One could make a monstrously long list of lead generation tools. It’d boggle your mind and most likely, you’d tune out. We chose to make a short list.
So, a disclaimer is fair: there are a ton more solutions than presented here — and, of course, many are great.
The list featured in this post follows up on this lead generation guide and subsequent posts where we’ve examined how to generate leads, lead generation strategies, campaign planning, and lead generation examples. Here we make you aware of the best lead generation tools, based on the endorsements of experts and credibility in the market.
Although the plethora of lead generation tools don’t always fit perfectly in a single box, we categorize them logically.
Best Lead Generation Paid Tools
Landing pages
The term ‘landing page’ has various, and often confusing, definitions. We define a landing page as a ‘response page.’ As such, the measure of a landing page is the percentage of people that respond to it — or the conversion rate.
A number of lead generation SaaS providers focus on facilitating the creation, publishing, testing, analysis and refinement of landing pages. Landing page solutions generally offer templates to speed time-to-completion and integrate with existing websites, marketing automation and additional platforms.
A trio of leaders have emerged:
1. Unbounce
Unbounce enables you to create and publish a landing page without the help of a developer.
- Price: Plans start at $79/mo and there is a 14-day trial option.
- Notes: Unbounce is known for offering 100-plus quality templates and an easy to learn drag-and-drop builder.
2. Instapage
Instapage is a popular landing page builder touting ‘personalized post-click landing page experiences.’
- Price: Plans start at $99/mo and there is a 14-day trial option.
- Notes: Instapage claims to help decrease acquisition costs by better aligning the pre-click and post-click stages.
3. Leadpages
Leadpages targets small businesses with a robust offering featuring landing pages and additional lead capture mechanisms.
- Price: Plans start at $25/mo and there is a free trial option.
- Notes: Leadpages claims to helps small businesses connect with an audience, collect leads, and close sales. Easily build websites, landing pages, pop-ups, alert bars, and beyond.
Pop-ups
The Urban Dictionary defines pop-ups as the annoying windows that open when you access a webpage. Though users often agree, this sentiment seldom deters digital marketers because (1) pop-ups are proven lead generators, (2) their popularity makes them less offensive than before, and (3) they’ve become more sophisticated and engaging.
In our recent post featuring lead generation examples, we shared several case studies of how online marketers use pop-ups effectively. Now, let’s look at two leaders that have advanced the fine art of the web page pop-up:
4. OptinMonster
OptinMonster has seized a lead in the online lead generation software space with its rich feature set and versatility.
- Price: The basic plan is $9/mo and there is a no-risk guarantee option.
- Notes: OptinMonster has a powerful drag and drop builder, a long list of ways to trigger pop-ups and present offers, and it integrates with most email platforms.
5. WisePops
WisePops is popular with e-commerce brands. It offers a generous library of templates and a highly granular set of controls.
- Price: The basic plan is $41/mo. and there is a 14-day trial option.
- Notes: WisePops claims to help business collect more emails from their visitors, elegantly.
Chat
Live chat improves the user experience and provides potential buyers with the information they need to make informed decisions. Because it helps businesses communicate with prospects in real time, it’s very effective when it comes to capturing leads and driving sales.
Chatbot technology, which works 24/7, is effective too. Automated chat replies to customer inquiries immediately, is always consistent, and scales to meet any demand.
Two established leaders in the live chat and chatbot space include:
6. Intercom
The Intercom solutions suite enables brands to acquire, engage and support customers.
- Price: The essential plan is $87/mo and there is a 14-day trial option.
- Notes: Intercom’s chatbot solution features automatic lead routing to qualify leads. Bots are easily customized without coding. The product also supports interactive tours, which can drive onboarding and adoption.
7. Drift
Drift bills itself as a conversational marketing platform that connects your business with the best leads in real-time.
- Price: The standard plan is $50/mo and there is a free version for basic live chat.
- Notes: Drift’s feature set is robust, including bots, a meeting scheduler, anonymous visitor intelligence, and video sharing.
Forms
For decades, online lead generation has begun with a visitor filling out a form and rest assured, you’ll find a form on a landing page. Buyers have grown weary of forms, however, they are often frustrated by the interaction, and fearful of the barrage of emails and calls that are likely to follow.
Some lead generation companies have responded in clever ways with stylized, simplified, and often, multi-step forms that make the experience more inviting.
8. Leadformly
Leadformly promises customers they’ll convert more leads with conversion optimized, mobile responsive, lead generation forms with built in “conversion-boosting best practices.” IMO, the solution’s silver bullet is the point-and-click approach used for multi-step forms.
