Optimizely Makes It Easy To Do A/B Split Testing
By Anna Johnson on July 22nd, 2010Optimizely is an application promising to make it super-easy to conduct A/B split tests and multi-variate split tests on your website.
Currently in private beta, the service appears to be simpler to use than many other split-testing solutions. You simply log in to your Optimizely account, click the ‘Create Experiment’ tab, choose the web page you want to split-test, and then follow a ‘point and click’ process to create your test.
You can also either confine your test to an A/B split-test (where you test two elements) or a multi-variate test (where you test multiple variables).
When you load the page you want to test, you identify the page element you want to test with your cursor. Optimizely highlights this and displays a menu that lets you select which elements you want to test e.g. an image, text, the position or size of an element, etc.
Once you’ve decided on the element(s) you wish to test, Optimizely generates some JavaScript code for you to add to the relevant web page(s). Then, when visitors arrive on the page, this script will cause either the original or the alternative version(s) to display.
Optimizely will then track the experiment in the control panel of your account, displaying the different response rates and the level of confidence (i.e. certainty) for each.
Without using Optimizely myself I’d like to know how it compares to Google’s (free) Website Optimizer which, in my mind, is fairly easy to implement. If Optimizely is substantially easier to use it may have an edge over Website Optimizer… but it will need to be significant to justify any kind of price, which at this stage, Optimizely has not revealed.
July 23rd, 2010 at 2:14 am
Thanks for the post, Anna!
I’d be glad to offer you an invitation to the private beta and look forward to hearing what you think!
Feel free to get in touch with me and I’ll send you an invitation.
Dan Siroker
Co-Founder
Optimizely, Inc.