Here‘s Everything I’ve Learned About Internet Marketing [Data + Expert Tips]

Internet marketing has changed more in the last two years than in the previous decade. Between AI-powered search, shifting buyer behavior, and the rise of new channels, internet marketing now covers far more ground than the email-and-SEO playbook most teams started with.

The good news: the fundamentals still apply. A strong online marketing strategy reaches the right people, on the right channels, with content that actually converts. The challenge is knowing which channels matter most for your business — and how to measure whether they’re working.

This post covers the main types of internet marketing, the strategies that drive results in 2026, real-world examples, and the tools worth investing in at any budget.

Table of Contents

• How to Do Online Marketing
• What is internet marketing and why does it matter?
• Types of Internet Marketing That Drive Results
• Internet Marketing vs. Content Marketing
• Internet Marketing Strategy: Your Roadmap to Success
• The Business Impact of Internet Marketing
• Online Marketing Examples
• Essential Internet Marketing Tools for Every Budget
• The Best Internet Marketing Content Strategies Add Value

What is internet marketing and why does it matter?

Internet marketing is the practice of promoting a business, product, or service through digital channels such as search engines, websites, email, social media, and paid advertising. Also called online marketing or web marketing, it uses digital platforms to reach audiences and convert prospects into customers. Internet marketing strategies include:

• SEO
• AEO
• Content marketing
• Email
• Social media
• PPC
• Influencer marketing
• Affiliate marketing

According to HubSpot’s 2026 State of Marketing, most brands believe their website efforts — including their blog and SEO strategy — deliver the highest ROI, followed closely by paid social media. Each channel supports a specific part of the buyer’s journey, from discovery and research through purchase and retention.

Why Internet Marketing Matters Today

Internet marketing matters because buyer behavior now starts — and often ends — online. Shoppers research products digitally before making a purchase, and B2B buyers complete most of their evaluation before contacting a sales rep. For businesses, the core benefits of internet marketing are:

• Measurable performance. Digital channels report impressions, clicks, conversions, and revenue, so marketing activity ties directly to business outcomes.
• Precise targeting. Audiences can be segmented by demographics, behavior, intent, and lifecycle stage rather than broad publication or geographic reach.
• Flexible investment. Campaigns scale up or down based on performance, which lowers the risk of large upfront commitments.
• Two-way engagement. Customers respond to brands directly through comments, reviews, and messages, giving marketers faster feedback loops.

As AI tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews become more common, an internet marketing strategy becomes even more important. Nearly 30% of marketers reported a decrease in search traffic as consumers turn to AI tools, which means brands that aren’t visible in AI-generated answers can be excluded from discovery entirely. The best way to show up inside AI-generated answers? A comprehensive web marketing strategy that covers on- and off-page channels.

{Psssst… It’s okay to test a strategy and pivot later. Read Curt del Principe’s thoughts on why creative teams need space to fail.}

Internet Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing

Internet marketing differs from traditional marketing in four ways: targeting precision, cost flexibility, feedback speed, and attribution. Traditional marketing still has a place — especially for local brand building — but internet marketing offers a level of measurement and responsiveness that offline channels can’t match.

Types of Internet Marketing That Drive Results

1. SEO Marketing

Search engine optimization, or SEO, helps companies expand their visibility in organic search results. Essentially, good SEO ensures that when someone Googles a product or service, they can find the exact website in the search results.

For example, if someone Google’s “Hubspot,” it appears at the top of the search results, right after the sponsored posts. Branded terms are much easier to rank for compared to other terms, like “best CRM.”

Most modern brands have an SEO marketing strategy in place. With the current changes in user search behavior, 41% of marketers say staying ahead of their SEO strategy is a top priority.

2. AEO Marketing

Answer engine optimization (AEO) is the practice of optimizing content so it appears in AI-generated answers from engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Gemini. AEO focuses on being cited as a source inside AI responses rather than being ranked in a list of blue links.

Over 90% of marketers blend optimizing for traditional search engines with optimizing for AI-powered search engines. However, AEO differs from SEO in three ways:

• Intent clustering. AI engines group related questions together, so the content should answer both the primary question and likely follow-ups.
• Extractability. Short answers, clear definitions, structured lists, and labeled sections make content easier for LLMs to lift into responses.
• Entity authority. AI engines favor brands referenced consistently across multiple trusted sources, not just those with strong backlinks to a single domain.

