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11 best customer acquisition tools and software to attract and convert new business
There are two parts to customer acquisition: bringing qualified visitors to your website and converting them into customers. You’ll need to use different types of software to do both effectively.
This guide takes you through 11 best-in-class customer acquisition tools to help you attract your ideal audience and convert them into paying customers. You won’t have to use them all at the same time—start with two or three that best match your customer acquisition strategy.
Let’s get started.
Convert more customers with Hotjar
Hotjar shows you how real visitors behave so you can optimize your website for more conversions.
1. Hotjar
Some of Hotjar’s tools in action: Recordings, Surveys, Heatmaps, Feedback, and Funnels
Hotjar (that’s us 👋, hello!) is a product experience insights platform with multiple tools working together to help you understand your customers and what drives (or blocks) conversions. We offer a free-forever plan with unlimited heatmaps, and paid plans start at $39/month.
Hotjar is a tool we use on a daily basis. We install it on every new page we create, whether it’s a PPC landing page, a new website, or a page we’re A/B testing.
Hotjar makes it faster to optimize our conversion rates. It lets us stop guessing. We can find solutions, fix problems, and get more leads.
How to use Hotjar for customer acquisition
Hotjar’s tools help you increase conversion rates no matter what channels you rely on to drive traffic. Use them to
Visualize customer acquisition funnels to identify where and why visitors bounce without converting
Watch session recordings to spot bugs that cause visitors to leave
Visualize heatmaps of where people click and scroll to optimize call-to-action (CTA) placement
Add a feedback widget to let any visitor report broken functionality or explain what further information they needed
Create an exit survey to find out why visitors leave
Send post-purchase surveys (e.g. a customer satisfaction or CSAT survey) to find out what almost stopped people from converting, then update your messaging to address these potential objections
Run user interviews to ask your target audience what does and doesn’t work for them on your site
Prioritize website optimizations quicker with AI survey insights and automatic session recording relevancy
2. Google Analytics
An example of an ecommerce acquisition overview report in GA4
Google Analytics, or GA4 as it's currently known, is a web analytics service that tracks and reports website and mobile app traffic and events. GA4 is free to use, but your data may be sampled if you go over traffic limits. Unsampled paid plans are also available.
How to use Google Analytics for customer acquisition
GA helps you measure which of your acquisition channels drive and convert traffic. Use it to
Track UTM tags to measure campaign results
Navigate to Reports > Life cycle > Acquisition to generate acquisition reports
Filter your acquisition reports by session campaign, medium, source, or channel to see which channels and campaigns attract the most new customers
💡 Pro tip: quantitative data from Google Analytics will only highlight your best- and worst-converting customer acquisition channels—but you won’t know why things are happening.
The Hotjar Dashboard combines quantitative and qualitative website metrics
Combine GA with Hotjar to understand the behavior behind the numbers. Investigate what helps or hinders conversions by viewing session recordings and heatmaps of real user behavior, or surveying your visitors to find out what they’re missing.
3. Unbounce
Unbounce’s landing page drag-and-drop editor
Unbounce is a landing page builder and platform designed to help you convert marketing campaign traffic into signups and sales. Prices start at $99/month and increase depending on the number of unique visitors and conversions you need.
How to use Unbounce for customer acquisition
Unbounce allows you to create and optimize multiple landing pages for different campaigns, like paid advertising, social media ads, and email marketing. Use it to
Build campaign landing pages using templates, a drag-and-drop builder, or the AI-powered editor
Create and target website popups and sticky bars to drive conversions
Send visitors to the right landing page based on visitor attributes
⭐️ Bonus: integrate Unbounce with Hotjar to view session recordings and heatmaps for page variants—and use the insight to understand why a specific page converted better than the others.
Use Hotjar’s Unbounce integration to see what helps customers convert
4. HubSpot
Creating an offer nurture campaign in HubSpot
HubSpot is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform that connects marketing, sales, content management, and customer support all in one place. A free tier plan is available, and paid plans start at $20/month.
How to use HubSpot for customer acquisition
HubSpot has many tools to help manage the entire sales funnel, from marketing campaigns to conversion. Use it to
Create landing pages for different marketing campaigns
Automate marketing actions based on user behavior, like sending an email or in-app notification
Personalize website content based on user attributes to increase the likelihood of conversion
Manage sales leads
Create a live-chat widget or chatbot to help overcome customer objections
⭐️ Bonus: integrate HubSpot with Hotjar to add session recording and customer feedback responses to your contact timeline—and use this to better understand what leads to conversions or churn.
5. Optimizely
The Experiments dashboard in Optimizely
Optimizely is a digital experience platform providing content marketing and management, website experimentation, and personalization tools. Pricing plans differ for each product, so you’ll need to get in touch with their sales team to find out more.
How to use Optimizely for customer acquisition
Optimizely’s most valuable acquisition features are focused on increasing conversion rates. Use it to
Run website experiments and multivariate tests to determine which layouts drive conversions
Localize and personalize different page variants based on user attributes
Automatically tag ecommerce products and generate recommendations to increase sales
⭐️ Bonus: integrate Optimizely with Hotjar to target surveys to different A/B test variants or view relevant heatmaps and session recordings for them.
