Amplitude Analytics vs. Optimizely Web Experimentation

I would highly recommend Amplitude to people in the product and business analytics domains who have a need for deep, data-driven insights into customer behavior, accessible in a self-service platform. Amplitude stands out in its comprehensiveness and flexibility; once events are implemented, there are a multitude of options to combine, track, form journeys, and dive deeper into user behavior. Though the barrier for entry is a little bit steep, Amplitude is more friendly to non-technical users than other business insight platforms, without compromising the effectiveness of the analysis tools. Amplitude may not be best suited for web marketing analytics - traffic, page views, etc - since it is more focused on full-platform product analytics.

Incentivized

I think it can serve the whole spectrum of experiences from people who are just getting used to web experimentation. It's really easy to pick up and use. If you're more experienced then it works well because it just gets out of the way and lets you really focus on the experimentation side of things. So yeah, strongly recommend. I think it is well suited both to small businesses and large enterprises as well. I think it's got a really low barrier to entry. It's very easy to integrate on your website and get results quickly. Likewise, if you are a big business, it's incrementally adoptable, so you can start out with one component of optimizing and you can build there and start to build in things like data CMS to augment experimentation as well. So it's got a really strong a pathway to grow your MarTech platform if you're a small company or a big company.

Incentivized

• It provides me great answers about my critical questionnaire, by which I can easily explore behavioral data across any chart, persona, and cohort that are simple and intuitive to understand as they have made easy segmentation.
• It offers its services for SQL queries due to which I have reduced the workload and save the time that was spent in finding out the technical aspects.
• It is user-friendly and easy to use.

Incentivized

• The Platform contains drag-and-drop editor options for creating variations, which ease the A/B tests process, as it does not require any coding or development resources.
• Establishing it is so simple that even a non-technical person can do it perfectly.
• It provides real-time results and analytics with robust dashboard access through which you can quickly analyze how different variations perform. With this, your team can easily make data-driven decisions Fastly.

Incentivized

• Some more clarity and examples of implementation with GDPR in mind
• Some segregation inside user properties can be difficult to implement
• Splicing information inside funnels could be more intuitive
• User support for the cheaper tiers is hard to access
• Pricing transparency really needs to be improved

• The results view is dense and difficult to package easily for leadership, and when filtering by segment it's hard to read comparative outcomes without clearing or swapping filters
• The organization of experiments and statuses is a cluttered list and the search is limited in use - would love to see that improve with time
• There are so many other MarTech products out there, would love to see more dedicated integrations so we don't have to invest in something like Zapier or Tray to build hacky automations

Incentivized

Great product Good value for the cost/initiate Support docs and FAQs are great - they limit the necessity of reaching out to in-person support. So when you do call them ... it is for a legit question/issue, no just a "where is it" or a "how to I do xyz123?"

Incentivized

Because it's an incredible and essential tool for my line of work as a conversion optimization specialist. Really couldn't do my job nearly as effectively without it. It's paid for itself many times over and I feel like I'm only beginning to unlock the tools potential.

It's a fairly straightforward platform that's beginner friendly. The biggest usability hurdle is most often created by your own team, as it's imperative to know what event sources are being sent to Amplitude and what those event names are. Within being properly onboarded by a team member it can be hard to get started using Amplitude. It takes time to understand what data your company may be sending to the product, the naming conventions of events (especially if there are old or deprecated events names

Incentivized

Optimizely Web Experimentation's visual editor is handy for non-technical or quick iterative testing. When it comes to content changes it's as easy as going into wordpress, clicking around, and then seeing your changes live--what you see is what you get. The preview and approval process for sharing built experiments is also handy for sharing experiments across teams for QA purposes or otherwise.

Incentivized

Alway up and running, or if there is a problem we can get back in the game right away. The reliability was a big selling point for me, and it was true when this company got it. Rollouts can be tough, but this was pretty seamless. Good support throughout the process, good documentation to handle questions/tips

Incentivized

I would rate Optimizely Web Experimentation's availability as a 10 out of 10. The software is reliable and does not experience any application errors or unplanned outages. Additionally, the customer service and technical support teams are always available to help with any issues or questions.