Pro Tip: Run HubSpot’s free AEO Grader to see how your brand currently shows up in AI answers and where the biggest visibility gaps are. For ongoing tracking of brand visibility, share of voice, and prompt-level performance across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini, HubSpot AEO gives teams a continuous dashboard to monitor and act on these gaps over time.

3. Social Media Marketing

With 5.79 billion social media users globally, it’s likely a brand can find its target audience on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X, or another platform. Depending on marketing goals and budget, a brand may choose:

• Organic. With organic social media marketing, you can take advantage of free marketing opportunities like creating posts and reels on Instagram.
• Paid. With paid advertising on social media, you can create promoted posts targeted towards a specific audience.

Many brands (and individuals), like Ben Goodey, the founder of an SEO agency, Spicy Margarita, turn to LinkedIn not only to show their expertise but also to build connections with their followers.

Source

4. Content Marketing

Content marketing involves creating and distributing branded online content to engage and attract both potential and existing customers. This can include social media, a company blog, training materials, video content, case studies, or other industry-related topics.

Blogging gives companies a great opportunity to share unique insights and showcase their personality — especially now that the internet is flooded with generic, low-quality AI-generated content. Here is an example from HubSpot. It features expert tips, which add credibility to the piece.

The CMO at gifted.co, Elad Maoz, told me that content marketing has proven a very helpful tactic for them.

“By creating high-quality, audience-centric content, we’ve built trust and engagement with our target market. One strategy we implemented was a blog series on creative gifting ideas, paired with video tutorials on making personalized gift packages. We distributed this content through email campaigns and social media ads,” says Maoz.

The blog series generated a 35% increase in website traffic and boosted engagement rates on social media by 50% over two months.

“Content marketing works because it positions your brand as a helpful resource, fostering loyalty and encouraging users to share your content, amplifying your reach organically,” he adds.

Featured Resource: How to Start a Blog: A Step-by-Step Guide [+ Free Blog Post Templates]

5. Email Marketing

Email marketing is the process of targeting your audience and customers through email. It helps a brand boost conversions and revenue by providing subscribers and customers with valuable information to help them achieve their goals. According to FirstPage Sage, email marketing is one of the most effective channels for driving conversion. When customers share their email, brands can:

• Send welcome emails to new customers.
• Promote new blog content.
• Introduce new products or services.
• Send promotions and discounts.
• Solicit feedback from customers about their experience.
• Send abandoned cart notifications to boost sales.

For brands wondering whether it’s still worth investing in email marketing (especially with so many social media platforms to post on), the answer is yes. Some of the world’s most popular newsletters see subscriber numbers in the seven-digit range. The Pulse, one of The New York Times’ flagship newsletters, has millions of subscribers.

Of course, the more niche a product, the fewer subscribers a brand aims for. Yet, this example demonstrates that email marketing can still achieve outstanding success.

6. Pay-Per-Click Marketing

Pay-per-click, or PPC, is a form of advertising that allows a brand to pay a fee to appear on the search engine results page (SERP) when someone types in specific keywords or phrases into the search engine.

The SERP will display the ads the brand creates to direct visitors to your site, and the fee they pay is based on whether people click on the ad. According to WordStream, with the right optimization tactics in place, PPC advertising yields an average return of $2 for every $1 spent.

Here are a couple of PPC ads that appeared in Google when I searched the phrase “newsletter tool.” Notice the “sponsored” tags and how these types of advertisements frequently take up all of the above-the-fold parts of the page.

7. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing employs popular, niche content creators to improve brand awareness, increase traffic, and target messaging to a brand’s audience. Brands can use influencers across multiple channels, including social media, blogs, digital and print ads, and television. It’s an effective marketing avenue because it uses word-of-mouth marketing and social proof, which are now critical aspects of any successful marketing strategy.

One of my favorite influencer marketing examples is Skin Unmasked, an Instagram profile run by Piotr Janicki MD, that focuses on skin health and wellness. He has an engaged audience of viewers who turn to him not only for product recommendations but also for honest reviews and tips.

