A Roadmap for Your Google Optimize Alternatives Assessment
As Google’s long-standing A/B testing tool recently rode off into the sunset (9/30/23), the online marketing world is buzzing with activity as a multitude of marketers seek the Google Optimize alternative that’s right for them.
For many teams, such an unexpected and obligatory transition is bringing up a flurry of questions, such as:
What exactly do we need in an A/B testing solution, really?
Should our focus be replicating Google Optimize’s specific functionality?
Is a paid solution in our budget, if we were using the free version of Optimize?
Could this situation be leveraged as an opportunity to upgrade?
How much value can we get without stressing our budget?
What other options have free versions comparable to Optimize?
Should we just hit the pause button on A/B testing until the dust settles?
The goal of this article is to provide a realistic…
Landing pictures are arguably the most important elements of any digital marketing campaign and building a high converting landing page requires extensive testing
There are countless resources on the science behind conducting split tests. However, the problem most marketers face doesn’t seem to be with knowing how to run a split test. It seems to be with split testing the right variables. It is easy to exhaust your testing budget by focusing on the wrong elements.
Here are some of the elements that will have the biggest impact on your campaign. After running a number of split tests, you will determine which landing page elements have the strongest impact on your ROI. However, keep in mind that the elements that affect your campaign the most may be different. Make sure to adjust your testing hierarchy accordingly.
Length of your copy
The written content on your landing page plays an important role in your conversion…
Use these testing tools to help structure your experiments and boost your conversion rate
A/B tests allow you to run one or more different versions of a page which may include one or more of different features such as a call to action, a hero banner or other page elements compared to a control version. Multivariate testing enables you to test multiple elements at the same time. This requires more traffic and more time spent on set up, but gives the benefit of being able to isolate the impact of each element on conversion and average order value.
Improving leads or sales through driving more users down the conversion funnel is the primary goal of these tools. They simplify the process of running these tests, allowing control over the test variables (e.g. how much traffic is sent to the various test versions), provides…
Chart of the day: A comparison ranking AB testing services used for structured experiments to boost conversion
In our Essential Digital Marketing Tools infographic and guide we recommended the top 5 tools for AB and Multivariate testing in category 19 of 30. Our recommendations focused on the best value tools for small and mid-size businesses, but the popularity of the services will vary by company size and there are many more options than the 5 we have recommended.
This analysis by Datanyze shows number of websites using one of the services for AB and multivariate testing divided by the total number of websites using any of the technologies. This is shown for the top 1 millions sites by traffic as ranked by Alexa.
We're fortunate to have a number of services like Datanyze which crawl sites categorising the Javascript tags of different tools (others include…
Google puts A/B testing tools at everyone's fingertips by making it's Google Optimize product free
There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but since it launched out of beta in March 2017, there's a free CRO package that gives you the ability to run A/B tests across your site. Almost half of smaller businesses don't currently utilize A/B testing, which will mean they're potentially losing vast sums compared to the revenue they could have been generating had they engaged in CRO.
[si_quick_block id="101832" title="How to do AB tests with Google Optimize" description="This Quick Win explores what AB testing is, and what process you should use to build a test. We will cover some ideas on what you could test, as well as working out where to focus your attention, hint, don’t just jump to say your homepage, you may want to test somewhere else that will give you a bigger impact."]
That's…
Using rigorous A/B testing to optimize your lead capture rate
Now, many people think opt-in forms are annoying and don’t belong on a website. Truth be told - I’ve seen a lot of bad popups and other types of sign up forms that just don’t belong on any website.
I get the frustration many people have with these forms. However, there is one simple reason why you should use them on your website - they work!
There will always be haters no matter what you do, but in this post I’ll share my very best tips and tricks I’ve learned by analyzing millions of sessions, so you can decrease the number of haters and increase the number of leads.
Why use opt-in forms?
I know I’ve already answered this question in short, but I want to elaborate and give you some examples.
…
How to utilise continuous improvements and ‘big bets’ to achieve operational and strategic excellence
As part of any digital transformation agenda, the ability the test and learn gives businesses the opportunity to experiment, iterate and grow skills and competences throughout the organisation. For digital marketers, this opportunity is becoming increasingly important as technology continues to advance and larger companies face new and emerging threats from more nimble, innovative competitors.
To drive meaningful digital transformation at scale, businesses must therefore be open to the adoption of a test and learn culture, which will enable marketers to optimise digital media activation, create first-class digital experiences and develop learning across the organisation. Much of this will be dependent on each organisation’s stage in the digital transformation journey:
Three big digital trends
The importance of developing a test and learn culture is reflected in the numerous …
How difficult are the most effective CRO techniques?
This chart from the Ascend2 Conversion Rate Optimization research report shows the views on CRO effectiveness from 177 marketers in medium to large B2B and B2C organisation.
A/B testing seems to rule the roost, as the most effective and easiest tactic. Our Customer Journey analysis survey also found A/B testing as the most popular testing method among 1100 marketers, so this corroborates our findings. We also found that multivariate testing was seen as difficult to implement.
Personalisation of content was also seen as very effective but was also judged to be tricky to implement. You'll need content personalisation tools to do it right, so you might want to consult our free digital marketing tools guide if you're considering implementing a content personalisation program.
Source:Ascend2 Conversion Rate Optimization research…
How are businesses improving their user's experience?
Improving your online customer journeys is critical both to boost conversion rates and to improve customer experience to boost customer loyalty. So when experiences are optimised, it's one of those rare improvements that can boost revenues in both the short and long term.
But improving the journey is far from easy, and to do it you'll need lots of data of how your customers actually use the site. When it comes to testing, we have a rule of thumb we have seen in our tests and others. 1/3rd of tests will lead to a significant improvement; 1/3rd will have no effect, and 1/3rd will make conversion significantly worse. It really is hit and miss, but it's important to try plenty of different tests, as it often surprising what yields positive results and what doesn't. If you just assume you know your customers without looking at the data…
Learning to avoid Dumb AB testing mistakes
Back in 2005, I started my first forays into split testing of emails, landing pages and funnels whilst working at LOVEFiLM. I'm nearly at my 10 year anniversary, and after seeing over 40 million visitors split tested with stuff, I've become rather battle hardened to all the curious, strange and just plain stupid ways I've managed to break my own experiments.
I'll be doing a talk this Wednesday at the Smart Insights Digital Marketing conference on how to improve structured testing to boost profits, so to introduce it, I wanted to write a little about one critical way we can all improve our AB and Multivariate testing. So, in this article, I'll be exploring device and browser compatibility or 'Getting with what your customers have at their fingertips'.
AB testing your developers instead of…
