Digital Marketing Tools To Boost Conversions

Over 300 Digital Marketing Tools:

Over 36 categories of digital marketing tools covered to optimise your site or app. Free and subscription digital marketing tools that are reviewed by marketing experts. The links are to original posts explaining how to improve the performance of your digital marketing activity. This will be regularly updated and designed for the professional marketer, usability expert, website designer, developer or conversion specialist.

Please bookmark this digital marketing toolbox to ensure you can find it when you next need it.

Digital Marketing Tools:

1. A/B testing tools:

A/B and multivariate solutions are essential for implementing a scientific approach to digital marketing. See how to choose an A/B and MVT testing tool, including user ratings and over 20 suppliers reviewed.

For state of the art multivariate testing check out How is AI disrupting conversion rate optimisation?

For those organisations with a limited budget check out my post on How to get started with Google’s Optimize a free testing and personalisation tool.

In addition to help you decide what to test: How should you prioritise your A/B test ideas?

2. Abandonment recovery emails and onsite re-marketing:

For e-commerce sites dealing with cart abandonment check out my post on how to engage visitors who abandon your website and details of 10 suppliers to consider.

3. Address verification and auto-complete tools:

Read my post: 14 Free & Paid For Address Lookup Solutions To Boost Conversions.

4. Books for digital marketing:

Any list of digital tools should also include recommendations for books to read as not everything is available on the internet. Here is my post on 12 Awesome Books To Help You Optimize Your Website.

You can also read a review of The Growth Strategy That’s Being Ignored from Paul Rouke at PRWD.

5. Browsers and resolutions:

To identify technical problems with your site here are 12 Cross-Browser and Device Testing Tools To Improve Your User Experience And Conversion.

6. Card Sorting :

Recently updated for my list of marketing tools, card sorting solutions help you improve your information architecture and understand how your web pages should be organised.

7. Competitor Analysis:

To track competitor website traffic you should consider a website traffic comparison solution. These marketing tools allow you to evaluate competitors’ sites and compare traffic to your own website.

Read: 10 free and paid website audience comparison tools for competitor benchmarking.

8. Cultural Dimensions By Country:

Many lists of marketing tools ignore cultural factors in website design and optimisation. For companies operating across multiple countries and cultures it is important that you adapt your site according to key cultural factors.

9. Design Feedback (Also see Usability Tools) :

Get expert of customer or expert feedback on your new designs with 9 marketing tools for getting quick design feedback.

10. Email Marketing:

Email marketing is one of the most effective category of marketing tools for generating leads and sales.

Read my post on Top 18 email address checker solutions compared to boost your open rates.

Also check out 4 strategies to improve the effectiveness of your email marketing.

For advice on the design of emails check out; How to use emails to encourage more click throughs.

11. Fold height:

See Above the fold in my conversion glossary for details of how the fold influences visitor behaviour.

1. Google Chrome Screen Resolution Tester: Resizes the browser window to view websites in different resolutions.

2. Scree Resolution Simulator: Test website usability with different screen resolutions.

12. Headings & imagery:

Ensure your landing page headings and imagery align with customer expectations by using word association to identify what people automatically think about when they explore your sector or product.

1. Human Brain Cloud: A simple multi-player word association game which will display results for words that you enter at the end of the URL (after #view/)

2. Word Associations Network: Project Word Associations Network allows you to lookup associations with a given word.

3. wordassociation.org: Started off as a project and now claims to be the world’s largest database of word associations.

13. Image optimisation:

Image optimisation solutions are one of the simplest and most overlooked of marketing tools. However, they can massively reduce file size and improve load speed to raise your conversion rate. Choose from 14 image optimisation tools.

14. Internal site search:

Evaluate your built-in search functionality by analysing key words used by visitors or use a third-party search tool provider.

1. Adobe Target: Search driven merchandising includes options such as auto-complete, a did you mean function, dynamic image options, multi-media use and decision-making refinements (filters). Allows for automated merchandising rules and enables customised result display (e.g. sorting options).

