Alternative Tools to Google Optimize

As you may known, Google Optimize is on its way out and will end its honorable career on September 30 of this year.

At the moment there are many rumors on the net about “what happens now?” in the context of testing tools directly integrated with Google Analytics 4, Google Ads and other products of the Google Marketing Platform.

In the email and in the press release that Google issued few days ago, reference is made to a “We remain excited for the vision for A/B testing within Google Analytics 4”. This sentence is somewhat sibylline since it can give rise to, in our opinion, two great strands of discussion.

Google Analytics 4 will independently manage the testing part as it will be integrated into the software itself: at the moment we see it as the least accredited since it would mean importing Google Optimize into GA4 and it would not make sense to kill a SAS that still worked very well.
Google Analytics 4 will be set up for greater integrations towards external tools: here, this is what we consider the most accredited hypothesis. A software is decommissioned to build partnerships with tools that dominate the testing market; or, a more romantic version, all users are given the opportunity to integrate their testing software into GA4.

According to point 2, we can discard the romantic part – or put it in the background – given that shortly before the news of Google Optimize’s sunset, Optimizely released a statement declaring an agreement to migrate all its services to Google Cloud Platform and just a few days ago, a page popped up on the site discussing how Optimizely can provide a discount for switching from GO to their systems.

So if two clues prove it.. in our idea of ​​the future, probably GA4 will have a large volume of “connectors” towards the main testing software while the paid version – GA4 360 –  will be “sold” with a potential native integration with Optimizely. We’ll see.

Alternative software to Google Optimize

DISCLAIMER: what is reported derives from personal opinions relating to the use of the tools presented

For the moment, given the uncertainty about the future, we have decided to list below a few of the main alternative software to Google Optimize.

The graph above shows the market penetration of A/B Testing software for the year 2022 (source: Datanyze)

Optimizely is the undisputed market leader with a share that reaches almost 30% of the total and is closely followed by Adobe Target (23.8%) and Visual Website Optimization (12.19%). What about Google Optimize? In the graph it has been divided according to the implementations which, if added together, reach about 19% of the total, or close to second place among the most used tools.

Among all the tools included in the list and on the market, those that respected three main characteristics were chosen:

• Easy to use
• Integration with Analytics
• Learning curve

Pricing was not taken into consideration as most of the tools require a direct request from the client or agency and therefore the data becomes too variable.

The tools that will be analyzed – briefly – are therefore:

• Optimizely
• Visual Website Optimizer
• Convert

Optimizely

We do not hide that we have been a fan of this tool since it was born, but we will try to be as objective as possible.

At the moment Optimizely is the (reductive) A/B test tool with the best market share in the world and it is often associated or accompanied by brands related to medium – large business, both for the multiplicity of features and for the cost (the highest among all of them).

To install Optimizely, simply enter the snippet provided via GTM or hardcoded on the site and then you can start configuring testing. We will not consider all the possibilities offered by this software but we will focus only on testing.

Once installed, in the admin section of the tool it is possible to integrate GA4 in two ways:

• If GA4 is installed in hardcoded mode, in the “Integrations” section of Optimize it is possible to load a script that “talks” directly to GA4 and generates the optimizely_decision_web event and the parameters optimizely_experiment which reports the name of the test campaign and optimizely_variant which reports the type of variant (or original) the user is browsing
• If GA4 is installed with Google Tag Manager the process is very similar but a little longer because you have to: create a Custom HTML to insert a dedicated script (supplied by Optimizely) which generates both the event and the parameters listed in the previous point.

The interface is very user friendly and allows you to create page variants or page elements both in WYSIWYG mode (What You See Is What You Get) and in scripting mode and allows you to create retroactive filters (e.g. IP Filtering) and save target audiences.

The learning curve is quite in line with Optimize -if compared to the same features – but Optimizely allows an Analytics – CRO team to create super-targeted tests and above all suitable both for those who don’t know code and for a full stack dev.

Furthermore Optimizely also integrates with Google Ads in an almost direct way, i.e. it is possible to give admin access to your GAds account and modify some scripts to have total connection. Moreover you can create and synchronize audiences from one tool to another.

Visual Website Optimizer

If we were talking about the NBA, this tool would win the MIP Awards, or the Most Improved Player for how much it has grown in terms of functionality over the years without sacrificing ease of use.

The VWO interface is par excellence the simplest WYSIWYG on the market. As mentioned above, however, this does not mean that it is limited, since both the coding feature and the “Experiment Suggest” feature are fully available. This last is very interesting if you are a beginner as, by selecting the element to test, you can receive suggestions on how to improve the CR by modifying the characteristics of the element.

Compared to the previous one, VWO offers the opportunity of creating a free account to start using the tool.

The integration with GA4 takes place as for Optimizely via hardcoded or via GTM. In both cases it is accessed from the VWO panel to be connected with GA4 or with GTM itself. If tests are running, a VWO event (or VWO_AB_Test) is therefore generated. It is associated with the parameters vwo_campaign_name which contains the name of the campaign and variation_id + variation_name which contains the id and name of the original or variant pages.

Convert

Convert is a tool dedicated to testing, period. It focuses a lot on the aspects of A/B Testing, Multivariate Testing, etc. leaving out, for now, some features that may be available in other softwares but which are not mandatory for reaching the final result.

Drag’n’drop or code interface like the previous ones, very simple and user friendly. It stands out as it has many “native” integrations with tools such as Google Analytics, HotJar but also with merchant platforms such as Shopify, Woocommerce, etc.

The hookup to GA4 takes place by inserting a dataLayer in the site similar to the following

dataLayer.push({ "event":"convert-trigger-experiment-id", "experiment_id":"", "variation_name":""});

In this case the name of the event can be chosen in the GA4 tag while the parameter values ​​are experiment_id and variation_name which will contain the id of the experiment and the value of the variation respectively.

Convert is certainly a software with a very low learning curve, as it is really simple to use and above all very flexible to create segmentation, targeting or test flows.

Final thoughts on alternatives to Optimize

Google Optimize is a tool that fits very well both for the “starter” audience segment that wants to start generating testing, given the native integrations with Google products, and the advanced audience that perhaps seeks greater enhancements in terms of customization or multivariate test. To make it very “appetizing” is certainly the free version, available to all users.

Its closure, however expected or understandable given the initial reasons, triggered a brief moment of panic as at the moment real 360-degree integrations with the Google world and other software in native mode simply do not exist.

The softwares presented above are very close to what was the real strength of Optimize, that is the sharing of data with all Google tools, but we are not yet at that level. Maybe from September it changes again and all the tools integrate perfectly.. we’ll see.

Our advice is not to wait, similarly to what happened to GA4, for the September date to approach to try other software: there are 9 months of time. Test as many as you can to be able to choose the one that fits the needs of business.

In case of doubts or questions we are always available and you can contact us via the request form!