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 Builtwith, Observe Point and Similar Tech. I’d recommend these when reviewing your marketing technology stack against competitors. It can also make the case for investment in new or alternative marketing tools when you can competitors are using them.
How do the top AB testing tools compare?
Optimizely is the clear sector leader. It’s no surprise to see Visual Website Optimizer in second place since it’s popular among SMBs. If you’re looking for more details, check out this AB testing tool comparison.
It IS surprising to see Google Analytics Experiments in third place since it is or was a free tool. However, it hadn’t been evolved until recently. But that has now changed since we announced at the end of the year, Google Optimize is now free for basic AB testing and personalization. Google has been promoting the new service, so expect this ranking to change (and the label Datanyze uses)
Adobe Test and Target in third place. It’s popular amongst larger businesses who will often use Adobe Marketing Cloud solutions. The Datanyze service enables you to select the top 100 or 10000 sites to show which are the most popular tools amongst larger businesses. Likewise, Maxymiser and Monetate are used in larger businesses typically for transactional ecommerce sites. It’s also worth noting that increasingly these testing tools are overlapping with personalization software.