Convert Experiences vs. Optimizely Web Experimentation

Definitely well suited for budget conscious companies that want a solid array of functionality but without having to pay an exorbitant amount. Great for marketing and analytics team members that need the ability to get in and set up tests w/o dev assistance. But, functionality is there for developers to get in and set up more complicated tests.

Optimizely Web Experimentation is well-suited for scenarios where data-driven decisions are required to optimize website performance and conversions. For instance, A/B testing various website elements such as headlines, call-to-action buttons, and form designs, among others, can provide valuable insights into what resonates best with our audience. Personalizing website content based on visitor behavior, such as geographic location or past interactions, is another scenario where Optimizely shines. On the other hand, Optimizely may not be as appropriate for websites with low traffic volumes, as it may take longer to gather enough data to make confident decisions. Additionally, it may not be suitable for testing complex website functionalities that require extensive development work, such as a complete website redesign or adding new features. In such cases, other tools or approaches may be more appropriate, such as usability testing or user research to understand user needs and preferences.

Incentivized

• Over the top powerful Javascript enabled targeting. This feature is called DMP Profiling and is available in the Pro Plan, currently only +$100 more than the plus plan. An article explaining this feature is here for further reading: https://convert.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/206631623-Target-experiment-based-on-a-custom-Javascript-condition-that-evaluates-true-at-a-later-stage. I wrote up a much longer explanation but TR broke it up weirdly. The gist is that you can powerfully use JS to target. This allows me to target users in our SPA in incredibly advanced ways. I can walk their entire history model and assign them an audience value, or I can exclude them. It's MUCH more powerful than just a "Site Area" tool. We recently used it against 900K users to check if they had written a review of their apartment or not yet. This allowed me to only expose the user on the homepage to an experiment that prompted them to write a review while excluding users that couldn't write a review from the experiment (because they had already written one). The experiment converted 50% better than what we do now, generating 9k reviews in a matter of hours.
• Audience targeting IN ADDITION to all that fancy DMP targeting. This means I can define demographics or other data as a qualifier AS WELL as the previously mentioned qualifier. This can be setup in so many ways: Traffic source, Visitor Data, Include / Exclude users part of a current experiment (!!), Date/Time, Device/Browser/OS, JS Conditon
• Real-time reporting that makes sense to the whole company to view. Seriously, I can share a Convert Report to any level of intelligence on my team and they understand what's happening.
• Audiences and Goals are saved as presets, so your entire team can use them. Using the example above, we have an audience called "Wrote a Review" that we exclude from the Review Prompt treatments.
• Their customer support is seriously fast at answering questions. I've never had to wait more than a day.

• The audience feature is easy to use and very beneficial in previewing the experiment as users would see it before launching the experiment
• Targeting individual pages or a group of saved pages is easy to do
• Metric tracking is highly customizable and easy to visualize

Incentivized

• We are aggressive testers and have demanding clients, and if there was any part of the Convert platform where I'd like to see improvement, it would be in the reporting section where I feel a vertical report could present in a more readable fashion to the users.

• Actual creation of an A/B test is confusing and difficult (like the differences between Pages vs URLs etc.).
• Setting up a URL Redirect Experiment is so convoluted it seems like it's not even a feature Optimizely wants you to use. Instead, it's like I'm tricking Optimizely into alternating between 2 URLs. That really needs to be cleaned up as it would be very helpful.

Incentivized

Couldn't live without this, no other tool does precisely what we need them to do

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.

To use the platform in the context of developing enhanced tests that stretch the platform there is as with most things a learning curve. However, if you're a casual user or have standard experiments that you wish to run you would be easily able to hit the ground running.

Without a doubt, after 8 years using various different testing tools, Optimizely is by far the easiest to use. Feedback from developers and more technical teams has always been positive, mostly due to the code editor allowing for easy implementation along with the creation of advanced audience segments using advanced javascript. For business users and non-technical people, the wysiwig editor allows for smaller changes to be made quickly whilst somewhat educating the user on the types of code changes that are being made.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

I use support only in very emergency cases. The support hasn't been very helpful and suggests the problem is on my site

Incentivized

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.

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).

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.

Convert was selected based on price point, feature set, and UI/UX. All three are very friendly to new testers and small to mid-market size companies. Their UI and tool workflow is the best out of all of the non-enterprise solutions that I have tried. There is some small room for improvement, but that only really affects power users or tests that require significant coding/development work to execute.

Optimizely Web Experimentation and Adobe Target are both powerful tools for website optimization and experimentation, but they differ in some key ways. Here's a comparison of some of the most important features of each platform:A/B testing: Both Optimizely and Adobe Target offer A/B testing functionality, allowing users to test different variations of web pages and other digital experiences against each other to determine which performs better.Personalization: Both platforms also offer personalization capabilities, allowing users to create customized experiences for different segments of their audience. However, Optimizely's personalization features are often considered more user-friendly and easier to implement.Analytics and reporting: Both platforms offer robust analytics and reporting features to help users track the performance of their experiments and make data-driven decisions. However, Optimizely's reporting is often considered more intuitive and user-friendly.

Incentivized

Optimizely offers excellent testing features and incredible technical support and training resources enabling non-technical teams most benefited by experimentation to truly own this function. Optimizely is easy to implement and use, has simple integration with other technologies making it a staple in our marketing technology stack. Finally, Optimizely continues to innovate around its core technology to add new features and capabilities to improve the overall experimentation process (such as acquiring Experimentation Engine in 2018). In a dynamic and ever-changing marketing technology landscape expect to continue using Optimizely in my marketing technology stack for many years to come.

Incentivized

• Using Convert has allowed us to make quick decisions on site edits and price changes. Seeing and sharing quick results makes our operations much more profitable.
• Connecting the tests with Shopify has produced very valuable and timely results that we can act upon as soon as we see statistically significant results.

• Optimizely is only worth the money if you have a decent amount of traffic and some manpower dedicated to testing. If your organization doesn't have the resources to iterate on tests, you probably won't achieve full value from this tool.
• Because the tool is expensive, I feel that large organizations with massive advertising and/or social footprints would benefit the best from Optimizely.
• Optimizely can allow gradual rollouts of new features with advanced analytics, giving key stakeholders visibility into client traction with new content rollout.

Incentivized