Google Content Experiments (discontinued) vs. VWO

Do you already have Google Analytics? If so content experiments is a good, free, starting point to dip your toes in A/B testing. Do you need to run Multivariate experiments? If so, Google Content Experiments is not going to fit your needs.

Incentivized

It works better for either small or big companies because small companies can start with the free plan which is very decent and has everything they need. Also for big companies who get the best paid plans they get a lot of premium functionalities, the insight module, outstanding reports. But for medium size companies who can only afford the basic paid plan, it may not be the best tool as it is very limited. For example, they cannot analize a/b tests for new and ruturning visitors, neither based on the users device category.

Incentivized

• Quick and easy to create and set up experiments
• Results are presented in a way that is familiar and easy for any Google Analytics user to understand. So is great for beginners to conversion testing
• Already integrated into Google Analytics and can measure results against your existing conversion goals
• Allows nine possible variants to be A/B tested
• Features more than one testing methodology, Bayesian (Multi-Armed Bandit,) and Full Factorial
• Allows the user to select one of three possible confidence thresholds to ensure that experiment results are robust
• Great value, it is free!

• VWO is pretty easy to implement on websites and doesn't require a heavy technology lift
• The VWO interface is pretty intuitive and let's non-technical users make variants for testing
• The VWO reporting dashboard is excellent for determining statistical significance and understanding whether differences in conversion rates are meaningful or not

Incentivized

• Their documentation is not the best and it's quite a steep learning curve.
• They also don't tell you particularly well what sorts of things you should be testing.
• Compared to other suppliers of A/B testing tools- it needs a simpler interface. Optimize is starting to answer that - but is still quite Beta-like.

Incentivized

• The user interface within VWO does take a bit of time to get used to, especially as it pertains to switching back and forth between tests. When running multiple experiments on a site at a time, a clear and succinct dashboard for everything in one place would be helpful (as opposed to needing to switch between A/B, multivariate, etc).

Incentivized

Content Experiments just makes it is simple and easy to implement A|B tests. We will be evaluating other tools in search of a more robust system for multivariate and cross-page testing, such as Optimizely or Visual Website Optimizer. However, for basic testing, you can't really beat it.

It's great value and we think we've ironed out all the major teething troubles. However, if we experience any more bugs or problems that significantly slow us down then we're seriously considering switching to Optimizely, which I haven't personally tested but have heard great things about from my CRO peers

I gave Visual Website Optimizer a rating of 8 because it is overall a great product to use. Setting up and keeping track of various tests is easy and straight forward. The only reason why this product is not rated higher is because the support documents online leave a lot of room for improvement.

I have not experienced an application error or unplanned outage with VWO.

Incentivized

VWO doesn't appear to slow down our website at all, though some customers with adblockers like UBlock Origin have been known to not see entire pages if VWO is making changes to the page at a macro level (background, font, etc). This is rare though.

Incentivized

Using the free tool, overall "live support" is limited. However, there are plenty of online resources to get started. If you need handheld support, it is best to upgrade the service or hire a developer through one of Google's partner agencies. There could be more support for understanding what makes a test useful or not.

Incentivized

While their online document support is lacking a simple email to their support team will almost always get responded to the next day. It has however taken more than one email to explain the problem to the support team till they understood the problem. The solution I was given also only half fixed the problem the rest I figured out on my own.

Training was good, just limited to the onboarding process. They walked through all of the steps it takes to get started in VWO and each of the modules, along with giving us ideas for starting our first test. I feel like it could be better if there was a guided process within the VWO program to continue to educate you along the way, and a way to turn that off for experienced users.

Incentivized

Overall, the implementation of VWO is straightforward. If you've got a straightforward way of deploying code to all of your test pages, either a good CMS or a TMS, then implementation should be a breeze. There is no tweaking to be done to the code itself, and once deployed it has the flexibility to cope with different VWO modules (tracking, conversion analysis, session analysis) without modification.

Incentivized

Google Website Optimizer was a better product but has been discontinued. We have also used Test and Target , which has more features but we have been doing fine with Google Content Experiments. Most testing situations can be handled with Google Content Experiments.

Incentivized

There are significant differences in each platform when it comes to Optimizely and vwo. From a functionality and performance perspective they each have their pros and cons. It is important to go through the feature sets of each and ensure the solution you select will work specifically with your business objectives and conversion rate optimization goals

Incentivized

The product seems infinitely scalable for our needs (small business) and we've never had any issue with loading VWO-edited elements. I will say, though, that online customers with ad blockers have been known to not see certain VWO elements as their third-party scripts are disabled.

Incentivized

• CE has made efficient time use easy and fool-proof when it comes to learning the software
• Because it integrates with other Google programs there is a benefit to track with Google Analytics
• The learning curve can create initiate time investment that may go beyond what companies are willing to dedicate.

• The ability to offer a CRO service is greatly enhanced by VWO, as it allows us to run tests for clients
• The editor means to some extent we don't need much developer resource to run the tests, lowering costs of doing so

Incentivized