Optimizely Web Experimentation vs. Salesforce Experience Cloud

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Optimizely Web Experimentation
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Whether launching a first test or scaling a sophisticated experimentation program, Optimizely Web Experimentation aims to deliver the insights needed to craft high-performing digital experiences that drive engagement, increase conversions, and accelerate growth.N/A
Salesforce Experience Cloud
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement (formerly Salesforce Experience Cloud or Salesforce Community Cloud) is an online forum powered by Salesforce that enables businesses to connect with their employees, customers, partner organizations, and prospects. Designed to help facilitate communication and information sharing, customers can ask questions and request help, administrators can integrate data from third-party apps, and employees can collaborate across projects and…N/A
Pricing
Optimizely Web ExperimentationSalesforce Experience Cloud
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Optimizely Web ExperimentationSalesforce Experience Cloud
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Optimizely Web ExperimentationSalesforce Experience Cloud
Considered Both Products
Optimizely Web Experimentation
Chose Optimizely Web Experimentation
Support for Localytics had diminished, so an alternative was sought out.
Salesforce Experience Cloud

No answer on this topic

Features
Optimizely Web ExperimentationSalesforce Experience Cloud
Testing and Experimentation
Comparison of Testing and Experimentation features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Web Experimentation
8.0
163 Ratings
5% below category average
Salesforce Experience Cloud
-
Ratings
a/b experiment testing9.0163 Ratings00 Ratings
Split URL testing8.5135 Ratings00 Ratings
Multivariate testing8.4139 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-page/funnel testing7.9126 Ratings00 Ratings
Cross-browser testing8.197 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile app testing8.175 Ratings00 Ratings
Test significance8.4147 Ratings00 Ratings
Visual / WYSIWYG editor8.1133 Ratings00 Ratings
Advanced code editor8.0125 Ratings00 Ratings
Page surveys6.217 Ratings00 Ratings
Visitor recordings8.418 Ratings00 Ratings
Preview mode7.6145 Ratings00 Ratings
Test duration calculator7.8112 Ratings00 Ratings
Experiment scheduler8.2112 Ratings00 Ratings
Experiment workflow and approval7.890 Ratings00 Ratings
Dynamic experiment activation7.574 Ratings00 Ratings
Client-side tests7.896 Ratings00 Ratings
Server-side tests7.250 Ratings00 Ratings
Mutually exclusive tests8.180 Ratings00 Ratings
Audience Segmentation & Targeting
Comparison of Audience Segmentation & Targeting features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Web Experimentation
8.2
152 Ratings
7% below category average
Salesforce Experience Cloud
-
Ratings
Standard visitor segmentation8.4147 Ratings00 Ratings
Behavioral visitor segmentation7.7122 Ratings00 Ratings
Traffic allocation control9.1144 Ratings00 Ratings
Website personalization7.8111 Ratings00 Ratings
Results and Analysis
Comparison of Results and Analysis features of Product A and Product B
Optimizely Web Experimentation
8.3
149 Ratings
4% below category average
Salesforce Experience Cloud
-
Ratings
Heatmap tool9.313 Ratings00 Ratings
Click analytics8.833 Ratings00 Ratings
Scroll maps8.517 Ratings00 Ratings
Form fill analysis8.072 Ratings00 Ratings
Conversion tracking8.744 Ratings00 Ratings
Goal tracking8.2127 Ratings00 Ratings
Test reporting7.9137 Ratings00 Ratings
Results segmentation7.7103 Ratings00 Ratings
CSV export7.9102 Ratings00 Ratings
Experiments results dashboard8.049 Ratings00 Ratings
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User Ratings
Optimizely Web ExperimentationSalesforce Experience Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(253 ratings)
8.8
(71 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.4
(51 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(58 ratings)
8.1
(15 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.3
(6 ratings)
9.1
(5 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(16 ratings)
8.0
(18 ratings)
Online Training
3.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(11 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
6.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.4
(4 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(162 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Optimizely Web ExperimentationSalesforce Experience Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
Optimizely
I think it can serve the whole spectrum of experiences from people who are just getting used to web experimentation. It's really easy to pick up and use. If you're more experienced then it works well because it just gets out of the way and lets you really focus on the experimentation side of things. So yeah, strongly recommend. I think it is well suited both to small businesses and large enterprises as well. I think it's got a really low barrier to entry. It's very easy to integrate on your website and get results quickly. Likewise, if you are a big business, it's incrementally adoptable, so you can start out with one component of optimizing and you can build there and start to build in things like data CMS to augment experimentation as well. So it's got a really strong a pathway to grow your MarTech platform if you're a small company or a big company.
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Salesforce
For well-suited, this product is great for your external clientele groups that you would not necessarily want to have a high user fee rate for. So basically general public or a group that will be authorized to come in and just do a few things here and there, but you don't necessarily want them access to all of your systems and your data points for groups that it would not be a great use for. I'd say probably your high level internal staff, they're going to be using a lot of the backend functionality automations, evaluating data, managing data, and doing custom inputs. That's just not what's intended for.
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Pros
Optimizely
  • The Platform contains drag-and-drop editor options for creating variations, which ease the A/B tests process, as it does not require any coding or development resources.
  • Establishing it is so simple that even a non-technical person can do it perfectly.
  • It provides real-time results and analytics with robust dashboard access through which you can quickly analyze how different variations perform. With this, your team can easily make data-driven decisions Fastly.
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Salesforce
  • Easy to use, just like Salesforce's other products. Many users can sit down and figure it out in no time, and with a little training become power users.
  • Fast and secure - Salesforce is a leader in the cloud world so you get consistently fast results and security that is top notch in the industry.