He’s also known for educating about the risks of myths and misleading product advertising. For more knowledge on these topics, he redirects readers to his blog and YouTube channel. This allows him to build an even more engaged community.

8. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing tactic in which a retailer, typically an online one, rewards a website with a commission for each customer referred via the website’s promotional activities.

The “affiliate” or website only gets paid when their promotion of a product results in a sale. This method is similar to influencer marketing, but the pay structure is different. For example, HubSpot’s affiliate program offers a 30% recurring commission for each customer an affiliate refers.

9. Marketing Analytics

Marketing analytics is the measurement layer that underpins every other type of internet marketing. It tracks which channels, campaigns, and content drive revenue, and surfaces the data needed to reallocate budget toward what’s working. Strong marketing analytics improves:

• Budget allocation. Spend shifts toward channels with the highest return instead of the most activity.
• ROI tracking. Every campaign is tied to pipeline or revenue, not just impressions.
• Channel optimization. Underperforming tactics are identified early and either improved or retired.

Pro Tip: Unified marketing platforms reduce tool sprawl and fragmented reporting. HubSpot’s Marketing Hub brings CRM, automation, analytics, and AI tools into a single view. This makes cross-channel measurement far easier than stitching together standalone tools.

Ready to create a more inclusive marketing strategy? Listen here.

Internet Marketing vs. Content Marketing

Content marketing and internet marketing are incredibly similar strategies for attracting leads and prospects to your site, and ultimately converting web traffic into customers. However, there are a few slight differences between the two.

Content marketing lives under the umbrella of online/internet marketing. Online/internet marketing is the broader, overarching strategy, while content marketing is one process within that strategy.

• Content marketing applies only to the process of creating and distributing content to reach audiences.
• Online marketing encompasses sharing that content through email, search engines, and social media. It also includes paid advertising, retargeting, and a wide range of strategies you might use to reach audiences online.

While most online marketing strategies include content creation, online marketing also includes the non-content creation tasks of internet marketing, such as PPC bidding or website design.

Internet Marketing Strategy: Your Roadmap to Success

A strong internet marketing strategy starts with clear business goals and audience research, not channel selection. Once goals and audiences are defined, organize tactics into five categories, starting with the foundation before moving to optimization.

1. Foundation Strategies

Foundation strategies set up the infrastructure that every other channel depends on. Without them, paid ads send traffic to broken pages, content targets the wrong audience, and analytics can’t measure anything meaningful. Start with:

• Designing a user-friendly website. A clean, mobile-optimized site improves both user experience and search rankings. Slow or cluttered sites lose visitors within seconds.
• Defining the target audience. Document who the ideal customer is, what problems they have, and where they already spend time online.
• Setting specific, measurable goals. “More traffic” isn’t a goal. “300 qualified leads per quarter from organic search” is.
• Planning content and campaigns around goals. Map each planned content piece and campaign to a specific goal and audience segment before production starts.

2. Content & SEO Strategies

Content and SEO strategies generate the organic discovery that compounds over time. These tactics are slower than paid channels but deliver the lowest long-term cost per lead. Here’s what to do:

• Create a blog. Consistent blogging builds topical authority, supports SEO rankings and AI visibility, and gives sales teams assets to share with prospects.
• Optimize the site for search engines. Keyword research, on-page optimization, internal linking, and technical SEO all contribute to organic visibility.
• Optimize for AI answer engines. Structure content so LLMs can extract it — short definitions, clear headings, lists, and labeled sections improve AEO performance.
• Publish online press releases. Press coverage expands reach and builds backlinks that strengthen domain authority.
• Repurpose content across channels. A single blog post can become a newsletter, LinkedIn carousel, short video, and podcast talking point.

Pro Tip: HubSpot’s SEO tools inside Marketing Hub help teams optimize pages, plan content strategy, and track rankings in one place without bolting on separate software.

