Overview
What is Google Content Experiments (discontinued)?
Google Content Experiments was a tool that can be used to create A/B test from within Google Analytics. It has been discontinued since 2019, and Google now recommends using its Google Optimize service for A/B testing.
A superb A/B Testing tool for smaller teams.
Good tool for optimizing websites
Google Content Experiments: Quick and easy (and free) A/B/n testing you should already be using.
Pros:
* Easy to set up a test and use content …
Limited Testing Solution, but Not Without Value
FREE and integrated, but no advanced testing possibilities and harder setup
Google Content Experiments - Adequate and free
Google Content Experiments: Your Free Gateway to A/B Web Content Testing
Google Content Experiments Review #58,733 (probably)
Another Google Freebie, but could be improved for real testing strategies
A great place to start your conversion rate optimization adventure. However the limited features will have you searching for a more advanced tool within a few months.
Not a bad tool, but not for the code-shy
Google CE Impressed Me
Pricing
What is Google Content Experiments (discontinued)?
Google Content Experiments was a tool that can be used to create A/B test from within Google Analytics. It has been discontinued since 2019, and Google now recommends using its Google Optimize service for A/B testing.
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Would you like us to let the vendor know that you want pricing?
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Product Details
- About
- Competitors
- Tech Details
What is Google Content Experiments (discontinued)?
Google Content Experiments (discontinued) Competitors
Google Content Experiments (discontinued) Technical Details
Operating Systems | Unspecified |
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Mobile Application | No |
Comparisons
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Reviews and Ratings
(74)Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-13 of 13)Integrates well with Google Analytics
- Real time data
- Personalization
- Back end development needed for detailed tests.
- Some training required.
A superb A/B Testing tool for smaller teams.
- Has a great analytics engine in its backend which uses multi-arm bandit methodology- and thus can perform multiple variations at once.
- Multi-arm bandit means that it's also really effective in finding the winning solution.
- It can be based on Analytics Goals via Optimize so you can drive things that are important to the business.
- Their documentation is not the best and it's quite a steep learning curve.
- They also don't tell you particularly well what sorts of things you should be testing.
- Compared to other suppliers of A/B testing tools- it needs a simpler interface. Optimize is starting to answer that - but is still quite Beta-like.
Good tool for optimizing websites
- Easy to use and implement.
- Easy to understand the reports.
- Seamless integration with Google Analytics.
- No support for multivariate testing, a feature that was pulled from the product when it was rebranded as Google Content Experiments from Google Website Optimizer.
Google Content Experiments: Quick and easy (and free) A/B/n testing you should already be using.
Pros:
* Easy to set up a test and use content experiments to monitor ongoing test metrics, if you already have Google Analytics installed.
* Good entry level tool: Due to the relatively low skill required - so even entry level staff will be able to run a split test.with minimal training and supervision. Interpreting the results however...requires appropriate training. Caveat emptor! As with any other A/B test tool, badly designed tests result in useless data.
* Fully integrated with Google Analytics, so you can use existing goals, all the metrics are the same as in Google Analytics, and are measured in the same way as the rest of the Google Analytics metrics. Makes life much easier when interpreting the results.
* Run test only using a percentage of website traffic (current options are 1%, 5%, 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%) to reduce risk when testing radical changes.
* Free
* Huge volume of online resources to help with getting started and using it.
Cons:
* Tests cannot be paused - only ended.
* Losing variants cannot be removed before the test is complete - although if you choose the default setup option to not split traffic evenly, Google will optimize throughout the test and reduce traffic to the losing page(s) while increasing it to the winner(s).
* Same proportional split only - i.e. you cannot give one version 90% and the other 10% of the traffic (You might want to do this to confirm that your current champion page is consistently winning over the demoted loser over a long period to rule out seasonal variations, etc. Or you might not want to risk 50% of your traffic on a radically different landing page and subsequent revenue loss if it is a loser.) You can (partially) work around this by having multiple versions of one page and testing against a single version of the other (max 4:1 to get 80%:20% split)
* A/B/n testing only: Google killed it's (in some ways better) Website Optimizer to replace it with Content Experiments - and in so doing dropped the ability to run multivariate tests. This could also be seen as a pro ;-) Multivariate testing requires much better design of experiments, more traffic, and more time than A/B testing. Since Google measures everything, they presumably found that their customers were doing A/B and needed a better integrated tool, and that MVT was not being used, or was not appropriate for this market sector.
* Tests must run for 3 days minimum (works for us at SpamTitan, but in a previous job with much higher volume of traffic, and same day sales conversions, a valid winner could be called much sooner. Your sales cycle, traffic volume and conversion funnel will determine if this is a negative factor)
* Tests cannot be run for more than 3 months (I believe!) so if you have a long, complex sale cycle, this may not work for you - you can only use it for micro-conversions. So you'd best be sure they are actually relevant factors influencing the sale. It probably goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway - it's easy to optimize for registrations at the expense of actual sales. Sometimes a lower conversion rate for a microconversion will result in higher profits.
* Almost zero support from Google - you probably cannot get support direct from the vendor unless you are spending enough on Adwords to have an account manager. Luckily, you probably won't need help as the product is easy to use and limited in scope.
- Free
- Easy to use if you already use Google Analytics - literally a few minutes to set up a test
- Fully integrated with Google Analytics - so you can use your existing conversion goals, and no confusion over metrics.
