Beginning your journey into the digital marketing world can feel rather daunting. It's an expansive world, and the sheer number of available digital marketing tools can make you feel paralyzed before you even start. The good news is you don't need a large budget or a complicated tech stack to start getting results.
Instead, you only need a handful of easy-to-use marketing tools that are often free or cheap, but are, most importantly, necessary for driving real results. This guide provides the ultimate digital marketing starter pack for any beginner or small business owner, separated by function.
If you can't measure it, you can't improve it. The first digital marketing tools you'll need are the ones that tell you what's working and who your audience is. At this point in your marketer journey, these tools are essential to start making informed, data-based decisions.
Select the course that suits your needs from our online course category of Digital Marketing.
Google Analytics (GA4)
Best For: Tracking website traffic, user behavior, and conversions.
Why a beginner needs it: GA4 is the *absolutely* non-negotiable requirement for understanding your audience. You'll be able to see 'Where' are people 'going', 'how long' are they 'staying', 'when' are they 'getting off'. GA4 provides essential data and information for you to see whether your audience is responding or your marketing efforts are paying off.
Essential Beginners Feature: The "Realtime" report allows you to see live traffic, which is a great confidence-building way to understand that your campaigns are indeed working.
Enroll now in the Digital Marketing Diploma Course for an in-depth understanding of all the tools and terms.
Google Search Console (GSC)
Best For: Monitoring your site’s health and performance in Google Search results (organic SEO).
Why a beginner needs it: This is where you find the exact beginner keyword data that drives traffic to your site. If you're looking for content ideas, check the Performance report! It guides you on technical issues and whether Google is properly indexing your content.
Essential Beginners Feature: The "Performance" report shows you which queries your web pages rank for and the number of clicks you are getting.
Google Trends
Best For: Generating ideas for new content and comparing the popularity of keywords.
Why a Beginner Needs It: Before you even create content, check to see if there are people actually searching! This free digital marketing tool for beginners helps you recognize rising interest in a topic related to your niche, ensuring relevance to your overall content creation strategy.
Get your Digital Marketing Certificate with us after completing the course online.
Canva
Best for: Creating social media graphics, blog post headers, infographics, and basic videos.
Why a beginner needs it: It’s the easiest way to create beautiful visual assets to avoid using Adobe Photoshop. Being consistent with visual quality is expected for all your marketing channels.
Key Beginner Feature: The drag-and-drop interface and variety of thousands of free templates make it simple to have a consistent brand.
Grammarly
Best For: To refine all written communications, from email to blog posts and social media captions.
Why a beginner needs it: Professionalism matters. Grammarly is your second set of eyes, catching typos, grammar mistakes, and vague or confusing phrasing, so your written messages are always clear and authoritative.
If you want to dive deeper into this topic, check out our guide on Content Marketing in Digital Marketing Strategy.
Buffer or Hootsuite
Best For: Scheduling and managing posts across multiple social media accounts.
Why a beginner needs it: Posting manually to multiple platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter will waste valuable time. These tools allow you to create and schedule your content once, so that it publishes automatically, so that your brand maintains an accurate and regular social media presence.
Key Beginner Feature: A single dashboard for scheduling and managing your content, and access to basic post analytics to understand your engagement.
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Mailchimp
Best For: Starting and managing your email list and sending newsletters.
Why a beginner needs it: It’s incredibly easy to use. Mailchimp makes email marketing easy. You’ll be collecting emails and sending beautiful, engaging campaigns in no time.
Key Beginner Feature: Free accounts up to a certain subscriber number, including a very easy drag-and-drop email creator.
Join our online Content Marketing Classes for better content.
HubSpot CRM
Best For: Managing your contacts for your digital marketing outreach.
Why a beginner needs it: As you’re going to scale and grow, you need a system to manage those relationships. HubSpot's free CRM platform is one of the best digital marketing tools for tracking who leads are and where they land in your sales funnel and process.
Relevant Digital Marketing Courses:
Ahrefs Webmaster Tools
Best For: Analyzing your site's performance, discovering your website ranking keyword phrases, and finding new backlink opportunities.
Why a beginner needs it: Although Ahrefs is pay-to-play, the free version of the Webmaster Tools is invaluable in monitoring your SEO performance and is a perfect starting point for strategizing toward improving those rankings.
Yoast SEO
Best For: On-page optimization while you are writing the content.
Why a beginner needs it: They serve as an SEO coach in your WordPress editor, helping to optimize your title, meta description, image alt-text, and keyword density.
Key Beginner Feature: There is a simple "traffic light" system to notify you when your page is optimized for SEO (green light).
Relevant Digital Marketing Courses:
Trello or Notion
Best For: Creating a visual content calendar, experiencing progress in your campaigns, and collaborating with other people for ideas.
Why a beginner needs it: Marketing takes planning and a process to operate effectively, and these are plugins you can easily use to help manage your work by planning content, giving you a content status report, and managing the deadlines for your planned content.
Conclusion
There is no need to be an expert or have a lot of money to start. The best digital marketing tools for beginners are the tools that save time, provide good data, and are free or low-cost to get started.
Keep in mind that using a tool is a skill in its own right. If you're learning foundational skills, want to build your skills, or just want to gain a general overview of different topics in marketing and finance, then check out a general training path on our Course Page. If you want to build skills specifically for your career, learn how to create a Digital Marketing Portfolio.
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