6 Top-Rated Tools To Include in Your Marketing Tech Stack

Your marketing team is expected to master multichannel operations—juggling website, content, and SEO. On top of that, they need to execute and monitor email and social media campaigns to boost audience engagement, lead generation, and conversion rates.

Addressing these intricacies requires more than one software solution; it demands the right combination of tech tools to simplify and optimize marketing operations. However, identifying software tools that offer the best value and fit your marketing stack perfectly can be confusing and time-consuming. 

To help you make the right choice, we looked at the search patterns of and thousands of reviews from marketing professionals to identify the most viewed marketing software categories on GetApp. Per our analysis, the top three categories are:

• Email marketing

• Social media marketing

• SMS marketing

This article highlights two top-rated products from each category, listed alphabetically, based on verified user reviews. (Read how we shortlisted these categories and products at the bottom of the article.)

1. Levitate

Levitate is a marketing tool that automatically analyzes email threads and suggests follow-up actions. It enables personalized email communication through contact segmentation and dynamic content, allowing you to create targeted campaigns tailored to specific groups or individual recipients. Its AI assistant automates email content generation by suggesting subject lines, introductions, and calls to action tailored to your target audience and desired outcome.

Product features of interest:*

• Message templates: Generate message templates and save them for future use instead of drafting emails from scratch every time. This feature saves time and ensures your email messages have a consistent tone and format.

• Email deliverability: Monitor metrics that impact email deliverability, such as bounce rates and spam complaints. This feature ensures your emails reach the intended recipients and do not end up in spam folders.

• Campaign reports: Create reports such as website traffic conversion, A/B testing, and customer journey trackers to analyze the performance of your email campaigns. 

Customer support options: Call, email, and knowledge base

Starting price: Available upon request from the vendor

Who should consider Levitate?

Creating personalized email content for different audiences and marketing goals takes time and effort. Marketing teams or professionals looking to automate this process could consider Levitate for its AI assistant. This feature can automatically generate email content that resonates with target audiences. It can draft new emails, translate a message into multiple languages, or rewrite an existing template in a different tone within seconds. Users have to simply write a prompt explaining the content needed and set the desired length and tone.

**Analysis performed December 2023

2. Systeme.io

Systeme.io is a marketing solution with email automation capabilities. It lets you categorize your email contacts to send tailored emails to specific groups. Its built-in autoresponder helps save time on manual responses and deliver targeted messages based on predefined triggers or schedules. Additionally, the software tracks and analyzes email campaigns to identify the best-performing campaigns and get insights to optimize low-performing ones.

Product features of interest:*

• Email sequence automation: Set up automated email sequences, such as welcome emails, abandoned cart reminders, and post-purchase follow-up emails. You can also set up trigger emails based on subscribers’ actions, such as opening an email or clicking a link.

• Performance analysis: Monitor campaign performance by analyzing your emails’ open rate, click-through rate, and conversion rate. You can also see which links and images customers click on most frequently.

• Targeted email campaigns: Categorize customers based on their behavior, demographics, and preferences, among other criteria. You can use this segmentation to create targeted email campaigns tailored to specific customer groups.

Customer support options: Contact form, knowledge base, and video tutorials

Starting price: $27 per month

Billing cycle: Monthly

Who should consider Systeme.io?

Systeme.io is worth considering for marketing teams that want to set up a structured follow-up process to keep prospects engaged after the initial interaction. With its automated email sequences, users can design a series of emails to be triggered based on a specific customer action (e.g., pricing page visit, ebook download) or predefined time interval. Systeme.io also supports personalization within the email sequences, enabling businesses to customize content based on the previous interaction. This personalized approach enhances customer experience and increases the likelihood of conversions.

**Analysis performed December 2023

3. Conte.ai

Conte.ai is a social media marketing platform that leverages AI to capture trending topics on social media and suggest content ideas. It provides pre-installed templates, stock images, and graphic editors to curate engaging social media posts and captions. It lets you define the approval process for publishing content. You can schedule posts across platforms, including Instagram and Facebook. You can monitor your posts’ engagement and reach to understand what resonates with your audience. You can also track your brand mentions and conversations to understand prospects’ sentiment toward your offerings and uncover emerging trends related to your industry or niche.

