced, but when using it to its fullest, your organization will get a lot of insight into how visitors engage with your website. At its most basic level, Google Analytics will show you who’s coming to your site, from where, and where they spend most of their time. Its more advanced features will help you set up goals to track conversions and monitor events to learn more about visitor engagement.
Google Analytics works best for all types of businesses and teams who need ways to understand what’s working for their company and how they can achieve their goals. The platform’s analytics reports can include audience, acquisition, advertising, behavior, and other vital data you might require. Google Analytics doesn’t require significant expertise because all you need to do to get started is add the analytics code to your website.
Google Analytics Standout Features and Integrations
Features include dashboards, custom reports, custom alerts, real-time reporting, active user analysis, conversion analysis, behavior tracking, and on-site time tracking.
Integrations include Freshdesk, Freshservice, Accelevents, Domo, Triple Whale, SendGrid, Yodify, Visual Visitor, Improvado, QuestionPro, Odoo, Smartlook, Jotform, and Ticketsauce.
Price: Google Analytics is free to use.
Pros
- Provides a wealth of data.
- Simple to navigate.
- Creates custom reports and dashboards.
Cons
- Not much customer support.
- It can be overwhelming.
2. Hubspot - Best for inbound marketing
Hubspot provides organizations with marketing automation capabilities that mainly focus on inbound marketing.
Why I picked Hubspot: The vendor can help your marketing teams or department with the Hubspot Marketing Hub platform. Its primary focus is inbound marketing capabilities, such as content marketing, email marketing, and lead tracking and management. Hubspot’s automation features help your business convert leads with personalized emails, advanced segmentation, and automated campaigns.
Hubspot fits all sized businesses with their inbound marketing efforts. If your organization already uses one of Hubspot’s other products, such as Hubspot CRM or Hubspot Sales Hub, you can connect the Marketing Hub to provide interdepartmental collaboration capabilities. Also, Hubspot will help you create effective, engaging content so you can optimize and share it on social media.
Hubspot Standout Features and Integrations
Features include marketing automation, lead management and scoring, custom forms and landing pages, email marketing, sales and performance analytics, custom workflows, and social media management.
Integrations include monday.com, Miro, Wrike, Freshdesk, Domo, Accelevents, ConnectWise, SendGrid, Pipedrive, ProjectManager, Recurly, Improvado, Localize, and Contractbook.
Price: Hubspot costs from $20/month when billed monthly or $18/month when paying annually.
Free Trial: Hubspot offers free tools to help you generate and email leads.
Pros
- State-of-the-art features.
- Easy to use interface.
- Excellent customer support.
Cons
- More advanced features are expensive.
- Reports can use some improvement.
3. Mailchimp - Best for email marketing
Mailchimp is an email marketing platform that helps businesses develop and automate email campaigns.
Why I picked Mailchimp: It’s one of the top tools available that will help your business improve its email marketing campaigns and track the traffic they create. Mailchimp provides a feature to help you understand your audience and reach them when it matters most. The platform gets you started immediately with its pre-built email templates, a drag-and-drop email editor, and advanced segmentation capabilities.
Mailchimp works well for startups and small businesses to get started with their email marketing campaigns. Email is the platform’s main focus, but it can also help your business design landing pages, create digital ads, develop social media marketing campaigns, and other digital marketing capabilities. Mailchimp also excels with automation that focuses on customer journeys, pre-built automation, and send time optimization.
Mailchimp Standout Features and Integrations
Features include website creation, appointment scheduling, online store creation, email marketing, digital ad creation, social media management, audience management, marketing automation, and insights and analytics.
Integrations include monday.com, SlickText, Stax Connect, Improvado, Birdeye, Orange Logic, Recurly, Visual Visitor, Pipedrive, Twilio, ConnectWise, Domo, and Freshdesk.
Price: Mailchimp costs from $13/month for up to 500 contacts.
Free Trial: Mailchimp offers a free forever plan.
Pros
- Easy to set up.
- Excellent campaign analytics.
- Free account for new businesses.
Cons
- Automations are on higher tiers.
- Needs more customization options.
4. Semrush - Best for keyword research
Semrush helps businesses develop effective keyword strategies and track their performance.
Why I picked Semrush: The platform can help increase your business’s online visibility by analyzing relevant keywords and the competition targeting them. Semrush provides valuable data when developing your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy by comparing your competition’s traffic and checking keyword rankings. Not only does it track your position for priority keywords, but it also helps you explore new keyword terms for your business to rank. Semrush will help break down keyword ideas, variations, and difficulty to help you brainstorm content ideas and identify search intent.
Semrush is perfect for any sized business looking for ways to effectively research its competition’s online ranking. The platform can provide analytics reports that will give you an overview of your organic marketing, keyword research, backlinks, and traffic. If you’re just starting your digital marketing journey, Semrush can perform a comprehensive SEO audit to help you understand what areas to improve on your website so you can start ranking on search engines.
Semrush Standout Features and Integrations
Features include keyword research, on-page SEO, competitor analysis, content marketing, local SEO, rank tracking, social media management, link building, content creation and distribution, and market analysis.
Integrations include Improvado, Renderforest, Desktop.com, Reportz, Google Analytics, WordPress, Hubspot CRM, Trello, Shift, Yoast SEO, and TapClicks.
Price: Semrush costs from $119.95/month when billed monthly or $99.95/month when paying annually.
Free Trial: Semrush offers a free 7-day trial for new users. The vendor also provides a free forever subscription with limited features.
Pros
- In-depth keyword insights.
- Quickly identifies and diagnoses issues.
- Visually appealing interface.
Cons
- It can be expensive.
- Long learning curve.
5. Skai - Best omnichannel digital marketing platform
Skai empowers organizations to manage their omnichannel digital marketing campaigns.
Why I picked Skai: The platform will help your business maximize every marketing touchpoint by providing broad reach across all critical digital marketing channels. Skai delivers advanced automation, optimization, and reporting tools to help your company get the most from your digital advertising budget. You can use the platform to explore solutions such as paid search, paid social, and application marketing.
Skai is a better option for larger organizations that need actionable intelligence regarding customer sentiment, competition, market trends, and other vital insights. The platform provides a marketing measurement solution that allows you to run tests to help you identify results in a few weeks. Skai’s experts will also be available to provide support and advice to help you get started.
Skai Standout Features and Integrations
Features include search term analysis, automated actions, budget navigator, brand insights, negative keyword management, creative optimizations, customizable reports and dashboards, custom metrics, and algorithmic bidding.
Integrations include Salesforce, Google Analytics, Tableau, Adobe Analytics, Singular, Marchex, Delacon, Adjust, ChannelMix, AppsFlyer, Invoca, LiveRamp, and Signal AI.
Price: Skai offers custom pricing upon request.
Free Trial: Skai doesn’t show any free trial information.
Pros
- Simplifies workflows.
- Increases efficiency.
- Excellent customer support.
Cons
- Large learning curve.
- API sometimes experiences problems.
6. Wrike - Best digital campaign management tool
Wrike provides digital campaign management tools that can help you create high-performing assets and make necessary adjustments when necessary.
Why I picked Wrike: When working with a marketing team, Wrike will help synchronize your team’s marketing efforts to complete campaigns faster. You can use the platform to launch new campaigns immediately and fill out request forms that automatically create and assign marketing tasks to the right person. Wrike provides marketing campaign templates to help break down your new campaign into manageable phases.
Wrike is suitable for mid-sized and large enterprises looking for tools to help teams collaborate efficiently, especially if their teams are remote. You can integrate marketing data from various channels, such as Google Ads or Amazon Ads, and get the insights you need to make effective decisions. Also, Wrike provides a visual dashboard showing your campaigns on one centralized screen where you can track performance and make adjustments.
