It's essential for digital marketers to consistently update their toolkits and keep up with the latest and greatest tools available. New solutions are always popping up, and you want to make sure you're using the best ones for your business.
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the process of optimizing your campaign or digital strategy in order to improve your conversion rate. Here are a few of our top recommended CRO tools to check out in 2018.
1. Hotjar
Hotjar is a great tool to use to see how your website visitors are interacting with your website. It creates heatmaps so you can see where visitors are scrolling and clicking. Also, it comes with “user polls” that allows you to ask website visitors open-ended questions, like “What’s most important to them” or “What stopped you from a purchase”. Also, they have a very competitive pricing structure, so it’s the most versatile and valuable CRO on the market right now.
2. Optimizely
Optimizely is an incredibly powerful platform for A/B testing that recently moved its users to a newer platform called OptimizelyX. It allows you to test different variations of your campaigns to determine which converts the most (a must in conversion rate optimization). Although its prices have recently gone up substantially (making Optimizely geared more towards enterprise clients), if you have the means (or can work with an agency that has the means) to utilize this tool, we highly recommend it due to its outstanding features and UI that are miles ahead of the competition.
Some of its most useful newer features are the fast-loading and user-friendly page editor, Saved Pages that allow users to quickly pull up commonly tested locations on their website, various “activation” options to enable testing on single page applications and a very robust goal management overall.
3. Optimizely Program Mgmt
Yes, it’s still Optimizely, but it’s a new and additional product feature for enterprise level clients that we think is a game-changer. This tool aims to streamline test prioritization and reporting while encouraging all team members to participate and come up with ideas. This makes it a really great option for entire marketing teams to work together and use to test various campaign ideas. And the best part? It’s built right into Optimizely.
4. OmniConvert CRO Audit
OmniConvert is similar to Optimizely in that it’s a useful A/B testing platform, but better for the little guy because it’s a low-cost option that can be used by small business owners and one-person marketing teams. Although it’s relatively new, it’s been making its way swiftly into the A/B testing world.
As an additional feature, OmniConvert came up with a CRO Audit Generator that easily connects to Google Analytics to create comprehensive reports of the best areas for CRO opportunity throughout your website and is a great way to get the first glimpse at areas of improvement. Perfect for conducting an initial audit of your conversion opportunities throughout your business website.
5. GTMetrix
GTMetrix combines multiple page speed tools into one, and we all know how important page speed is for overall website analytics and improving conversions. This tool provides in-depth explanations of how to fix issues, rather than relying on the surface-level recommendations you can get from Google's Page Speed Insights too. It also has the best waterfall analysis for websites (basically explaining the positive and negative impacts of your website on your conversion rate).
Interested in learning about even more tips for conversion rate optimization? Check out our post on How to Convert: Top 10 CRO Tips to start optimizing your website today.