Optimizely Web Experimentation vs. unbounce

Optimizely Web Experimentation is appropriate if you have a big budget and your company is mature enough in experimentation to take all the advantage of a such an expensive price model. If you are just starting into AB testing, or not enough budget, I do not recommend Optimizely Web Experimentation, as it becomes quite frustrating to manage usage limits and technical set up to avoid extra charges.

Incentivized

As I am using this platform for a long time, I believe I am happy with the services I am getting from this outstanding software. It has made my landing page experience better than ever without any coding knowledge to apply. It has upgraded my business in a positive direction and I believe I am using this software for many years to come.

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

• AB testing is simple to set up. Clone a page make your changes and pit one or more against each other. Set the number of views and you're told the winner once the test is done. Simple
• Tracking code is easy to add. Follow the straightforward instructions in the back end
• Easy to add multiple domains to your account. So you can use the landing pages you build on numerous sites if you so desire

Incentivized

• Filtering capabilities in the reporting tab. To be able to filter based on a custom metric
• Tracking scroll depth within the reporting tab
• A more interactive graph within the reporting tab. Ability to manipulate there vs having to update the whole page

Incentivized

• One of the cons of Unbouncewas the learning curve. We are very familiar now with the ends and outs but in the beginning, it would have been super helpful to have some sore of learning up front.
• The pricing structure is not great for our particular organization. We will never need unlimited page views but we do often need more landing pages we make it work but the pricing model could be improved.
• The reporting could be a little better. We supplement with some of our own trackings but for the most part, the reporting from Unbounce is a basic level understanding of how the page is performing.

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.

The nonprofit discount makes it so affordable that my client was happy to continue their subscription all year round. They have used it to build landing pages to capture expressions of interest for their next recruitment window. It hasn't quite produced the sort of results we were hoping for, but I'm not sure that's Unbounce's fault.

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

Unbounce made it easy for my team to build landing pages for website and email. We gained valuable A/B testing insights and gathered information from visitors effectively converting them to leads. The Editor is straight forward and I was able to learn to use it on my own without instruction. CRM integration was easy and consistently worked.

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

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.

Unbounce customer support is very strong. We have been able to connect with them via email and telephone mediums. They are very knowledgeable and can effectively help resolve difficult problems that are slowing us down. Overall Unbounce customer support is very professional. Our wait times have always been small or at least reasonable.

Incentivized

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.

Choose a subdomain that is appropriate for multiple types of pages. You don't want to have to keep changing it. Think about using Google Tag Manager to manage your Google Analytics code and event tracking. Build one landing page to completion. Then make a copy of it if you need to create variant pages.

Incentivized

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

Despite my review for unbounce being not the greatest review or score in the world, when stacked up against its two biggest competitors, I'd prefer Unbounce over Leadpages and Instapage. Leadpages drag and drop editor, integrations, and overall UI/UX is 10x worse than unbounce and unbounce really leads in the category of nice templates and quickness to a production landing page with much better options and integrations.

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

• 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

• Unbounce has positively impacted PPC Director's ability to provide clientele with the service of building informative, relevant, and high-converting landing pages. For instance, the traceable effectiveness of landing pages built by PPC Director in Unbounce remains directly correlated to long-term client retention.

Incentivized