Wrike Standout Features and Integrations
Features include workspaces, dynamic request forms, campaign templates, AI analysis, calendar view, Kanban-style board, Gantt charts, budget management, job roles, effort management, and proofing capabilities.
Integrations include GoTo Webinar, Pipedrive, Orange Logic, Bynder, Widen Collective, Jotform, DoorLoop, Office Timeline, Hubstaff, HoneyBook, Basecamp, and Resource Guru.
Price: Wrike costs from $9.80/user/month.
Free Trial: Wrike offers a free 14-day trial for new users. The vendor also offers a free forever plan with limited features.
Pros
- Individual and team dashboards.
- Agile communication tools.
- Easy to set up projects.
Cons
- Some automation is poor.
- Mobile version has limited functionality.
7. monday.com - Best for campaign visualizations
monday.com provides the visibility your business needs to monitor all current campaigns to help you make data-driven decisions regarding your goals.
Why I picked monday.com: You can use monday.com to visually plan all your digital marketing campaigns to ensure their efficiency and effectiveness. The platform lets you keep all your team members on the same page by automatically notifying everyone when you schedule, delay, or cancel a campaign. monday.com helps your business visualize your campaigns by using graphics such as detailed cards, visual grids, total project views, and other beneficial visualizations.
monday.com helps any sized business and digital marketing professionals who need a tool to help organize their campaigns. The platform will provide a workspace that allows your team members and other departments to collaborate and ensure all processes are operating efficiently. monday.com also provides automation capabilities with effective automation that will notify your team about top-performing campaigns, deadlines, and final approvals.
monday.com Standout Features and Integrations
Features include project monitoring, visual campaign planning, automatic notifications, request management, asset annotations, version history, team management, template management, Kanban board, and issue tracking.
Integrations include SurveyMonkey, Typeform, Hubspot, Mailchimp, Adobe Creative Cloud, Data Studio, Hootsuite, Semrush, Clockify, Pipedrive, Twilio, and Basecamp.
Price: monday.com costs from $8/user/month for a minimum of three seats, billed annually.
Free Trial: monday.com offers a free 14-day trial for new subscribers. The vendor also provides a free forever subscription tier.
Pros
- Effectively organizes campaigns.
- Intuitive and user-friendly interface.
- Customizable campaign dashboards.
Cons
- The mobile app needs work.
- Some automation needs improvement.
8. Funnel - Best for monitoring digital marketing data
Funnel helps businesses gather all marketing data from multiple platforms to help them monitor and analyze their performance.
Why I picked Funnel: This platform will help your business understand how your digital marketing campaigns are performing by providing clean, accurate, and up-to-date data. Funnel makes collecting data from each step of your customer’s journey easy. This tool allows you to easily create reports on your marketing performance and filter the data to identify new, relevant insights.
Funnel works well with any sized business that needs to improve how they analyze digital marketing spend and report on their ROI. The platform offers a centralized data warehouse for all your information that meets the toughest governance, control, and security standards. Funnel ensures your data will be up-to-date, accurate, and ready for you to report and analyze.
Funnel Standout Features and Integrations
Features include a data dashboard, performance metrics, budgeting and forecasting, ad hoc reports, visual analytics, trend indicators, predictive analytics, conversion tracking, and campaign management.
Integrations include Google Analytics, Tableau, AdRoll, Sizmek Ad Suite, and Pepperjam.
Price: Funnel costs from $479/month when billed monthly or $399/month when paying annually.
Free Trial: Funnel offers a custom free trial upon request.
Pros
- Ensures custom metrics are correct.
- Excellent onboarding and training.
- Very user-friendly.
Cons
- Time-consuming to set up.
- Expensive for smaller businesses.
9. Pixlee - Best for influencer marketing
Pixlee helps businesses start working with content creators to establish new influencer marketing campaigns.
