March 24, 2017

Best Google Chrome Extensions

Wish you knew the best growth hacking Chrome extensions?

You search through hundreds only to find a handful that could help you. You try them out to then be left with only one that solves a pain point. And a week later, you’re not using it anymore.

Why?

There’s too much junk. With thousands of new Google Chrome extensions uploaded every day, it’s near impossible to identify which ones can up your growth hacking skills.

How do most growth hackers attempt to solve this problem?

They go to Google to type in these search queries:

“Top ten Chrome extensions for marketers”

“Best Chrome extensions”

“Chrome extensions list”

As a result, they get a list of Chrome extensions created by a marketer, not a growth hacker. To ensure you never have to go through this pain again, here’s my list of the best Chrome extensions for growth hackers:

1. Share Email as Link

Received a bad customer complaint via email? Want to share it with your customer success team? Use Share Email as Link to create shareable links to your emails. You can use these links to reference emails wherever you post a link on the internet.

2. Hunter.io

Use Hunter.io to find people’s emails faster on LinkedIn. Hunter gives you 150 free emails credits. It’s the best freemium tool for getting people’s contact information.

3. Buffer

Buffer makes sharing or scheduling social media posts from any web page easy. When you click the Buffer icon, Buffer will automatically pull the title of the article or any highlighted text into the post, shorten your link and show a preview of the image that will accompany the post. You can edit the post as you wish with relevant hashtags, images, and handles, then post to selected channels or add it to your queue.

Below, I’m using the Buffer Chrome extension to re-use a picture of Travis Kalanick from a controversial article someone mentioned him in.

4. Rebrandly

Rebrandly is the fastest way to create branded links when sharing a URL. This helps make your links more memorable and pronounceable. For example, rather than using Meetup’s ridiculously long links in my email to promote an event, I can rebrand it under “growth.chat/meetup.”

5. News Feed Eradicator

Check Facebook too much? Is it hurting your work productivity? News Feed Eradicator will remove your News Feed and replace it with an inspirational quote. This tool saves me several hours every week.

7. Wappalyzer

With a click, you can see what software companies use on their websites. It detects everything from content management systems to analytics tools. Talk about a competitive advantage.

8. Dux-Soup

Dux-Soup provides LinkedIn lead generation automation by tracking every LinkedIn profile you visit. You can export data from these profiles including the timestamp of the visit, name of the person whose profile you visited, job title, company name, location, email, and notes.

Dux-Soup also enables you to auto-visit profiles of LinkedIn users based on Google or LinkedIn searches. As a result, many of the people who you visit will check out your profile out of curiosity.

9. GPZ LinkedIn Tools

GPZ LinkedIn Tools gives you the power to auto-connect to individuals based on search queries with a personalized message. The tool also enables you to send messages with a custom input of the first name to your LinkedIn connection and bypass captcha. Similar to Dux-Soup, you can also view profiles, too. Better yet, you can endorse them! Here’s a peek into the tool’s LinkedIn messaging feature:

10. Tweepi

The Tweepi Chrome extension allows you to bulk unfollow and block people to clean up your engagement on Twitter. It’s the only tool I’ve found to remove at scale the inactive or spammy people who follow you.

11. Similar Web

Use SimilarWeb to find real in-depth website engagement, traffic sources, and site ranking information. This is one of my favorite tools for taking a deep dive into a competitor’s website.

12. LastPass

LastPass saves your passwords and gives you secure access from every computer and mobile device. Its security comes with ease-of-use—LastPass enables you to auto-login to your sites and sync your passwords everywhere you need them. The tool even allows you to check out faster by auto-filling credit card and shopping profile information. Once you login to LastPass, it will enable all your other logins, so you never have to think about searching for your dedicated password doc again.

13. Facebook Pixel Helper

Facebook Pixel Helper identifies whether you’re getting retargeted by Facebook ads (ensures your pixel is working, too). A number will appear on the Facebook Pixel Helper icon to indicate the number of pixel events (Pageview, Entrypage, Click, etc.). When clicked, it will show a detailed overview of the page’s pixels, including warnings, errors, and successes:

14. Search by Image

Want to find an image without its watermark? This extension allows you to initiate a Google search using any image on the web. To use this extension, right click on an image on the web and select “Search Google with this image.” You’ll see all the companies who’ve bought the image to remove the watermark.

15. Momentum

Momentum replaces your new tab page with a personal dashboard featuring to-do, weather, and inspiration. Here, you can set a daily focus, track your to-dos, and get inspired with a daily photo and quote. It helps eliminate distractions and keeps you focused with a reminder of your tasks for the day on every new tab you load.

16. Blocksite

Blocksite enables you to block any website hurting your productivity and have it re-direct to a more productive web page you should be working on. There’s also an Active Days & Time feature which allows you to access the blocked websites when needed.

17. Nimbus Screenshot

Nimbus Screenshot can capture an entire web page or a specific part. Furthermore, it allows you to draw arrows with explanation boxes, and record screencasts. It’s an all-in-one screen capture machine.

18. Loom

Capture, narrate and instantly share videos to communicate faster. It only takes one click to record and one click to finish and share a publicly available URL to the video.

19. Grammarly

Grammarly checks your spelling and grammar as you type, including email and Facebook statuses. It also syncs with LinkedIn, Twitter, and almost everywhere else you write on the internet. If your communication is important to your business, then this is well worth the investment.

20. AdBlock

AdBlock is the most popular Chrome extension with over 40 million users and 200 million downloads. It blocks ads all over the web from Facebook to YouTube. This is one of the best ways to keep yourself from getting sucked into click-bait content.

21. Effin Amazing A/B Tester Calculator

This extension allows you to calculate the statistical significance & conversion rate of your A/B tests with only a few clicks.

BONUS: Effin Amazing UTM Builder

If you’re a marketer that needs to add tracking parameters to your links frequently, then you’ll save a ton of time using the Effin Amazing UTM Builder. Whatever page you need to create a UTM, simply click the Effin Amazing UTM Builder icon, fill in your source, medium, campaign, and click copy. Now you have a beautiful, trackable link ready to go.

Did I mention it syncs with Google Sheets? Every link you create will get automatically inputted into a specified sheet, so you never lose it. Powerful.

Too many Chrome extensions can hurt your productivity, so before you decide to download all twenty-two of them, make sure they’ll help you with your projects.

Once you’ve locked down the ones which will help you, it’s time to take your growth hacking skills up several notches. No more manual exercises when you can use Chrome extensions to automate your workflow and free up five to ten hours every week.

How many more tests could you run with the extra time?
That’s the mindset of a growth hacker.

Any Google Chrome extensions you’d add to this list? Let us know in the comments.