3. Social & Community Strategies

Social and community strategies build the relationships that drive word-of-mouth and retention. They work best when treated as ongoing conversations rather than broadcast channels. Consider:

• Leaning into short-form video. Short-form video consistently ranks as one of the highest-ROI formats, and platforms like TikTok, Reels, and Shorts reward frequent posting.
• Posting videos on YouTube and social networks. YouTube remains a primary search engine for how-to, review, and product research content.
• Partnering with influencers, especially micro-influencers. Smaller, niche creators often deliver stronger engagement and better cost-per-conversion than mega-influencers.
• Humanizing the brand through values and POV. Audiences increasingly reward brands that take clear positions and show personality, especially as AI-generated content floods feeds.
• Investing in permanent social content. Reels, pinned Stories, and YouTube videos keep working long after disappearing content is gone.
• Creating a Facebook group or community. Private communities deepen relationships with existing customers and surface product feedback.

4. Paid & Performance Strategies

Paid and performance strategies deliver faster results than organic tactics and work best alongside — not instead of — SEO and content. Paid advertising can deliver faster traffic and lead generation than organic channels, which makes it the right choice for launches, competitive keywords, and short-term pipeline pushes. Brands can:

• Run pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Bid on high-intent search terms that are too competitive to rank for organically.
• Cultivate paid social campaigns. Targeted ads on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok reach specific audience segments at scale.
• Use retargeting to re-engage visitors. Most first-time website visitors don’t convert. Retargeting brings them back after they’ve had time to consider.

5. Measurement & Optimization

Measurement and optimization strategies close the loop between activity and outcomes. They turn campaigns into experiments and ensure appropriate budget spend. Here’s what works:

• Optimize for conversions. Conversion rate optimization (CRO) improves the percentage of visitors who take action on key pages — homepage, pricing, landing pages, and blog posts.
• Run email marketing with segmentation and automation. Subscriber segmentation, personalization, and automated sequences consistently rank as the top-performing email tactics.
• Track AI search visibility. Citation frequency and grounding queries inside AI answers are becoming standard metrics alongside organic rankings.
• Build an analytics stack that measures pipeline, not just traffic. A revenue-qualified pipeline is a stronger signal than pageviews for long-term growth.

The Business Impact of Internet Marketing

Internet marketing drives growth in two ways: it brings in new customers, and it keeps existing ones engaged. Both outcomes are measurable, which is what separates digital marketing from traditional marketing. Acquisition and retention pull from different parts of the marketing toolkit. Here’s what each one looks like in practice.

1. Attracting new customers online.

Internet marketing attracts new customers by putting a brand in front of prospects when they’re researching a problem or solution. Five channels do most of the heavy lifting for acquisition:

• SEO. Captures demand from users actively searching for a category or solution.
• PPC. Delivers immediate visibility for high-intent keywords and competitive terms.
• Social media. Builds awareness and drives consideration among targeted audiences.
• Content marketing. Educates prospects and earns trust across the research phase.
• Website optimization. Converts traffic into qualified leads by improving clarity, speed, and conversion design.

Paid social also plays a specific role in acquisition. In one B2B campaign I worked on, we assumed LinkedIn would produce the highest-quality leads because of audience fit. We tested Facebook in parallel and found it outperformed LinkedIn on both cost and lead quality — a finding we only caught because digital attribution made the comparison possible.

2. Building customer loyalty through digital channels.

Internet marketing builds loyalty by staying in contact with customers after the first purchase and delivering ongoing value. For brands, that often means:

• Email marketing. Personalized messages, birthday offers, and post-purchase sequences drive repeat purchases and keep the brand top of mind.
• Social engagement. Replying to comments, reposting user content, and running community-driven campaigns deepens relationships.
• Personalized content. Tailored recommendations and segmented content make customers feel known rather than targeted.
• Re-engagement campaigns. Win-back offers and reactivation flows recover lapsed customers at a lower cost than new acquisition.

Loyalty programs are popular for a reason. Customers respond to personalized rewards and consistent value — but programs only work when the incentives are genuine. One wellness brand I shop at regularly surprises members with small gifts or discounts at checkout rather than pushing point balances. That approach feels like a reward rather than a transaction, and it’s why I keep going back.

How to Do Online Marketing

There are many different methods of online marketing to boost a brand’s engagement. Here are 12 that I recommend.

1. Repurpose your high-quality internet marketing content across multiple channels.

Repurposing content simply means reusing content a brand already has, but in a fresh format. For example, a TikTok reaction video could be repurposed as an Instagram Reel. Change the caption on Reels, and use the video to react to something else.

