You don’t need enterprise-level software (or the hefty price tag that comes with it) to run effective marketing. Over the years, I’ve tried dozens of tools and always come back to a handful that offer serious value without breaking the bank. Whether you’re a small team, a startup, or just like being efficient with your budget, here are some of the tools I’ve found most useful.

ClickUp

I use ClickUp to manage almost everything on my to-do list. The free plan includes more features than most paid versions of competitors like Monday or Asana. It’s especially great for organizing marketing calendars. You can create separate folders for different campaign types (social, email, web) and then see them all together in a space-wide calendar view, or dial into each individually.

It’s easy to link tasks together, communicate with teammates in real time, and build templates for common projects like product launches with subtasks and checklists. It keeps things streamlined and saves a lot of time.

Microsoft Clarity

Everyone talks about analytics, but few mention Clarity, and it’s one of the best free tools I’ve used. The heatmaps are super helpful, and you can view over a year’s worth of visitor data. One standout feature is session recordings. You can actually watch how users move through your site. It’s been a game-changer for figuring out what’s working and what isn’t on homepages and product pages.

Zoho Campaigns

Zoho offers a very generous free plan: up to 2,000 contacts and 6,000 emails per month. It’s an excellent option for small teams or brands just getting started with email marketing. The interface is intuitive and has all the basics covered, but what surprised me is how many extra features you get compared to other platforms.

One feature I really like is the automated follow-up campaigns that can be edited before sending. That’s something some other platforms don’t offer. It also integrates really well with Shopify, which is a bonus if you want to set up automations or send product emails without needing a designer. I’ve used it across a few different brands and have always been impressed with how well it performs. If upgrading to a paid plan, I would recommend jumping on the Marketing Plus or Zoho One plans to get access to their additional tools at a low price.

ChatGPT

I’ve tested most of the big-name AI writing tools, and I keep coming back to ChatGPT. It feels the most natural to work with. The trick is to use it for inspiration, not as a final draft writer. It’s great for brainstorming subject lines or outlining content, but I always tweak the output so it sounds like me.

It’s also useful for proofreading, simplifying long-winded text, parsing text from PDFs and even fixing bits of code. I’ve had success using it for web-related tasks where I just needed a little help getting something to work. As long as you double-check for accuracy and make it your own, it’s a really helpful part of the toolkit. I’m still on the free version and haven’t needed to upgrade yet, but can see the advantages of the paid plan if you are working with attachments often.

Final Thoughts

With the right tools, you can stay organized, launch better campaigns, and get things done faster without overspending. These are just a few of the platforms that have made a real difference in my workflow. If you have others you’ve used and liked, let me know! I’m always down to try something new.