Bound vs. Optimizely Web Experimentation

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Bound
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
Bound (formerly Get Smart Content) is a website segmentation and targeting platform that enables marketers to read a website visitor's digital body language and serve relevant content based on the person's stage in the buying journey. Using behavioral, demographic, and firmographic data, Bound creates personalized web experiences for both anonymous and known website visitors to increase the effectiveness of marketing efforts and dramatically reduce the buyer's path to conversion. Bound partners…N/A
Optimizely Web Experimentation
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Optimizely Web Experimentation empowers teams to conduct experiments (without having to rely on developer resources) in order to test various user interactions, make website changes backed by data, and personalize customer experiences.N/A
Pricing
BoundOptimizely Web Experimentation
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BoundOptimizely Web Experimentation
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BoundOptimizely Web Experimentation
Considered Both Products
Bound
Chose Bound
Get Smart Content is what we primarily use to serve up segmented content. The only other method or tool we've used to do so while leveraging our Demandbase variables is Optimizely. We selected Get Smart Content because they make the process of segmentation using Demandbase
Chose Bound
Get Smart Content is quite cost effective, simple to use with great support. The support systems and simplicity based on other products used and evaluated is the best in the industry.
Optimizely Web Experimentation

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
BoundOptimizely Web Experimentation
Testing and Experimentation
Comparison of Testing and Experimentation features of Product A and Product B
Bound
9.7
1 Ratings
12% above category average
Optimizely Web Experimentation
8.0
92 Ratings
7% below category average
a/b experiment testing10.01 Ratings9.392 Ratings
Split URL testing9.01 Ratings8.574 Ratings
Multivariate testing9.01 Ratings8.877 Ratings
Multi-page/funnel testing10.01 Ratings8.272 Ratings
Cross-browser testing10.01 Ratings7.450 Ratings
Mobile app testing9.01 Ratings7.638 Ratings
Test significance10.01 Ratings8.584 Ratings
Visual / WYSIWYG editor10.01 Ratings8.076 Ratings
Advanced code editor10.01 Ratings7.568 Ratings
Page surveys10.01 Ratings7.017 Ratings
Visitor recordings9.01 Ratings8.418 Ratings
Preview mode10.01 Ratings8.082 Ratings
Test duration calculator10.01 Ratings6.956 Ratings
Experiment scheduler9.01 Ratings8.154 Ratings
Experiment workflow and approval10.01 Ratings6.537 Ratings
Dynamic experiment activation9.01 Ratings7.434 Ratings
Client-side tests10.01 Ratings9.250 Ratings
Server-side tests10.01 Ratings9.119 Ratings
Mutually exclusive tests10.01 Ratings8.437 Ratings
Audience Segmentation & Targeting
Comparison of Audience Segmentation & Targeting features of Product A and Product B
Bound
9.8
1 Ratings
11% above category average
Optimizely Web Experimentation
8.6
86 Ratings
2% below category average
Standard visitor segmentation10.01 Ratings8.985 Ratings
Behavioral visitor segmentation10.01 Ratings8.365 Ratings
Traffic allocation control9.01 Ratings9.481 Ratings
Website personalization10.01 Ratings7.957 Ratings
Results and Analysis
Comparison of Results and Analysis features of Product A and Product B
Bound
9.4
1 Ratings
10% above category average
Optimizely Web Experimentation
8.3
84 Ratings
3% below category average
Heatmap tool10.01 Ratings9.113 Ratings
Click analytics10.01 Ratings8.733 Ratings
Scroll maps9.01 Ratings8.017 Ratings
Form fill analysis10.01 Ratings8.326 Ratings
Conversion tracking8.01 Ratings8.744 Ratings
Goal tracking9.01 Ratings8.473 Ratings
Test reporting9.01 Ratings8.176 Ratings
Results segmentation10.01 Ratings8.048 Ratings
CSV export10.01 Ratings7.648 Ratings
Experiments results dashboard9.01 Ratings8.049 Ratings
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BoundOptimizely Web Experimentation
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User Ratings
BoundOptimizely Web Experimentation
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(5 ratings)
8.7
(177 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.5
(45 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(57 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(7 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(6 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(16 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
3.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(11 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
6.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(89 ratings)
User Testimonials
BoundOptimizely Web Experimentation
Likelihood to Recommend
Bound Systems, Inc.
I think the customer service and relationship we have with Get Smart Content is great
Read full review
Optimizely
This is our second testing platform, and is by far the best we have leveraged. Its intuitive in how you are able to build tests. Tracking is easy to set up within the visual editor or as a capability in URL tracking. The reporting tab does need more filtering capabilities for custom metrics.
Read full review
Pros
Bound Systems, Inc.
  • Connects easily with other APIs such as Demandbase and Google Analytics.
  • Easily create segments.
  • Easily create segmented content.
Read full review
Optimizely
  • Considers every kind of experiment from simple code change, code additions, code removal, javascript functions, CSS changes, and split landing redirects.
  • Very friendly UC interface for easy navigation of implementation of pages, click events, experiment set up, and metric set up.
  • The ability to let me know when something has reach stat sig without having to do complicated math on my own
  • ability to carry UTM parameters through landing page redirects with a click of a button.
Read full review
Cons
Bound Systems, Inc.
  • When you set up a campaign you should be able to set up content while in the campaign.
  • You should be able to set up new segments while in the campaign.
Read full review
Optimizely
  • Hard to use extensions without some knowledge of HTML/CSS
  • Inconsistent user counts between GA & Optimizely when it comes to calculating MAUs, hard to be able to forecast budget and overages when our source of truth (GA) differs from our testing platform (Optimizely)
