What’s the most important element in successful conversion optimization?

Research.

Yes, it’s not sexy. It’s not apparent, not even visible in the end product.

But without it the end product is just a result of a guessing game. If you guess right, good for you. In all other cases, you’re either leaving money on the table… or you’re broke.

To make the research process faster and more effective, here’s the list of 54 research tools.

These will help you uncover user insights and will make your life easier because you will no longer need this Russian roulette guessing game.

What you see below is just the list of tools. In the full article (link at the bottom) you’ll find the pros and cons for each. So if you’re interested in some of the tools, head over to the article and read more about them.

1. Unbounce – landing page builder
2. Google Analytics – step 0 of doing anything, really
3. Woopra – another analytics suite, geared more towards individual customers, rather than just overall numbers, like Google Analytics
4. Adobe Analytics – another analytics suite with multiple tools. I’ve only seen this when working with enterprise companies though, never small or mid-size companies.
5. Kissmetrics – analytics tool great for visualizing funnels
6. Mixpanel – similar to Kissmetrics but with more features. Retroactive funnel feature is particularly helpful. User retention funnels are great too.
7. Clicky – simpler analytics tool, but free
8. VWO – A/B testing tool. One of the two A/B testing tools that I use.
9. Optimizely – here’s that second one.
10. Formisimo – form analytics
11. ClickTale – shows how users interact with your site
12. HubSpot Website Grader – a quick and easy way to get a snapshot of a website’s overall performance
13. Heap Analytics – for capturing and measuring user actions in web and iOS apps
14. Piwik – open source analytics tool
15. Inspectlet – tool for user behavior analysis. Good but quite expensive.
16. Omniconvert – multi-purpose optimization tool
17. Testlodge – test management tool
18. AB Tasty – multi-purpose optimization tool
19. Qualaroo – on-site survey tool. I’ve used to use it extensively, until I switched to HotJar (at #24 below)
20. Survey.io – survey software
21. SurveyMonkey – survey software
22. Olark – live chat tool
23. Crazyegg – heat maps, click maps, scroll maps. Same as for Qualaroo, I’ve used to use it a lot before switching to HotJar
24. HotJar – multi-purpose optimization tool. Heat maps, click maps, scroll maps, funnels, surveys, session recordings. It replaced a lot of tools for me and I don’t remember when was the last time when I didn’t use it when working with a client.
25. SessionCam – session recording and playback
26. CallRail – tracking lead sources
27. UsabilityHub’s Tools – multi-purpose optimization tool
28. Silverback 3 – usability testing
29. Browserling – web based browser testing
30. Qualtrics – survey tool, popular with enterprises
31. ScreenFly – view your website on a variety of device screens and resolutions
32. Typeform – survey tool. For a couple years now I’ve switched 100% to Typeform. It’s the most user-friendly platform and it looks and works great on mobile too. When sending out a survey by email, users usually open the email on their mobile so it’s essential for a survey to work great on your phone.
33. BrowserStack – web-based browser testing tool
34. Ethnio – tool for recruiting people for user testing.
35. Helio – collecting feedback on mockups
36. Kampyle – on-page polling tools
37. Intercom – messaging platform with multiple tools. Good, rather expensive though.
38. Lucky Orange – multi-purpose conversion optimization platform
39. Instapage – page editor, similar to Unbounce.
40. Chatlio – talk to your customers using your existing Slack service
41. UserTesting – usability testing platform. I used to use it a lot but recently they are moving more towards enterprise clients
42. TryMyUI – usability testing tool
43. Zendesk Chat – customer service platform
44. 15Five – staff report tool
45. WebEngage – a tool with a focus on user retention
46. UserZoom – UX testing platform
47. Loop11 – usability testing software
48. Validately – user research solution
49. Effective Experiments – project management and workflow platform, built specifically for conversion optimizers
50. MaxyMizely – A/B testing solution
51. Iridion – conversion optimization worfklow tool
52. Sumo – (formerly SumoMe). Tools for capturing more email subscribers. Used to be a good entry-level solution but they got pricey recently
53. Heatmap.me – heatmap tool
54. Excel (or Google Sheets) – versatile tool, good at calculating stuff, limited only by your imagination and programming ability. Not great at storing graphics though. Needs more work to be a one-stop-shop conversion optimization tool 🙂

Now you have more tools than you could possibly wish for, or have time to test them all. Pick and choose what you like, try out a few and go from there.

It’s more important to use them, and to do research, than which ones you use in particular.

54 CRO Research Tools With Insight To Win More Conversions

PS. Google Analytics, HotJar, Optimizely – if I had to choose only three tools from the list above, this would be my choice.