Why I picked Pixlee: If you’re looking for new ways to establish yourself as a popular, relatable brand, Pixlee will help you create influencer marketing campaigns that will enhance your social content. The platform will help you discover new influencers that can build brand awareness with your target audience. By using Pixlee, you can manage your influencer marketing campaigns, including all influencer interactions, in one central location.
Pixlee is an excellent choice for ecommerce brands of any size with products they want to promote across impactful marketing channels. The influencers you choose to work with can create user-generated content with your product that will allow their audience to see your product and encourage them to buy from your business. Also, Pixlee can help you collect customer reviews and star ratings that will help you establish your business’s online reputation.
Pixlee Standout Features and Integrations
Features include brand management, multi-channel publishing, social media management, publish schedules, conversion tracking, campaign management, customer relationship management, influencer discovery, and response management.
Integrations include Salesforce, Shopify, Klaviyo, Magento, Emarsys, and Movable Ink.
Price: Pixlee offers custom pricing upon request.
Free Trial: Pixlee doesn’t provide any free trial information.
Pros
- Excellent customer support team.
- Provides regular optimization feedback.
- Easy to use features.
Cons
- Not many third-party integrations.
- Sharing data can be complex.
10. Supermetrics - Best for collecting marketing data
Why I picked Supermetrics: The platform can collect your marketing data from over 100 tools and transforms it, so it’s ready for viewing. Supermetrics quickly brings any marketing data metrics from your preferred platforms to your current systems of choice, where you can organize and filter them immediately. If you’re already using a data dashboard or reporting tool, Supermetrics will automatically feed your data to it and eliminate the time you would spend uploading it manually.
Supermetrics works for any sized business that needs to connect its data to its current reporting tools. The platform will help you and your teams better understand which campaigns, customer segments, and channels perform best. Supermetrics will adapt to your changing data analytics needs as your company grows.
Supermetrics Standout Features and Integrations
Features include report export, automated reporting, data source connectors, forecasting, marketing reports, and customizable dashboards.
Integrations include Google Ad Manager, Piwik PRO, Perdoo, VK, Looker Studio, monday.com, Google Sheets, Snowflake, Azure Synapse, and an API to help you create custom integrations.
Price: Supermetrics costs from $39/month; the price depends on where you’re sending your data.
Free Trial: Supermetrics offers a free 14-day trial for new users.
Pros
- Easily schedules data storage.
- Builds automated reports.
- Excellent customer service.
Cons
- Hard to find some documentation.
- Pricing is confusing.
Other Options
Here are a few more options that didn’t make the best digital marketing platform list:
- Productive - Best digital marketing operations tool
- Resource Guru - Best resource management tool
- Facebook Ads - Best social media advertising platform.
- Google Ads - Best for advertising on Google’s search engine.
- Amazon Advertising - Best for targeting audiences where they shop.
- Canva - Best for creating professional online designs.
- Salesforce - Best data-first digital marketing tool.
- Kantata - Best all-in-one operational performance optimization tool.
- Asana - Best project and work management platform.
- ReviewStudio - Best for collaborating on digital marketing campaigns.
- Smartsheet - Best for managing and automating campaign processes.
- Copper - Best for growing customer relationships.
- Taboola - Best native advertising platform.
- Outbrain - Best for sharing content with relevant consumers.
- AdRoll - Best for display and social advertising.
- Criteo - Best for generating customer interest and brand awareness.
- DoubleClick - Best digital marketing tools for small businesses.
- Marketo - Best for digital marketing automation.
People Also Ask
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Digital Marketing Platforms Will Drive Results
With many digital marketing platforms available at your disposal, it’s crucial to understand how each will help you increase results. Don’t be afraid to test as many software as necessary to identify what works best for your budget and company. You can ensure your organization’s digital success using any tools I listed in this article.
Do you need help with digital or any other marketing advice? I have a way to help with this as well. If you haven’t already, sign up for our newsletter to receive regular tool lists, just like this one, and other helpful advice from top marketing leaders.