Chartbeat vs. Webtrends Optimize

It is well suited to keeping me toward a specified goal, and gives me concrete numbers and gives me an idea of what we need to do to meet our goals. It's less appropriate if you want something more than pageviews, and doesn't really do a lot for video views.

Incentivized

There are certainly a few things to consider. If you're looking to run A/B/n or Multivariate tests with some basic segmentation or targeting then Webtrends Optimize is capable of providing that. If budget is a major consideration then that is another area where Optimize may be more attractive. However, based on both of these criteria it is my opinion that there are other tools out there that provide more value. For segmentation discovery, identification of user affinities, and execution of an effective targeting and personalization strategy then there are certainly other tools that should be considered.

• Provides easy at-a-glance look at what people are reading right now
• Heads-up Display allows you to make sure the homepage is showing the content people want to read
• Headline testing tool provides fascinating insight into what makes people read a story and improves headline-writing ability

• The Webtrends team are excellent at taking the time to understand and learn about our distinct business needs, and recommend suggestions in response.
• The Webtrends platform has undergone several changes over the time I was using it. This illustrates the constant thrive to improve their service to users, something I greatly appreciated.
• Webtrends Optimize enables the whole process to be simple with its handy instructional guides that can inform clients about using the service.

• Source of traffic needs improvement. Search and social make sense, but "internal" and "links" is a grey area. It would be helpful to define those with an organization and provide an information icon so users can easily remember what each of those buckets is tracking.
• More ways to customize the real-time board. For example, with video content, that's great that I can see a user has started a video, but what is the completion rate, was that only on O&O or can that track Facebook, too?
• Would like to see demo (age) information included as a way to slice the data so I can see what's working with my older and younger demo.

Incentivized

• The cost is a factor. When you're trying to save money, particularly as a startup (a lot of our clients are up-and-comers) it has to be seen as an investment...but the cost to implement the system is fairly large.
• There's a bit of a steep learning curve, you can't just dive into the program.
• It's not impossible but it's not as easy as snapping your fingers to easily implement the program cross-platform.

Incentivized

I gave Chartbeat a 5 for a renewal rating, because, while it delivers clear and understandable content, Google Analytics also provides many of the same features for free. For a small to medium website, I believe it would be more cost effective to use Google Analytics. A website with a high amount of traffic, however, could merit spending the money on Chartbeat to maximize their potential.

Difficulty was getting business units to take the time and spend the money to test, and then implement, best options.

Chartbeat is really pretty straightforward. The only things that may cause confusion are the string of sidebar features and tools at the left of the screen. I mostly use the big leader board in real-time and the historical feature (looking at the monthly or weekly performance of my team's content) and then generate reports automatically from there.

Incentivized

Set up of basic tests that do not use segmentation or targeting is an intuitive experience that can be learned quickly by new users. However, as the need for segmentation and other more advanced capabilities arise, the experience begins to degrade.

zero complaints. I'm not aware of it ever failing.

Zero complaints. It seemed to do its job quickly and accurately.

I have had limited experience of support for Chartbeat but whenever I have needed help it has been there. Recently there was an issue of seeing different forms of data in real time - app and otherwise effectively, and the issue was being clearly dealt with and communicated back to us.

Incentivized

The support from the team at Webtrends Optimize is unparalleled. There is always someone to consult should there be any issues.

Online training was ok. Because every test is a custom test, there's only so much that can be covered in a generic lesson.

Implementation was pretty straightforward

Google Analytics has gradually become much more difficult to use, and much slower in its realtime reporting. It was the changes that came in with Google Analytics 4 that gave us the final push to work with Chartbeat - a product some of us were already familiar with from previous jobs. Things are just much harder to find in GA, and when time is always tight you can't afford to spend a long time looking for particular data - it should be quick and easy to locate

Incentivized

Webtrends Optimize is one of the best solutions out there for digital marketers to improve their sales by providing a better experience for their customers' journey. With that said, it is also a costly solution in comparison to other services in the market today. The adage of you gets what you pay for is true as they are a market leader in the optimization space.

Incentivized

• It has helped us save time in report generation and performance analysis.
• By helping us evaluate our contributors, we're able to get our money's worth.
• Seeing our numbers on the Big Board fosters healthy competition among brands, motivating us to distribute our stories better.

Incentivized

• So far we haven't seen an ROI that we can accurately measure due to only running a couple of tests that haven't resulted in direct, site wide changes. However, we have learnt a lot about how to set up the right processes and documentation.