Is your website delivering results? Are you able to convert your website visitors into paying customers? If not, it’s time to learn conversion rate optimization.
Businesses typically create a website to have an online presence, so prospective customers can find them when searching for the products or services they need. You probably have already invested in SEO, a way of getting your website on the top or at least the first page of the search engine results page (SERP).
Suppose your SEO efforts paid off, and you are seeing an increase in the number of people visiting and viewing your website. But, are they taking action? Do they buy your products or get your services? Are you able to capture their contact information?
Driving traffic to your website is essential, but it’s not enough to sustain a business. You need to be able to transform your website visitors into leads and eventually paying customers. And this is where Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) and associated tools can help.
Implementing CRO strategies and tools will help boost your lead generation efforts and give you an edge in the competitive online landscape.
Take Podium webchat, for example. This tool can help businesses get up to 11 times more inbound leads using just their website.
What is CRO?
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is a strategic process that helps you convert website visitors into leads and paying customers or subscribers. It is at the core of digital marketing strategies that yield results.
The CRO process involves gathering data on user behaviors, site performance, etc., and using your findings to improve your site so that more website visitors complete a specific action, like signing up for a service or buying a product.
Types of CRO Tools
You’ll need to collect data to increase your website conversion rates, and many different marketing tools can help you. They generally fall into four categories:
1. Analytics Tools
Analytics tools collect quantitative data about your site and visitors, helping you understand what is happening on your website and identify potential issues preventing your visitors from taking action.
This conversion tool can give you insights into key metrics such as bounce rate, session duration, and entry and exit pages.
2. User Feedback Tools
Gathering user feedback is a great way to get to know your website visitors and discover the issues they’re having with your website and your products and services. Feedback tools allow you to learn about your customer experiences and get detailed insights into the motivation behind your visitor’s behavior.
3.A/B Testing Tools
Once you have determined what needs to be improved on your website, testing tools will help you compare and measure the effects of any changes you make. This way, you can see which changes result in a higher conversion rate.
For example, your analytics tools may have clued you into a high bounce rate on your ecommerce landing page caused by the wrong call to action (CTA) placement. In this case, you can create landing pages with different CTA placements and test them to see which layout works best.
4. Heatmap and Session Recording Tools
Heatmap tools will give you a color-coded representation of the website elements that get the least and most interaction.
On the other hand, session recording tools capture real-time actions taken by people as they browse a website, like mouse movements and clicks. Both tools help visualize user interaction and identify conversion optimization opportunities.
12 Best CRO Tools
You won’t find a shortage of CRO tools on the market today. To help you make an informed decision, here are the best conversion rate optimization tools you can use for your business:
Analytics Tools
1. Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a popular web analytics tool you can use to gather helpful data and track key metrics for CRO, including the location of your website visitors, the device visitors use, the amount of time they stay on your website, etc.
This CRO analyzer is free to use, making it an ideal option for small businesses and start-ups.
2. Adobe Analytics
Adobe Analytics is another tool you can use for gathering real-time data from your website and other sources, including kiosks and applications. It features ad hoc analysis, flow analysis, and advanced segmentation, all of which can help you understand your customers better.
Adobe Analytics allows you to do more than just measure page views and visits. It also allows users to measure their traffic sources, customer pathing, video engagement, and content effectiveness. With this tool, you’ll learn who is visiting your website and why.
There’s no free plan available, but you can try using the platform for a limited time free of charge.
3. Mixpanel
Mixpanel is another popular web analytics tool that helps you monitor your website’s performance and analyze site visitor data. It brings together lots of useful features, like segmentation capabilities, cohort analysis, funnels, and interactive reports featuring KPIs and quantitative metrics like retention and conversion rates.
Mixpanel offers a free plan, making it an excellent option for small businesses that want to use analytics tools but don’t have the extra room in their budget. Premium plans are also available for those who want more advanced capabilities.
User Feedback Tools
4. Qualaroo
Qualaroo is a user feedback and research solution packed with functionalities for gathering insights into your website, product, and application performance. It allows users to create different types of surveys, like NPS, exit intent, post-purchase, and CSAT. The platform’s template library makes it easy to create customized surveys to fit your needs.
The best thing about this tool is the ability to ask the right question at the right time. For example, you can set up a popup question about why a visitor suddenly wants to abandon the checkout process. The real-time feedback will allow you to determine what you need to improve to boost conversion rates.
In addition to user feedback features, Qualaroo can also serve as an A/B testing and landing page optimization tool. There is no free plan, but you can try the product free of charge for 15 days.
5. Usabilla
Usabilla is another website feedback solution that allows you to collect real-time feedback from website visitors. It features a feedback button you can place anywhere on your website. Visitors can choose which part of your website they want to give feedback to, which makes it easier to understand reviews and apply changes as needed.
Other functionalities include intelligent targeting, feedback management, and visual reporting. The cost of this product depends on the features you want to get. They do not offer a free version or free trial.
6. SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey is another tool you can use to learn your site visitor’s demographic information, find out content your prospects prefer, and get user feedback. It features accessible and easily customizable survey designs and templates, data-reporting visuals, and survey scores.
SurveyMonkey offers many different pricing plans. It can get pretty costly if you want to have all the features the software has to offer. But if you only need the basics, you can use it without paying a dime.
A/B Testing Tools
7. Optimizely
Optimizely is a digital experience platform that offers a simple way to run tests and experiments with content, helping businesses make smarter data-backed decisions. You can use it to run multivariate testing and other types of tests on website pages or any structured content. Everything is preset, so you don’t have to worry about writing code.
This tool also offers a full, robust report of test results where you can see interactions, sign-up clicks, and other significant data that will help you choose the best variant.
Optimizely pricing is only available upon request.
8. Convert
Convert is a flicker-free A/B testing and personalization solution that’s popular among big brands like Unicef and Sony. It features audience targeting with 40 filters, post-segmentation, DMP profiling, secure API, and multi-page testing.
But this tool is not cheap, so it may not be ideal for small businesses with limited resources. Nevertheless, they offer a 15-day free trial you can use if you want to know whether or not the tool meets your business requirements.
9. Google Optimize
If you don’t have a budget for paid A/B testing tools, Google Optimize is a great option. It is a free testing platform you can integrate with Google Analytics. It allows you to run A/B, redirect, multivariate, and split testing on your website’s content to determine what works best for your visitors.
Google Optimize features a visual editor, customization options, client-side signals, URL targeting, and user attributes. Although the tool is free, it can fulfill basic requirements for site optimization. It has all the fundamental features you need to compare different versions of website elements and validate your site optimization ideas.
Heatmap and Session Recording Tools
10. Crazy Egg
Crazy Egg is a great tool for heat mapping. It is user-friendly and lets you easily see where your website visitor clicks and where they don’t with Snapshots. Using a single snapshot, the tool can generate a heatmap, report, confetti, overlay, and list report.
You’ll be able to see not just the highest areas of click activity on your webpages, but also the most popular scroll-depth of a webpage, clicks segmented by various metrics, breakdown of clicks, and number of clicks. These data can be useful in finding ways to optimize your website for better conversion.
Crazy Egg does not offer a free plan, but its basic plan is fairly inexpensive.
11. Hotjar
Hotjar is a user experience tool with heatmap and screen recording features. The heatmap will show where your website visitors click, move, and scroll on web pages. There is also a rage clicks map that shows you where your visitors get frustrated. If you want to learn more about your visitor’s activities, you can use the platform’s screen recording feature.
Hotjar also helps you get direct feedback from your website visitors, send targeted surveys, and schedule interviews. They also offer a tool called Funnel, which lets you know where and why users drop off in your conversion funnel.
Hotjar offers a free basic plan. Paid plans are also available if you want access to more advanced functionalities.
12. Mouseflow
Mouseflow is a tool specifically made for conversion rate optimization. Parts of its features are heat maps and screen recording. The heatmap offers a full suite of user behavior data visualization. It shows how far your users scroll, what they click, how they interact with website elements, and even the location of your user base. The tool records all traffic by default and every page of your website.
The session recording tool is also packed with helpful functionalities. It records users by default and highlights frustrated users so you can easily find a recording that will help with your optimization efforts.
Heatmap and session recordings are included in the platform’s free plan. But if you want more features, there are many paid plans available for you to choose from.
Turn Your Leads into Conversions with Podium
CRO tools can help you pinpoint the problem, but you’ll have to come up with the solutions on your own. More often than not, marketers and business owners need to experiment with different strategies to find which converts more website visitors into paying customers.
Including social proof, adding a live chat, and optimizing your website for mobile are just some CRO strategies you can try. And Podium has the tools for these strategies.
Podium is a marketing and communication platform designed to help small businesses build trust, engage with customers, and increase website conversions. It is packed with features, including text marketing, reviews, website chat, inbox, phones, contacts, and even payments.
The platform has successfully helped many businesses with their struggles. Real Salt Lake, an American professional soccer franchise, is just one of them. Before Podium, the company struggled to streamline communication with customers and fans. Podium’s text and web chat made the company’s customer communication better.
FAQs
Q: What is the tool to track the conversion rate?
A: There are many tools designed to track website conversion rates, and Google conversion tracking is one of them. It shows you what happens after a person completes an action or interacts with your advertisement.
Q: How do you use CRO marketing?
A: CRO marketing is all about increasing the number of your website visitors who take or complete a desired action, like making a purchase. There are many ways you can accomplish this, like running A/B tests on your landing page and using a chatbot to communicate with your site visitors in real time. Businesses typically experiment to find what works best for them.
Q: Why is conversion rate optimization important?
A: Conversion rate optimization is essential because it allows your business to get more customers at a lower customer acquisition cost.
