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Evaluating a new A/B testing vendor: Timeline

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Evaluating a new A/B testing vendor: Timeline



Google’s announcement to sunset their Optimize product has hit many companies hard, as they realize they only have eight months to find a replacement.  

However, many teams have not evaluated new software in several years. So, Optimizely’s Strategy & Value Advisory team gathered this helpful vendor-agnostic guide. It’ll help you independently evaluate tools that fit your needs.  

We’ve already powered A/B testing for thousands of companies. To help you get started, we’re offering a special offer for Google Optimize customers. 

Four tips for finding the right fit for a potential replacement 

See ways for mapping out your requirements when looking for a new A/B testing vendor. 

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1. Start early.  

Most companies need 2-6 months to evaluate a new piece of software. Plus, an additional 2 months for implementation.  

  • Gradually migrate personalization campaigns and tests. Have a minimum of 1-month overlap with a new tool before GO turns off.
  • Ensure all personalization campaigns and a/b tests are live in your new tool. No wonder CRO experts are conservative about it, calling July 31 your true date for turning off Google Optimize. 
  • Plan for 3-4 weeks for technical implementation, a/a tests, key integrations, and data validation. We can do it all faster, but typically teams need time.   

2. Dream big.  

Changing a tool should unlock the previously restricted digital potential for your business. Know your must-have requirements, but also understand what could be better. Consider Optimizely’s key improvements over Google Optimize. Now, check if you have answers to these questions: 

  • What if you reached stat sig quicker with the industry’s best Stats Engine and delivered more relevant experiences?
  • What if you built an inclusive culture of experimentation that fosters team learning and collaboration?
  • What if you leveraged products that speak to each other and integrated Optimizely seamlessly with best-of-breed tech platforms?
  • What if you needed less developer or data science time to build or understand an experiment?
  • What if you had optimal performance and page load times (also impacting Google’s ranking)?

3. Don’t underestimate internal approvals.  

We have seen a c-change in the past six months, where due to economic uncertainties, Finance and Procurement teams have added extra scrutiny to every purchase, whether it be for software, headcount, or other tools for growth. Even very flat organizations and rapid start-ups have found their decision-making delayed. 

  • Notify Finance, Procurement, and IT teams early of your need to implement a new tool and ask for their support.
  • Any investment needs to have a structured plan presented internally for WHY you need an investment and HOW you will ensure that you can experience ROI. (Ask your vendor for help!)
  • Show why experimentation and personalization are essential for your business. 
  • Your stakeholders can be on vacation and you may need extra time for review. Plan that their approvals will take 1-2 months; if it’s faster, happy days!
  • You can always communicate to the vendor that you want your contract to start in June or July (see #1 – starting later than July could put you at risk of having interrupted service) 

4. Consult experts.  

Read reports from analysts and CRO experts, not just the vendors themselves. Ask for reference customers to have a call about their experience.   

  • Check out the Total Economic Impact™ of Optimizely’s Experimentation Platform as per Forrester in the latest TEI™ study.
  • GA4 will have some basic split traffic capabilities, as Google Ads already does, but they’ve specifically stated that they will not focus on the “features and services that our customers request and need for experimentation testing”; if you’re just getting started, GA4 may provide enough for your needs, but there’s a high risk for any company that has been running tests already that this will not serve your needs. 

Maybe your company can move faster than this, but it’s better to build in a buffer. The biggest risk is that you can’t get a tool in place in time and your personalization campaigns, a/b tests, and MVT experiments go dark.   

Example Timeline for Software Evaluation 

1 February 1 March 15 April
Reach out to 4-5 vendors to start the process and schedule the first calls and demos. There is zero commitment, just the research-gathering process.   
 
Define your requirements, including: 

– Who from your team will be using the tool?

– What types of tests or campaigns are essential?

– What integrations do you need?

– How will you manage collaboration across teams? 

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Here’s a vendor-agnostic, helpful list of requirements to consider for an experimentation partner. (If your company requires an RFP, reach out to Procurement immediately – an RFP typically will add 2-6 months to a company’s time to make a decision).   

Based on which tools meet your requirements, reduce your list to 2-3 choices.   
  
Next, go deeper into your specific use cases, including: 

– Which tests or campaigns are most important to you?

– Is the new tool easy to use for this use case?

– Where did you struggle with Google Optimize and you’d like to see improvement? 