Product features of interest:*

• Mass scheduling: Upload multiple content pieces in bulk instead of scheduling each post individually. This feature saves time and effort, especially when planning campaigns or launching new content initiatives. You can also visualize your content calendar and drag and drop content onto specific dates and times to get a clear overview of the publishing schedule.

• Competitor analysis: Monitor your competitors’ social media accounts to see how their content is performing in terms of engagement, reach, etc. This analysis helps identify the tactics and content formats you can adapt for your audience and identify potential gaps in your marketing strategy.

• Image and video editing: Leverage built-in editing tools to resize and crop images, apply filters, trim and merge videos, and adjust brightness and contrast to improve the quality of your social media posts.

Customer support options: FAQs and knowledge base

Starting price: $6.9 per user, per month

Billing cycle: Monthly

Who should consider Conte.ai?

Social media marketing teams that manage multiple campaigns and need assistance coming up with new and unique ideas for each campaign can consider Conte.ai. This software uses AI technology to scan social media platforms for trending topics and emerging conversations relevant to a specific business, industry, marketing campaign goal, or target audience. It then suggests ways to organically weave those trends into social media content, optimizing it for different algorithms. The software also analyzes the audience's demographics, interests, and online behavior to provide a better understanding of their preferences and evolving trends. 

**Analysis performed December 2023

4. EngageBay CRM

EngageBay CRM combines sales, customer relationship management, and marketing capabilities. Its social suite lets you create and launch personalized social media campaigns. You can use a single dashboard to manage social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. You can track your brand’s mentions, posts, events, and more across platforms and channels. Additionally, you can leverage its smart scheduling system to discover the prime time your audience is active and schedule posts accordingly. You can also create your own custom schedule.

Product features of interest:*

• Streams: Create separate tabs for different types of social media interactions, such as retweets, mentions, and posts. You can respond to mentions, retweet important posts, and answer questions using streams.

• Social listening: Define related keywords and hashtags, and the software will analyze all conversations around them, providing insights into user sentiment, concerns, trends, and influencers.

• Social CRM integration: Integrate with your customer relationship management (CRM) database to import leads directly from social media platforms and set up triggers to initiate personalized responses when users engage with your content. The software assigns leads automatically for your sales team to follow up. 

Customer support options: Call, email, and knowledge base

Starting price: $13.79 per user, per month

Billing cycle: Annual

Who should consider EngageBay CRM?

EngageBay CRM is worth considering for small-business marketing teams that struggle to track their brand’s social media mentions and messages, resulting in missed opportunities to engage prospects and nurture leads. The software helps solve this challenge by integrating social media management, CRM, and lead management. It lets businesses connect their social media accounts to the CRM system and set triggers to identify high-potential leads based on brand mentions, messages, and specific keywords. It then automatically assigns these leads to the sales team for immediate follow-ups, maximizing the chances of conversion. 

**Analysis performed December 2023

5. Textdrip

As an SMS marketing solution, Textdrip lets you schedule messages for specific dates and times as well as set up automatic replies for incoming texts. It supports 2-way conversations, allowing customers to reply to your messages. Its AI text generator uses natural language processing (NLP) to create grammatically correct and relevant messages. If you manage different brands or divisions, Textdrip allows you to maintain distinct identities for each by adding multiple phone numbers. Additionally, you can create segments within your contact list and send targeted messages to each group.

Product features of interest:*

• AI paraphrasing: Use AI-powered tools to create different versions of a message and personalize it for each customer. These tools analyze your message and generate alternatives with synonyms, phrasing changes, and sentence rearrangements.

• Automate follow-up messages: Import your leads and define SMS marketing campaign rules. For instance, the software can automatically send a welcome text to leads who sign up for a newsletter. 

• DNC check: Identify and remove invalid, landline, or do-not-contact (DNC) numbers. This feature helps filter your contact database and ensures your messaging list contains only genuine numbers.

Customer support options: Call, chat, email, and knowledge base

Starting price: $34.99 per user, per month

Billing cycle: Monthly

Who should consider Textdrip?