Incentivized

No issues, problems, or negative remarks from us!! We had a plan, vendor support was rock solid, our data folks have experience, OCM supported as needed, and we got the rollout done on time, on budget, and with only minor hiccups. SInce the rollout, most of us have already forgotten the hiccups and generally speak highly of the product

Incentivized

I would rate Optimizely Web Experimentation's performance as a 9 out of 10. Pages load quickly, reports are complete in a reasonable time frame, and the software does not slow down any other software or systems that it integrates with. Additionally, the customer service and technical support teams are always available to help with any issues or questions.

Incentivized

I haven't used the Amplitude support other than their training docs so I can't speak too much to the in-person support but the docs are serviceable. Nothing too crazy but between the user tips, email notifications, and the decent number of docs I was able to get the support I needed to ramp up on the tool.

Incentivized

They always are quick to respond, and are so friendly and helpful. They always answer the phone right away. And [they are] always willing to not only help you with your problem, but if you need ideas they have suggestions as well.

Virtual Not bad considering the timeframe and turnaround. The biggest benefit was for my end-users to hear a voice (other than mine/ours! LOL) telling them about the new features and capabilities. The in-person training was really good for having an expert that knows the answers and could refer to past experiences, problems, solutions. THey were a great resource to ease the transition ... basically a "you are gonna be okay with this change ... you got this etc.!" kinda vibe

Incentivized

Good enough to get strong baseline. I always make sure our our users go to and/or focus on the vebndor-provided support docs rather than any formal training. Our instructors come and go, but written policy and how-to docs live much longer in a corporate setting. That said, the online training is sufficient. I like that the training curric is stacked and progressive.

Incentivized

The tool itself is not very difficult to use so training was not very useful in my opinion. It did not also account for success events more complex than a click (which my company being ecommerce is looking to examine more than a mere click).

My team members all have background as data analysts, so Amp was pretty easy to for them. There was sufficient online training available. We also used the available support documents. The actual rollout went well. We did significant testing beforehand. We did a phased rollout, with partial silent rollout (part of OCM's plan) for the smallest line of business. THe silent one was "silent" b/c it was done without fanfare or public notices ... it was just a "we're doing some things, it wont impact your work or workday

Incentivized

The implementation through the tag management system took a bit of trial and error at first, mostly due to the asynchronous nature of the TMS. We had to manipulate the implementation to assure that the Optimizely code was written to the page at the right time to allow the experiment content load in the browser without showing any of the original content first. We also needed to make some adjustments to the TMS code to get the integration with Site Catalyst timed appropriately.

Amplitude Analytics is a robust platform that can take your data reporting beyond what's currently capable in GA. Heap is a great intermediate tool, that takes data analysis a step further and is an excellent product in it's own right. Mixpanel is the most comparable both have very similar reporting/dashboarding functionality. Amplitude can often be preferred by product and data engineering teams for it's ease of setup and impressive analytics displays.

Incentivized

The ability to do A/B testing in Optimizely along with the associated statistical modelling and audience segmentation means it is a much better solution than using something like Google Analytics were a lot more effort is required to identify and isolate the specific data you need to confidently make changes

Incentivized

Like all the other grades, it was mostly an easy implementation ... we have experience people, the rollout in general is well planned, and the vendor was very supportive

Incentivized

It's incredibly flexible and adapts well to organizations of all sizes, whether you’re running a single site or managing multiple departments and platforms. The ability to deploy experiments seamlessly across different environments is a huge plus, especially for growing businesses. While it’s highly scalable, the last point would depend on the right team leveraging its full potential.

Incentivized

• Helped us determine actions that lead to an increase in install to sign up conversion
• Helped us determine actions that lead to drop off while users invest
• Helped us determine actions taken by paying users, increasing conversion of non-paying users to paid users

Incentivized

• we saved money by not implementing certain copy/design
• we learned that customers from different states react different to a variation
• we are slowly learning where conversion happens and where to fix the frictions
• Testing shorter vs longer journeys increased funnel conversion in some states - we avoided implementing this nationwide

Incentivized