2. Lean into permanent social media content that doesn’t have a time limit.

Content like Instagram stories is not permanent and disappears after a period of time. Examples of permanent social media content include:

• X posts.
• YouTube videos.
• TikTok videos.

3. Choose the right keywords and optimize your content for search and AI discovery.

Using keywords helps search engines categorize content and ensure it reaches the right audience. But in 2026, optimization doesn’t stop at traditional search. AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews are increasingly where buyers research and make decisions. This means content needs to be structured for both ranking and citation.

For keyword research, tools like Ahrefs surface what an audience is searching for in traditional search. For AI visibility, the question shifts slightly: instead of “what keywords should I rank for,” ask “what questions are my buyers asking AI tools, and is my brand showing up in the answers?” Tools like HubSpot AEO help teams track exactly that — monitoring brand visibility across major answer engines and surfacing which prompts to prioritize.

4. Create a mobile-optimized site.

There are many ways to optimize a website for mobile users better. Consider:

• Compressing images to reduce page load time.
• Mapping your customers’ journey.
• Creating a mobile app.

5. Publish blog posts regularly.

Blogging consistently has many benefits. It keeps a website up to date with fresh content, helping to maintain audience interest. It’s also an effective way to get a website to rank on the first page of search results or be cited in an AI-generated answer. The more content a brand posts, the more content they’ll have for the search engine to rank.

6. Conduct email marketing campaigns.

Email marketing is still a helpful approach to marketing a business online. Some of the most effective email marketing strategies are subscriber segmentation, message personalization, and email automation campaigns.

7. Encourage conversation on social media accounts.

Social media is the place where connections are made and conversations happen. Social media users don’t want to just interact with brands. They want to see the humanity behind the big name and logo. A great way to create meaningful connections with the humans that make up an audience is to facilitate conversations.

8. Publish online press releases.

Like blogging, publishing online press releases will increase a brand’s presence on search engines — including AI engines — and raise brand awareness. When writing press releases, remember to answer the “who,” “what,” “where,” and “why” of the brand. And make sure to use simple, understandable language and include a quote.

9. Cultivate paid social media campaigns.

The idea of paying for advertising may seem a bit daunting, but paid social media advertising is among the least expensive forms of advertising. Paid social media ads can start as low as one dollar, thanks to the bidding model and lottery system some platforms use to push ads to users’ news feeds and timelines. Platforms that allow for paid advertisements are:

• Facebook

• X

• Instagram
• TikTok

10. Leverage pay-per-click advertising for competitive keywords.

Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) and SEO go hand in hand like peanut butter and jelly. Optimizing a website for keywords can definitely help a brand appear at the top of search engine results pages. However, it requires patience, and a brand may not see results for weeks or months if they’re optimizing for highly competitive keywords. But by leveraging PPC, brands can stand out among competitors by bidding on ads.

11. Post videos on YouTube or other social channels.

YouTube — known for entertaining the masses — is also a search engine. With the United States being the second-largest audience in the world (254 million users), it’s likely that a brand’s prospects and customers frequently visit the site.

When creating content for YouTube, be sure to diversify it to attract audiences who prefer video over text. Research keywords to optimize content and use them in the video’s title, description, and tags.

12. Work with micro-influencers to reach new audiences.

On apps like TikTok, brands are still struggling to find their place. However, influencer marketing has proven helpful for brands to elevate their online presence and find their target audience. Businesses are seeing the most success with smaller, niche influencers. These influencers provide access to highly engaged, loyal audiences at a more affordable cost.

Maris Laatre, the CMO at Bully Max, finds this tactic especially effective. She said they partnered with a popular dog trainer and pet influencer who shared their positive experience using Bully Max’s products.

“As a result, our website traffic increased by 20%, and we saw a 13% boost in product sales within a few weeks. Influencer marketing humanizes our brand and connects us directly with dog owners, creating stronger engagement and building lasting relationships with our audience,” says Laatre.

Online Marketing Examples

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of online marketing examples to inspire an internet marketing campaign. Here, I‘ll dive into real-world examples of social media, email, SEO, and website marketing methods. I’ll also include links to additional blog resources at the bottom, for even more exceptional ideas.

