Every marketer knows that the digital world is just as much a rat race for us as it is for the nerd herd down the street. In fact, you could probably say that our field is defined by finding things first. Originality, simplicity, and efficiency are the three ingredients for a marketing match made in heaven. So when Apple’s App Store first opened its doors in 2008 and the idea of in-your-pocket originality, simplicity, and efficiency took off, we saw what might be the biggest boom in marketing freebies and go-get-‘ems ever known.

Since then, apps have without a doubt changed the way we live. It definitely has for us at Campaign Creators, so we want to walk you through some of our own favorite marketing apps. These are apps we use on a daily basis, and think you should you. Here's our list of must-have marketing apps that you company should consider:

 

Team Communication 

Slack

There is a wide variety of features available in Slack, though they may take a bit of time to discover due to the intricacy of the app. Some of these features include organized conversations as both direct messaging or through channel messaging, searchable conversation history, the ability to share conversations with other businesses, voice and video calling, integrated file sharing, and the ability to integrate other tools or build your own with open API. Slack is purchasable as a standalone app or as an integration in HubSpot. Here's the bottom line - Slack is a great team communication app, so make sure to try it.

Price: Varies

  • Free: $0!
  • Standard: $6.67/active user/month
  • Plus: $12.50/active user/month

Resource(s): Standard resources for Slack include: a knowledge hub/blog, help center, ebooks, case study reports, an app directory of different integrations, and open API.

 

Project Management Software and Customer Relationship 

Teamwork

Teamwork is split into two different products, Teamwork Projects and Teamwork Desk.

Teamwork Projects focuses on project management software for professionals to track projects from beginning to end, including features such as tracking tasks and milestones; categorically messaging within projects; storing, converting and uploading files; and numerous other features - so many, in fact, that listing them here would be overkill. And, even if you're already using project management software, still take a look at Teamwork Project's compare page, where you can compare up to eight other platforms.

Teamwork Desk focuses on customer relationship software to provide near-instantaneous help for clients, which includes features like ticketing software, inquiry management, personalized emailing, and the ability to create a FAQ support hub.

Both Teamwork Projects and Teamwork Desk are purchasable as standalone products; however, you can also integrate the tool into HubSpot.

Price for Teamwork Projects: Varies (save 20% with the annual contract)

  • Free: $0!/month with max of 5 users
  • Pro (min. of 5 users): $9/month/user (annual contract) vs. $11.25/month/user (monthly contract)
  • Premium (min. of 5 users): $15/month/user (annual contract) vs. $18.75/month/user (monthly contract)
  • Enterprise: Contract Teamwork's sales team for information on both annual and monthly contracts

Price for Teamwork Desk: Varies

  • Starter: $7/agent/month (annual contract) vs. $8.75/agent/month (monthly contract)
  • Plus: $13/agent/month (annual contract) vs. $16.25/agent/month (monthly contract)
  • Pro: $25/agent/month (annual contract) vs. $31.25/agent/month (monthly contract)
  • Enterprise: Contact Teamwork's sales team for information on both annual and monthly contracts

Resource: Standard resources for Teamwork include support via email, webinar, phone; a helpful, contextual blog; a catalogue of webinars; training; a “What's new page”; and a “Find an expert” page.

 

Content Curation 

ZEST

Zest provides a heavily-centered, marketing newsfeed where each piece of content is analyzed six times over by different marketing professionals before even being published. Zest's “Distilled Marketing Content Stream” provides a source for finding all your up-to-date news on marketing trends, and is able to be sorted by a plethora of categories, tags and topics. Some of these options include searching for B2B, B2C, CRO, eCommerce and SEO. But of course, there are so many more options that it'd be impossible to state them all. Zest's user interface is also customizable with three different formatting modes: explore, tiles, and news; which makes it pleasing to navigate even in your downtime.

Price: Free!

Resource: Standard resources for Zest are fairly limited, however, you can reach Zest's support team via their contact page, where they will answer your questions or bug-reports in a manual, timely manner.

