Market research can feel overwhelming for small business owners. With so many tools, how do you even know where to start? Don't worry; I've got you covered. I've rounded up 24 top market research tools to help take the guesswork out of choosing the right one for your business.
Whether you need to get insights on your clients, analyze the competition, or improve your website and marketing, these tools are something for everyone. Many are even free or have free versions, so small businesses can benefit without breaking the bank.
Let's dive in!
Top 24 Digital Marketing Tools for Small Businesses
Analytics
SimilarWeb
With SimilarWeb’s freemium web analytics, track your site's performance and digital market share growth over time. Gain useful insights on your visitors and traffic sources as well as your competitors' strategies.
Google Analytics
No marketing stack is complete without this free and ubiquitous website analytics tool. Google Analytics offers incredibly detailed statistics on your site traffic, user behavior, conversions, and more. An absolute essential for data-driven marketers.
SEO
SEMrush
SEMrush offers a versatile freemium toolkit jam-packed with features for SEO, PPC, content, competitive, and social media research. It's a must-have for digital marketers looking to boost their search visibility and get a leg up on the competition. The paid plans unlock even more robust analytics and data to give you an edge.
Moz
Moz provides an excellent freemium SEO toolkit complete with resources for link building, keyword research, site audits, and page optimization insights. It makes SEO easy for beginners but also has advanced features for experienced users.
Ahrefs
Ahrefs' freemium SEO toolkit helps you build backlinks, research competitors' strategies, and analyze website traffic. The paid plans unlock more robust data for ranking analysis.
Social Media
Facebook Audience Insights
Facebook Audience Insights is a handy free tool from Facebook that lets you discover valuable demographics, interests, and behavior data about your target audience. You can even see info on buyers vs non-buyers. Use it to inform your Facebook ad targeting and content strategies.
Brandwatch
Brandwatch is a robust paid social listening tool that monitors mentions of your brand across social media. Get insights into customer sentiment, trends, and competitors so you can be strategic with your social presence.
Social Mention
Social Mention’s free social media monitoring scans sites like Twitter and Reddit for brand mentions. Great for listening in on conversations, reputation management, and real-time trend detection.
Surveys
SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey is a popular paid survey tool with customizable templates, analysis features, and survey distribution options. At just $25/month to get started, it's a budget-friendly way to get feedback.
Qualaroo
Collect user insights with Qualaroo’s targeted survey polls on your site. The paid plans let you ask more advanced questions to uncover feedback that will help you better understand and convert your visitors.
Zoho Survey
Zoho Survey is an intuitive and user-friendly freemium tool for creating polls, quizzes, and surveys for market research. Get feedback to improve products and services even if you don't have much technical know-how.
Alchemer (SurveyGizmo)
Alchemer is a powerful paid survey tool with advanced features like logic branching and data segmentation. Create professional surveys, distribute them widely, and turn insights into actions.
Email Marketing
Klaviyo
Klaviyo offers a customizable freemium email marketing platform made for e-commerce sites. Automate and personalize emails, SMS, and post-purchase campaigns to boost sales with its powerful built-in CRM features.
User Testing
Hotjar
Hotjar’s freemium site analytics let you see how visitors navigate your site through heatmaps, recordings, and polls. Identify UX issues, checkout abandonment, and other micro-interactions to optimize.
UserTesting
Get fast human insights on your site, apps, or prototypes with UserTesting’s on-demand paid testing platform. See real user reactions and feedback that exposes issues and opportunities.
Crazy Egg
Crazy Egg’s freemium visual analytics tools, like Heatmaps, show where users click, scroll, and focus on each page. Spot issues and make improvements to boost conversion rates.
All-in-One Marketing Platforms
HubSpot
HubSpot's freemium all-in-one marketing platform includes CRM, email marketing, analytics, and social media management tools to streamline your efforts. Scale up with more features as you grow.
Business Intelligence
Nielsen
While paid, Nielsen is one of the OG market research companies. With Nielsen, you get robust data on what people watch, listen to, buy, and more. This helps you really understand your target audience on a granular level to inform your marketing strategies.
IBISWorld
For reliable industry research and trends, IBISWorld’s paid reports deliver. With data on thousands of global industries, you'll get comprehensive insights to guide your strategic business decisions.
Tableau
Tableau takes business intelligence to the next level with interactive dashboards starting at $70 per user monthly. Visualize data in new ways to find insights for smarter business decisions.
Content Research
Buzzsumo
With Buzzsumo's paid content research tool, see which topics and styles perform best for any competitor. Use these learnings to create high-impact content that will engage your audience.
SpyFu
SpyFu reveals valuable PPC and SEO competitive intelligence with its freemium keyword research tools. Uncover the keywords your rivals are targeting and find new opportunities you may be missing out on.
Google Trends
Google Trends is a free tool from Google that lets you see what terms people are searching for across regions and languages. It's an awesome way to identify trends and seasonal changes in consumer behavior. You can use these insights to create content and products tailored to what's popular right now.
Final Thoughts
The digital marketing tools highlighted in this roundup represent the top digital marketing research solutions on the market. They cover the gambit of critical categories like analytics, SEO, social media, surveys, and more. While the array of options may seem overwhelming at first, investing in the right tools for your business goals and skill level doesn't have to be difficult or expensive. Many of the platforms offer free or freemium tiers to get started.
No matter where you are in your digital marketing journey, leveraging one or more of these tools can provide invaluable data and insights to help enhance your strategy. Consider starting with one tool that aligns closely with your current business objectives or pain points.
Focus on fully utilizing that tool before expanding your stack. With the right solutions supporting your efforts, you’ll be well-equipped to succeed in the evolving digital landscape in 2024 and beyond.
