13 Growth Hacking Tools to Accelerate Your Marketing Strategy

Today’s competitive, digital-first landscape demands innovative strategies, creative solutions, and out-of-the-box thinking. Growth hacking uses creative strategies like A/B testing experiments, data-driven insights, and unconventional tactics to achieve rapid business growth

Unfortunately, most marketers still rely on traditional approaches (which are costly, time-consuming, and yield a low ROI), unaware of the powerful growth hacking tools that can accelerate their marketing strategy

If you’re ready to up your marketing game, here are the thirteen best growth hacking tools you should be using right now.

What’s the difference between growth hacking and marketing?

While growth hacking and marketing share the same end goal—improving a business’s performance and profitability—their methods, strategies, and mindsets differ. 

Traditional growth marketing approaches focus on increasing brand awareness and loyalty through carefully planned and often costly campaigns, such as:

  • Paid advertising

  • Email marketing

  • Content marketing

  • Extensive PR efforts

In contrast, growth hacking is a more experimental, data-driven, and lean approach. Here, you prioritize speed, scalability, and efficiency over traditional marketing’s long-term brand-building efforts. 

When you hire a growth hacker, they will use technology, experimentation, and creative tactics to achieve quick, cost-effective growth spikes. Think influencer marketing, SEO optimization, and social media campaigns.

In short, while traditional marketing aims for slow, steady growth, growth hacking is about rapid, exponential growth. 

What is a growth hacking tool?

A growth hacking tool is any software, platform, or app that helps marketers implement and optimize growth strategies by leveraging data, analytics, and automation. They make it easier for marketing teams to:

  • Identify opportunities.

  • Launch experiments.

  • Test hypotheses.

  • Measure performance.

  • Refine strategies. 

Think of growth hacking tools as a “force multiplier” that allows marketers to achieve more with fewer resources. You can use these tools to automate repetitive, time-consuming tasks such as:

  • Customer segmentation

  • Data analysis and reporting

  • Lead generation

  • Email nurturing

The best growth hacking tools come with intuitive interfaces and comprehensive feature sets that make it easy for marketers to quickly identify the tactics, strategies, and channels that are working—and those that aren’t.

13 growth hacking tools to boost your brand

There are all sorts of different growth hacking tools available, from free plugins to comprehensive all-in-one platforms. You’ll need to assess your business needs, organizational goals, and budget to identify the right tools for your growth hacking efforts. 

Below, we’ve rounded up ten of the best growth hacking tools that are definitely worth considering.

1. QR Code Generator PRO

Too often, marketers overlook the opportunities to leverage QR Codes to improve business growth. QR Codes are two-dimensional barcodes your target customers can scan with their smartphones to access digital information, including:

  • Websites

  • Landing pages

  • Social media channels

  • Product/catalogs

  • Promotional materials

QR Code Generator PRO is an easy-to-use, feature-rich growth hacking tool that helps you generate custom Static and Dynamic QR Codes in seconds using a simple drag-and-drop editor. You can even customize your QR Codes with your unique logo, patterns, brand colors, and frames for seamless, effective branding.  

Your growth strategy needs QR Codes, and QR Code Generator PRO helps you create custom branded codes that fit seamlessly with all your assets. It’s the perfect growth hacking tool for businesses of all sizes.

Sign up today to get started.

Features

  • Custom branded QR Codes: Create unique QR Codes with your logo, brand colors, patterns, and frames.

  • Real-time analytics: Monitor the performance of your codes with metrics like ​​scans over time, scans by operating system, scans by location (country- and city-level), and unique scans.

  • Campaign management: Manage multiple campaigns from one dashboard and easily track performance.

  • API: Quickly and easily generate customized Static QR Codes on a large scale.

  • Intuitive dashboard: Track and view key stats in an intuitive dashboard for better decision-making.

2. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free web analytics platform that helps you track and report on your website traffic, including:

  • Acquisition/traffic sources: How people find your website (organic search, social media, referral links)

  • Demographics: Who visits your site (age, gender, location)

  • Behavior: What they do on your website (pages viewed, time spent per visit, bounce rate)

  • Conversions: How many visitors take the desired action (purchase, fill out a form, sign up for a newsletter) 

Google Analytics helps you identify high-performing pages, optimize low-converting ones, and improve the customer experience for more conversions. Since Google Analytics integrates with many other Google products, like Google Ads and Google Tag Manager, you get a comprehensive view of your customer journey from first click to purchase.

Features

  • Funnel analysis: Visualize the entire customer journey so you can spend your budget more effectively.

  • Reporting and visualization: Get detailed reports and intuitive visualizations to help you better understand your data and draw insights.

  • Data activation: Leverage machine learning algorithms for deep insights into customer behavior and engagement.

  • Google Tag Manager: Add tracking codes to your website and easily track visitor behavior.

3. Unbounce

Landing pages are powerful tools to drive conversions and increase engagement. Unbounce is a landing page builder that helps marketers quickly design, test, and publish beautiful, high-converting pages. 

And you don’t need any coding skills or experience. Unbounce comes with an intuitive drag-and-drop builder and customizable templates, so you can easily create custom landing pages that match your brand. You can also A/B test multiple variations of your landing pages to determine which works best for conversions.

Features

  • Drag-and-drop builder: Create effective, visually pleasing landing pages without any coding knowledge.

  • A/B testing: Test headlines, images, calls-to-action, and more to determine which variation works best.

  • Dynamic text replacement: Automatically show personalized copy and images based on customer data.

4. HubSpot

HubSpot is a comprehensive inbound marketing platform that helps businesses attract, engage, and delight customers. It has an extensive set of features that covers:

  • Customer relationship management (CRM)

  • Email marketing

  • Content management

  • Search engine optimization (SEO) tools

  • Social media management

  • Landing pages

  • Analytics 

HubSpot’s CRM system seamlessly integrates with other tools like Salesforce, providing a unified view of each customer across all touchpoints. This enables you to deliver personalized user experiences, foster stronger relationships, and drive growth.

Features

  • Marketing automation: Automate mundane marketing tasks like campaigns, email sequences, and content distribution to save resources and improve efficiency.

  • Social media management: Publish social media posts, interact with followers, and measure performance all from one dashboard.

  • Content management: Create, publish, and distribute content across multiple channels to attract new customers.

  • List segmentation: Segment leads based on demographics, behaviors, and preferences to send targeted content.

5. Hotjar

Marketing tools can help you understand customer behavior, but Hotjar takes it a step further and enables you to actually see what customers do on your website. 

It offers detailed heatmaps and recordings of site sessions, as well as polls and surveys that give you valuable insights into customer preferences and conversion funnels. You can use that data to identify drop-off points and optimize the user experience.

Features

  • Heatmaps: Visualize visitor interactions with click, move, scroll, and attention heatmaps.

  • Session replays: Watch real-time recordings of visitors’ sessions on your website to gain deeper behavioral insights.

  • Feedback polls and surveys: Collect valuable customer feedback to understand their needs and preferences.

  • User interview: Gather insights from user interviews to identify pain points and understand customer experiences.

6. Mailchimp

Did you know that for every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can expect an average return of $36? Even with all the modern approaches available, email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to reach leads, build relationships, retain customers, and drive conversions. 

Mailchimp is one of the most well-known email marketing providers. It helps digital marketers create and send professional-looking emails, manage subscriber lists, and track campaign performance.

Their tools are designed to streamline and automate workflows and include:

  • Newsletter templates

  • Automation triggers

  • Email list segmentation

  • Real-time reporting and analytics

MailChimp’s robust personalization and segmentation capabilities allow you to deliver targeted and relevant content to your audience, improving open and click-through rates.

Features

  • Automation tools: Trigger emails based on customer behavior with automated workflows and deliver personalized content with dynamic tags.

  • Campaign manager: Monitor campaigns in real time, manage contact lists, and measure success with detailed analytics.

  • Email builder: Design beautiful newsletters and promotional emails with drag-and-drop templates and custom HTML.

7. Crazy Egg

Created by Neil Patel, Crazy Egg is a powerful heatmap and A/B testing tool that enables you to track user interactions on your web pages. 

It offers click, scroll, and move heatmaps to help you understand how users interact with your website. Its A/B testing functionality lets you create and test multiple variants of web pages to see which works best for conversions.

Features

  • Heatmaps: Visualize user interactions with click, scroll, and move heatmaps.

  • Activity dashboard: Track interactions in real-time with detailed analytics.

  • A/B testing: Assess the performance of different web pages and optimize for better conversions.

  • Notifications: Stay informed of user activity with customizable alerts.

8. Zapier

With zero coding knowledge, Zapier lets you create all kinds of automated workflows. Set up triggers for email notifications when someone subscribes to your list or automatically add new customers from a CRM to your email marketing campaigns. 

You can connect 5,000+ apps, including Slack, Salesforce, and Mailchimp, and automate a big chunk of your marketing tasks.

Features

  • Automation builder: Create automated workflows with triggers, filters, and actions.

  • App integrations: Connect 5,000+ apps for more streamlined workflows.

