I'm Optimistic about Optimizely
January 10, 2019
I'm Optimistic about Optimizely
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Optimizely
I've primarily used Optimizely for it's A/B testing functionality. Within my last 3 roles, Optimizely has been a key MarTech tool within the marketing and demand gen teams. Recently, we've began using the web personalization feature, which enables us to provide specific customers, either geolocalically, returning customers, etc, with results personalized on their data.
- A/B Testing: To run an A/B test through Optimizely is incredibly simple when compared to other tools. And if you're using WordPress, it's even more easy as they have a plugin that enables you to use the tool directly through the CMS.
- Simple personalization: There is no need to hire/contract a full stacked developer to create a website that can personalize for visitors; Optimizely enables you to do simple personalizations. And from a B2B perspective, we didn't want to put all our eggs in the basket on personalization, so Optimizely enabled us to test it out.
- Display of Data: The graphs that you get are simple and easy to understand. And with their "Always Valid' analytics promise, I feel like I'm seeing the correct data at all times.
- While I love the personalization feature on desktop, we have encountered glitches with the function on mobile. There are times where it slows down mobile speed, won't load correctly, or doesn't work.
- The visual editor is easy to use, but I do often become flustered with lag time on changes, or just being unable to format something the way I want it.
- The audience targeting is helpful for getting things off and running, but you have to make sure it's formatted correctly, or else you have to start over, or update manually.
- Positive: ROI is high. We started seeing results based on A/B testing within a month and with personalization within two months.
- Negative: While it is easy to use and implement, there is a learning curve that requires testing and some reading/video watching to full utilize the tool.
- Negative: Our mobile performance did see a slight dip in traffic and increase in bounce rate as we encountered glitches on mobile.
While they all do the same thing, I felt, and still feel, that Optimizely does it better. I felt like the other tool were too simple in format and analytics for the prices being charged and they also lacked reliable word-of-mouth. When talking to other professionals, Optimizely was named at least 4 out of 5 times as a recommended tool.