Top 5 Advertising Tools for Digital Marketers & SMEs

5 min read·Dec 19, 2022

For small businesses, finding the resources to build a full-scale digital marketing strategy can be a complicated endeavor. From content marketing to mobile app advertising, social media, to video advertising, the countless platforms and formats to stay on top of quickly become overwhelming! Fortunately, SME owners who choose to manage their own digital marketing do have a series of advertising apps and tools at their disposal. Here are a few must-haves if you want to take your digital presence to the next level.

1. Project Management: Centralize Your Advertising Apps and Platforms

Trello, Asana, Click-Up, ProofHub, Jira… There are as many project management apps as there are managing styles! And that’s good news, because it means that while some are more versatile than others, you’ll be sure to find at least one that can help you. These solutions are designed to centralize how you organize your marketing projects, but you could utilize them to keep track of which advertising apps you use and how.

You can also use a project management tool to collaborate, set project timelines and milestones, measure campaign results over time, set campaign templates, and more! Don’t ignore these tools because the onboarding might seem intimidating. You will need their help to scale your efforts, and most are mature enough to have excellent help centers and account support staff

2. CTV & OTT Advertising

You might think we’re biased but hear us out! There’s something incredibly empowering in being able to launch creative, highly targeted, and reliably measurable CTV & OTT campaigns directly from a platform rather than a complex process involving long-term contracts and account management teams. The Vibe.co mission is to open the CTV ad space up to just about anyone and democratize access to over 500 premium channels, so advertisers can launch their campaigns autonomously, the same way they would on social media or Google Ads.

Thanks to audience-based targeting, your ad creatives no longer get served to random viewers who may or may not be interested in what you have to sell. Vibe.co  ensures your ads are shown to only the most relevant audiences, right on their connected devices, including on TV.

3. Content Creation

Gone are the days of writing blog posts just for keywords or using social media exclusively for new product launches. Audiences have come to expect quality content from the brands they follow. That means offering publications and ads that are on trend, visually appealing, creatively unique, and highly shareable. That’s no small feat! Thankfully, content creation apps can be counted on as some of the most useful advertising apps.

Canva is a very convenient tool to create static visual content, if you find Photoshop too complicated. You can then use your creations as part of an in-app advertising campaign, display campaign, or social media initiative.

For video content creation, turn to Visme, Biteable, or Animoto for simple infographics, though a more complex type of animated short will require the input of a professional. Filming is much more accessible and video editing apps truly abound, some more technical than others, to help you come up with a beautiful, thought-provoking, and professional-looking clip.

Writing has similar constraints, as learning how to write engaging content can take some time. Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t try your hand at it! Your own expertise would certainly amount to a lot when it comes to providing high-quality information about your products or services. Just be sure to run your texts through a dependable spelling and grammar tool, such as Grammarly!

4. Social Media Advertising

Your advertising app selection should include a reliable social media tool. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter and the like are simple to use individually, but as a busy business owner, finding the time to be active on all of them at once can quickly become an impossible task.

Social media tools, such as Hootsuite, BuzzSumo, Falcon, or Sprout Social are all excellent. While they won’t help with your in-app advertising or PPC campaigns, they can serve as advertising apps if you use social media platform as part of a larger content marketing strategy.

Be sure to choose your app carefully as using several at once can be more confusing than helpful in this case. Some provide an auto-post tool, a bulk-scheduling functionality, a social inbox, social listening, analytics, benchmarking, or consumer data management features, while others don’t. Determine exactly what you need your advertising apps to do, so you can select those that will work for you.

5. Mail Advertising

An email marketing app can be a valuable addition to your arsenal and would give you more functionalities than what Gmail, Outlook, and other standard email providers can offer. Many small businesses turn to MailChimp, Hubspot, or Campaign Monitor, which boast a number of useful features. For example, they have the ability to send bulk emails, include embedded unsubscribe links to avoid spamming your recipients, targeted contact lists, stats, and more.

These solutions will also give you the opportunity to be a lot more creative with the look and feel of your promotional emails and newsletters, which is always important from a brand recognition perspective.

Now go get’em!

Advertising apps allow business owners to save time and scale their output.  By selecting a set of platforms and applications that work for you, you can take the reins on various aspects of your marketing strategy and still take your content creation and publication to the next level.

Get started with Vibe.co’s streamlined self-service CTV & OTT platform to launch your first advertising campaign on the most relevant channels, to reach specifically targeted audiences. Increase your brand awareness, boost your sales, and power up your advertising now with Vibe!

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