2. Freefind: Established in 1998, Freefind is a Free site search engine used by over 200,000 websites.

3. Fusion Bot: A site search engine which offers search, site map and reporting. Being fully hosted it does not require software to be installed. Also offers e-Commerce search engine with search and navigation of your site.

4. SiteSearch360: This is a fast and comprehensive internal site search solution that uses semantic reasoning to ensure it returns relevant results even if users enter non-standard search terms. The tool only requires a short snippet of JavaScript to install on your website and the search box is customisable with CSS. Free 14 day trial available

15. Live chat:

One of the most game changing of marketing tools available. Improve engagement and reduce bounce rates by offering live interaction with customers whilst they are on your website.

Read my post – 8 top live chat solutions to increase sales.

16. Load speed for web pages:

Check out four simple strategies in the to reduce page load speeds in – How to improve site load speed to increase conversions.

17. Navigation Guidance & App Tours:

Read my post: 9 Website onboarding solutions to improve conversions.

18. Personas:

Check out free persona creators in our list of marketing tools. Here is my post 7 free buyer persona online tools to build your personas.

To understand how to create buyer personas and benefit your bottom line please read my post: How to use personas to improve conversion. 

19: Product Ratings & reviews:

Social proof is one of the most powerful weapons in this list of marketing tools. Check out the top e-commerce product ratings and reviews solutions.

20. SEO Keywords:

Here is my post on How to do keyword research and 17 awesome tools to use.

You should also check out; How to use Google’s Search Console to Boost Conversions.

21. SEO Link Building & Site Audit Tools:

View my post – 20 Powerful Link Building Tools To Drive Traffic To Your Website.

If you wonder how black-hat SEOs create backlinks then read about private blog networks – a SEO guide.

22. Social media tools:

No list of digital marketing tools is complete without social media tools. View my post – Over 50 awesome tools to optimize your social media activity.

23. Stock Images (Free):

The use of stock images is often criticised by conversion experts because the same images are sometimes used by competing websites. They are also sometimes used inappropriately (e.g. to show a member of your customer services team when they are clearly a model).

However, when you have a limited budget, and provided you take care with selection, stock photos can be a great resource to convey relevant imagery on your website. Pictures are engaging and can instantly communicate emotions.

Here are 6 resources that provide free stock images and illustrations.

1. Flickr: The world’s largest online photo imaging and sharing application. A great website used by some of the world’s top photographers. Not all images can be used commercially so check first before you use a photo.

2. Morguefile: Contains freely contributed photographs for creative projects. Morguefile do ask you to reference the photographer where possible.

3. StocksPhotos.io: This is a community for high resolution images (over 27,000 to choose from).

4. rgbstock: Is a free resource of high quality photographs and graphics for illustrations, wallpaper and backgrounds.

5. Openphoto: An extensive library of stock photos which was established in 1998 and now has a huge selection of free images to choose from. Categories organised in thumb nails and also has a keyword search facility.

6. Freeimages: Most of the 6,000 images on file were either taken exclusively for the site or were sourced from contributing photographers and illustrators.

7. Pikwizard: Has over 100,000 completely free images on the site, with over 20,000 which are exclusive to the site. They are also adding new images to their library daily and their ultimate goal is to get to more than 1 million images.

24. Surveys and user polls:

Check out How to use online Voice of Customer tools to boost conversions – and 22 tools to reviewed. Online survey tools are a must for any list of digital marketing tools.

25. Tree Testing:

Tree testing or reverse card sorting is a usability technique used to evaluate how easy it is to find topics on a website using the navigation structure. Checkout my post: How to improve website navigation using tree testing. 

26. Trust Assessment:

1. TrustRadius: Business software reviews from users, software comparisons and insights.

2. Web Of Trust: The WOT user community has rated over 36,000,000 websites. Check out how they rate your website. I have seen mixed reviews about how accurate the ratings are on this site, so proceed with caution.

27. Usability:

Usability solutions are some of the most valuable digital marketing tools. Read my post – How to do usability testing to improve conversions – including 12 top solutions to use.

