What I actually use.
Tools I reach for to run AI marketing for B2B technical companies. Opinions per tool, not affiliate links. Honest about what's good and what's annoying.
Updated as the stack changes. If a tool is missing it's either because I tried it and dropped it, or I haven't tried it yet. Tell me if there's one I should be using.
AI
Best at long-form writing, strategy work, and reading documents without losing the thread. The one I keep open all day. Web app for chat, Claude Code for the harder edits. Worth the subscription.
Faster than Claude for short questions and the only one whose image generation I trust for production. Image generation has my voice better than Midjourney; Midjourney has better lighting. I use both.
Powers the AI Marketing Audit on this site. One API key, any model. The free tier of Llama 3.3 70B is good enough for production at low volume; I'll move to a paid model if the audit takes off.
VS Code with Claude pre-wired. The first AI-native editor that didn't feel like a demo. I edited this website in it. Composer mode is the difference.
Mood boards, hero visuals, occasional product mockups. The aesthetic ceiling is highest here; the variation discipline is highest on me.
System-wide voice-to-text. I think faster than I type. Two-thirds of my long-form thinking starts in Superwhisper, ends in Claude.
Marketing stack
The standard at Outsight and every B2B company I've worked with. Powerful and expensive. Marketing Hub Pro is the breakpoint where it earns its keep; below that, use anything else.
Best CMS for marketing teams without engineering bandwidth. I'd ship a B2B SaaS site in Webflow before Wix or Squarespace, every time. CMS Collections + native SEO are the unlock.
GA4, Tag Manager, Search Console, Google Ads. The default. GA4 is still worse than Universal Analytics was; I keep it because everything else assumes it.
Expensive, slow, the only place where the cost-per-qualified-lead math actually works for B2B. Conversation Ads + Audience Network is where I find headroom.
Apollo for breadth, Clay for craft. Clay is what every outbound team will end up using once they realise lists are a programming problem.
Productivity & writing
Used for the CRM behind this site, for personal projects, for client docs, for half my drafts. The MCP-enabled Notion AI started earning the subscription back this year. The performance is still the daily complaint.
For things I want to own and link. Markdown files in a folder, synced via iCloud. Outlives whichever SaaS goes out of business next.
The marketing-team-friendly Jira replacement. Triage, Cycles, the views. Once your marketing ops looks like product ops, Linear is the right shape.
End-to-end encrypted. Slower at search than Gmail, by design. Worth it.
Open source, self-hostable, less ugly than Calendly. The team availability features are where it pulls ahead.
Design
The default. Auto Layout + Variables + Make. The plugins ecosystem alone is the moat.
For social posts and one-off graphics. Not for brand systems or marketing sites. Use the right tool for the job.
Code & web
This whole site is a static-assets Worker + a tiny script that handles the audit and contact form. Notion writes, OpenRouter calls, Turnstile validation, all in one Worker. The pricing model alone made me move off everything else.
For both code and the marketing files that live alongside it (sitemap, llms.txt, llms-friendly markdown notes). Version control is good for marketing too.
Most of this site was edited by Claude Code with me reviewing. Wrangler deploys, Worker logic, CSS refactors. AI marketing leadership in practice.
Hardware
14-inch M-series. Battery, screen, silence. The first laptop in a decade that I haven't wanted to replace.
For the camera, Notes capture, and the read-it-later pipeline. AirPods 24/7.
Running Home Assistant, Astra, and a few personal tools at the apartment. Cheaper than a Raspberry Pi 5 by the time you add the case, faster than NUC for half the wattage.