 

Pocket

Pocket is a content curation app that lets you dictate the type of content you're interested by adding URLs, articles, videos and images to your specific feed. You're also able to categorize these by adding customizable tags. Additionally, filter the content you'd like to see with a favorites section, a recommended section, an archive section, and even explore different topics like finance, tech, and must-reads. Pocket doesn't subject you to an overly spammy user interface either, which makes it all the better to navigate. Buying Pocket Premium lets you keep a permanent library, enables full-text search, includes suggested tags, allows customize what you want to read, and best of all, provides an ad-free experience.

Price: Varies (save 25% with the annual contract)

  • Free: $0!
  • Premium: $44.99 (annual contract) vs. $4.99 (monthly contract)

Resource: Standard resources for Pocket include: a knowledge hub/blog and support basics for mobile, desktop and advanced use.

 

Visual Creation 

Canva

Canva is a visual creation app that incorporates easy-to-use photo editing features, such as photo straightening, image cropping, adding text to photos, enhancing via filters, among many others. The user interface is simple, attractive and reflects the simplicity of the app itself. We favor using Canva when creating banners and other images for our blogs. Additionally, Canva is purchasable as a standalone product.

Price: Varies

  • Free: $0!
  • Canva for Work: $12.95/team member/month
  • Enterprise: Contact Canva's sales team for pricing

Resource: Standard resources for Canva includes a blog that covers topics, such as: learning Canva for students, teaching, design and nonprofit.

 

Visual Feedback 

Red Pen

We use Red Pen to receive quick feedback from clients about new wireframe, email and webpage designs. To use the app, simply drag a design onto the app's webpage, leave comments by pointing and clicking wherever on the design you like, invite teammates and clients to comment feedback, and organize it under a specific project folder. Red Pen is available to be purchased as a standalone product and, unfortunately, does not integrate with other applications.

Price: Varies

  • 5 Projects: $20/month
  • 10 Projects: $30/month
  • 25 Projects: $60/month
  • 40 Projects: $90/month

Resource: Standard resources for Red Pen are quite limited. However, the app itself is fairly hands-on and easy-to-understand. What you should look for when using the app, is the Clive-bot that activates when you click-and-point a comment on the webpage.

 

Now that you know which apps you need, it's time to get your own marketing automation system. Check out your martech comparison guide!

 

Website Analytics & Email Analytics 

HotJar

HotJar is a website analytics app that tracks and reports clicks, taps, scrolling behavior, and mouse movements of website visitors via interactive, downloadable heat maps and visitor recordings. It also identifies at what page and time on your site that visitors leave, discovers and optimizes form fields to improve conversion rates, provides a platform for visitors to answer targeted questions as well as leave visual feedback, offers an editing tool to create your own surveys, that can be distributed via web links or email; and collects contact information. HotJar is available as a standalone product or you can integrate it as part of HubSpot.

Price: Varies

  • Free/Basic: $0! for 2,000 pg. views/day
  • Business 1: $99/month for 10,000 pg. views/day
  • Business 2: $149/month for 20,000 pg. views/day
  • Business 3: $189/month for 50,000 pg. views/day
  • Business 4: $289/month for 120,000 pg. views/day

Resource: Standard resources for HotJar include a blog and various support features, such as: guides, an FAQ, forum for user feedback, and more.

 

Litmus

If you were to take even a brief look at Litmus as an application, you'd see that it is a beneficial email testing tool with features like spam testing for undeliverable emails; a build, edit and preview tool for email app integrations; reporting email engagement analytics; a checklist for email performance; and an email proofing tool for reviewals. Litmus is purchasable as a standalone product; however, if you're a HubSpot partner - fret not - its tools are integrated there too.

Price: Varies (save 20% with the annual contract)

  • Basic (for 1 user): $79/month (annual contract) vs. $99/month (monthly contract)
  • Plus (for 5 users): $159/month (annual contract) vs. $199/month (monthly contract)
  • Pro (for 10 users): $399/month (annual contract) vs. $499/month (monthly contract)
  • Enterprise: Contact Litmus's sales team for information on both annual and monthly contracts

Resource: Standard resources for Litmus can be found on their “Resources” page, which includes links to a blog, a community FAQ forum, a schedule of webinars & events, and access to pre-tested email templates.

