Digital marketing tools you need to know.

Anyone who works in digital marketing knows: there's no consistent strategy without the right tools. After all, they help increase productivity, organize processes, measure results, and, most importantly, make decisions based on data—not guesswork.

The problem is that the market has evolved rapidly. As a result, many tools have changed, others have ceased to exist, and some have become too complex for those without a well-defined strategy. Therefore, more important than knowing "all the tools" is understanding which ones truly make sense for each objective.

In this article, we've compiled an updated list of digital marketing tools for 2026, focusing on the most relevant ones for companies, professionals, and teams that want to structure their marketing intelligently—without excessive platforms and without wasting budget.

Google Analytics

When we talk about data analysis, the Google Analytics It remains one of the most important tools in digital marketing. Currently, it operates exclusively on the model... GA4, which brought about a significant change in how we measure behavior and conversions.

GA4 is event-based, allowing for a much more precise understanding of the user journey, both on websites and in applications. With it, you understand how people arrive at your site, what they do, where they abandon the site, and which actions actually generate results.

More than just "seeing numbers," analytics is essential today for:

• validate content and SEO strategies
• Measure real conversions (leads, sales, strategic clicks).
• Integrate data with ads, CRM, and automations.

Without a tool like this, any strategyMarketing strategy remains in the dark.

Looker Studio

The former Google Data Studio has evolved and is now known as Looker Studio. It remains one of the best free solutions for transforming complex data into... clear and actionable dashboards.

Instead of looking at scattered reports, Looker allows you to consolidate information from different sources — Analytics, Search Console, ads, CRM — into a single visual dashboard. This facilitates both internal analysis and the presentation of results to management and clients.

In times when ROI is the primary focus, well-structured reports have ceased to be a differentiator and have become a necessity.

SendPulse

SendPulse is a complete marketing automation platform that helps companies connect with their audience intelligently. With integrated solutions for email marketing, SMS, push notifications, chatbots, and CRM, it's possible to centralize communication in one place, saving time and increasing results.

The platform offers customized automations, advanced contact segmentation, and detailed reports, enabling strategic decisions based on real data. Furthermore, SendPulse stands out for its ease of use, excellent cost-benefit ratio, and reliable support, making it the ideal choice for businesses looking to grow and scale their digital strategies.

Mention

Mention remains a relevant tool for monitoring brand and online reputation. It allows you to track mentions on websites, blogs, forums, news portals, and social networks in real time.

This type of monitoring is essential for understanding:

• brand perception
• market movements
• content and relationship opportunities

In more mature strategies, social listening ceases to be merely "monitoring" and becomes... strategic input.

Mlabs

mLabs remains one of the most comprehensive platforms for social media management in Brazil. It allows for scheduling, monitoring, reporting, and team management across channels such as Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter., Pinterest and YouTube.

Quite complete, you can also use it for posts on Instagram Stories and Facebook 360º. One of the tool's strengths is reporting and team integration, with message attribution and management. The number of users for the platform is unlimited and you can manage users by setting up work teams. This way, you can schedule and organize content among your team and even analyze the results of your social strategy.

Google Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager has become virtually mandatory for any minimally structured digital strategy. It allows you to install and manage tracking tags without having to directly modify the website's code.

With it, marketing teams can:

• Configure events and conversions.
• integrate analytics tools and ads
• to gain agility and autonomy

Without proper use of Tag Manager, Important metrics simply cease to exist.

Google Search Console

The Google Search Console It's indispensable for anyone working with SEO. It's a tool that directly connects content, technique, and strategy, being essential for both diagnostics and continuous optimization. With it, you can find out:

• How Google is reading your pages (Search Appearance) – titles, descriptions, images and other information;
• What searches are people carrying out that are leading them to your website (Search Traffic);
• How is your website indexed in Google Index, Google's ability to read and classify your pages and identify keywords;
• What difficulties may Google robots have when crawling relevant content on your website pages (Crawl);

If there are security issues on your website and other features that Google always includes in improving its tools.

SEMRush

Semrush remains one of the most comprehensive platforms on the market for SEO, competitor analysis, and keyword research. By 2026, it will go far beyond simply "seeing rankings.".

The tool allows you to:

• identify real traffic opportunities
• analyze competitors strategically
• Plan content based on search intent.
• Track authority and backlinks.

It is especially useful for companies that view SEO as a medium- to long-term asset, not as an isolated action.

SEOQuake

SEOquake remains a practical extension for quick analytics. It provides data such as indexed pages, link structure, basic metrics, and technical information directly in the browser.

It doesn't replace more robust tools, but it's very helpful in day-to-day work, especially in exploratory analyses.

Yoast

For WordPress users, Yoast remains one of the most popular SEO plugins. In this regard, it assists with on-page optimization, readability analysis, and the organization of titles and descriptions.

