At CTI Digital, our digital marketing experts constantly seek new tools and tactics to deliver exceptional results for our clients. To achieve this, the team relies on a carefully curated toolkit that helps them effectively strategise, execute and optimise campaigns.
But what are the tools we can’t do without? I asked our content, SEO, paid media, social and email marketing specialists for their top picks and why, and after much debate, they narrowed it down to the following.
Whether you’re looking to refine your digital toolkit or just looking for inspiration, these are some of the tools used at CTI Digital to craft impactful campaigns.
It’s no surprise that Google Analytics tops the list. For our content and SEO teams, it’s an essential tool for understanding website performance. From tracking user behaviour to uncovering traffic sources, it provides the data we need to make smarter, data-driven decisions for our clients.
"Having immediate access to real-time data keeps us agile, and it’s perfect for identifying what’s working (and just as critically, what isn’t)." - Sacha, Head of Content
On a similar note, automated reporting sheets that enable fast, data-driven decisions are also firm favourites with the team. These tools pull data seamlessly from multiple platforms like Google Ads or Instagram, consolidating everything into one easy-to-read dashboard or spreadsheet. Crucially this eliminates manual data entry and saves hours every week.
“This data helps to shape the direction of our performance marketing campaigns and ensures we can quickly pivot when something isn’t delivering results.” - Nick, Head of Performance Marketing
Screaming Frog is a go-to tool for our SEO team when it comes to website crawling. It enables the quick identification of technical issues like broken links, duplicate content and other on-page SEO errors that can impact performance.
"It’s versatile and makes even complex site analysis simple. Whether it’s small fixes or big insights, it saves us time and helps make sure we don’t miss a thing." - Keiran, Senior SEO Specialist
GSC is indispensable for monitoring website performance in search results. From tracking keyword rankings to identifying indexing issues, it’s an essential tool for improving visibility.
"The data it provides is invaluable for understanding how Google views your site. Plus, it’s free, so it levels the playing field by offering valuable insights for businesses of any size." - Keiran, Senior SEO Specialist
SEMrush is a powerful tool used for creating and updating content. The Keyword Magic Tool validates target search terms and enables you to discover untapped keywords alongside queries you already rank for. The Keyword Gap Tool identifies new content opportunities based on competitors, and the SEO Writing Assistant ensures our content consistently hits the mark.
“For me, the best thing about SEMrush is how the SEO Score quantifies what can feel like a subjective task. It’s an invaluable tool for making data-driven content improvements while navigating multiple voices and opinions.” - Sacha, Head of Content
This tool is often thought of primarily as an SEO resource, but it’s equally invaluable for social media marketers. It offers powerful competitor analysis, allowing you to track competitors’ activity, engagement rates, best-performing content and ad campaigns.
“The insights can help refine your social strategies and uncover huge growth opportunities.” - Eimile, Head of Social & Influencer
For visual content creation, Canva makes it easy for marketers to design graphics without needing to be design experts. With templates for social media posts, animations, reels and more, you can resize and adjust designs with a click.
“It’s brilliant for teams looking to produce quality visuals quickly and efficiently, saving you valuable time.” - Eimile, Head of Social & Influencer
Manually checking live SERPs for a given topic or keyword can provide a wealth of information to inform your content. By analysing SERPs, you can uncover insights like search intent, ranking difficulty, and related queries. With so many tools and AI assistants available, you mustn’t forget to take a breath and put yourself in your users’ shoes.
“It’s important to remember that marketing ‘tools’ needn’t always look like ‘tools’.The People Also Ask section is one of my favourite tools for understanding what real users are searching for.” - Sacha, Head of Content
Understanding how readers interact with your emails is key to improving performance. Platforms like Hubspot, Klaviyo, Dotdigital and Mailchimp offer heatmaps that show how far readers scroll and where they click. Think of it as eye-tracking for your emails, helping you see what grabs attention and what gets overlooked.
"Heatmaps are more than just a nice-to-have. They help us pinpoint exactly what resonates with readers, making it easier to optimise emails for better engagement." - Cate, Email Marketing Manager
With privacy changes shaking up digital marketing, collecting zero- and first-party data is more important than ever. Tools like preference centres, interactive quizzes and embedded forms make it easy to gather data directly from your audience, helping you create more personalised, relevant emails without relying on third-party cookies.
“Successful email marketing is built on meaningful connections, and first-party data is the key to creating those connections.” - Cate, Email Marketing Manager
AI is transforming media buying. Platforms like Google’s Gemini and other AI models can handle time-consuming tasks such as ad placement, bid adjustments, audience targeting and optimisation. These tools save valuable time and help you achieve your desired results, faster.
“By analysing massive amounts of data quickly and efficiently, these tools free up valuable time on time-intensive tasks.” - Nick, Head of Performance Marketing
Having the right tools is just the beginning. What really drives success is the knowledge and strategy to get the most out of them. At CTI Digital, we combine a tailored tech stack with deep specialisms to deliver impactful results for every client.
Want to find out how we can leverage our expertise and tech stack to drive success for your business? Get in touch. Or, if you are looking for more tips from CTI’s experts, make sure to check out our Growth Playbook.