 

SEO Keyword Research 

KWFinder

KWFinder is an SEO application that focuses on optimizing and accessorizing your keyword research by making long-tail keywords identifiable, organizing with keyword lists, filtering out non-valued keywords, and localizing keyword results. Exploring the tool may take a bit of time due to its intricacies, however, knowing its ins and outs, especially when cross-researching with another SEO tool, can be greatly beneficial. KWFinder is a standalone tool that you can use for free with limited access, or purchase one of its 3 plans for better usage.

Price: Varies (scroll down the page till you reach “Plans & pricing”); (save 40% with the annual contract)

  • Free: $0!
  • Mangools Basic: $29.90/month (annual contract) vs. $49/month (monthly contract)
  • Mangools Premium: $39.90/month (annual contract) vs. $69/month (monthly contract)
  • Mangool Agency: $79.90/month (annual contract) vs. $129/month (monthly contract)

Resource: Standard resources for KWFinder include a features page, contextual information found throughout the website, a KWFinder guide, an FAQ page, and a SEO chapter guide. 

 

Ahrefs

Ahrefs is a well-rounded SEO research application that allows the tracking of domains, URLs, topics, keywords and more, reporting on features like rating, backlinks being shared, referring websites, search volume and more. Reporting on everything Ahrefs does would be immensely time consuming, so we'll just let you know how its top dashboard looks: you can set up your account to receive alerts regarding new mentions of your site, audit your site for the best content, and more.

Price: Varies (save 20% with the annual contract)

  • Lite: $82/month for 1 user (annual contract) vs. $99/month for 1 user (monthly contract)
  • Standard (for 1 user): $149/month (annual contract) vs. $179/month for (monthly contract)
  • Advanced (for 3 users): $332/month (annual contract) vs. $399/month (monthly contract)
  • Agency (for 5 users): $832/month (annual contract) vs. $999/month (monthly contract)

Resource: Standard resources for Ahrefs include helpful live chat, a support & help contact page, a knowledge hub/academy to learn the basics, and a feature suggester.

 

Document Collaboration 

Quip

Quip is a document collaboration app with an assortment of features that are accessible between any type of screen - mobile, desktop, online and offline. What can you do with the app? Well, we tend to use it as a way to organize projects, be them outlines, blogs or catalogues of some sort, all via public and private folders. In addition to that, with the app, you can create team chats to discuss files and be informed about activity on documents you've previously worked on or have been mentioned in. Quip can be purchased as a standalone product; however, external services can be integrated into it.

PriceVaries

  • For team of five: $30/month (annual and monthly contract)
  • For each additional person: $10/month (annual contract) vs. $12/month (monthly contract)
  • Enterprise:$25/month/person (contact Quip's sales team)

Resource: Standard resources for Quip includes a blog, webinars, eBooks and whitepapers - all covering different various Quip features.

  

Workflow Automator 

Zapier

As a workflow automater, Zapier does quite a few things, including allowing the integration of more than 1,000 apps to create and build workflows with, only taking a few steps through their workflow editor to complete. Zapier can start a workflow with any app that is integrated with it and automatically triggers any task that you set it up to do - as for example: support teams can forward customer tickets directly to a visible space; developers can send code without the trouble of fixing bugs; and marketers can identify more leads on a smaller budget.

Price: Varies

  • Free: $0!/month
  • For Work: $20/month
  • For Teams: $250/month

Resource: Standard resources for Zapier include a learning center, where guides of differing topics can be found, such as: marketing automation, CRM apps, email marketing, and more.


Intrigued by any of our favorite marketing apps? Well, if so, give them a definite look. They will help to optimize your productivity, simplify workflows and projects, and provide a platform for team building and a intercommunicative environment.

Now, if you already have a marketing automation system, such as HubSpot, Pardot or Klaviyo, you may be able to integrate one or more of these apps into your day-to-day business activities. Unable to tell if you can or can't, though? No worries, because we can provide you with a side-by-side Martech Comparison Guide to help you choose which marketing automation system is right for you.

Get Martech comparison guide