Psst, looking for secret weapons?
- 80 pages of apps and tools to help you grow
- Over 10 years worth of bookmarks
- Our favorites and most-used
”Ever discover something and think, where was this years ago? This eBook is like that, 300 times.
CJ ForseFounder of Vulgar
Over the years, we’ve tried a lot of tools to grow our ecommerce businesses. And we mean it. Some work, and some were total flops. But we discovered that if you find just the right ones, it can be a real gamechanger. But here’s the thing: the right ones depend on what you’re trying to do. Here’s what we’ve learned over the years to help you gather the perfect quiver of ecommerce tools.
Strategy should drive your tool selection.
Remember that old Apple campaign, “There’s an App for That?” Either way, now’s a good time to marvel at how far we’ve come:
Tools for your ecommerce business are the same. If you’re facing a problem, chances are hundreds of other companies are too—and there’s a tool out there to solve it. The point is, put most of your time and effort into creating your perfect strategy first.
Sometimes, you’ll even want to go as far as prototyping your approach using tools you already have like Google Sheets, one-off emails, or, dare we say, your phone. After you’ve dialed in your strategy—or at least sketched out your idea—then find the right tools to streamline it. They’re out there. We promise.
The mistake to avoid here is allowing the toolmakers to drive your business strategy. And if you’re not careful, they will. A talented salesperson will have you rethinking your entire go-to-market plan faster than you can come up with a fake reason you’re not going to buy.
Limit how many tools you have.
One of the biggest mistakes you can make is having too many tools for your business. Trust us; you won’t use them all. If you’re going to pull the trigger on a new ecommerce tool, commit to using it, like, for real. If you don’t use it, cancel it. Sounds simple, but you know you’re guilty. And those fees add up quickly.
- Audit your tool usage every quarter. Cancel what’s not being used. Be ruthless.
- Try using a different credit card for all your ecommerce tools. This makes it easy to keep track of them and cancel them when they’re not being used.
- Don’t hesitate to experiment. If you’re correctly managing your usage, then keep trying new things.
Train everyone on the team to use your tools.
If you’re the only one who knows about a new tool at your company, then several things will happen:
- You’ll be the only one who uses it, and no one will adopt the new process.
- Everyone will rely on you to use the tool correctly, making more, not less, work for you
- You’ll end up giving up on the tool because no one else is enthusiastic about it
- You’ll end up with redundant tools as team members solve their own challenges with their own tools
Here’s a tip. If you find a new ecommerce tool, schedule a demo with everyone on your team that could/should be either using it or know about it. If the tool comes with a sales rep, ask that rep if he/she can demo it for your team.
Even if someone on the team will never be using the tool directly, they need to know about the new capabilities and limitations.
Example: You’ve just set up a new online quiz maker. You’ve built a quiz and ran some ads. It worked great. Another team member, not knowing you have this, sets up a different quiz tool. Now you have two tools slowing down your website, two separate lists of leads, and a frustrated teammate.
Make time for demos and exploration.
Always be eager to learn what’s out there, even if you don’t have the time, budget, or need for a new tool. Why? Because there are three critical components to being creative and strategic:
- Knowing what exists and what’s possible in the world
- The ability to combine those seemingly unrelated ideas to create novelty
- The ability to communicate and execute your original idea
If you don’t know what’s possible, you hinder your ability to grow your business.
The Best eCommerce Tools
The best ecommerce tools are the ones that become your strategy’s performance-enhancing drug. We can’t stress it enough; strategy comes first. Now, every strategy starts with a business challenge. Let’s see how one challenge might expand into 3 different strategies, and thus, 3 different sets of tools:
Challenge:
We can’t scale our digital ads.
Strategic Hypothesis 1:
Better audience targeting would help performance.
Use the tools here to create detailed one-page documents defining your ideal customer avatars. Provide this document to new marketing partners and employees. For the Post Purchase question, ask, “what’s the #1 reason you ordered our product(s)?”
Quantcast Measure
Install free pixel to get insights into what your website visitors have an affinity for
Leadquizzes
Make quizzes to ask your audience questions you can’t answer with secondary research
TopicDNA
Upload a customer list to reveal who and what they follow on the internet
Post Purchase
Ask an open-ended question after someone makes a purchase on your site
Strategic Hypothesis 2:
If we increase our AOV or CLTV we can increase our CPA.
These tools can help you increase how much money you make from each customer, thus giving you the option to spend more to acquire each one. Maybe that’s the missing piece for you to scale your digital ads?
ReCharge
Introduce an easy-to-manage subscription option to instantly increase CLTV
Better Cart
Customize your checkout page with one-click upsells, offers, and countdown timers to increase AOV
Strategic Hypothesis 3:
If we decrease the cost of our traffic we can scale.
Simple math, all other variables the same, if you decrease the cost of your traffic your funnel performance will improve. These tools could help you generate cheaper traffic—and check if it’ll be profitable.
Just Reach Out
Reach journalists directly to get your brand or content featured in a story
Gleam
Create an interactive contest that incentivizes social sharing, giving you free traffic
LongTailPro
Identify less competitive keywords that you could rank for to attract free traffic
Geru
Build and simulate your funnel to test and validate if your strategy will work
See about 288 more tools.
- 80 pages of apps and tools to help you grow
- Over 10 years worth of bookmarks
- Our favorites and most-used
