Your Guide to 2018 Marketing Technology Tools for Small eCommerce Businesses

We live in an increasingly automated and technical world. More technology than ever available to help businesses connect with customers and automate processes, and competition is getting fiercer as companies continue to do more, faster. Even just a few years ago, marketing technology was something available only to huge companies with incomes to match, leaving small business owners to do most (if not all) of their marketing manually, with few to no automated processes. But as we all know, times are changing: With well over 3,800 services providing tech solutions for anything from email marketing to customer service, small business have the opportunity to scale up their marketing efforts more efficiently than ever before. In other words, it’s high-time you begin leveraging marketing technology to bring your small ecommerce business into the 21st century. At Stryde, we use a marketing technology stack (or set of tools) to streamline marketing efforts for our partners, which gives them precious time they can instead use on crucial business strategy and growth initiatives. These tools are free or relatively affordable, easy-to-use, and won’t require you to be a tech wiz or coding genius to get started. In this guide, we’ll go through the features of our favorite marketing tools for Social Media, SEO, email, design and analytics and break down what makes them special.

Here is our guide to 2018’s marketing technology tools for small eCommerce businesses:

Social Media Tools

Hootsuite With more social media networks popping up every day, keeping track of community engagement can be a doozy. Hootsuite is a platform which allows you to manage all your social media networks from one place. You can use Hootsuite to track what social media users are saying about your brand, then respond to them directly within the platform. Key features:

• Post scheduling (both single posts and bulk uploads) across multiple platforms
• Social listening features for monitoring search queries, keywords, and hashtags
• Team management: Can allow access, create assignments, assign tasks, and require post approval for other users. Up to 50 accounts can be connected.  
• Social calendar for content strategy
• Social analytics and downloadable analytics reports

Pricing tiers:

• Free: $0/mo
• Professional: $19/mo
• Team: $99/mo
• Business: $499/mo

Buffer Another all-in-one social media tool, Buffer allows users to schedule posts on social media channels, track performance of posted content, and manage multiple social accounts in one place. Key features:

• Social monitoring of post clicks, reach, shares, comments, retweets, and mentions across all linked platforms
• Buffer Reply tool: Allows keyword and hashtag searches on twitter
• In-platform engagement on comments and DMs
• Post scheduling on individual tweets (Bulk Buffer allows for bulk uploads)
• Social calendar for content strategy
• Downloadable analytics reports
• Supports three to 150 connected accounts

Pricing tiers:

• Free: $0/mo
• Awesome: $10/mo
• Small: $99/mo
• Medium: $199/mo
• Large:$399/mo

Sproutsocial Sproutsocial helps users leverage data to see what social media strategies receive the most engagement and click-throughs. Users can respond to social engagement within the platform, collaborate across teams, and measure their efforts through analytics. Key features:

• Management/monitoring of social engagement across multiple platforms
• Social listening for keywords, hashtags, and locations
• Accommodates 10-20 social profiles (5 additional may be purchased for $25/mo)
• Downloadable analytics reports

Pricing tiers:

• Premium: $99/mo
• Corporate: $149/mo
• Enterprise: $249/mo

ManyChat When it comes to responding to messages and social engagement, it can feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day. With ManyChat, you can create and manage bots which will interact with people through Facebook Messenger for you, helping them work through common issues that don’t require human response. Messages can be broadcasted to all subscribers if desired, and you can create automated engagement campaigns. Key features:

• Dashboard to manage bots, create campaigns, and track analytics
• Accommodates unlimited social accounts

Pricing tiers:

• Basic Features: Free
• Pro Plan: $10/mo/page up to $145/mo/page depending on number of social followers

Board Booster Are you using Pinterest to strategically market your business? Board Booster helps you leverage the popular platform to turn “pins” into web traffic. In-platform pin curation and scheduling can be performed both manually and automatically. Board Booster uses analytics to show you what pins receive the most engagement and tracks your account growth. Key features:

• Automatic pin curation through keyword and board name searches
• Pin scheduling
• “Best time to pin” report shows pin performance based on time of day
• Analytics track pin performance and follower growth rate

Pricing tiers:

