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Optimizely Web Experimentation

Optimizely Web Experimentation

Overview

What is Optimizely Web Experimentation?

Optimizely Web Experimentation empowers teams to conduct experiments (without having to rely on developer resources) in order to test various user interactions, make website changes backed by data, and personalize customer experiences.

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Recent Reviews
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

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  • a/b experiment testing (94)
    9.3
    93%
  • Standard visitor segmentation (87)
    8.9
    89%
  • Test significance (86)
    8.5
    85%
  • Preview mode (84)
    8.0
    80%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Video Reviews

1 video

Optimizely Web Experimentation Review from a Director of Partnerships
08:08
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Pricing

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What is Optimizely Web Experimentation?

Optimizely Web Experimentation empowers teams to conduct experiments (without having to rely on developer resources) in order to test various user interactions, make website changes backed by data, and personalize customer experiences.

Entry-level set up fee?

  • Setup fee optional
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.optimizely.com/plans/

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Features

Testing and Experimentation

These features enable companies to plan, set up, and execute different types of tests (e.g. A/B, A/B/n, multivariate, split URL tests).

8
Avg 8.6

Audience Segmentation & Targeting

A set of tools used for website optimization experiments (e.g. A/B, A/B/n, funnel, split URL, multivariate tests) that can help users segment their audience in to different groups for the purpose of exposing specific audiences to tests or personalization efforts.

8.6
Avg 8.8

Results and Analysis

Tools that allow users to evaluate the results of website optimization tests (e.g. A/B, A/B/n, multivariate, and split URL tests), or view visitor interaction with webpages and specific site elements.

8.3
Avg 8.6
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Product Details

What is Optimizely Web Experimentation?

Optimizely Web Experimentation empowers teams to conduct experiments (without having to rely on developer resources) in order to test various user interactions, make website changes backed by data, and personalize customer experiences.

Optimizely provides a single workspace for experimentation collaborators to have control and visibility across their experiments — from setting up experiment components to interpreting test results — ultimately to improve velocity and collaboration, and elevate performance.

Optimizely Web Experimentation Features

Testing and Experimentation Features

  • Supported: a/b experiment testing
  • Supported: Split URL testing
  • Supported: Multivariate testing
  • Supported: Multi-page/funnel testing
  • Supported: Cross-browser testing
  • Supported: Mobile app testing
  • Supported: Test significance
  • Supported: Visual / WYSIWYG editor
  • Supported: Advanced code editor
  • Supported: Preview mode
  • Supported: Test duration calculator
  • Supported: Experiment scheduler
  • Supported: Experiment workflow and approval
  • Supported: Dynamic experiment activation
  • Supported: Client-side tests
  • Supported: Server-side tests
  • Supported: Mutually exclusive tests

Audience Segmentation & Targeting Features

  • Supported: Standard visitor segmentation
  • Supported: Behavioral visitor segmentation
  • Supported: Traffic allocation control
  • Supported: Website personalization

Results and Analysis Features

  • Supported: Form fill analysis
  • Supported: Goal tracking
  • Supported: Test reporting
  • Supported: CSV export

Platform Integration Features Features

  • Supported: API
  • Supported: Web analytics integration
  • Supported: Content Management System Integration
  • Supported: Integration with CRM or DMP software

Optimizely Web Experimentation Screenshots

Screenshot of the visual editor, used to make changes to the appearance and layout of a website.Screenshot of the results dashboard that displays experiment results.Screenshot of the integrations page, where integrations can be enabled.

Optimizely Web Experimentation Video

Optimizely Web Experimentation Competitors

Optimizely Web Experimentation Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo
Supported LanguagesEnglish

Optimizely Web Experimentation Downloadables

Frequently Asked Questions

Optimizely Web Experimentation empowers teams to conduct experiments (without having to rely on developer resources) in order to test various user interactions, make website changes backed by data, and personalize customer experiences.

AB Tasty, VWO, and Adobe Target are common alternatives for Optimizely Web Experimentation.

Reviewers rate Traffic allocation control highest, with a score of 9.4.

