As a busy digital advertising agency, we’re continually looking for ways to streamline our work. Every day we carry out a plethora of small tasks, such as checking tags, analysing keyword data and viewing designs in multiple browsers. Our team has come to rely on a handful of useful Chrome browser plugins to make our lives immeasurably easier.
And yes… we’re going to share them with you. Regardless of what you do every day as a marketer, there is a plugin (or five) that will save you valuable human and technical bandwidth. Here are the apps our crew relies on every day.
Buffer
Buffer is a super simple tool to share content and schedule posts to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+ and Pinterest. A bonus is that they provide an analytics tool to see how your posts perform.
Buzzsumo
The Chrome Extension provides instant, real-time analysis from any webpage you browse, giving you a comprehensive breakdown of social engagements received across multiple platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and Pinterest, as well as backlinks. In addition to all of that, the extension also calculates the Evergreen score and allows you to view users who have shared the page on Twitter.
ColorZilla
ColorZilla enables you need to know a the HTML colour value of a graphic or image (ex: #000000 is black). It also has a palette browser and a CSS gradient generator.
Facebook Pixel Helper
The Facebook Pixel Helper is similar to the Google Tag Assistant or the UET tag help from Bing Ads; it enables you to validate your Facebook Conversion Pixel and Custom Audience Pixels.
Facebook Pixel Helper Chrome Store Link
Ghostery
Ghostery allows you to view, understand and manage the trackers that marketers use to build a digital footprint about your web activity. Once you know who is tracking you and why, you can block trackers that slow down your browser or interfere with your privacy.
Google Analytics Debugger
Google Analytics Debugger loads the debug version of the Google Analytics Javascript for every site you visit. It prints error messages and warnings to the Javascript console, helping you see when analytics tracking code is misconfigured.
Google Analytics Debugger Chrome Store Link
Google Cast
The Google Cast Extension enables you to play and cast content on your Chromecast device using your Chrome browser. In other words, you can view streaming content and website content on your TV using your computer as a remote.
Google Mail Checker
Google Mail Checker shows you the number of unread message in your gmail inbox, functioning as a visual reminder that you probably have more work to do.
Google Mail Checker Chrome Store Link
Grammarly
Grammarly will spell and grammar check your punctuation messages, documents and social media posts. You can also create and store all your documents in the Grammarly online editor.
Great Suspender
The Great Suspender is a lightweight chrome extension that helps reduce Chrome’s memory footprint for users who like to have too many tabs open at the same time. It “pauses” tabs that you’re not currently using, helping to reduce strain on your system.
Great Suspender Chrome Store Link
Harvest
Harvest makes it easy for teams and freelancers to track, report and analyze their time within Chrome and popular project management tools.
Keywords Everywhere
Keywords Everywhere aggregates data from multiple keyword search tools to show you website search volume, cost per click and competition data beneath the Google search bar.
Keywords Everywhere Store Link
Link Clump
Link Clump let’s you quickly open and save links in a webpage. By dragging a selection box you can drag links to open new tabs, open in new windows, save as bookmarks or copy a link to your clipboard.
Meldium
Meldium enables a team to share, access and manage multiple passwords from one home screen.
One Tab
One Tab helps you save memory by collapsing all your open tabs into a list. When you’re ready, you can reopen all your tabs, or choose tabs to restore one at a time.
Pocket enables you to save and share links to view online on offline on any device.
Reddit Enhancement Suite
Reddit Enhancement Suite is a collection of modules that enables you to streamline your Reddit experience, enabling endless scrolling, keyboard navigation, inline image viewing and more.
Scraper
Scraper will mine data from websites and convert it to tab-separated values in a spreadsheet.
Server Status Code Inspector
The Server Status Code Inspector helps you debug redirects, error pages and other server issues by showing you the server response status code in your Chrome address bar.
Server Status Code Inspector Chrome Store Link
Streak CRM for Gmail
Streak CRM enables you to manage sales and customer relationships in your gmail account. The plug-in’s CRM features integrate with your inbox, enabling lead management, team collaboration and more.
Tag Assistant
Tag Assistant troubleshoots the installation of Google tags, including Google Analytics, Adwords Conversion Tracking and Google Tag Manager. Navigate to the page you want to check and Tag Assistant will identify tags, report errors and recommend improvements.
Tag Assistant Chrome Store Link
UberConference
UberConference is a screen-sharing plug-in, enabling you to share your screen during conference calls.
UberConference Chrome Store Link
UET Tag Helper
UET Tag Helper identifies errors with the installation of Bing UET tags. Navigate to a page and the plugin will identify which UET tags are on the page, whether they’re working correctly and what needs to be done to fix errors.
UET Tag Helper Chrome Store Link
UglyEmail
The UglyEmail Gmail extension detects and blocks hidden trackers in received emails, preventing read receipts and other email tracking pixels from firing.
User-Agent Switcher for Chrome
The User-Agent Switcher for Chrome spoofs and mimics user-agent strings, enabling developers to switch between user-agent strings on the fly.
User-Agent Switcher Chrome Store Link
Web Application/Tool Sniffer
Web Application/Tool Sniffer detects web applications, tools and javascript libraries that are running on sites you visit.
Web Application/Tool Sniffer Chrome Store Link
Window Resizer
Window Resizer will resize your browser window to show you how content appears on various screen resolutions, enabling designers and developers to test layouts on different browser resolutions.
Window Resizer Chrome Store Link
Wizy
Wizy.io is an email productivity tool for Gmail, enabling you to track email, mail merge, send later and track metrics, among other things.
Do better work, faster
Once you start using plugins to carry out easy repetitive tasks, you’ll never look back. Consider how a combination of the above extensions would streamline your first assessment of a new client website: check keywords, check tags, check scripts, view it in different browsers… lickety split. Now you get it.