6 tools to create and optimize your marketing funnel

We’ve curated a list of the top marketing funnel tools out there, including several actionable examples of how to use these platforms to get in-depth knowledge of your customers and the different steps in their user journey.

6 reasons why your business needs marketing funnel tools

Having a solid marketing funnel is key to understanding the best way to sell your product or service to your customers. But the ideal marketing funnel takes time to design, test, and perfect. 

Marketing funnel tools take away the guesswork from designing your customer journey and help you quickly create a funnel that works for your users and your business. 

You can use marketing funnel tools to:

• Design and build an effective marketing funnel

• Move customers more quickly and efficiently through the funnel

• Optimize your customer experience (CX)

• Measure the success of your funnel with metrics and insights on customer behavior

• Increase leads

• Get higher conversion rates

Top 6 tools to use for brilliant customer-centric marketing funnels

The tools you choose to help you implement your marketing funnel will depend on where you are in the process of setting up your website and marketing funnel. 

Some tools offer a complete solution, helping you create a marketing funnel and design web pages relevant to each stage of the customer journey. Others are best for businesses that already have a website and marketing funnel in place, and need data on how well it’s performing so they can optimize their marketing funnel and find out where there might be gaps.

Let’s take a look at the best marketing funnel tools out there today and where they fit in the process:

1. PlusThis

PlusThis is a toolkit that automates many marketing processes, including marketing funnels, helping your team create, publish, and promote content, and build your brand.

The software's 'Sales Funnel Automator' feature brings leads into your funnel by enabling registration and follow-up for webinars, giving users resources to create evergreen content, and syncing with Facebook so that you can reach potential customers with relevant ads.

One big advantage of PlusThis is its price point—it’s fairly economical, especially the lite plan. This is ideal for smaller organizations looking to get started with their marketing funnel design and need a jumping-off point. However, users report that PlusThis tutorials are a bit dated and that their help content should be refreshed.

2. Hotjar

Hotjar (hi there👋) is a powerful platform to understand your customers and how they behave on your site, giving you insights into what they need and how they feel.

Hotjar’s Heatmaps, Surveys, Feedback, and Recordings tools help you truly understand your customers’ journeys and how they interact with your site. You can see firsthand what users experience and where they get stuck as they explore your platform with recordings, playbacks of user sessions, and directly ask them for feedback on what needs to be improved. 

This is especially useful for users in the middle or bottom of the funnel who are close to converting, but still drop off. Hotjar helps you dive deeper into funnel analysis and learn what’s stopping those potential customers from proceeding further.

Hotjar offers a free Basic plan, along with paid-for Plus, Business, and Scale options, so you can choose the plan that’s best for your organization.

3. Kajabi

Kajabi is a SaaS-based platform that helps you generate interest in your product or service and convert it into sales and new customers. With no-code, fully integrated landing pages, you can create a professional website experience with minimal setup.

Kajabi boasts built-in shopping carts, email reporting, and customized promotional offers. They also offer marketing funnel templates that help your team get started if you’re never made one before.

Kajabi is useful for top-of-the-funnel campaigns focused on bringing in new interest or first-time visitors to your website. However, it's on the pricier side compared to other options, so it might not be the best choice for startups or companies with tighter budgets.

4. Systeme.io

System.io is an all-in-one marketing software tool for online businesses that includes:

• A funnel builder

• Dropshipping services

• An autoresponder

• Business automation

It takes you less than a minute to build a marketing funnel and landing page using the software's funnel builder tool, and it also has an email marketing tool and blogging capabilities.

Another benefit of Systeme.io is that it lets you consolidate all your marketing tools in one platform rather than having separate tools for funnel building and another for emails. 

Systeme.io is designed to be user-friendly, and it’s affordable with both free options and paid subscriptions. This is ideal for startups who need to use lots of different tools, but don’t have a large enough budget to subscribe to several products. However, Systeme.io doesn’t have live support, so you’ll need to rely on written help content for troubleshooting.

5. Zendesk Sell

Zendesk Sell primarily targets customers who need to create sales funnels, but the tool is also capable of helping your team create and manage your marketing funnels. As a CRM platform, it helps you get full pipeline visibility and contextualize which stage of your SaaS marketing funnel your users are at.

Zendesk Sell brings all your customer information onto a single platform, so your team can manage leads, contacts, and account information and refine your marketing funnel with up-to-date data. This tool is very useful for the middle and bottom of the funnel, because it shines a light on where users are leaving your website and helps you make changes accordingly. It’s also available as a mobile app, unlike many competitor products.

Zendesk Sell's pricing plans vary depending on your team’s size and needs. Since this product is more geared toward sales teams, it might not be the right choice for every marketing department, but its features are still useful and relevant.

6. ClickFunnels

ClickFunnels is a well-known funnel tool that's geared specifically toward helping businesses create and refine marketing funnels. This is ideal for teams who've already established platforms for other needs and are looking for a highly-focused standalone tool. ClickFunnels is easy to use and has detailed help content for guiding users through each step of the marketing funnel process.

The platform also has a drag-and-drop webpage editor, smart shopping cart features, and email and Facebook marketing automation.

One downside of ClickFunnels is its pricing, which is higher than most of its competitors.

Choosing the right marketing funnel tools for your business

When choosing a marketing funnel tool, pick one (or more) that best helps you understand your customer experience and learn where your users are losing interest or dropping off your website. Then, you can design or update your funnel and use a product-led growth strategy to boost customer interactions and increase your conversion rate.

Consider your team’s size, budget, and existing tech stack when making your selection, and choose a product that allows for continuous discovery, data-gathering, and improvements to your funnel.