28. User Experience Research Recording Solutions:

Laptop recording software:

CamStudio : A free, but basic tool — (www.camstudio.org)

Camtasia — On the expensive side, but good tool — (www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html)

Snagit — A limited, but low cost solution — (www.techsmith.com/snagit.html)

Flashback Recorder — Good tool with lots of editing capability. (www.flashbackrecorder.com)

Ovo Solo — Good value for the cost – (www.ovostudios.com/ovosolo.asp)

Screenflow (Mac)- Somewhat limited tool – (www.telestream.net) 

Techsmith Morae — (www.techsmith.com/morae.html)

Mobile Recording Software:

Lookback: Excellent and easy to use recording software that captures both the screen and taps, but also the face/emotions of the user. (www.lookback.io)

UX Recorder (iOS) — (www.uxrecorder.com)

Skype hugging (from Mailchimp) — (Mailchimp Remote User Testing) 

Reflector Airplay Mirroring — (Reflector)

29. Video – Explainer Videos:

Video is becoming increasingly important for any list of digital marketing tools. Here is my post – How to create an awesome explainer video which includes a list of 111 studios and video production companies to choose from.

30. Video – Explainer Videos (DIY):

1. Biteable: Explainer video software with a free plan available. Choose a style as they have hundreds of animated, live action or photo scenes in many different styles. Add your own text, photos, colours and sound to customise your video using a simple drag-and-drop timeline. Finally, select a soundtrack from a huge music library and share you video.

2. GoAnimate: Software to produce professional animated videos. Free trial available.

3. PowToon: Free software version available to produce your own animated videos.

4. Rawshorts: Free plan available for this drag and drop video builder software. Select an industry specific template to fit your business needs. Upload your media and customise text, transitions, effects and audio. Finally, export your explainer video and share on social media.

Currently in private beta with a HTML5 builder which enables greater flexibility and support than flash in all browsers.

5. VideoScribe: Make your own whiteboard videos fast. 7 day Free trial available.

31. Video Players (Including Hosting):

1. SPROUTVIDEO: A video hosting that allows you customise, publish and track videos online. Includes security, marketing and analytical tools. Sprout allows you to monitor the number of plays and impressions, including geographic location and the domains they are played on.

2. Vimeo Pro: A fully customisable and embeddable HTML5
player with advanced statistics, private review pages and 20GB of HD storage
each week, with no additional bandwidth limitations.

3. Vzaar: A customisable video players with multi-language sub-titles. Features include HTML5 support, JavaScript API, dual encoding, privacy and domain control, RTMPe and HTTPS embed code for a secure login portal. A 30 day Free trial is available.

4. Wistia: Offers a Free version with Wistia branding that allows you to produce up to 25 videos a month and basic analytics. The paid for versions include HTML5 support, real-time analytics, playlists, custom skins, email embeds, popovers, video SEO, and more. Wistia’s video heatmaps show when users stop, start, skip, and re-watch your video.

32. Video Spokesperson:

Read my post: How did Virgin Holidays achieve a 30% uplift in seat upgrades?

33. Visual analytics (heatmaps & session recordings):

One of your first priorities for digital marketing tools should be visual or behavioural analytics. Read my post: 15 Free & Paid For Visual Analytics Solutions to Boost Revenues.

34. Visual Eye Tracking Heatmaps:

Eye tracking and facial coding solutions to optimise your digital content.

35. Web Analytics:

Read my post on the importance of the importance of web analytics and a review of 18 top free and paid for solutions.

36. Word Clouds:

Word clouds are a simple and useful tool that can be used for a number or purposes including competitor analysis, SEO and for analysing customer feedback. Check out my post – 5 ways of using word clouds to enhance digital marketing. 

37. Other Lists of Digital Marketing Tools:

1. Conversion Optimization Toolbox: From Marketizator.

2. My Free Conversion Rate Optimization Toolbox: Rich Page – author of Website Optimization – An hour a day.