Google Content Experiments (discontinued) vs. SiteSpect

Google Content Experiments is suited for large and small organizations, no matter your organizational goals. It is not recommended for organizations that are only interested in qualitative data, as there are other tools for receiving specific user experience feedback. It is also not recommended that you implement tests without some sort of goal in mind.

Incentivized

SiteSpect is kind of the difference between the space shuttle and a bicycle. They will both get you places. However Sitespect is considerably more complex and more configurable than most other options that I have seen and used (Optimizely, Visual Website Optimizer, etc.). But those other solutions also have a much lower learning curve and [users] are able to do a lot of things with relatively no coding experience or skill, where SiteSpect really does need capable developers to be utilized well.

Incentivized

• When you need to measure against event-based goals
• If you need to see how the test variations performed against secondary goals
• Given that the the platform requires you actually code a new page with a unique URL, this tool can be good for radical redesigns.
• Great insights into other information about your testing groups, like whether or not they're mobile, screen size, browser, or really any dimension available in GA.

• You can quickly run test campaigns of content and promotions – without burdening valuable IT resources, and without the need for JavaScript tags, code changes, or JavaScript that slow your ability to test, and decrease your site’s speed.

• You can only optimise for one goal, so if you have several conversions, like phone call and email you need to do it manually.
• It seems not to work that well for pages with lower amounts of traffic - not great for new or niche sites.

Incentivized

• One current limitation of Sitespect is that the data it captures is numeric. For example, it will not capture a department name variable such as supplements. The workaround is that a user can create a supplement department value capture that fires as 0 or 1. For companies with very large numbers of departments the workaround can be a time consuming process.

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.

I'm no longer at the company where I used SiteSpect, but based on my 18+ months as the manager responsible for the use of SiteSpect, I'd definitely recommend continuing with the product. I've since recommended it to one other company. SiteSpect has been a great business partner - the level of customer support that I got was outstanding over the time that I used the product.

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

When we have any questions on how the tool can be utilized for some unique requirements, they always make excellent suggestions.

Just need to have your requirements ready such as, what you are expecting from the tool, is there anything specific you want regarding reporting, tracking etc.

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

We haven't seen any platform deliver the flicker-free performance of SiteSpect. While most platforms have improved their business user facing tools since we originally selected SiteSpect, we've never had any doubt about it's advanced capabilities. Any test we can imagine can be run through SiteSpect, and they have provided the support we required when we didn't have the expertise in-house to realize our vision. At this stage, I feel that SiteSpect's user interface lags behind the competition, but it's feature set can't be argued with.

Incentivized

• Doing good experiments/Optimize has helped to take out the guesswork of the things we want to implement.
• We have done fairly complex changes such as changing navigation and managed to see improvements outcomes immediately before we have to request developer.
• Our teams have become more data centric in how they approach changes.

Incentivized

• Our clients see large revenue increases
• Insight and better customer service
• Budgetary spending analysis. E.g Do we really need lifestyle photography? etc.