Marketing teams struggling with low SMS deliverability due to an unclean or unstructured contact database could consider Textdrip for its DNC check feature. This feature removes invalid, landline, and do-not-contact numbers, preventing wasted sends and ensuring every message is delivered to a valid, reachable mobile number. DNC checks also protect against compliance violations by ensuring marketers adhere to do-not-contact registries and abide by consumer privacy preferences.

**Analysis performed December 2023

6. TextP2P

TextP2P is a text marketing platform that helps send personalized messages to your entire contact list or specific contacts. You can run single- or multiple-choice surveys via text messages and use the responses to analyze customer sentiment. You can send multimedia messages with pictures, videos, and audio alongside text. You can also facilitate easy opt-ins and two-way communication through specific keywords, such as “JOIN” or “SALE.” When prospects text these keywords, the software automatically triggers the predefined action, such as adding the number to your SMS list.

Product features of interest:*

• Email-to-SMS: Compose and send text messages from your existing email account. This feature offers an alternative to sending texts from your phone. Additionally, any replies you receive via text are forwarded to your email inbox, maintaining a conversation thread.

• Automated drip campaigns: Define triggers for a drip campaign initiation, such as website sign-ups or abandoned carts, and schedule a sequence of personalized messages spaced out over days or weeks. 

• Analytics and reporting: Track key metrics, such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates, to understand what’s working and what needs improvement. You can generate detailed reports using visual elements, including graphs, charts, and images, to optimize your SMS campaigns for maximum impact.

Customer support options: Call, chat, email, and knowledge base

Starting price: $5 per number, per month

Billing cycle: Monthly

Who should consider TextP2P? 

TextP2P could be a viable option for marketing teams managing large-scale SMS campaigns and looking to centralize communications. Its email-to-SMS feature lets marketers compose and send messages directly from their email accounts, eliminating the need for a separate platform or device to send text messages. It also automatically forwards all customer replies to the email inbox, allowing marketers to capture and integrate the responses into existing data streams for better reporting and analysis.

**Analysis performed December 2023

The cost of marketing technology software can vary depending on several factors, including your business size, number of user seats, preferred marketing channels, and specific features or tools you need in your marketing stack. Most marketing tools offer a free trial (no-cost trial plans ranging from 14 to 30 days) or a forever free version with limited features. Besides these, typical pricing plans include:

• Entry-level plans: These offer access to limited software features and are suitable for small digital marketing teams or businesses that need a cost-effective solution.

• Mid-tier plans: They cater to businesses that have outgrown the limitations of entry-level tools but may require only part of the functionality offered by enterprise-level solutions. These are suitable for businesses looking to scale and optimize their marketing efforts.

• High-end plans: These provide access to a range of advanced capabilities, including unlimited features from entry-level and mid-tier plans. They are suitable for large, established businesses with more complex marketing needs or organizations that need a scalable solution to manage several marketing channels and campaigns.

Note: The table provides per user, per month pricing*** details for each category.

Ask vendors these questions to ensure you pick the right martech tool for your marketing stack.

• Is the software accessible on mobile devices? 

Your marketing tool should have a dedicated app or responsive web design that ensures a seamless experience on smartphones and tablets. Mobile accessibility allows your marketing team to run or stop marketing campaigns and update records, even from the field or during client meetings. Moreover, the mobile version should sync data with the desktop version in real time, ensuring your marketing representatives can access the most up-to-date information.

• Is the software scalable? 

Consider whether the email, social media, or SMS marketing software can handle a growing volume of customer data and users without compromising performance. Scalability ensures your marketing technology stack remains effective and efficient as your business expands and customer base grows, preventing the need for frequent software changes and minimizing disruptions to your marketing operations.

• How well does the software integrate with existing systems? 

Invest in software that integrates well with your existing marketing tech tools. For instance, customer data from your CRM platform should automatically sync with your SMS marketing software. This integration helps save time and automate personalized SMS messages based on CRM actions, such as abandoning a cart, purchasing a product, or booking an appointment. Similarly, syncing campaign analytics data from your email marketing platform with social media marketing software can help track performance and enhance targeting capabilities.