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Optimizely is A/B testing for Marketers (not just code-heads)
July 31, 2015

Optimizely is A/B testing for Marketers (not just code-heads)

John Freeborn | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Optimizely

We use Optimizely for A/B testing on our mobile and desktop, consumer facing web properties. We started by keeping it e-commerce focused, but we've expanded the use to all areas of the site including marketing, promotions, and e-commerce.

Before Optimizely we had no tools to do A/B testing (beyond inacurate Google Analytics week by week changes) so this was a huge upgrade and allowed us to quickly iterate, experiment and learn from our users.
  • You can set up an experiment without any assistance from your IT staff (after implementation). We don't have to request and wait. We just create a test, deploy and learn.
  • The software is fairly easy to use, flexible and powerful–even for a non-coder.
  • The reporting is really easy to digest and gets you a detailed picture of your test and your testing goals. If you choose to implement the test 100% that is simply a click away.
  • The reporting could be better, maybe more standard. We use Google Analytics on top of the Optimizely reports to verify and dig deeper.
  • If you aren't careful you could easily break your site. This isn't a flaw exactly, but is a potential pitfall.
  • I've heard complaints from IT staff that Optimizely adds too much weight to the page loads.
  • We've had so many wins through Optimizely I can't even begin to tell you: better UX, greater revenue, better engagement.
  • We did one test where we simply changed the color of a message bar and we saw a 50% bump in average revenue.
  • We used Optimizely to better target users for specific promotions. This targeted testing generated higher conversions.
We looked at Adobe Experience Manager but we did not use it in-house. I can't really evaluate it in detail.
If you don't have A/B testing tools in your systems then Optimizely is a great, easy to use tool. If you lack IT resources to experiment or iterate than here's a way to do that on your own. For my company, one of the key issues was finding the time and resources internally to make the best use of Optimizely. I had other responsibilities. We ended up hiring an A/B testing partner to kickstart our testing program. This was a huge help.