1. Social Media: #TheFaceof10 from Dove

In 2024, Dove launched an educational campaign to raise awareness about the societal pressure young girls face to look a certain way. The campaign highlighted the troubling trend of young girls adopting multi-step skincare routines to maintain youthfulness and glow.

To combat this, Dove invited numerous influencers, dermatologists, and academic experts to help promote a healthier self-image among youngsters, with even Drew Barrymore supporting the initiative.

The campaign was focused mainly on social media, especially TikTok, where influencers shared videos showing what a child’s face should look like– bright and playful, decorated with colorful tints, glitter, and stickers, not retinol.

Source

A TikTok video posted by Drew Barrymore putting glitter on her face was liked by 27k and got 396 comments – pretty impressive!

2. Social Media: Patagonia’s “Buy Less, Demand More” Campaign

One of the boldest campaigns I’ve seen was from outdoor wear and gear brand Patagonia. The company, which has always communicated its dedication to sustainability and eco-consciousness, decided to launch a series of Instagram and YouTube videos and posts with the #WornWear tag.

The message Patagonia wanted to convey was that not every piece of a worn-out garment needed to be tossed into the garbage bin. Instead, they wanted to spread awareness on how to care for (and, when the time comes, repurpose) their favorite clothing.

For this purpose, they partnered up with athletes, activists, farmers, and other real-life Patagonia clients who shared their stories and how the company’s apparel accompanied them in their daily lives. Each of the videos released to YouTube garnered hundreds of thousands of viewers, with some even exceeding 1M.

I personally think that this campaign is more than “just” an example of how to promote your brand online to the right customer.

Back in 2023, Patagonia was accused of producing its garments in the very same locations as fast-fashion brands, so it’s also a good case study of how a brand can recover from a reputational crisis.

3. Email: Expedia

Companies often use email marketing to re-engage past customers, but a “Where’d You Go? Want To Buy This?” message can come across as aggressive, and you want to be careful with your wording to cultivate a long-term email subscriber.

This is why Expedia’s New Year promo re-engagement email works so well. It gets straight to the point by mentioning its “Big January Sale” in the email tagline, while simultaneously reminding an old email subscriber (and client of theirs) that they might want to check out some of the discounted deals for travels well into the following autumn.

4. SEO & Expert-Driven Content: Databox

Databox was one of the pioneers of expert-driven content. They’ve been creating expert roundups at least since 2018. The company created SEO articles packed with tips and advice from subject matter experts. The screen below is an example of a piece where 45 experts shared their take on a topic.

Source

With this type of internet marketing content, there are at least two benefits. Firstly, a brand pleases search engines, which are now prioritizing unique articles that share first-hand experiences. Secondly, if a brand features experts, it can also ask the experts to share the piece on their social profiles to grow its organic reach.

5. Web Design: AccessAble

AccessAble, an information provider for people with disabilities in the UK and Ireland, hired Agency51 to implement an SEO migration strategy to move AccessAble from an old platform to a new one.

By applying 301 redirects to old URLS, transferring metadata, setting up Google Webmaster Tools, and creating a new sitemap, Agency 51 successfully transferred AccessAble to a new platform while keeping its previous SEO power alive.

Additionally, it boosted visitor numbers by 21% year over year, and the site restructuring allowed AccessAble to rank higher than competitors. The case study is available on SingleGrain.com.

Source

More Internet Marketing Examples:

• 19 of the Best Email Marketing Campaign Examples We’ve Ever Seen [+ Template]
• 5 Real Examples of Engaging Social Media Campaign Ideas
• The Best of B2B Marketing Content: 10 Examples

Essential Internet Marketing Tools for Every Budget

There’s no shortage of internet marketing tools, which is exactly why so many teams end up with overlapping subscriptions and fragmented data. Grouping tools by function makes it easier to pick what’s actually needed. The categories below cover the core jobs most marketing teams need, with pricing cues for common budgets.

All-in-One Marketing Platforms

All-in-one platforms combine CRM, email, automation, analytics, and content tools into a single system, which reduces tool sprawl and fragmented reporting.

HubSpot Marketing Hub

HubSpot Marketing Hub brings email marketing, automation, analytics, and AI-powered content tools into a single platform. It’s built on HubSpot’s Smart CRM, so customer data and campaign performance live in the same place. Instead of stitching together standalone tools and reconciling fragmented reports, teams get a unified view of what’s driving leads, pipeline, and revenue across every channel.