  • Real-time notifications: Get real-time popups when new events happen in your connected services.

9. Typeform

Surveys are one of the best ways to learn more about your customers’ preferences, needs, and behaviors. Typeform is a popular survey tool that enables you to create interactive surveys with customizable templates, engaging visuals, and powerful analytics. 

You can use Typeform to create surveys for customer relationship feedback, market research, and lead generation and embed them on your website, email campaigns, and social channels. Follow up on responses with customizable triggers and notifications to improve user engagement.

Features

  • Survey builder: Design interactive surveys with custom templates, visuals, and elements for more thoughtful, engaging responses.

  • Data export option: Export survey responses in multiple formats, such as CSV or XLSX, for further analysis and interpretation.

  • Triggers and notifications: Send reminders, follow-ups, and notifications to engage with your target audience.

10. Optimizely

A/B tests, while tedious to set up and manage, can help you increase engagement and boost conversion rates. Optimizely is an A/B testing tool for creating and managing split tests, setting goals, and analyzing the results. 

It offers an intuitive visual editor, comprehensive analytics, and powerful targeting capabilities for more accurate results. Use Optimizely to identify which versions of your website resonate with customers and use the insights to drive better decisions in your marketing strategy.

Features

  • Visual editor: Easily create and manage experiments with an intuitive drag-and-drop visual editor.

  • Analytics: Measure performance with comprehensive analytics and audience segmentation tools.

  • Custom targeting: Deliver tailored, personalized experiences to different segments of your website visitors.

11. Semrush

Marketing data is gold, and Semrush is a treasure trove for digital marketers. As an all-in-one marketing toolkit, Semrush offers a range of tools to help you with keyword research, competitive analysis, and website optimization. It also provides SEO, PPC, content marketing, social media, and market research solutions. 

Semrush’s data-driven approach allows businesses of all sizes to gain valuable insights into their market, competitors, and customer behavior. The platform can help you identify opportunities, improve your online presence, and make data-driven decisions to drive growth. 

Features

  • Keyword research: Discover high-performing keywords for your SEO and PPC campaigns.

  • Competitive analysis: Analyze your competitors’ strategies and identify growth opportunities.

  • Social media management: Schedule posts, track results, and monitor mentions across multiple social platforms.

12. Hootsuite

Social media has become an integral part of any business’s marketing strategy. Unfortunately, with multiple platforms, constant updates, and varying audience preferences, managing social media platforms can be a headache—well, unless you have Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a user-friendly social media management tool that empowers businesses to manage, schedule, and track their posts across multiple platforms from one centralized dashboard. Its robust analytics and reporting features provide insights into audience engagement, performance, and ROI. 

Features

  • Social advertising: Create and manage social media ads across multiple platforms.

  • Content curation: Discover, schedule, and publish relevant content for your audience.

  • Engagement tools: Manage interactions with your audience, reply to comments and mentions, and monitor brand mentions.

  • Analytics: Track performance across different social channels and measure ROI.

13. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo helps you track trends, analyze content performance, and discover influencers for your niche. 

You can identify the most popular content in your industry, track mentions of your brand and competitors, and connect with influencers to amplify your reach. It also offers content research tools to help you create engaging and shareable content that resonates with your audience.

Features

  • Content analysis: Track the performance of content on social media based on shares, likes, and engagement.

  • Brand monitoring: Monitor mentions of your brand or product across different platforms.

  • Influencer identification: Discover and connect with influencers in your niche to boost brand visibility. 

  • Content research: Find the most popular content in your industry and get inspiration for your own content strategy.

Elevate your growth marketing strategy with QR Code Generator PRO

When done right, growth hacking can help you accelerate your marketing strategy and maximize ROI. With the right growth hacking tools, you can track user behavior, automate workflows, create engaging campaigns, and deliver tailored experiences.

QR Code Generator PRO is an easy-to-use tool for creating, customizing, and tracking branded QR Codes across all your marketing campaigns. It offers dynamic features like custom URLs, personalization, and analytics tracking. 

Deliver powerful experiences and elevate your growth strategy with customized QR Codes. Sign up for QR Code Generator PRO and get ready to unleash the power of growth hacking.

Author
Trupti Desai

Trupti Desai is Bitly’s Senior Director of Growth Marketing. She has over 10 years of experience working in B2B and B2C marketing roles spanning the UK and the US. A key part of the marketing strategy at Bitly, Trupti elevates global teams with her expertise and insights and was notably a speaker at the Digital Marketing World Forum. You can connect with Trupti on LinkedIn.

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