  • Accessible from anywhere - if you use cloud CMS already this is a no-brainer, but for those that do in-house CMS still, this is a major difference. Mobile access from anywhere on the planet without a VPN is something you just can't do without the cloud.
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Cons
Optimizely
  • JavaScript is hard to implement sometimes especially for JQuery elements
  • ROI reporting should be part of the overall experimentation reporting
  • CMP integration: where we can easily show status of test on the HPT request
  • CMS integration
  • More widgets like social proof banners, etc.
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Salesforce
  • Unlike other CMS platforms like Wordpress and Adobe Experience Manager, Salesforce does not provide a fully featured editor with a drag-and-drop design tool.
  • Our content creators and marketing team often struggle with permissions and how to distribute content across different experience cloud sites.
  • Also, there is no side-to-side comparison view for content editors to update the content easily.
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Likelihood to Renew
Optimizely
I rated this question because at this stage, Optimizely does most everything we need so I don't foresee a need to migrate to a new tool. We have the infrastructure already in place and it is a sizeable lift to pivot to another tool with no guarantee that it will work as good or even better than Optimizely
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Salesforce
Renewal exercise is already underway. Platform is to ubiquitous to not leverage, especially at a Fortune 50 firm
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Usability
Optimizely
Optimizely Web Experimentation's visual editor is handy for non-technical or quick iterative testing. When it comes to content changes it's as easy as going into wordpress, clicking around, and then seeing your changes live--what you see is what you get. The preview and approval process for sharing built experiments is also handy for sharing experiments across teams for QA purposes or otherwise.
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Salesforce
Strengths: - Intuitive for Salesforce Users – If you’re already working within the Salesforce ecosystem, the Salesforce CMS is easy to navigate, with a clean UI, drag-and-drop content management, and reusable assets for quick updates. - Seamless Integration – Since it connects natively with Experience Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and CRM, it allows for efficient multi-channel content distribution without needing extra third-party tools. - AI-Powered Personalization – The ability to deliver dynamic content based on user profiles and engagement data is a huge plus, making content delivery more relevant and impactful. Challenges: - Learning Curve for New Users – If you're not already familiar with Salesforce, the interface can feel overwhelming, requiring training to fully leverage all features. - Limited Customization & Workflow Automation – While it works well for structured content, advanced approval workflows and deep editorial customization are limited compared to enterprise CMS platforms like Adobe Experience Manager. - Media & Design Limitations – Salesforce CMS is not as robust for managing rich media-heavy content, which can be frustrating for teams needing more flexibility in multimedia presentation.
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Reliability and Availability
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.
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Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Performance
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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Salesforce
Again, since we provide and recommend solutions, I can't speak to every client's individual experience, but can offer general reflections as to keep their collaborations private, that they are satisfied with the experience. We hear a lot about how this system helps to encourage collaborations between their own business partners, customers, and internal members, and enables quality integrations with other products that help drive revenue.
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Support Rating
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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Salesforce
Although support from Salesforce itself can be quite unresponsive sometimes, the community hub is incredibly helpful. The large user base of Salesforce products contribute to troubleshooting and the forums are a powerful tool for finding solutions and possible bugs and response times can be quite fast compared to your regular support channels.
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Online Training
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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Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
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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Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Optimizely
The ability to do A/B testing in Optimizely along with the associated statistical modelling and audience segmentation means it is a much better solution than using something like Google Analytics were a lot more effort is required to identify and isolate the specific data you need to confidently make changes
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Salesforce
Salesforce Experience Cloud was selected due to its tight integration with our existing Salesforce CRM platform. Customization of the portal was much, much simpler compared to Sharepoint - especially with role-based security parameters that are ultimately inherited based on attributes within the Salesforce CRM platform. Salesforce Experience Cloud was a natural fit for this customer-facing purpose.
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Scalability
Optimizely
We can use it flexibly across lines of business and have it in use across two departments. We have different use cases and slightly different outcomes, but can unify our results based on impact to the bottom line. Finally, we can generate value from anywhere in the org for any stakeholders as needed.
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Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Optimizely
  • We're able to share definitive annualized revenue projections with our team, showing what would happen if we put a test into Production
  • Showing the results of a test on a new page or feature prior to full implementation on a site saves developer time (if a test proves the new element doesn't deliver a significant improvement.
  • Making a change via the WYSIWYG interface allows us to see multiple changes without developer intervention.
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Salesforce
  • Time savings for our customer success team - no need to continually follow up on tickets as customers have access to see status themselves
  • In the future, it will also allow us to create more impactful knowledge articles that will increase self-service over ticket creation
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ScreenShots