Use it for: CRM, email marketing, automation, analytics, and AI-powered content tools in one platform.

Best for: Teams that want unified customer data and reporting across channels.

Pricing: Freemium (paid plans scale with contacts and features).

HubSpot Content Hub

HubSpot Content Hub is a CMS built for teams that want SEO and AEO principles embedded directly into the content creation process. It surfaces optimization recommendations, internal linking insights, and structured content guidance as you write, so every piece is easier for both search engines and AI answer engines to parse and cite. Because it lives inside the same ecosystem as Marketing Hub, content performance ties directly to lead and revenue data without exporting between tools.

Use it for: Creating SEO- and AEO-ready content and distribution within the same ecosystem as Marketing Hub.

Best for: Teams producing blog, video, and podcast content who want native analytics.

Pricing: Freemium.

Analytics & SEO Tools

Analytics and SEO tools measure performance and identify opportunities for content and keyword optimization.

HubSpot AEO

HubSpot AEO gives marketing teams a continuous read on how their brand appears across the answer engines buyers increasingly rely on. It tracks brand visibility, citation frequency, share of voice, and prompt-level sentiment in a single dashboard. Unlike a one-time diagnostic, it monitors performance over time so teams can see whether content and PR efforts are actually moving the needle in AI-generated answers, and where competitors are winning citations they aren’t.

For Marketing Hub Pro and Enterprise customers, prompt tracking is informed by CRM data from day one. The prompts being monitored reflect actual buyers and business context rather than generic industry guesses.

Use it for: Monitoring brand presence across answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini, and tracking brand inclusion, AI share of voice, citation frequency, and prompt-level sentiment in a single dashboard.

Best for: Marketing teams establishing an AEO practice.

Pricing: Included in Marketing Hub Pro and Enterprise, or $50/month standalone.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs is an SEO platform that offers a backlink index and keyword research capabilities. The Site Explorer tool gives teams a clear picture of any domain’s organic traffic, top-ranking pages, and backlink profile. It’s particularly useful for understanding why competitors rank where they do and identifying the content gaps worth closing. For teams managing both SEO performance and competitive intelligence, Ahrefs keeps most of that work in one place without needing separate tools for keyword tracking and link analysis.

Use it for: Keyword research, backlink analysis, competitor research, and content gap tools.

Best for: SEO teams tracking keyword performance and competitive positioning.

Pricing: Paid.

Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is a free tool built into Google Ads that surfaces keyword suggestions alongside search volume ranges and competition data. It’s a practical starting point for teams that want to validate keyword demand before investing in content or paid campaigns. Because the data comes directly from Google, it’s one of the most reliable sources for understanding how often terms are actually being searched and how competitive the ad landscape is for those terms. It works best as a validation and discovery tool rather than a primary keyword research platform, particularly for teams just getting started with SEO or PPC.

Use it for: Keyword suggestions with search volume and competition data.

Best for: Beginners and PPC advertisers validating keyword demand.

Pricing: Free.

GTmetrix

GTmetrix analyzes page speed and performance by breaking down exactly what’s slowing a site down, from oversized images and render-blocking scripts to server response times. It gives teams a prioritized list of fixes rather than just a score. Slow pages hurt both conversions and search rankings, and GTmetrix makes the connection between technical issues and business impact easier to communicate to developers and stakeholders who need specifics before they’ll act. It’s particularly useful for diagnosing individual high-traffic or high-intent pages — like pricing pages or landing pages — where load time has the most direct effect on revenue.

Use it for: Website performance testing, especially page speed.

Best for: Diagnosing slow-loading pages that hurt conversions and rankings.

Pricing: Paid.

Facebook IQ Audience Insights

Facebook IQ Audience Insights gives marketers a deeper look at who their Facebook audience actually is. It breaks down demographics, interests, behaviors, and page likes beyond what standard post analytics surface. For teams running organic or paid Facebook campaigns, it’s particularly useful for validating whether the audience being reached matches the intended target, and for spotting gaps between assumed and actual audience composition. It’s a free tool that works best alongside broader social analytics rather than as a standalone measurement solution, especially for teams that need to connect Facebook performance to cross-channel outcomes.

