Dynamic Yield vs. Optimizely Web Experimentation

Dynamic Yield is great for just about any sized organization, though to get the best bang for your buck, I recommend having a front-end web developer well-versed in JavaScript. Additionally, a front-end web designer would be advisable as well as their templates have great functions but some have lackluster UI's that can't be tweaked without developer assistance. Were it not for the above + the occassional slowness on the console/admin-side of the platform, I'd give it a 10. If you have a front-end dev/designer, then it's closer to a 9.5. Ideal utilization scenarios could include: Personalization, CRO/UX/UI testing, and audience or user-level tailored digital experience.

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.

Incentivized

• Provide fantastic support, both in relation to strategy/best practice and troubleshooting.
• An easy to use interface, as a user who is relatively new to Dynamic Yield I find that it is an intuitive platform to use.
• The ability to segment and drill down on data allows for really specific insights which, whilst not necessarily being leveraged on a testing basis, can be super valuable from a greater marketing perspective.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• The impact (either positive or negative) of potentially overlapping campaigns, especially the UX personalization or custom code campaigns, may not be easily identifiable.
• It would make more sense for the new deep-learning and machine learning (ML) driven strategies be made part of the standard offering, as opposed to positioning them as add-on subscription, given that many other completing services are baking in ML as part of their platform evolution.
• The documentation on the API and custom code implementation can be fleshed out further.

• 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

Incentivized

implementation took a long time but also, DY has really proven that they are transforming and adapting their platform to be more user friendly and the right technology choice for their brand or company

Incentivized

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.

Setting up strategies, audiences, and experiences is simple and fast. It is incredibly easy to modify the appearance of your site and optimize every aspect with the Dynamic Yield Personalizations. However, while the data visualization on an experience level is easy to modify and analyze, exporting the data in meaningful ways is time consuming.

Incentivized

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.

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

Overall, the support is very good. If you are a partner (my case), they assign you a customer success manager, that helps a lot. Also, there is a technical person to provide support to the partners, again a great help.

My only "complain" is that with some complex issues, the support may delay in providing you with a solution. Sometimes that can cause some tension with your client.

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.

• Oracle Maxymiser is very clunky and hard to code with. Previewing changes was a challenge and development for fixes were slow
• Optimizely - Great for coding. Fast and efficient. Everything worked great. They were limited at personalization triggers though and their costs were expensive.
• Monetate - Evaluated but their UI was hard to use.

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

• Most tests have had a positive impact on either revenue or conversion rate - quite often in double digits.
• Dynamic Yield has also helped us to stop some particular initiatives through direct interaction with the customer base via questionnaires or by a test proving negative quicker than rolling out a permanent feature.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized