If you own a retail store, you can probably tell with a glance which customer is ready to make a purchase, who needs help, and who’s about to walk out the door. While this is possible to eyeball at a physical store, assessing and tracking leads is more complicated online.
Pipeline management software improves the sales journey for your team and your clients. Learn what this software is, what it can do for your business, and some of the best sales pipeline tools for increasing sales.
What are sales pipeline management tools?
- Finding and qualifying leads
- Tracking sales stages
- Activity management
- Reporting and analytics
- CRM integration
Sales pipeline management tools are software platforms used by businesses to track, oversee, and optimize the entire sales process. Pipeline management tools help ecommerce businesses manage lead relationships, forecast revenue, and even manage inventory.
You can use sales pipeline management software, or customer sales relationship platforms with pipeline management capabilities, to automate repetitive tasks and track important milestones.
Key features of sales pipeline software include:
Finding and qualifying leads
These tools can help with lead generation by sifting through a database of contacts to funnel promising prospects to your shop. They can also do lead scoring, which leverages specific filters such as purchase behavior and corporate structures to ensure you are targeting those likely to convert into paying clients.
Tracking sales stages
You can monitor sales pipeline stages including initial contact, negotiation, final sale, and post-purchase follow-ups to ensure the entire sales cycle runs smoothly.
Activity management
Sales managers can access an organized dashboard of sales activities to easily view team performance and identify bottlenecks.
Reporting and analytics
Sales pipeline tools can help you forecast revenue and track key metrics like customer interactions and sales data. This can then be used to create efficient sales strategies with higher conversion rates.
CRM integration
Sales pipeline tools can often be integrated easily with your existing customer relationship management (CRM) software. There it can help you maintain customer relationships and reduce the software learning curve for your customer service teams. In some cases, you may find sales pipeline capabilities in your CRM itself, making integration unnecessary.
10 best sales pipeline management tools
- Pipedrive
- Zendesk Sell
- Monday
- HubSpot (Sales Hub)
- Freshsales
- Lusha
- Insightly
- ActiveCampaign
- Keap
- EngageBay
As your ecommerce business grows, leveraging sales management tools becomes more important to streamline sales processes. Below are 10 popular sales pipeline management tools you can use to boost your sales performance, manage deals, and foster strong communication every step of the way:
1. Pipedrive
Pipedrive incorporates into your current workflow and offers a responsive support team and user-friendly interface. The visual sales pipeline shows sales teams where leads are in the sales journey, identifies inactive leads, and facilitates real-time sales forecasting to help sales reps focus on the strongest prospects.
Pricing: Pipedrive offers five tiers: Essential ($14 per user, per month), Advanced ($39 per user, per month), Professional ($49 per user, per month), Power ($64 per user, per month), and Enterprise ($99 per user, per month). Each comes with a 14-day free trial. Like many of the plans listed below, monthly rates are billed annually.
2. Zendesk Sell
Zendesk Sell is designed for both large and small businesses and is compatible with most customer relationship management tools. You can automate customized emails and leverage in-depth sales reporting functionality to understand what pipeline stages are thriving. It can also identify where you typically drop deals, helping you refine your sales strategy.
Pricing: Zendesk offers a 14-day free trial for Sell Team ($19 per user, per month), Sell Growth ($55 per user, per month), and Sell Professional ($115 per user, per month) plans. All prices are for annual billing.
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3. Monday
Monday specializes in CRM pipeline management tools. Its functionalities include:
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Lead generation via email and social media outreach
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Revenue forecasting using historical and current sales data
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Sales processes tracking
It focuses on collaboration, with task assignments, reminders, and real-time notifications to help the sales manager and sales team oversee the entire sales pipeline.
Pricing: Monday offers a simplified free version for two users. Paid plans include Basic ($9 per user, per month), Standard ($12 per user, per month), and Pro ($19 per user, per month) differing in available storage and reporting capabilities. All prices are for annual billing.
4. HubSpot (Sales Hub)
Hubspot’s Sales Hub is a sales pipeline tool for businesses seeking accurate revenue attribution and workflow automations to retrieve and organize contact information. Its dashboard enables customizable sales pipelines for product categories or client demographics. It eliminates manual data entry by automatically adding new opportunities to your lead list after initial contact.