Use it for: Engagement, reach, and audience data for Facebook Business Pages.

Best for: Tracking Facebook-specific post performance and competitor pages.

Pricing: Free.

Content Creation Tools

Content creation tools help marketing teams produce visual and written assets without needing dedicated design or production resources.

Canva

Canva is a browser-based design tool that gives marketing teams without dedicated designers the ability to produce professional-quality visuals using a drag-and-drop interface and a large library of templates. It removes the bottleneck of waiting on a design resource for every asset, which matters most when teams need to move quickly across multiple channels simultaneously. The freemium model makes it accessible from day one, with paid plans unlocking brand kits, additional assets, and team collaboration features as needs scale.

Use it for: Drag-and-drop design for social graphics, infographics, presentations, and print materials.

Best for: Teams without dedicated designers.

Pricing: Freemium.

BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo surfaces what content is actually performing across the web — by topic, competitor, or domain — so teams can identify proven ideas worth building on rather than guessing what their audience wants to read or share. Its competitor analysis features show which pieces are earning the most backlinks and social engagement in a given category. This is useful for both content strategy and understanding what’s working for rivals before investing in production. For teams that also need influencer research, BuzzSumo surfaces the creators and publishers who already have traction in a specific niche, reducing the time spent manually identifying outreach targets.

Use it for: Content discovery, competitor analysis, and influencer research.

Best for: Identifying high-performing content topics and trends.

Pricing: Paid.

Social Media Management

Social media management tools schedule content, analyze performance, and manage follower relationships across multiple platforms.

Buffer

Buffer is a social media management tool that lets small teams draft, schedule, and publish content across Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, and Pinterest from a single queue without the complexity or cost of enterprise-level platforms. The analytics layer shows which posts are driving engagement and reach across each platform. The freemium model covers the basics for teams just getting started, with paid plans adding more accounts, deeper analytics, and team collaboration features as social media management becomes a bigger part of the workflow.

Use it for: Draft, schedule, and analyze posts across Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.

Best for: Small teams managing multiple accounts.

Pricing: Freemium.

Trello

Trello is a visual project management tool that organizes work into boards, lists, and cards. It’s a natural fit for any workflow where teams need to see what’s in progress, what’s pending review, and what’s ready to publish at a glance. Its flexibility is its biggest advantage: boards can be structured to match almost any team’s workflow without forcing a specific methodology. The freemium plan covers the core functionality most marketing teams need, with paid plans adding automation, integrations, and additional views like timelines and dashboards as complexity grows.

Use it for: Project management for content calendars, campaign planning, and cross-team collaboration.

Best for: Teams that need a flexible visual workflow.

Pricing: Freemium.

Testing & Optimization

Testing and optimization tools surface how users actually behave on a site and support experiments that improve conversion rates.

Crazy Egg

Crazy Egg shows marketers exactly how visitors interact with a page through heatmaps and session recordings that make user behavior visible rather than inferred from aggregate analytics data. That level of detail is particularly valuable for optimizing high-stakes pages like landing pages, pricing pages, and checkout flows, where small friction points have an outsized impact on conversion rates. The A/B testing feature closes the loop by letting teams test fixes directly against the original and measure the impact before rolling changes out sitewide.

Use it for: Heatmaps, A/B testing, and user session recordings.

Best for: Marketers optimizing landing pages and key conversion flows.

Pricing: Paid.

The Best Internet Marketing Content Strategies Add Value

The number of internet marketing channels keeps growing, but the principles haven’t changed: pick the channels that fit the business, measure what’s working, and reinvest in what drives revenue. Spreading effort across every channel is how budgets get wasted.

Whether the priority is acquisition, retention, or AI search visibility, success comes down to systems: clear goals, consistent measurement, and tools that connect the dots between activity and outcomes.

The right tools make it easier to run, measure, and improve an internet marketing strategy without stitching together half a dozen subscriptions. Ready to build an internet marketing strategy that scales? Start with HubSpot’s Marketing Hub to bring strategy, execution, and measurement into one place.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in August 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Content Marketing Planning Templates

Plan your content strategically with these handy templates.

• Editorial Calendar Template
• Buyer Persona Templates
• SWOT Analysis Templates
• SMART Goal Template

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