Optimizely Web Experimentation is a website optimization platform, providing A/B and multivariate testing. It enables users with and without technical expertise to make dynamic changes to their websites, test the variations to live traffic and gather immediate results.
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Privy
Score 8.7 out of 10
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Privy in Boston is designed to enable online stores to capture more emails and convert first-time visitors into customers using the company's integrated suite of web conversion and email marketing tools.
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.
Adding Privy to your ecommerce store is a no brainer. You can very quickly increase your on-site email acquisition conversion rate through the Spin To Win wheel and other templates that Privy offers. You can also use it for additional on-site messaging like announcement bars and landing pages
Segments website visitors to your site: It can recognize who has been to your website once or many times. It allows you to present an offer to different user groups, present an offer, and then capture their email address.
Provides flexible opt-in form options: Embedded opt-in forms, pop-ups. bars at the top of your site. You can redirect to a landing page or a thank you window, create a form that takes up the entire screen, provide an offer at the end, or simply thank users for their information.
Easy user experience: Different options for designs, easy drag + drop builder. Easy installation, trackable results.
Support their users: Holy cricket. Their support is so helpful. Privy was one of the first software companies that I've encountered that has really gone above and beyond for my team.
Measurability: Privy understands that digital marketers want to track - They want to be able to split-test their options, track their results - not only views but conversions and $ conversions. Privy gives its users this ability.
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.
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.
Flexible options: The software allows so many different kinds of opt-in form solutions: Full-page, pop-up, bar at the top of the page, embedded, etc.
Easy UX: This software is easy to use for just about anyone on my team. It's easy to implement and work with. Design, form field determination, and integration is all relatively very easy to perform.
Great support: We've had in-person calls with their support team, and they've been answer specific questions and offer relevant strategies. They've been willing to get on the phone with me and my clients to help us solve problems.
Multiple integrations - No matter what CRM you're using, there's likely a way to integrate Privy forms into it.
Easy installation on sites: Just a strip of code.
Visible, measurable results: Tracking and data with visits, conversion events, and conversion $ tracked to the forms.
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.
Privy is very easy to use and is intuitive to new users. The templates they provide give you a head start on campaign builds and their customer success team is approachable and knowledgable about the product. You do not have to be a tech wizard to get rolling with Privy, but the results will make you feel that way.
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.
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.
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 customer support team from Privy is incredible (shout out to Simone). Every person I have worked with has been knowledgable, helpful, polite, and responsive. They have a live chat feature and all CSRs do a great job.
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.
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.
After having used quite a few email marketing platforms, I can say out of all of them we like Privy the best. Privy's integration with the BigCommerce platform makes it much easier to use than the others we tried in the past and we are happy with the results we have gotten and their excellent customer support which is superior especially to Mailchimp which can only be reached by email.
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.
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.
Positive impact for our clients - Our clients can see exactly how many views each opt-in has seen, how it has converted, and how much revenue has been generated from that opt-in and email sequence that it is linked to. (We have used this tool + paid traffic + email to generate more than $15k for some of our clients. And that's just one part of their marketing systems...That's about 150x ROI).
Positive impact for us - We only want to recommend and use tools that have proven use cases and conversions. This is true here - and it means that we can reliably recommend and use it as a tool to grow revenue for our clients in combination with paid traffic and email marketing. They also support their partners - that means we're more efficient. Time is money - so that's a win here, too.