• 100 pins: Free
• 500 pins: $5/mo
• 5,000 pins: $50/month

Tailwind While many social media managers focus more heavily on Facebook and Twitter, Tailwind is designed specifically for photo-heavy Pinterest and Instagram. Tailwind is optimized for small businesses and bloggers as well as larger businesses. Users can manage and schedule posts, bulk-upload photos, and track data across both social platforms. Key features:

• Bulk photo uploads
• Accommodates multiple users and team collaboration
• Engagement analytics for tracking post performance and peak engagement times

Pricing tiers:

• Small business: $9.99/month
• Plus: $15/month
• Professional: $799.99/month
• Enterprise: contact for info

Email Marketing Tools

Klaviyo Klaviyo is designed to to help ecommerce marketers identify their targets, personalize emails, measure their performance, and launch Facebook campaigns. They provide ROI-based reporting, pre built autoreponses, website tracking, data blocks, product recommendations and highly customizable email campaigns. Key features:

• Email Segmentation by browsing behavior, average order value, acquisition source, shopping preference, purchase frequency, purchase recency, shopping behavior, purchase motivation, shopping cart profile
• eCommerce integration with Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, BigCommerce
• Downloadable analytics reports
• Drag-and-drop design editor (no HTML needed)

Pricing tiers:

• Up to 250 email contacts: Free
• Up to 1,000 email contacts: $50/mo
• Up to 5,000 email contacts: $200/mo
• Up to 30,000 email contacts: $500/mo
• Up to 150,000 email contacts: $1,700/mo
• More than 150,000+ email contacts: Contact them for more edits

Mailchimp MailChimp is an email marketing service that provides tools for building email lists, designing email campaigns, and creating Facebook Ad campaigns. Mailchimp sends regular activity reports straight to your inbox so you can track the success of your campaigns. Key features:

• Email segmentation by field property, signup source, campaign activity, interest groups.
• eCommerce integration with Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, PrestaShop, and BigCommerce
• Subscriber activity reports track what subscribers open, click, purchase, and unsubscribe
• Drag+drop design tool with option to insert HTML code

Pricing tiers:

• New business: Free
• Growing business: $10/mo
• Pro-marketer: $199/mo

Campaign Monitor Like the earlier two apps on this list, Campaign Monitor is an online application that allows you to create, send, manage and track branded emails for yourself and clients with ease. What sets it apart is its dynamic segmentation abilities, allowing marketers to send hyper-targeted emails to small groups within their email list. Key features:

• Uses extensive contact data (age, gender, location, interests, social profiles) to send hyper-targeted emails
• eCommerce integration with Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce
• Link tracking and downloadable analytics reports
• Drag-and-drop design editor (no HTML needed)

Pricing tiers:

• Basic: $9/mo
• Unlimited $29/mo
• Premiere  $149/mo

Active Campaign Active Campaign’s main point of focus is data: They want users to use their data to design smart and professional marketing processes that save time and add revenue. Their sales CRM organizes customer data to create actionable steps to automate sales. Key features:

• Email segmentation by demographics, location, behavior, custom fields, and tags.
• Save email segments for quick and easy reuse.
• eCommerce integration with Shopify, WordPress, Youtube, Vimeo
• Downloadable analytics reports
• Drag-and-drop design editor (no HTML required)

Constant Contact An email marketing service with easy-to-use templates providing users with solutions for email campaigns, event marketing, social campaigns and reporting, and survey management for customer feedback. Key features:

• Email segmentation features to send subscribers personalized messages (welcome, birthday, anniversary)
• eCommerce integration with Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, BigCommerce
• Automatic contact management — upload your email contacts, they do the rest
• Downloadable analytics reports
• Drag-and-drop design editor (no HTML required)

Pricing tiers:

• Price based on list size
• Up to 500 subscribers: $20/mo
• Up to 5,000 subscribers: $65/mo
• Up to 50,000 subscribers: $335/mo
• 50,000+ subscribers: Contact them for more info

AWeber Web-based marketing and automation tool for sending newsletters and e-mail broadcasts. Key features:

• Send targeted emails based on personal preferences, geographical location, or actions they’ve taken with previous emails.
• Use and apply tags to trigger email campaigns based on clicks and opens
• eCommerce integration with Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, BigCommerce
• Downloadable analytics reports
• Drag-and-drop design editor with option to insert HTML code

Pricing tiers

• Price based on list size
• Up to 500 subscribers: $19/mo
• Up to 25,000 subscribers: $149/mo
• 25,000+ subscribers: Contact them for more info

