The time was 1800, and Napoleon Bonaparte was quite literally on top of the world. He was the undisputed ruler of France, and about to conquer both Italy and Bavaria.

It was around this time that Napoleon made the acquaintance of Robert Fulton: the man who later invented the steam engine.

The story goes that when Fulton presented a design for a steam-powered warship to the future emperor, Napoleon scoffed and rejected it. This is ironic, because a steam-powered navy could have prevented Napoleon’s eventual loss of power and exile to st. Helena.

In fact, if Napoleon had been willing to experiment with a new, unknown technology, his navy would have been powerful enough to take on the whole world – and make the rest of us speak French to this day!

But instead, his refusal to try new tech ended up dooming his campaigns and his rule.

Why is this relevant to your business?

Because on a smaller scale, the same thing happens to businesses every day.

Entrepreneurs, marketers and growth hackers get opportunities to use modern tools and technologies like Napoleon did with the steam engine.

Not all of these tools pan out – but when they do, the difference is equivalent to having metal, steam-powered boats when everyone else is piloting rickety rafts and leaky canoes.

This is especially true with funnels, which are the most effective way to acquire leads and customers today, and with growth hacking, which is based on rapid experimentation (including with tools).

So to help you make sure your campaigns do not go the same way that Napoleon’s invasion of Russia did (i.e. badly), we put together this list of 24 growth hacking tools that will supercharge your funnel marketing like steam engines once did boats.

Research tools

When you are starting out with a new funnel, you want to do a bit of preliminary research. These tools will help you give you a head start:

1. SimilarWeb

SimilarWeb.com is a paid service that shows you in-depth analytics about your competitors’ websites. Most importantly, you can see the demographics of their website visitors, their traffic sources, and even their paid ads.

The smart thing to do is to take a look at a successful competitor, figure out what they are doing that works, and try deploying it on your own website.

2. BuiltWith

Like SimilarWeb, BuiltWith can give you great insights about your competitors’ websites as this tool allows you to discover and look up what other websites are built with (therefore, the name).

For instance, use the tools to build your own lists of websites you want to copy. Find out which sites use a specific shopping cart, hosting, analytics and a lot more. The nice thing is that you can even filter by location and traffic plus several other parameters.

3. Ghostery

Ghostery is a powerful tool that shows data tracked on any given website. Using it will show you the exact analytics tools your competitors are using, giving you a clear idea of industry standards and best-practices as you start building your funnel. Check it right here!

4. Rapportive

Ever wanted to know more about the unknown person emailing you? Probably you recognise this scenario and have been there hundred times. Rapportive is your new best friend for looking up contacts on LinkedIn right from within your inbox – at least if you use Gmail.

Find out who they are, what they do, where they are, and discover the connections you have in common.

5. GrowthBot

Meet GrowthBot, a member of the HubSpot family. It services anyone from marketing and sales professionals to startup founders who are busy growing their business.

What is so great about GrowthBot is that it connects to several marketing systems, including HubSpot and Google Analytics, and within a second it will give you access to information and services that you otherwise would not find – well, if you searched for several hours you probably would, but who has time for that anyway? Start the conversation with GrowthBot now. Ask it anything, and it will give you an answer, for instance: “what software does XX competitor use?”

6. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is a set of tools that any marketer should have in his or her possession. The Ahrefs toolbox includes tools that can help you track competitors’ backlinks, brand mentions, keywords and a lot more. You will be able to find other tools that do the same, but Ahrefs is especially powerful since you have all the tools in one place. That is pretty nice, right?