Every single day I get asked questions about the best conversion optimization and business management tools. I finally decided to put together this resource list.
Instead of listing EVERY tool out there, I’m only going to point out the select few that I can really vouch for (nobody needs MORE choice these days, we’re busy as it is).
A/B testing & multivariate testing tools
This are must-have tools to run tests on your site. You MUST use one of these.
VWO – Easy to use and powerful tool for all your A/B testing needs.
Optimizely – The biggest player in the market.
Convert.com – The new kid on the block, but they’re doing some cool stuff. Great team behind the product, nifty segmentation features.
Heatmap & scrollmap tracking
What do people do on your site? Where do they click? How far down do they scroll? What gets noticed and what gets ignored? These tools will give you the answers.
Inspectlet – Most fearure rich, affordable
Clicktale – A bit on the expensive side, but really good.
Hotjar – Clickmaps, heatmaps, scrollmaps, recorded user sessions, form analytics. The cheapest tool.
Usability testing
Usability testing is the black horse of boosting conversions. If your site is difficult to use or hard to understand (means it has usability problems), it will result in poor conversions. These tools help you figure it out
UserTesting.com – Probably the biggest marketplace to find testers from.
Open Hallway – I like their monthly fixed fee option where you can do as many tests per month as you like. You can also recruit users from the marketplace.
TryMyUI – For $99 dollars you can have as many people as you want to be part of a usability test (when you recruit your own testers).
Ethnio – Recruit your own testers from website visitors. Very useful for recruiting testers.
Analytics tools
You need data to make the right decisions.
Google Analytics is awesome when you know how to use it. Mandatory for everyone.
KISSmetrics – Google Analytics tells you what happened, KISSmetrics tells you who did it.
MixPanel – for hardcore analytics people. This is advanced level stuff. It can tell you *anything*, but you have to configure it yourself.
Zuko Form Analytics – A great tool to help improve your form conversions and better understand your user’s behaviors.
Email marketing
Email marketing is the cornerstone of any successful marketing. These tools help you rock it.
GetResponse – I could not live without it. This is my go-to choice for email marketing. It’s amazingly good and better priced than it’s competition.
Aweber – I’ve used it in the past and I know a ton of people who use it as their email marketing software of choice.
Vero – Email marketing tool with behavior based triggers, personalization and segmentation.
Shopping cart recovery
Shopping cart abandonment means the loss of a customer who is going through the check-out process of an online store. It’s widespread – abandonment rate is north of 72%. These tools help you convert some of those abandoners into buyers.
Rejoiner – Built for online stores, it tracks shopping cart abandonment in real-time and helps recover sales
SeeWhy – Recover lost ecommerce sales by sending optimized email and social media messages to cart abandoners in real time.
Landing page creation
If you do any type of promotions or advertising, you need landing pages. You can either hire the pros or use DIY landing page creator tools.
Landing Page Makeover – when you want the conversions pros to build you a high-converting landing page. (Disclaimer: our service).
Unbounce – Build, publish and test landing pages. The leader in DIY landing pages.
LeadPages – Easy to use landing page tool.
Screencasts
Camtasia Studio – I do all my tutorial videos and screencasts with Camtasia Studio. In fact I even use it for video editing. It’s awesome.
Web hosting and content delivery networks
Fast websites are crucial for high conversions. Here are web hosts and CDNs to use to speed up your site.
WP Engine – Web hosting made for WordPress. Blazing fast, fanatic support, stuff that dreams are made of.
LiquidWeb – shared hosting, dedicated hosting, cloud hosting, CDN. They have it all. If you need truly amazing support, they’re your choice.
Storm on Demand – the best priced cloud hosting service out there. Runs CXL too. Amazing support.
Cloudflare – Part CDN + part security service = Kickass.
Inscapsula – similar to Cloudflare, but has shown to offer a much better level of security / protection according to research.
Google mod_pagespeed – have your web host install this module onto your Apache web server.