 
Ask the vendors to collaborate with you to define the growth (and $) you could realize from experimenting via their tool – and how they will help you achieve it. 
 
Review initial pricing proposals by the end of the month. 

Finalize your choice of the preferred vendor and start circulating the contract & legal docs for review. (Legal review alone can take 1-2 months).  
  
Ensure engineering resources are allocated for implementation (in July-August); while most Eng teams operate in sprint cycles, it’s important that they have this on their roadmap and understand the need for prioritization.
1 May 31 May 15 June
Present to your leadership & stakeholders the recommended vendor and how you will achieve ROI; your selected vendor should be able to help you and quantify the forecast value specific to your company.  Finalize approvals from Legal, procurement, and finance.  Signing new contract; start provisioning & access to the new tool. 
July & August 1 September 30 September
Implement the new tool. Install Javascript snippet, A/A tests, data validation, GA4 integration, etc. At Optimizely, we can move as fast as your teams are able, but typically customers need at least 3-4 weeks to coordinate schedules with all their internal teams and get this set up. Given the summer holidays in July & August, we recommend starting implementation by July 1 at the latest. 

Keep this the latest date to go live with a new tool and transfer experiments.  

  

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Wrap up final experiments & campaigns running in GO over the next 4 weeks. 

Google Optimize is shut down. Time to go fully live with the new tool. 

 

 


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MARKETING

Trends in Content Localization – Moz

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Trends in Content Localization - Moz

Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.

Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.

Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

AI and startups? It just makes sense.

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More promotions and more layoffs

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More promotions and more layoffs

For martech professionals salaries are good and promotions are coming faster, unfortunately, layoffs are coming faster, too. That’s according to the just-released 2024 Martech Salary and Career Survey. Another very unfortunate finding: The median salary of women below the C-suite level is 35% less than what men earn.

The last year saw many different economic trends, some at odds with each other. Although unemployment remained very low overall and the economy grew, some businesses — especially those in technology and media — cut both jobs and spending. Reasons cited for the cuts include during the early years of the pandemic, higher interest rates and corporate greed.

Dig deeper: How to overcome marketing budget cuts and hiring freezes

Be that as it may, for the employed it remains a good time to be a martech professional. Salaries remain lucrative compared to many other professions, with an overall median salary of $128,643. 

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Here are the median salaries by role:

  • Senior management $199,653
  • Director $157,776
  • Manager $99,510
  • Staff $89,126

Senior managers make more than twice what staff make. Directors and up had a $163,395 median salary compared to manager/staff roles, where the median was $94,818.

One-third of those surveyed said they were promoted in the last 12 months, a finding that was nearly equal among director+ (32%) and managers and staff (30%). 

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Extend the time frame to two years, and nearly three-quarters of director+ respondents say they received a promotion, while the same can be said for two-thirds of manager and staff respondents.

Dig deeper: Skills-based hiring for modern marketing teams

Employee turnover 

In 2023, we asked survey respondents if they noticed an increase in employee churn and whether they would classify that churn as a “moderate” or “significant” increase. For 2024, given the attention on cost reductions and layoffs, we asked if the churn they witnessed was “voluntary” (e.g., people leaving for another role) or “involuntary” (e.g., a layoff or dismissal). More than half of the marketing technology professionals said churn increased in the last year. Nearly one-third classified most of the churn as “involuntary.”

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Men and Women

Screenshot 2024 03 21 124540Screenshot 2024 03 21 124540

This year, instead of using average salary figures, we used the median figures to lessen the impact of outliers in the salary data. As a result, the gap between salaries for men and women is even more glaring than it was previously.

In last year’s report, men earned an average of 24% more than women. This year the median salary of men is 35% more than the median salary of women. That is until you get to the upper echelons. Women at director and up earned 5% more than men.

Methodology

The 2024 MarTech Salary and Career Survey is a joint project of MarTech.org and chiefmartec.com. We surveyed 305 marketers between December 2023 and February 2024; 297 of those provided salary information. Nearly 63% (191) of respondents live in North America; 16% (50) live in Western Europe. The conclusions in this report are limited to responses from those individuals only. Other regions were excluded due to the limited number of respondents. 

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Download your copy of the 2024 MarTech Salary and Career Survey here. No registration is required.

Get MarTech! Daily. Free. In your inbox.

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