The great thing about digital marketing is that there are dozens of tactics to try. But the more marketing methods you employ, the more tools you need to support your work. Building out a tech stack can get very expensive very fast, and everyone’s always trying to sell you some new, niche SaaS solution.

While we definitely recommend investing in some things (a solid CRM, for example, is one area where spending can make a big difference), there are other times when a free tool will suit you just fine.

We find that many of the best free tools are built to gather some kind of data. Once you’ve collected that valuable information, then you can invest in systems to put it to work serving your marketing strategy.

With that in mind, we’ve pulled together a list of our favorite free tools that provide insights to power your marketing work.

Facebook Ad Library

Curious about how other brands are spending their advertising dollars on social? This tool from Meta allows you to surface all ads running on Instagram and Facebook.

On the tool, you can search by keyword or brand name. A query for Nike, for example, will show that the brand currently has over 400 active ads across Instagram and Facebook. You can even see the creative for each, including visuals, copy, and CTAs.

Understanding the tactics others employ can help you identify gaps in the market and find novel ways to position your brand.

We find that many of the best free tools are built to gather some kind of data. Once you’ve collected that valuable information, then you can invest in systems to put it to work serving your marketing strategy.

Google Trends

If you’re looking to create more relevant content for your audience, Google Trends can point you in the right direction. The tool allows you to input search terms and see how they’ve performed within certain geographies over a specific time period. You’ll also see related queries and topics, plus statistics on how those searches are trending.

For example, checking the search term “medical devices” in the US over the past 12 months shows that queries were pretty steady for that particular term. However, searches for the related query “continuous glucose monitoring devices” increased by 400% in the same time period. If your work involves diabetes care, that could be a useful insight.

Exploding Topics Newsletter

Along the same lines as Google Trends, the Exploding Topics Newsletter points you toward themes or areas of interest that are on the upswing.

By subscribing to the newsletter, you get regular reports delivered right to your inbox. While it might not always feature industry-specific information, sometimes learning about broader trends can help you identify creative tie-ins to your work and sector.

Google Lighthouse

Having a fast, mobile-first website is essential. But it’s hard to improve your site if you don’t know where it’s lacking.

Google Lighthouse helps you run diagnostics on web pages to understand where there’s room for improvement in key metrics like site speed, accessibility, and SEO.

It’s a good idea to periodically check on your site’s performance, and Google Lighthouse can be employed at any time. If you’re building a new site, you can even integrate Lighthouse into the development process and cut potential problems off at the pass.

Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

Once your website’s performance is on point, the next step is to clock how people interact with it. Gathering metrics on page traffic, time on site, and conversion and bounce rates can help you understand how your strategy is serving you.

Google has long offered robust free analytics, and its recent launch of Google Analytics 4 means changes and opportunities for marketers who rely on the platform for insights. Data collection is different, and setup is a bit more complicated, but GA4 allows for a higher degree of customization than its predecessor, Universal Analytics.

Hotjar

Another way to get a handle on how people are interacting with your site is to try a tool like Hotjar. It creates heatmaps so you can see where people are lingering and clicking on each page of your website.

This tool is great when you’re trying to finesse a page’s performance. Maybe there’s a landing page you wish would convert at a higher rate. Perhaps you want to compare user behavior between your desktop and mobile sites. 

Whatever it is, Hotjar helps you quickly spot what’s working and what’s not so you can tweak and refine.

Moz

Moz has long offered a suite of free SEO tools for marketers. To access the most robust data and reporting, you’ll have to pay for Moz Pro, but the free tools can be a useful jumping-off point.

It’s particularly helpful if you’re undertaking competitive research. The domain analysis allows you to gather basic SEO information about any website (yours or your competitors’) and provides insights into linking domains and top-ranking keywords.

If your site is well-established and ranks for at least 25 keywords, you can also use Moz’s competitive research tool to get a list of the top competitor URLs.

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Free tools can provide you with rich data and insights, but that’s only half the marketing battle. Creating a strategy based on that information and executing on it is where you should spend your money.

Does Google Lighthouse turn up some scary issues with your site performance? Hire a knowledgeable developer to fix them. Are you gathering lots of information on trends but need help weaving it into a content strategy? That’s where an agency partner can help.

Got piles of marketing data but not sure where to go with it? We can point you in the right direction.