CRO or conversion rate optimization is the process of improving conversions on your app or website. A conversion can be more leads, buyers, newsletter subscription or something else based on your business objective. Starting a CRO journey is a big step towards optimizing overall marketing efficiency as you can start getting more conversions with the same budget. And hence it’s very critical to pick the best CRO tools to use.
Here we are sharing the list of best CRO tools for conversion rate optimization based on the category of usage CRO tools can be broadly classified into:
- Analytical tools which help in understanding user behavior. This can be termed as the research and analysis stage
- A/B and multivariate testing tools. This can be termed as the experimentation stage
- Conversion tools. These are the tools that actually help in getting conversions like leads, subscribers, buyers etc. This can be termed as the conversion stage
CRO Tools for Research and Analysis
1. Google Analytics
This is one tool which every marketer is aware about, however still it needs to be mentioned first in the list of best CRO tools because of its wide usage and effectiveness. Earlier it only used to track sessions and pageviews but now with the introduction of GA4, the google analytics ecosystem has become very powerful and we can track specific events on our website like number of clicks on a specific CTA button, scroll depth etc. To learn in depth about GA4 you can check out this course
2. Full Story
Full story is another very useful tool which captures every user interaction and ensures user privacy. Few benefits of using Full story are that it is easy and quick to implement, gives much more insights then Google analytics as you can see recording sessions of your website visitors and understand pain points. And it is very easy to learn as well for a new user
3. Adobe Analytics
One big advantage of using Adobe analytics is that it is very simple to use and there are easy drag and drop features to create any report. These reports can easily be shared with business leaders in the form of a dashboard. Another key feature of Adobe is its powerful attribution capability, using which you can identify which marketing channels are contributing to your conversion goals and allocate your budgets accordingly
4. Hotjar
Hotjar is another great tool for analyzing behaviour of your website visitors and it gives great options to observe, ask and engage with your website visitors by allowing features like heatmaps to visualize user behaviour, session recording to see what your users do on your website, hear from users directly by running surveys on the website and even conduct 1:1 interviews with your users
Now that you have these 4 research CRO tools available, let’s compare their key features:
| Feature | Google Analytics | Full Story | Hotjar | Adobe Analytics |
| Pricing | Free, paid plans start at $10/month | Free, paid plans start at $29/month | Free, paid plans start at $99/month | Starts at $12,000/year |
| Data collection | Collects data on website traffic, including page views, bounce rate, and time spent on page | Collects data on website traffic, user behaviour, and customer feedback | Collects data on user behaviour, including heatmaps, scroll maps, and session recordings | Collects data on website traffic, user behaviour, and customer feedback |
| Reporting | Provides reports on website traffic, user behaviour, and conversion rates | Provides custom reports on user behaviour and customer feedback | Provides heatmaps, scroll maps, and session recordings | Provides custom reports on website traffic, user behaviour, and conversion rates |
| Integrations | Integrates with Google Ads, Google Search Console, and other Google products | Integrates with a variety of third-party tools | Integrates with a variety of third-party tools | Integrates with a variety of third-party tools |
| Support | Provides 24/7 support via email and phone | Provides 24/7 support via email and phone | Provides 24/7 support via email and phone | Provides 24/7 support via email and phone |
| Best for | Businesses of all sizes | Businesses with a focus on user behaviour and customer feedback | Businesses that want to understand user behaviour and customer feedback | Businesses of all sizes |
| Session recording | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
CRO Tools for A/B Testing (Experimentation)
1. Google Optimize
Google Optimize is a powerful free CRO tool you can start using right now to A/B test your experiments. Optimize is integrated with Google Analytics and hence you can easily analyze the results of your experiments and understand what changes are to be made. It enables you to run A/B, multivariate and redirect tests on your content and identify the best performing options. Not only analytics, Google optimize can be easily linked to your Google ads account as well and you can test conversion results for different versions of a landing page.