- Multivariate testing
- Ability to drop losing variants during a test
- Ability to manually choose split of traffic between variants
Limited Testing Solution, but Not Without Value
- It is free
- Tests are easy to set up. Experiment creation is a 4-step process that can be completed with limited knowledge of Google Analytics
- Experiments is integrated with your Google Analytics account, utilizing existing goals or allows you to create new goals for testing directly within the set up area
- Allows for advanced segmentation, filtering, and traffic allocation
- No multivariate tests: Google Content Experiments tests on an A|B|n platform. As such, you must create full iterations of landing pages to test against each other. If you are testing a full layout change, the A|B|n model will suit your needs just fine. However, if you’d like to test multiple elements at one time or a small element, like button color, you would need to create a new landing page for each different color button you will test. This can become quite cumbersome.
- Basic testing platform: This platform will also present challenges if you would like to test the influence of one element across multiple pages. You will need a much more sophisticated tool for this type of testing.
- Content Experiments defaults to a Multi-Armed Bandit algorithm. This automatically adjusts the amount of traffic allocated to each variation based on sample size and performance metrics, resulting in less traffic to "under-performing" variations. In theory the Multi-Armed Bandit is much more efficient than your classic A|B testing method, concluding tests much quicker while reducing potential revenue loss. Unfortunately, we have found that for testing with small sample sizes, like those commonly conducted for B2Bs or SMBs, the multi-armed bandit has the potential to create an invalid test that will never declare a winner. This is because traffic to the variation is typically reduced so severely and so quickly that there is not a significant enough sample size to give it a competitive opportunity.
- Testing on a specific segmentation is challenging: To test on a distinct segment of your visitors requires more advanced knowledge of Analytics to set up a new filter view and cannot be completed within Google Content Experiments.
- Not ideal for marketers who want independence from IT: Content Experiments requires a snippet of code being placed on one experiment page for each test. It also requires a full version of the test page with a unique URL.
- It's FREE
- It ties into Google Analytics
- Requires code setup for each experiment (less of an issue if also using Google Tag Manager)
- Does not allow for multivariate testing
- Does not allow for advancing testing and targeting
Google Content Experiments - Adequate and free
- A / B testing: You define a control page (page A) and a variation (page B) of that original page to test against. The purpose of this test is to expose your audience to the different versions of a page to determine which version will result in more conversions for your site.
- Does not support multivariate testing
- Seamless integration with Google Analytics
- Absolutely free of charge
- Once Google's Universal Analytics supports Content Experiments and requires no additional javascript to implement, it will be a truly seamless experience.
Google Content Experiments Review #58,733 (probably)
- It is free to get going - better than the competitors!
- You use your Google Analytics conversions as your objectives, so as long as your goals are set up in GA then it's a breeze.
- You can only optimise for one goal, so if you have several conversions, like phone call and email you need to do it manually.
- It seems not to work that well for pages with lower amounts of traffic - not great for new or niche sites.
- Integrates well with Google Analytics to perform segmentation analysis
- Capability of using server redirects rather than java script redirects unlike most testing tools.
- Easy to set up
- It doesn't handle multivariate testing
- Basic test configuration compared to other testing tools in the market
- Still requires a developer to code new pages rather than CMS capabilities of some products
- Quick and easy to create and set up experiments
- Results are presented in a way that is familiar and easy for any Google Analytics user to understand. So is great for beginners to conversion testing
- Already integrated into Google Analytics and can measure results against your existing conversion goals
- Allows nine possible variants to be A/B tested
- Features more than one testing methodology, Bayesian (Multi-Armed Bandit,) and Full Factorial
- Allows the user to select one of three possible confidence thresholds to ensure that experiment results are robust
- Great value, it is free!
- Should include a multivariate testing (MVT) option. Whilst the ability to test nine possible variants using A/B/n testing is great for strong bold tests, the ability test multiple elements on the same page is essential for a successful testing program
- Reliance on your IT department to code the variants you wish to test and also to insert the experiment code on the test page can be an issue which may slow the testing process for some businesses
- It is very easy to make the wrong decisions and find a false winner. A high level of conversion rate optimisation knowledge is needed to ensure that the results from the experiment are valid and of statistical significance
- Should not default to Bayesian (multi armed bandit,) methodology and a 95 percent confidence threshold as a those new to testing may not fully understand the impact of these setting and whilst these options can be changed in “Advanced Options” the combination of these two factors could easily find an incorrect winner
- Google Experiments should not declare the winning variant as it does not understand your business or business cycles, so can easily find a false winner. Although the option to set a minimum time for the experiment to run before declaring a winner goes some way towards mitigating this issue it is limited to a maximum of two weeks which may not be long enough for some businesses
Not a bad tool, but not for the code-shy
- When you need to measure against event-based goals
- If you need to see how the test variations performed against secondary goals
- Given that the the platform requires you actually code a new page with a unique URL, this tool can be good for radical redesigns.
- Great insights into other information about your testing groups, like whether or not they're mobile, screen size, browser, or really any dimension available in GA.
- Not a great solution for people who don't have the ability to code a page from scratch, or need to implement a test without the help of IT. This tool requires implementation of a few different code snippets on different pages and the ability to code a new page. If you're looking for a WYSIWYG editor - try Optimizely.
Google CE Impressed Me
- Google CE really gives in-depth insight into why some pages perform better than others. You can see where the readers eyes travel most often.
- Talk about putting yourself in the audience's shoes! Thats exactly what A/B testing does
- There is also multivariate testing for advanced changes.
- There was a somewhat high learning curve which I would like to see flattened.
- Google needs a more robust help section integrated in CE to help users navigate better.
- There should be more mock testing windows during evaluation stages.