- Price: The essential plan is $37/mo and there is a 14-day trial option.
- Notes: Leadformly’s robust feature set includes spam reduction, lead segmentation, and intelligent forms with built-in validation.
9. Typeform
Typeform strives to make data exchange friendlier and more beautiful to help marketers gather better data. It’s a versatile solution used for lead capture, surveys, and more.
- Price: Typeform’s freemium solution means at its most basic, it’s a free lead generation tool. Pro plans start at $30/mo.
- Notes: Typeform boasts a cool and simple form creation tool, it has the ability to add videos, gifs, and images, and a well-stocked library of starter templates.
Marketing automation and tool stacks
There’s a whole lot of sprawl going on in the marketing automation business, meaning the creators of software tools continue expanding feature sets. Several of the lead generation tools listed thus far empower customers to buy a single solution that crosses traditional boundaries, each of the following have integrated ‘stacks’ with numerous capabilities.
10. ActiveCampaign
With its hard-to-beat pricing and robust features, ActiveCampaign’s marketing automation platform has won-over many a-marketer in recent years.
- Price: A lite version is $9/mo and the popular plus version is $49/mo.
- Notes: ActiveCampaign capabilities include email marketing, marketing automation, CRM and on-site messaging.
11. HubSpot
HubSpot’s been chased by competitors for a decade and it continuously responds with expanded functionality and free online lead generation tools.
- Price: It’s difficult to attach prices to HubSpot. Numerous marketing tools and a CRM suite are free. Starter plans for what HubSpot calls marketing, sales or service hubs begin at $50/mo.
- Notes: HubSpot offers a full stack of software for marketing, sales, and customer service, along with a free CRM solution.
12. GetResponse
GetResponse (which I depend on) bills itself as a marketing machine. The integrated solution includes email marketing, marketing automation, landing pages, and a new auto-funnel feature.
- Price: The basic plan is $15/mo and there is a 30-day trial option.
- Notes: GetResponse’s list of features is long and continues to expand. Autofunnel functionality and webinars help make the platform more expansive than most.
13. Wishpond
Wishpond’s platform includes tools for landing pages, social promotions, website popups, online forms, lead-tracking marketing automation, email marketing and analytics.
- Price: The starter plan is $49/mo and there is a 14-day trial option.
- Notes: Wishpond offers 200+ templates for landing pages, social contests, forms and popups.
Here are a couple of lead generation tools that focus on specific markets.
14. Kajabi
Kajabi is an all-in-one platform built to accommodate the many needs of those that offer online courses.
- Price: The basic plan is $119/mo and there is a 14-day trial option.
- Notes: Kajabi aims to satisfy course creators with features to facilitate template-based website creation, blogging, contact management, and email automation.
15. Sumo
Sumo is purpose-built for e-commerce brands. It claims its features reduce cart abandonment, grow email lists and increase order value.
- Price: There is a free-plan option. The pro plan is $49/mo and there is a 14-day trial option.
- Notes: Sumo tools include an extensive array of list-building applications.
Best Free Lead Generation Tools
1. MobileMonkey
MobileMonkey’s free option includes OmniChat enabled website chatbots and Facebook integrations. They have a variety of upgrade tiers should you choose to expand upon their other capabilities, including advanced automations, advanced collaboration tools, and more.
2. GetProspect
GetProspect, an email finding tool, offers a free membership that comes equipped with up to 100 emails per month. Other available options increase in price based on the number of monthly emails.
3. Findthat
Findthat, an email finding tool, offers a free membership option that comes with what they refer to as “Find Credits” and “Verify Credits.” One credit = one email. This plan also includes just one user seat.
4. Bitrix24
Bitrix24, a complete suite of social collaboration, communication and management tools, offers a free option with access to a wide scope of tools, for unlimited users, with 5GB of online storage.
5. Hotjar
Hotjar, a behavior analytics and user feedback service that helps their customers understand the behavior of their website users, offers a free plan with access to a limited selection of their tools.
6. Hunter
Hunter, an email finding and verification tool, offers a free membership option that excludes premium features such as domain search exports and multiple Gmail connections, but does include 50 requests per month.
Finding the Right Tools for You
Ultimately, you know better than anyone what your lead generation goals (and your budget to spend on them!) look like, so we hope that this round-up helps highlight some of the ones that may make the most sense for you.
It all comes down to trying different tools, finding what works, and then sticking with it to start seeing tangible results.