Pricing: HubSpot offers a simplified free version for two users. Paid versions include a Starter Customer Platform tier ($15 per month, per user) for essential marketing and sales tools, a Sales Hub Professional tier ($90 per month, per user) for comprehensive scaling and automation, and a Sales Hub Enterprise tier ($150 per month, per user) for advanced control. All prices are for annual billing.
5. Freshsales
Freshsales uses artificial intelligence (AI) for sales automation and incorporates algorithm-based assessment into sales pipeline management. Sales activities are segmented into actionable, assignable tasks. Lead forecasting lets you anticipate which leads will generate the most revenue before the sale closes. Freshsales is also a robust CRM system, collecting customer data and streamlining communications with prospects.
Pricing: Freshsales offers a simplified free version for three users and a 21-day free trial on its paid plans. These include the Growth plan ($9 per user, per month) geared toward small businesses and startups, Pro plan ($39 per user, per month) for mid-sized businesses, and Enterprise plan ($59 per user, per month) for larger businesses. All prices are for annual billing.
6. Lusha
Lusha, a Google Chrome browser extension, is designed to increase sales productivity by targeting social media users in your demographic. It draws on current contact information, company financials, and employee headcount. This lets you consistently update your sales CRM data points and launch effective outreach communications to generate high-priority leads that are most likely to convert.
Pricing: Lusha uses a credit system to reveal a lead’s email address (one credit) or phone number (10 credits). It offers a free plan for one user with 70 credits, a Pro plan ($38 per month, billed annually) for three users with 6,000 shared credits, and a Premium plan ($60 per month) for five users with 12,000 shared credits.
7. Insightly
Insightly has adjustable dashboards, letting you set up multiple custom sales pipelines and reduce sales funnel clutter. The visuals are clear and intuitive, making it easier to assign tasks to various team members for collaboration. You can automate repetitive tasks, like updating lead status and entering contact information, so your team can focus on selling.
Pricing: Insightly offers a 14-day trial on its Plus tier ($29 per user, per month) with pre-built dashboards and lead generation tools. The Professional tier ($49 per user, per month) offers assigning functions and automation, and the Enterprise tier ($99 per user, per month) has advanced customization. Each plan is billed annually.
8. ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign can streamline sales pipeline management by integrating with platforms like Shopify, Facebook, and Microsoft. This app is useful for siloing leads by customer preferences, geographical locations, and sales pipeline stages to achieve accurate lead scoring. The CRM backbone of the software lets you nurture customer relationships at every phase via email and phone.
Pricing: The Starter plan ($15 per month) offers limited features. The Plus plan ($49 per month) offers automation and customer insights. The Pro plan ($79 per month) offers a full omnichannel marketing suite. The Enterprise plan ($145 per month) offers a dedicated account team. Each plan is billed annually.
9. Keap
Keap helps you stay in touch with customers through all stages of the sales cycle. It features useful sales pipeline tools like SMS text messaging, email, and phone communications. The reporting section of the platform provides key metrics, such as the average time it takes to complete a sale, while also giving information for revenue forecasting.
Pricing: Keap offers a 14-day free trial and starts at $249 per month, billed annually, for two users and 1,500 contacts. Customers must contact the company to set up a tailored plan.
10. EngageBay
Unlike the other pipeline management software providers on this list, EngageBay is an all-in-one sales, CRM, and marketing platform. It is designed for startups looking to enhance all three areas of their operations. EngageBay lets you create email campaigns, landing pages, and communication channels to find, nurture, and correspond with customers.
Pricing: EngageBay offers a free plan to store 250 contacts. Paid subscriptions include the Basic tier ($11.04 per user, per month) for 500 contacts and third-party integrations, the Growth tier ($42.49 per user, per month), which allows 20,000 contacts and sales automation, and the Pro tier ($67.99 per user per month) for 30,000 contacts and custom reporting. Plans are billed biennially.
Pipeline management tools FAQ
What is a pipeline management tool?
A pipeline management tool is software used to track, oversee, and optimize your sales process, and generate more leads and conversions with less effort.
How do you manage a sales pipeline?
Managing sales pipelines consists of organizing leads, prioritizing high-value prospects, communicating regularly with clients, delegating tasks to your sales team, making sales, and tracking progress. You can use a sales pipeline management tool to organize this information and automate repetitive tasks.
How do you choose the right sales pipeline management tool?
Choose the best sales pipeline software for your business based on how many leads you need per month, integration with your current third-party applications, and required CRM capabilities.
Does Shopify integrate with sales pipeline management tools?
Shopify can integrate with most pipeline management software.
