Insights

Monthly Conversion Optimisation Tools Update – June 2015

Lynne Wright, Operations Manager at AWA digital, takes a look at the latest conversion optimisation tools and industry news.

This month I report on the launch of Survey Monkey’s mobile app for Android; celebrate a time-saving new feature from wireframing tool Balsamiq; and review a number of updates from industry newcomer HotJar. In addition, I look ahead to split testing tool Optimizely’s annual conference that takes place later this month in sunny San Francisco.

Create surveys from the palm of your hand

Survey Monkey has released an Android version of its mobile app so that all smartphone users can now set up surveys and analyse critical data on the move.

The new app, which is already available for iPhone, is really simple to use on an Android smartphone or tablet thanks to an intuitive interface and neat features such as a floating action button. With mobile usage growing exponentially, I predict this will become as widely used as the desktop version in a very short space of time.

Balsamiq lives up to its promises

In my April conversion optimisation tools blog, I reported on the biggest update in wireframing tool Balsamiq’s history – Mockups 3. This was launched after a full year of development and promised a wealth of improvements; and I’m delighted to report that it lives up to the hype. Since the launch, Balsamiq has been quick to fix bugs and respond to requests for additional features.

The one that excites us the most is the ‘export to PDF’ feature. This means that when we create a wireframe to get feedback on a new web page before it we split test it, the image can be downloaded straight into a PDF format to print or send to our clients and optimisers. This is a big time saver for us, especially for a multi-page wireframe.

Another quirky feature that grabbed our attention is the option to play background music as you complete tasks to help you get in the zone.

A neat jar of tricks

HotJar is a new tool that combines CRO essentials such as heatmaps and surveys in one cost effective application. The tool is fresh out of beta testing and is starting to get good feedback from users, so it’s a development we’re keeping a close eye on.

A number of updates have just been launched, with the most interesting being a new recordings player with a tagging feature. This makes it easy to identify user behaviour patterns and quickly find groups of recordings using the filter feature.

Other new features include hourly tracking code status updates and email notifications for snapshots created in heatmaps, visitor recordings and forms.

Optimizely will unveil its latest updates in San Francisco

Optimizely’s annual conference – Opticon – takes place in sunny San Francisco from 17-18 June and promises to be a lively event with speakers lined up from a number of major industry players such as Google, Microsoft and Pinterest. Optimizely will also use the event as a platform to unveil its latest product updates, but is keeping us guessing at the moment. We’ll be closely following the events as they happen and I’ll report back on the major developments in next month’s blog.