SEO

Raven Tools Raven tools helps companies analyze their data and track their progress by generating automated reports for SEO, Social Media, PPC, data connectors, and campaigns. Key features:

• Keyword rank tracking
• Backlink tracking
• Competitive tracking
• Allows tracking on multiple sites

Pricing tiers:

• Pro: $99/mo
• Agency: $249/mo

SEMRush SEMRush is an online digital marketing software that provides competitive data to find and test profitable keywords. Users can optimize personal and business sites and create useful content surround high-performing keywords. Key features:

• Daily data updates
• Keyword rank tracking
• Backlink tracking
• Competitive tracking
• Allows tracking on multiple sites

Pricing tiers:

• Pro: $99/mo
• Guru: $199/mo
• Business: $399/mo

Moz Moz is a platform used for monitoring and improving all inbound marketing channels, strengthening brand marketing, and optimizing pages for SEO. Key features:

• Daily data updates
• Keyword rank tracking
• Backlink tracking
• Competitive tracking
• Allows tracking on multiple sites

Pricing tiers:

• Moz Pro: $149/mo
• Moz Local: $9/per listing                             

Ahrefs Ahrefs helps companies analyze the search rankings of competitors to determine why they are ranking well — and how to outrank them. The tool helps users conduct keyword research, content research, link building and web monitoring. This can be especially helpful to monitor search activity within specific niches. Key features:

• Daily data updates
• Keyword rank tracking
• Backlink tracking
• Competitive tracking
• Allows tracking on multiple sites

Pricing tiers:

• Lite: $99/mo
• Standard: $179/mo
• Advanced:$399/mo
• Agency: $999/mo

Authoritylabs Authoritylabs takes domains and keywords from a client to track their SEO results. They run daily rank checking and track search results at a local level. They can track domains and pages in any country and language. Key features:

• Daily data updates
• Keyword rank tracking
• Backlink tracking
• Competitive tracking
• Allows tracking on multiple sites

Pricing tiers:

• Plus: $49/mo
• Pro: 99/mo
• Pro Plus: $225/mo
• Enterprise: $450/mo

Content generation

Buzzsumo Buzzsumo is used to promote content and analyze how well a company’s content performs on any topic. It can also track the performance of competitor’s content in comparison to yours. The program offers insight on what content is being shared the most across social media so you can create relevant content and connect with influencers. Key features:

• Daily data updates
• Backlink tracking
• Competitive tracking
• Allows tracking on multiple sites

Pricing tiers:

• Pro: $79/mo
• Plus: $139/mo
• Large: $239/mo
• Enterprise: $499/mo

Socialanimal With Socialanimal, users can track keywords to see a detailed analysis of how content is performing. They can search for content across the web related to any given keyword, monitoring competitors and helping users brainstorm valuable content related to desired keywords. Key features:

• Keyword rank tracking
• Daily data updates
• Competitive tracking
• Data Exports
• Analytics reporting

Pricing tiers:

• Lite: $49/mo
• Agency: $99/mo
• Enterprise: $299/mo        

Content Studio     ContentStudio combine content creation and curation with social media management. Users can search topics or keywords to plan content strategy and create SEO-optimized blog posts. Key features:

• Social media management
• Keyword tracking
• Daily data updates
• Analytics reporting                              

Pricing tiers:    

• Lite: $49/mo
• Agency: $99/mo
• Enterprise: $299/mo                                          

Design

Canva Canva is a web and mobile-based design program which can be utilized to create many types of content, such as pre-sized social media images, header templates, documents, presentations, invitations, and ads. If none of their pre-programmed layouts or templates catch your eye, you can create a custom project from scratch. Key features:

• Drag-and-drop editing interface
• Team collaboration and sharing
• 1.5 million available graphics
• Photo-editing capabilities

Pricing tiers:

• Canva Standard: Free
• Canva for work: $12.95/mo

Adobe Creative Cloud Considered a must-have by many designers and creatives, Adobe Creative Cloud allows you to download and use a number of Adobe products — From Photoshop, to Illustrator, to Premiere Pro (video) — from their cloud-based platform. Businesses doing in-house design or marketing benefit most from these programs. Key features:

• Access to the full suite of Adobe Creative products
• Programs may be downloaded on two devices per subscription

Pricing tiers:

