What marketing tools are people actually using?
From what I am seeing across communities, here is what the tool stack looks like right now.
The Core Stack
Email & Capture: Mailchimp for launch updates and email sequences . Carrd for quick, clean launch-specific landing pages . Pre-launch tools like LaunchBuddy and Prefundia to build a waitlist and gather early feedback before you even hit the Product Hunt button .
Social & Scheduling: Buffer or Hootsuite to keep a consistent presence across X, LinkedIn, and Threads without it taking over your entire day . Canva for generating graphics that do not look like you threw them together in five minutes .
Analytics & Insight: Google Analytics and Hotjar to understand where traffic is coming from and where people are bouncing . Sprout Social and Twitter Analytics for real-time social engagement .
The Specialist Tools: LaunchKit for an all-in-one suite to track and promote a launch . Hunted Space for analyzing launch progress and results . For indie developers, some are even using AI tools like Niya AI as a career companion directly inside WhatsApp .
The New AI-Driven Layer: Rankfender is an AI agent that handles the entire visibility pipeline — monitoring where your brand appears in AI answers (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini), identifying content gaps, generating content that actually gets cited, and publishing it directly to your CMS. It also connects to GSC and GA4 to turn raw data into weekly priorities. The line between "tool" and "employee" is blurring. Start by analyzing your AI visibility for free using a free tool on the web.
The Distribution Mix
Product Hunt is the starting point, not the whole strategy.
LinkedIn & X: Founders are using both for posts, DMs, and building awareness with their existing networks . Some are even running low-budget retargeting ads on launch day to boost visibility .
Reddit: It is officially a go-to channel. With 50% US audiences and niche communities that mirror Product Hunt, it is one of the few platforms that has never peaked . It is also the only social platform officially partnered with Google, meaning your content shows up in LLMs and Google SERPs . But you have to join the discussion, not drop links and run .
Product Hunt Forums: Every product now has its own forum. Every thread posted notifies all followers of that product. Every thread you post notifies all of your followers . It is a direct line to people who already expressed interest.
Indie Hackers & Hacker News: Hit-or-miss, but when it works, it works . Indie Hackers is particularly good for founders building in public.
YouTube & Clippers: Streaming, video content, and even hiring clippers to create short-form content is becoming a low-cost way to reach broad audiences
The Shift
People are moving away from single-tool approaches. The pattern emerging is less about finding the perfect "marketing tool" and more about building a distribution system.
The most effective launches are coordinating emails, social posts, communities, and paid retargeting simultaneously, not in isolation . The folks who just "post and pray" are getting left behind.
Imed Radhouani
Founder & CTO – Rankfender
Replies
I'm in the phase of building my presence on Reddit/PH/HN
Distribution is the hard part now, that's the real bottleneck. AI made content cheap, so getting it seen (by people and by ChatGPT) is where the work moved.
I keep my stack small. Semrush and Ahrefs for research, and lately Genius Rank (geniusrank.com) for checking how AI engines actually see a brand. That visibility piece is the gap I never had a real tool for before.
One thing I'd add is founder-led content.
Tools matter, but in my experience people often buy because they consistently see a founder sharing real lessons, case studies, and progress not because of a single marketing platform.
For early-stage products, trust can be just as important as the marketing stack.