What Is Optimizely?
Before I get into all the features, let me give you a broad overview. Optimizely is first and foremost an experimentation platform. Marketers use it to test hypotheses. A sample hypothesis is: “If I change my call to action button from blue to red, conversions will increase 15%.” You can prove (or disprove) that hypothesis with Optimizely. But Optimizely is more than just an experimentation platform, it’s also an experience optimizing platform. It helps you create a website that attracts and retains people who are in your target market. It also enables you to convert those people into paying customers. Keep in mind: there are numerous ways to create a positive user experience online. That’s why Optimizely isn’t just one product, it’s a suite of products. In the following sections, I’ll go over each of those products individually.
Website Opt-In Forms
This is the first one that I’d like to talk about. Website Opt-In Form allows you to customize your forms to deliver custom designed forms based on your target market. It lets you create and upload a form, then add audience variables and conditions, such as demographic or behavioral data. You can use Optimizely's 1-Click Editor to edit the form layout and see how it looks in front of real users, without actually having to deploy it.
Optimizely Personalization
Optimizely Personalization is the next product that I’d like to talk about. This is a toolkit for personalizing the user experience on your website based on previous actions of your customers. For example, if someone decides to purchase one of your products, you could decide to show them relevant offers or even make them wait a bit longer before purchasing. Personalization can be applied across all the products in the Optimizely Suite.
On-Site Emails
This one is an email marketing tool that allows you to send personalized emails targeted at specific users or leads based in their browsing history on your website.Quick Start Template
This is a simple website template that enables you to create a basic landing page with no content yet.imizer is a great tool for tracking conversions on your website. It tracks the conversions you’re already setting up in Google Analytics, and it adds a lot of extra flexibility to get the most out of your data. It allows you to create goals in Optimizely, and then track those goals in Google Analytics. You don’t have to copy and paste or export any data around. Website Optimizer will automatically sync your goals from Google Analytics into Optimizely, so they update whenever they change. This saves time and makes sure that you always have the latest update information at hand within Optimizely.
Features
Multivariate testing: change multiple variables while testing a hypothesis.
Recommendatations for an internet marketing blog:
- How to set up a multivariate test
- Conducting variable combinations and creative optimization.
- Picking winners and losers with a statistically significant success rate.
Stats engine: find out the possibility of a variation leading to more conversions or not.
Analytics a/b testing:
- You can see how different versions performed, which is very important for the winners and losers, to see what works well, who the leaders are, and track your progress.
Advanced audience targeting: use your own business data to target audiences.
Recommendations for an healtcare blog:
-How to set up a multivariate test
-Conducting variable combinations and creative optimization.
What are the benefits of multivariate testing?
IP address targeting: test and target based on IP addresses.
Unlimited css rules: assign your own CSS rules and have more control over your tests.
Enhanced security controls: use security measurements like 2-step verification etc.
Experiment ation only: you can run experiments without influencing your site visitors if you want to, and the other way around.
What are th benefits of multivariate testing?
Multivariate testing is a method used to increase the conversion rate of an online store. Typically multivariate testing (MVT) is used for e-commerce websites but it can also be used to test things like advertising campaigns and landing page designs. Multivariate tests are done by changing multiple variables at once while keeping all other variables constant. Through these changes variable combinations can be discovered that could increase your conversion rates (your success rate).nd heatmap integrations: analyze the behaviour of your site visitors.lts segmentation: set custom conditions for segmentation.ollaborators: add as many collaborators as you wish.e benefits of multivariate testing?
Pros
- Optimizely is trusted as a big name in the business and possibly the market leader.
- Competes well with Adobe Target and other enterprise level testing tools.
- Offers extensive community and academy for getting the most from the tool.
- Optimizely can prioritize experiences when a user qualifies for more than one.
- Strong in editing pages using the snippet technology.
Cons
- You need to invest significant time and effort into the testing features.
- It is often heavy on the IT, you will need development skills and time to get the most out of it.