Optimizely Web Experimentation Screenshots

Screenshot of AI-Powered Experimentation with Opal:

- Instant Test Ideas: Generates high-quality A/B test ideas based on any goals and audience insights.
- Smarter Experimentation: The AI can suggest impactful variations, reducing guesswork and increasing test velocity.
- More Than Just Ideas: From hypothesis generation to analyzing results, Opal helps optimize every stage of the experimentation process.Screenshot of the Web Experimentation Visual Editor :

- Tweak experiments using the visual editor or dive into custom code when needed.
- Modify elements, update styling, or add dynamic behaviors.
- Ensure perfect variations while keeping control over every detail of the experiment.Screenshot of AI Content Suggestions:

- Generates copy variations to supercharge experiments.
- The AI suggests high-impact messaging for tests when hovering over a field.
- AI-powered content suggestions help skip the brainstorming process.Screenshot of Advanced Audience Targeting:

- Delivers personalized experiences by targeting users based on behaviors, attributes, and real-time conditions.
- Defines precise audience segments using first-party data, geolocation, and device type.
- Can test and optimize for different audience groups to maximize impact and engagement.Screenshot of Custom Templates in the Visual Editor:

- Offers pre-built templates for common test setups.
- Standardized variations and maintains brand integrity with reusable templates.
- Templates can be customized visually or tweak them with code for full flexibility.Screenshot of the Web Experimentation Results Page:

- Data visualizations help interpret experiment performance.
- Displays which variations are winning with built-in statistical significance calculations.
- Results can be filtered by audience segments, events, and conversions to uncover key trends.