The most common users of Optimizely Web Experimentation are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(495)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-3 of 3)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
Brynn Arego | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We utilize Optimizely to test our clients UX on the Magento platform. It is easy to install and there is a handy module for Magento that makes it easy for clients to add the snippet to their site. Optimizely is very easy to use and even better if you have jQuery knowledge. It loads fast and allows you to test many things on the site without a lot of overhead and minimal effort. If you are a savvy user it is easy to work with. If someone isn't savvy and tries to use the editor there is a risk of breaking your site. For example, if working with a product detail page template, be wary of using their WYSIWYG editor on any dynamic information like pricing. It can turn it into a static html element on the page. Overall it's a great tool that allows you to be nimble with your testing and has great reporting on the results of your test.
  • Test setup is easy and doesn't take a lot of company resources.
  • The impact on page speed is incredibly small.
  • The results dashboard gives great insights to how your test is performing and you can track multiple goals.
  • I'd like to see more tools comparable to Visual Website Optimizer (VWO). Like user recordings and in page analytics.
  • If you have a dynamic area of information and edit it you pose a risk to making the page templates dynamic data static across the site. Pricing is a great example of this.
If you want better insight into how users are specifically interacting with a page, a different tool would be able to do this whereas Optimizely is lacking.
  • Increased click through rates from homepages for clients.
  • Improved conversion rates from product detail pages.
  • Tested category pages and increased conversions.
Optimizely is lacking a lot of the tools that VWO offers. My favorite being user recordings because of the valuable insight you get on the UX.
1
UX / CRO
1
Front-end development, jQuery, HTML, CSS
  • Testing CRO for clients
  • Testing internal lead generation
  • Testing our lead generation funnel using mutliple landing pages / funnels.
  • Testing checkout processes for our clients.
I'm starting to lean more towards VWO because of the added value and pricing.
No
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Product Reputation
  • Vendor Reputation
None, but they change their pricing structure too often and we are considering other vendors.
  • Implemented in-house
No
Change management was a small part of the implementation and was well-handled
  • None.
If you use Magento they have a module to help with implementation.
  • Self-taught
It was easy and I became Optimizely platform certified.
The configuration is right for the product.
Implement the snippet high up in the <head> so you avoid any flashing while loading the test.
No - we have not done any customization to the interface
No - we have not done any custom code
No
I've only had to use it a couple of times but response time isn't the fastest.
No
They provided a great detailed explanation on testing pricing using a workaround method.
  • Changing static text or css elements.
  • Viewing the results. They are easy to interpret.
  • Editing anything dynamic.
No
It is easy to use and quickly learn. Setup is simple with the snippet and tracking is easy to interpret.
Jane Morgan | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is used for website optimization by the marketing team to improve web page and landing page lead conversion rates. e.g. testing call to action, name of tabs, color of buttons, length of forms, whether customer reviews or awards resulted in more leads.
  • Simple to set up and use
  • Accessible to everyone on the marketing team; no web design technical knowledge required
  • Solid results to make objective business decisions; eliminating well-intended but uninformed opinions
  • Would be nice to see an overall score trended over time for all tests. i.e. show the team whether overall the type of tests being run are improving or getting worse. Need to ensure this does not discourage testing.
  • Some of the navigation is a little odd e.g. sometime things open in windows/tabs when you'd expect them to remain in the same window.
I hear of so many people who have not yet made a start with usability testing. For SaaS or websites of any type, just do it. You'll learn quickly and easily.
  • Increased lead conversion rate
  • Increased click-through rate in the triple digits!!!!
  • Decrease team discussion on what was the right thing to do.
It was just so useful, it was worth paying for.
3
Marketing, Web Development
0
We did not need to have in-house "support" for Optimizely. All we had are "users" (which is just great!)
  • A/B Call To Action Testing on Web Pages
  • A/B Call to Action Testing on Landing Pages
  • A/B Page Copy Testing on Landing Pages
  • A/B Customer Testimonial Versus Awards Testing on Landing Pages
  • Implemented in-house
No
It wasn't necessary. Installed the snippet and started work using existing landing page templates
Change management was minimal
It was super straight forward.I am a big fan.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Optimizely is used heavily across all our product lines of business' websites. It is primarily managed by our eCommerce team, executing tests asked for by business owners and/or through our own internal website optimization test ideas. The core of adopting Optimizely was to enable us to better manage website testing without the need for extensive development, due to our having a small eCommerce team. Its flexibility (after initial installs and modifications) allow non-technical colleagues to create and manage their own tests, which is vital given I am not able to support all items due to lack of resources beyond just myself. This is critical given the number of tests needed on an ongoing basis for us to continue to refine and improve our overall customer experiences.
  • Installing it is quite simple for more standard A / B testing. Only taking a few minutes to actually place code on site is a dream and you can almost immediately get tests designed, let alone launched. (If you had the right folks in place at the right time, I cannot imagine you could not get a live test going within a single business day.)
  • Their support team is highly active and responsive to requests for information or troubleshooting. (NOTE: We have the Platinum account giving us more dedicated support staff). They are highly knowledgable and able to answer most questions quickly; else, they are highly effective on researching issues with other members of their organization (which speaks to the company's fluidity)
  • The UI of the tool is very simple to use and elegant in design. That is an essential piece of why the tool is so effective / usable for non-technical staff.
  • Due to the nature of the tool, it can be difficult to make the tool work correctly with the standard install for tracking tests for more complex web pages, example being checkout pages. Due to checkout pages having a great amount of dynamic content (due to user input of forms, etc), it can conflict slightly with other online marketing tracking. Custom scripting is needed for this kind of testing, so its ease-of-install-use is a harder path for these more complicated pages.
  • There are certain times the online tool will not work correctly and have to relogin via a new browser session. In a crunch time for test creation, it can be a bit troublesome. (But a minor issue.)
  • The tool tends to be a bit "too smart" for tracking the changes made in creating a variation. Example is if you are working to change text on a page, say larger and different color. Through the process of using the tool to make the modifications, you possibly would try different sizes/colors. Each time you make a selection, the change is "logged" for the Optimizely test variation... this creates a great amount of "extra change code" that is unnecessary and have to clear it out via the code editor.
The tool is fantastic for simpler, easy A/B testing. Just getting that strip of code on your site can enable a great number of test options. Multi-variate testing is also not too difficult, only for more complex coded web pages.