- Set-up test wizard makes it too simple – it doesn’t highlight key test functionality well.
- It is difficult to preview A/B test variations easily and quickly.
- It is one more place to concentrate data, instead of using existing ones.
- You will need a bigger package than initially expected, to get valuable results.
- The service is relatively expensive.
Who Uses Optimizely?
So who uses Optimizely? People across various organization teams and in a number of verticals. First, marketing teams like Optimizely so they can take the guesswork out of marketing. The tool offers answers to key questions backed by scientific analysis. Marketers also use Optimizely because it helps them improve the customer journey and enables them to have a higher return on marketing spend. Product development teams appreciate Optimizely as well. They rely on the tool’s full-stack testing capabilities to create an app that’s designed to capture and convert customers. They also like Optimizely because it allows them to get customer feedback, experiment with features as rollouts, and test redesigns before launching them to the public.
Secondly, product management teams take advantage of Optimizely because they can quickly and easily create and optimize versions of their products for testing. They can also set up containers across devices to properly measure how users respond to changes. This provides them with valuable insight into user behavior, which is ultimately a boon to development teams and market researchers alike. Product managers at companies like Logitech, Airbnb, LinkedIn, Medtronic, Diageo, The New York Times and many more use Optimizely.
Lastly, marketing teams like Optimizely so they don’t have to think about how best to incorporate testing into their day-to-day activities.. Optimizely is also well-suited to people who work in different verticals:
- Ecommerce – Optimizely not only helps reduce shopping cart abandonment, it also gives design teams the ability to make shopping personal. Further, it allows customers to continue their shopping journey from various channels, such as mobile, email, and desktop.
- Travel – Nowadays, people are booking flights on smartphones. Optimizely helps travel app teams ensure that mobile users enjoy a top-notch experience. The tool also helps marketers upsell with travel packages that are frequently purchased together.
- High Tech – Companies like IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Microsoft rely on Optimizely for experimentation.
- Finance – Consumers rely on digital platforms to file their taxes, deposit paychecks, and even send money to friends and family. Optimizely enables finance teams to run tests in a secure environment.
- Media – Not too many people are getting their news from a physical newspapers anymore. They’re relying on news sites, blogs, and apps. Optimizely enables media teams to find trends that can increase traffic and keep people coming back for more info.
Verdict
Optimizely is still the market leader in the testing and personalization industry. It is a good product overall, which is why it is one of our editor’s picks and among the most popular choices in the survey. Keep reading to find out why...
Optimizely (formerly Optimizely) is a web optimization company that helps businesses and organizations grow through testing. It was founded in June 2011 by Andrew Chen, Jason Scharmann, and Dan Siroker. Its headquarters are located in Chicago, Illinois. Optimizely was initially powered by Google's Tag Manager, but has since been completely redesigned and built on its own new platform. The company has raised over $50 million dollars from various investors such as Union Square Ventures, Charles River Ventures, the New York Angels and other sponsors since its beginning. In addition to that, the company has been named one of Inc.
Due to its tech-heaviness and high cost, it is best suited for advanced testers at the enterprise level. Since their free plan is being sunsetted, it is no longer suited for small and medium companies that lack the time and resources to get Optimizely up and running. In terms of the effectiveness, we've seen many businesses spend as much as their annual marketing budget on ads. We believe that it's time to turn attention back to testing, and help companies become more effective at what they do.
By turning testing into a core competency, companies will be able to craft an entire marketing strategy around its efficacy and ultimately save money by getting smarter about how they reach their customers. This article is part of a series sponsored by Optimizely that will discuss the future of various web testing tools and techniques.
While Optimizely is a significant competitor in the personalization area, many of its customers seem to be focused on its testing abilities. Similar to what we see happen at VWO and other companies that were previously busy selling A/B testing, this leads a focus on testing as a data-driven approach to personalization – which requires traffic volumes that are well out of reach for all but the largest companies.
However, if you do have the data and the traffic to get solid results, Optimizely may well be your best bet in the market. We like it.