Using Yoast allows content creators to make the necessary adjustments to align their texts with SEO techniques. Furthermore, it can be connected to your Google Search Console account to assist with your keyword strategies. This way, you can achieve better results with your blog.

While SEO goes far beyond plugins, tools like Yoast help maintain a minimum standard of quality, especially in teams with multiple writers.

RD Station

The RD Station It remains one of the leading marketing automation platforms in Brazil. After all, it brings together inbound marketing functionalities such as lead generation, email automation, lead scoring, and CRM integration.

It's a powerful tool, but it requires strategy and method. Without that, it becomes just another expensive and underutilized system. Therefore, when applied correctly, it allows you to structure predictable and measurable funnels.

Trello

Planning and managing processes is a task for Trello, this excellent productivity tool. Organization is done through boards, in a simple and easy-to-visualize way.

With cards, labels and checklists, you can manage all ongoing projects together with your team (and clients). With email notifications, you can share tasks and files. You can view projects both on your desktop and on your smartphone by installing the app.

WordPress

If you intend to work with content, one of the CMS (Content Management System) platforms best known and used is the WordPress. Easy to use and extremely powerful in terms of features, WordPress allows the user to install several plugins, increasing productivity and carrying out important integrations.

As the most widely used CMS in the world, it provides a wide range of pre-made templates of all types. These templates are easily found on the web and can be customized to best suit the user's needs. WordPress offers templates ranging from the simplest to the most complex, making it one of the most powerful digital marketing tools in the world.

Hotjar

The Hotjar It is a behavioral analysis tool that allows you to visualize how users interact with pages and content through heatmaps, session recordings, and quick surveys.

In this way, it helps answer questions that numbers alone cannot explain, such as:

• where people click (or don't click)

• How far do they scroll down the page?

• where they stop or abandon

• What catches the eye and what goes unnoticed.

Thus, in conversion strategies, CRO, and landing page optimization, Hotjar becomes a valuable complement to traditional analytics tools.

Artificial Intelligence applied to digital marketing

Starting in 2024, artificial intelligence ceased to be a trend and became a basic infrastructure in digital marketing. Today, teams use AI to gain speed, strategic clarity, content scale, and decision-making support—provided they know how to properly guide the tool.

Above all, more than just "requesting texts," AI has begun to act as a strategic co-pilot for marketing.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT has established itself as one of the most widely used tools in modern digital marketing. As such, it acts as a true strategic assistant, supporting professionals and teams in tasks that go far beyond simply creating copy.

In the day-to-day work of marketing, ChatGPT It can be used for:

• structuring content and SEO strategies

• Generate campaign and funnel ideas.

• Create drafts of articles, ads, and emails.

• Analyze data, reports, and metrics.

• to support planning and decision-making processes

The key difference lies in the quality of the prompts. Therefore, the more context, clarity, and objectivity you provide, the more strategic the response becomes. However, although it's already part of everyday life, it doesn't replace human thought, although it drastically accelerates the execution and organization of ideas.

Google Gemini

The Google Gemini (formerly Bard) gained particular relevance due to its integration with the Google ecosystem. As a result, it excels in supporting analytics, information research, understanding trends, and organizing data.

For marketing professionals, Gemini is particularly useful in:

• exploratory market research

• support for data analysis and reporting

• Understanding search behavior

• connection between data, context and strategy

Therefore, when combined with tools like Google Analytics, Search Console, and Looker Studio, Gemini helps transform raw data into actionable insights.

Conclusion: tools do not replace strategy.

One of the biggest pitfalls of digital marketing is believing that results come from the tool itself. In practice, the tool only executes what the strategy defines.

Thus, companies that accumulate platforms but lack clarity in their objectives, processes, and metrics end up frustrated. On the other hand, those that choose well, integrate correctly, and track data strategically build predictable and sustainable results.

Therefore, if you already use several of these tools and still feel that the results don't match the effort, perhaps the problem isn't technological—but rather strategic.

Frequently asked questions about digital marketing tools.

Which digital marketing tools are truly essential?

Analytics, Search Console, an automation tool, a reliable CMS, and an SEO solution already form a solid foundation, provided some AI tool is included in that package.

Are free tools enough?

To begin with, yes. On the other hand, as the strategy matures, paid tools often offer gains in efficiency and depth.

Do I need to use all of these tools?

No. Above all, ideally you should only use the ones that make sense for your goals and level of maturity.

Does marketing automation work for every company?

It works best when strategy, content, and sales process are aligned.

Can tools replace an agency or consultancy?

No. They enhance execution, but they don't replace strategic vision and experience.

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This article was originally published on January 27, 2022, and updated on this date.

Marcel Castilho

Marcel Castilho is a specialist in digital marketing, neuromarketing, neuroscience, mindfulness and positive psychology. In addition to being an advertiser, he also has a Master's degree in Neurolinguistic Programming. He is the founder, owner and CEO of Vero Contentes and the offline agency VeroCom.