When considering the tool, I would highly suggest (almost require) that a demo with the Optimizely team has participants from your entire organization who'd be involved -- business owners for budget/ongoing Goals, marketing team who likely will use the tool ongoing to support business owners, technical/web ops individual to understand nature of the technology, analysts who'd monitor and report findings.

The key questions to ask when considering:

- Do I have enough technical support to install / test / finalize the overall Optimizely code install? Can they help if I need more technical integrations?
- Do I have the right design resources in place to assist with building out specific assets needed for tests?
- Are the right people in place to monitor and track the performance?
- Do I have 6 months worth of tests in mind so I can start right away?
- What is the overall budget capacity to continue paying for the service to ensure a return on the investment?
  • Highly effective in providing internal efficiency in getting A/B tests live
  • Has shown us already opportunities to improve overall customer pathing throughout our websites, resulting in more conversions
  • Enables us to quickly remedy serious errors in content and/or add elements to site that may not be able to be added due to other development projects "locking" website code bases. (Recently, we had a large development features update being done, and we needed to launch a small edit to our footer. We used Optimizely instead and took about 5 minutes!)
  • Adobe Test and Target,Google Analytics,Monetate,Magento
I've had limited experience with some of these, extensive with others. I think overall they are solid tools, and mainly depends on the organization you're working for. There are a few main reasons we selected Optimizely, considering we are a very small eCommerce department servicing an aggressive direct-response organization:

1) Budget vs. Ease of Use. The pricing model of Optimizely fit within our budget, especially considering the ease of use of the tool for most tests. The others we considered were just too expensive (and better for enterprise-level / high budget organizations.)
2) Integration. For most, really just adding the script to your websites. Tools like T&T, though valuable, are a MUCH steeper learning curve to get onto your website, let alone it working effectively for reporting back on results. (NOTE: I at one point was a reseller of the T&T product).
3) Comfort with the team. Overall, the Optimizely support teams are highly knowledgeable, approachable and always ready to help. Customer service is vital.
There's no question we'll continue with the tool. The ROI is too good. We've already embedded it recently into a new customized eCommerce platform we launched. The design of it had Optimizely in mind and is one of the technologies we won't continue without.

I'm also confident future refinements of the tool / extended functionality will address some of the minor headaches for the complex testing we wish to do. I am certain of this given the number of iterations I've seen since starting with the tool.

It's definitely one of the top three technologies we're using on a daily basis and that says a lot, as we never could test before.
9
The entire eCommerce team uses the tool, but each individual is a different part of the process. Designers use to create test variations. Technical folks use for installing the tests/working more complex testing. Analyst maintains the tests for ongoing reporting. This combination of expertise on a small team needs a tool like Optimizely in order to handle testing smoothly. It also speaks to its ease of use given the various types of individuals who can all use it effectively.
3
To use it effectively, the ideal support team know basic web code to some degree. They also need a bit of creativity to understand/utilize the various test variation creation functions offered within the tool. Though its easy to use for even the most un-technical person, the management of the tool itself on the site / interactions with their support DOES need folks who are more technical in nature / background.
  • I need to test whether content A or content B will engage folks more on my website. (A/B)
  • I need to make an emergency change to the website and our webmaster is out of town. (Legal issues / quick fixes)
  • Would adding advertising to my site (banners) as a revenue stream impact my ability to convert people on my own site?
  • Adding snippets to my site due to not having ability to embed in actual site code.
  • Quickly hide pages within my site that were not supposed to be made live / but doing so remotely b/c I was not at the machine allowed to access the web server.
  • Utilize it for CSS changes globally across the site using the multi-page test variation.
  • Developing a full mobile-rich web experience with responsive design techniques / using Optimizely to understand what's working (since mobile optimization is somewhat new for us this year as a focus.)
  • Further split-test variations in relation to online marketing channel advertising / personalization of content.
  • Implemented in-house
Yes
Ph1 - Adding standard script to the website