• Individual: $9.99/mo- $79.99/mo
• Business: $69/mo – $29.99/mo
• Student & Teachers: $9.99/mo-$19.99/mo
• Schools & Universities: $14.99/mo-$299.88/yr

DesignBold DesignBold has a easy-to-use photo editing interface that allows users to build and create visual content for print or digital media in just a few minutes. You can choose from thousands of design templates for infographics, charts, social media posts and invitations. Key features:

• Upload files and drag-and-drop edit in user-friendly interface
• Collaborate on projects with a team and share files
• 100+ fonts and 1 million+ graphics included

Pricing tiers:

• Basic: Free
• Pro: $19.99/mo
• Team: $49.99/mo

PicMonkey PicMonkey is an online tool that allows users to edit photos, design graphics, create collages, image editing and touch up. It has a user-friendly control panel and includes helpful instructions and hints to assist beginners. Key features:

• Upload and drag and drop using collage templates
• Beginner-friendly interface
• Team collaboration on projects

Pricing tiers:

• Basic: Free
• Annual: $3.99/mo
• Monthly: $7.99/mo

Werble Werble is a looping animation app that combines a still photo with animating art and effects. It’s available on IOS only. Key features:

• Gif creation using pre-selected animations
• Post gifs directly to social platforms from app
• Email or SMS gifs or save to camera roll for later posts

Pricing tiers:

• App: Free
• In-app purchases up to $3.99

Web Development/eCommerce

Magneto Magneto is an eCommerce platform that offers marketing, promotions, and conversational tools. They also provide data and help for SEO, site management, catalog management, catalog browsing, product browsing, as well as customer service and checkout/payment/shipping management. Key features:

• CMS for increased control of merchandising
• Blog for website
• Hosted solution with multi-layered security, DDOS protection, and sitewide https.
• Order archiving
• Inventory management
• Product management
• Allows third party apps/plugins
• Integrated with Google Analytics
• Mobile app support

Bigcommerce Bigcommerce is a cloud-based shopping cart software with a content management system to manage products, edit pages, or launch a blog. Users can set up a fully-functional online store to sell physical and digital products online.

• CMS for product, page, and blog management
• Blog creation and management
• Hosted solution 99.99% uptime and 100% Cyber 5 uptime.
• End to end solution for order processing and fulfillment
• Allows third party apps/plugins
• Uses proprietary eCommerce analytics to track data and generate reports
• Mobile app support

Shopify Shopify allows users to set up an online store and sell goods by providing a content management system to organize your products, customize your storefront, accept credit card payments, track and respond to orders. The platform supports inventory tracking, drag-and-drop ordering, and keyword tags.

• CMS for easy site and product editing and management
• Blog creation and management
• Hosted solution — nothing to set up, unlimited bandwidth, no hidden fees
• Run on Ruby on Rails
• All-in-one order processing and fulfillment
• Allows third party apps/plugins
• Option to integrate Google Analytics
• Mobile app support

WooCommerce WooCommerce is a fully-customizable eCommerce platform for entrepreneurs around the world. Its flexible CMS allows for flexibility with site design and function. Key features

• CMS for page/product editing, site management, and analytics
• Blog creation and management
• Hosted solution — users can select their own domain and host. No bandwidth restrictions.
• Store management solutions including customer accounts, guest checkout, on-click refunds, inventory management, and more  
• Allows third party apps/plugins
• Option to integrate Google Analytics
• Mobile app support

Lemonstand A highly-customizable, cloud-based eCommerce platform including a flexible CMS, blog features, and unique options for product and pricing display. Key features:

• CMS for content creation and integration, page management, and announcements
• Blog creation and management
• Hosted solution — reliable web hosting and customer service/technical support
• Easy-to-use dashboard to track revenue and orders
• Allows third party apps/plugins
• Google Analytics integration
• Mobile app support

Analytics Google Analytics Google Analytics tracks and reports website traffic and helps users determine which campaigns bring the most traffic and conversions. Other helpful information (such as where visitors are located, what people are searching for, what people click on the most) helps businesses learn more about their customers and content. Key features:

• Traffic measurement — track what pages receive traffic and when
• Audience reports — get to know your customers and visitors
• Heat mapping — track user activity and website conversions

Pricing tiers:

• Standard: Free
• Analytics 360 (enterprise): Contact them for more information

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