2. Optimizely
Optimizely has multiple products available in its ecosystem and one of those is named “Experiment” which enables a marketer to run experiments, analyze results and keep optimizing user experience on their apps and websites. It’s a no code tool and hence a marketer with no technical knowledge can also use it easily. Trusted by over 9000 companies and named as a leader in digital experience by Gartner validates the authority of Optimizely as a go to tool for improving conversion rate optimization
3. AB Tasty
AB Tasty is considered one of the best CRO tools as it offers cutting edge AI capabilities and its CDP (Customer Data Platform) and data lake integrations helps in creating granular user segments for running experiments. You can easily define whether you want to run your experiments on all visitors, or only newsletter subscribers or those who purchased a particular category or products. Not only this you can further segment your users based on their location, behaviour and psychographics data and plan your experiments. Setting goals is another good functionality in this tool as you can track the success of your experiments. The image below gives a clear idea of how to set a single goal or even a combination of multiple goals
4. VWO
One key feature we liked in VWO over other platforms is its excellent reporting features which are visually very easy to read and understand and as a marketer you can directly present those to your business leaders. Another feature is to automatically drive more traffic to the best performing variation via a multi-arm bandit algorithm. VWO also enables to efficiently manage the experimentation pipeline and gives a view to all the stakeholders about your planned, running and completed experiments. Below is a view of there reporting functionality
Below is a comparison of key features of these 4 tools
| Feature | Google Optimize | Optimizely | AB Tasty | VWO |
| Pricing | Freemium | Starts at $99/month | Starts at $499/month | Starts at $299/month |
| A/B testing | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Multivariate testing | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Heatmaps | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Session recordings | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Reporting | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Integrations | Google Analytics, Google Ads, Google Tag Manager | Salesforce, Adobe Analytics, Marketo, Google Analytics | Salesforce, Adobe Analytics, Marketo, Google Analytics | Salesforce, Adobe Analytics, Marketo, Google Analytics |
| Customization | Limited | Extensive | Extensive | Extensive |
CRO Tools for Conversion
1. Clickfunnels
Clickfunnels is a great tool to convert your website visitors into leads and eventually buyers. You can use this tool to create highly effective sales funnels which start by capturing email address of your website visitors in exchange of a value they receive like a free e-book, course, discount offer etc. If these visitors don’t convert in there first visit, you can start nurturing them via email messages by creating segmented journeys for different cohorts. You must use clickfunnels if you want to increase the conversion rate of your website. You can test the platform by signing up for a 14 day free trial
2. LeadPages
LeadPages is another great tool used by more than 40,000 small businesses to grow their business online. You can easily create code free websites and landing pages and lead your users to become buyers. You can create exit intent pop-ups, alert bars, checkout forms and many more lead capture opportunities across your website. The tool also offers great analytical capabilities which gives you insights to optimize your campaigns and take informed data backed decisions. There AI engine enables you to create dozens of content options within seconds. And on top of it you get unlimited conversion optimized templates to use and capture leads. LeadPages also offers a 14 day free trial
3. ConvertKit
ConvertKit is a great tool for content creators like bloggers, Youtubers, artists etc. which helps them to grow and monetize their audience with ease. You can use it to capture more leads and grow your audience, automate your email marketing and sell your digital platforms. This is one tool which provides all these functionalities. More then 500,000 creators are using ConvertKit and it is truly and amazing platform to increase conversions on your website. This tool also offers a 14 day free trial
4. Drift
Drift is a great conversational marketing platform which personalized conversations at every stage of the customer journey. It enables to initiate real time conversations using artificial intelligence powered chatbots and helps in creating a great first impression with your visitors. You can directly land audiences from your ads to a conversation with a human like bot and engage them and quickly move them to a lead and pass it to your sales team
Below is a comparison between all these tools:
| Feature | ClickFunnels | ConvertKit | LeadPages | Drift |
| Pricing | Starts at $97/month | Starts at $29/month | Starts at $37/month | Starts at $49/month |
| Features | Landing pages, sales pages, webinars, email marketing, CRM | Email marketing, landing pages, automation | Landing pages, A/B testing, integrations | Chat, email marketing, landing pages |
This is the complete list of best CRO tools that we believe that help transform your business. Having said that it is not a comprehensive list and there are many more tools in the market. Explore key features of every tool and understand which one is best for your business objectives and always take input from your tech team about integration feasibility before taking a decision on buying a tool.