  • Impressions model doesn't support scaling personalization experiences - hard to run a serious data driven testing program when you have to cut tests short before 14 days (ideal length to get to any statistical read) in order to save on impressions
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Bound Systems, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Optimizely
Because it's an incredible and essential tool for my line of work as a conversion optimization specialist. Really couldn't do my job nearly as effectively without it. It's paid for itself many times over and I feel like I'm only beginning to unlock the tools potential.
Read full review
Usability
Bound Systems, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Optimizely
Usability is mostly great. I like the WYSIWYG functionality and adding in real code is simple as well. It's easy to target specific pages or audiences. I've knocked a couple of points off because of how difficult it is to set up URL redirect experiments, confusion around creating pages, and lack of data that can be further analyzed.
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Reliability and Availability
Bound Systems, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Optimizely
I would rate Optimizely Web Experimentation's availability as a 10 out of 10. The software is reliable and does not experience any application errors or unplanned outages. Additionally, the customer service and technical support teams are always available to help with any issues or questions.
Read full review
Performance
Bound Systems, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Optimizely
I would rate Optimizely Web Experimentation's performance as a 9 out of 10. Pages load quickly, reports are complete in a reasonable time frame, and the software does not slow down any other software or systems that it integrates with. Additionally, the customer service and technical support teams are always available to help with any issues or questions.
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Support Rating
Bound Systems, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Optimizely
They always are quick to respond, and are so friendly and helpful. They always answer the phone right away. And [they are] always willing to not only help you with your problem, but if you need ideas they have suggestions as well.
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Online Training
Bound Systems, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Optimizely
The tool itself is not very difficult to use so training was not very useful in my opinion. It did not also account for success events more complex than a click (which my company being ecommerce is looking to examine more than a mere click).
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Implementation Rating
Bound Systems, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Optimizely
In retrospect: - I think I should have stressed more demo's / workshopping with the Optimizely team at the start. I felt too confident during demo stages, and when came time to actually start, I was a bit lost. (The answer is likely I should have had them on-hand for our first install.. they offered but I thought I was OK.) - Really getting an understanding / asking them prior to install of how to make it really work for checkout pages / one that uses dynamic content or user interaction to determine what the UI does. Could have saved some time by addressing this at the beginning, as some things we needed to create on our site for Optimizely to "use" as a trigger for the variation test. - Having a number of planned/hoped-for tests already in-hand before working with Optimizely team. Sharing those thoughts with them would likely have started conversations on additional things we needed to do to make them work (rather than figuring that out during the actual builds). Since I had development time available, I could have added more things to the baseline installation since my developers were already "looking under the hood" of the site.
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Alternatives Considered
Bound Systems, Inc.
It has the inability to export subject line or ISP complaints that require manual pulling by each campaign when needed. Results from variable tests are also reported only as a percentage of chosen KPI (opens, clicks, etc.). There's no ability to see hard numbers from the tests or other metrics to determine the statistical significance or unintended results (maybe opens increased per the test, but we saw clicks or conversions were lower). On the other hand, Bound performs absolutely great.
Read full review
Optimizely
Overall, the tools we compared against were great, but we went with Optimizely because it has all the features we needed and has the market leadership that gave us trust we would be successful in our experimentation efforts.
Read full review
Scalability
Bound Systems, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Optimizely
While granted, I am not the one making the changes to deploy the software; it seems basically as simple as placing the optimized snippet on your site. If you place it in the header, it should reach across your entire site easily. I do think the test setup can be a bit temperamental at times, and having too many cooks in the kitchen can lead to errors. So, I would caution how many people have the access needed to make actual changes.
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Return on Investment
Bound Systems, Inc.
  • We have seen more traffic going to revenue generating sites after using Get Smart Content. I'm not sure of the dollar amount since that's a separate department, but traffic increasing is great.
  • Engagement on our internal site has increased after implementing Get Smart Content. We are getting more views, comments and likes on our content than before.
Read full review
Optimizely
  • Customer retention: We've reduced subscription service client churn by 20%+ using optimized unsubscribe flows.
  • Risk mitigation: Testing into full site redesigns has saved clients millions of dollars.
  • Feature prioritization: Identifying what painted door changes add value has allowed developers to focus on changes that add hundreds of thousands or even millions to the bottom line.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Bound Screenshots

Screenshot of Campaign viewScreenshot of Segment viewScreenshot of Segment list

Optimizely Web Experimentation Screenshots

Screenshot of the visual editor, used to make changes to the appearance and layout of a website.Screenshot of the results dashboard that displays experiment results.Screenshot of the integrations page, where integrations can be enabled.