Ph2 - Refine the script to allow for better full-path tracking along side of other OLM tracking (like GA), determined after some initial live tests.

Ph3 - Branching the technology across all other owned websites (each having a small flavor of the OLM and script enhancements.)
Change management was a minor issue with the implementation
It wasn't too difficult to utilize the technology once folks got comfortable. The change happened with the approach of "we can do tests, how do we decide what to do?" We needed to work with business owners to create an ongoing testing roadmap, which hadn't existed before. Before Optimizely, we were lucky to get even a few tests off the ground in a year's time. With Optimizely, the backlog of 50+ tests became the focus, and we had to really figure out how we manage this moving forward, as multiple tests would dilute results and/or clutter our entire website. A project management-esque process had to be introduced.
  • GA tracking. It would break and we couldn't see conversions via our GA reports for transactions involving tests. Took a bit of time with Optimizely to figure out a solution.
  • Being ready with tests. We were so focused on getting it installed, we didn't have anything on deck to actually test the implementation and had to resort to small minor changes to validate. We could have save a good amount of time had we been able to use the first planned test as the basis for ensuring the tech was working properly.
  • Getting the tech to span across entire website. Due to how our custom platform is developed, it was a bit more difficult than anticipated to install the Optimizely code across every single page of our website.
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.
Yes
We knew testing would be a HUGE focus for us for the coming years and was critical we had a clear path to helping troubleshoot and resolve issues. Having the premium support team available to us allows that freedom. Additionally, we know as a business we are launching new product lines / sites frequently, so having the additional support available to us ensures we can keep on track (and not have to worry too much about the increased level of investment... )
They are just fantastic. We have our main account rep but then a few others have helped us out in a pinch (or if he's not available.) Always respond within same day of a request and the advantage for ongoing account reps is they know our business, is growing with our technical enhancements and then lead-time to resolve issues is much shorter b/c they're are effectively part of our own team.
No
We had a big problem -- there was a huge desire to test messaging / layout on our shopping cart page. We were about 2 days from our promised deadline and had a huge amount of traffic coming with planned-for online marketing campaigns. We realized during our build-out that there was an issue with "activating" the variation on the page. Our site code was designed in a way that Optimizely couldn't "see" the elements we were testing unless something was in the cart. Raising the issue with the Optimizely team, they needed about three hours to determine the root-cause of the issue and a proposed solution. They provided this to us same-day and I took it to my development team. We then were able to get this proposed fix in place on our side (effectively creating a small "beacon" for Optimizely to see) and we managed to get the test running just in time. (And the result was great and we ended up installing the variation as our new control!)
  • Starting a variation. Quickly asking for the URL, quickly loads and you're off and running to make your variation changes.
  • Targeting the traffic. Their simple sliders and/or input % to allocate the traffic (and how you target them) is very easy to understand and use.
  • Adding the script. It generates in seconds after creating a project and elegant in delivering the link to you to use for integration.
  • Preview functionality. It sometimes takes a while for the live preview to push to their servers for a full check.
  • Google Analytics integration. It allows for the insertion of your account information, but the tracking/tool sometimes would break more complex pages like for a checkout, and then would render our GA data to be incorrect. Took some time to refine the tool / adding additional scripts to get it right. (NOTE: Our GA reporting needs are slightly custom as far as the metrics we're tracking..)
  • Editor Settings VS. Live pages to target. It's a bit confusing to understand the difference between the two and sometimes would get confused that I wasn't developing off correct editor setting VS what page(s) I was actually activating the test on.
Yes, but I don't use it
It's overall great and easy to use. I think I don't rate it a 10 because I'm actually TOO technical... because its meant for a broad audience, I think I'm looking at the UI differently than someone with less technical expertise. It's to0 layman in some cases, but yet can also be confusing when dealing with their proprietary Optimizely programming language.
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