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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Xola
Score 10.0 out of 10
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Xola, headquartered in San Francisco, provides cloud-based software designed to make it simple for businesses to manage reservations in real time from any channel—bookings made in-person, over the phone, through their company website, on Xola’s vendor mobile app, with local resellers, and online travel agents that are integrated with Xola.
Optimizely is well suited for on-site AB testing and experimentation. If you want to see how a change will impact your metrics, Optimizely can make that happen. It is not useful for feature flagging or product rollout and can be a bit tricky when trying to AB test a net new feature.
Xola is suited for small, medium, and large businesses that handle internet bookings, direct telephone bookings, and concierge/affiliate bookings. It tracks scheduling, payments, affiliate billing, can message customers through SMS or email, can hold notes on clients as any good CRM should, can be automated to do many features through the integration of apps.
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.
Integrating the Viator / Trip Advisor API so that the encrypted customer emails can show up in Xola and the client may be emailed from inside Xola. Viator says that other platforms allow this but Xola is still lagging on this one.
Some minor tweaks allow the integrated tipping app to append a more customized message.
Really trying hard to find something else to say because Xola does everything really well.
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.
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.
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 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.
Xola has many similar features but in the end, the friendly fast 24/7 free always on and always ready to help customer support blows everyone else away. Many times I have found Xola to be able to expedite a customer issue or confusion with software integration or support for their software in a way that saves $$$ because my reservationists can resolve the issue or their confusion and quickly get back to work.
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.