Use Hotjar’s Optimizely integration to understand why winning variants performed better
6. Mixpanel
An example of a Mixpanel report showing top acquisition channels and purchase retention over time
Mixpanel is an event analytics tool for websites and mobile apps. It works for all business types, including SaaS and ecommerce. The platform has a free starter plan, and paid options start at $20/month.
How to use Mixpanel for customer acquisition
Mixpanel helps you measure quantitative customer acquisition metrics in a similar way to Google Analytics. Use it to
Track events like page views, purchases, and UTM campaigns
Generate reports on top customer acquisition channels and compare traffic sources
Create dashboards to view business-critical metrics all in one place
Monitor churn via customer retention reports
⭐️ Bonus: integrate Mixpanel with Hotjar to filter session recording, heatmap, and feedback data by Mixpanel event and understand the user behavior behind the metrics.
7. Contentsquare
A sample customer profile in Contentsquare showing browsing behavior
Contentsquare (Hotjar’s sister company! 👋) is a digital experience analytics platform with tools to measure and optimize digital customer experience. All plans are paid, and you’ll need to request a demo to learn more about pricing plans.
How to use Contentsquare for customer acquisition
Like Hotjar, Contentsquare’s tools focus on helping increase conversions by finding UX issues and identifying what’s helping new users convert. Use it to
Find website and SEO errors automatically and quantify if they’re outliers or wide-sweeping issues
Monitor all user interactions and analyze proprietary metrics like ‘time before first click’ and ‘hesitation time’
Use the revenue attribution feature to visualize which site elements drive the most revenue
Compare user behavior across different channels, devices, and A/B test variants
Generate automatic insights using AI to prioritize the most valuable areas to focus on first
⭐️ Bonus: integrate Contentsquare with Hotjar to add qualitative data from Hotjar survey responses to Contentsquare
8. Zapier
A popular Zapier use case: send Hotjar survey responses straight to a Google Sheet
Zapier is a no-code workflow automation tool for integrating the functionality of multiple other tools. The tool offers a free plan to get started, and paid options begin at $19.99/month.
How to use Zapier for customer acquisition
Use Zapier to combine different customer acquisition tools to save time and gain deeper insight. Use it to
Send new leads straight to your email marketing platform or CRM
Automatically share new blog posts on social media platforms
Enrich and segment B2B lead data by combining it with job titles, social profiles, or company details
Send regular customer acquisition reports to a dashboard or by email
9. Salesforce
Managing a new lead in Salesforce
Salesforce is a CRM platform spanning digital marketing, sales, service, commerce, and IT. Prices start at $25/user/month.
How to use Salesforce for customer acquisition
Salesforce offers multiple tools to help attract and convert new customers. Use it to
Capture, track, and manage leads from multiple channels throughout the customer acquisition process
Nurture leads with marketing automation, including follow-up email campaigns and personalized messaging to increase conversions
Track and analyze customer interactions and monitor key acquisition metrics, like customer lifetime value (LTV)
Integrate Salesforce with Hotjar via Zapier to connect session recordings and customer feedback responses to leads, then use this information to respond to issues or troubleshoot errors
10. Mailchimp
Email contacts in the Mailchimp dashboard
Mailchimp is an all-in-one marketing, automation, and email platform. Mailchimp offers a basic free plan, and paid plans start at $13/month.
How to use Mailchimp for customer acquisition
Mailchimp’s tools help you monitor and optimize marketing campaigns to grow leads and convert them into customers. Use it to
Manage and segment email lists for existing customers and leads
Create and send personalized emails using generative AI
Design and schedule social media posts
Use templates to build email marketing campaign landing pages
Target and segment customers to display personalized messaging
Automate marketing actions based on user behavior (e.g. send a discount code if users leave without checking out)
A/B test campaigns to find the most effective ones for driving new customers
11. ReferralCandy
ReferralCandy’s main dashboard overview showing referral revenue and traffic
ReferralCandy is customer referral software for creating and managing referral marketing programs. Plans start at $59/month plus commission fees.
How to use ReferralCandy for customer acquisition
You need a tool like ReferralCandy if referral marketing is part of your customer acquisition strategy. Use it to
Create cash, discount, or gift rewards for referrals
Create coupon codes for referrers to share
Add post-purchase pop-ups and send emails to encourage your customer base to join the referral program
Monitor the ROI of new customer referrals
Manage affiliates and referrals all in one place
Start using tools to improve customer acquisition metrics
You can use many of the above software to bring more traffic and track customer actions—but if something is wrong with the website experience itself, you run the risk of investing money and energy into tools and campaigns without seeing the right return on your investment.
For a better ROI, focus first on understanding how real visitors behave. Start with Hotjar to find the UX issues that cause people to leave without purchasing and learn what’s needed to convert visitors into loyal customers.
Convert more customers with Hotjar
Hotjar shows you how real visitors behave so you can optimize your website for more conversions.
