What is Google Optimise and why you should be using it?

You may not have heard of Google Optimize yet. You may not even be familiar with what Landing Page Optimisation is. But, I’m guessing you understand why testing all your marketing activities is important…whether that is the ad copies on your Google Ads campaigns, your SEO keywords and perhaps above all else, the pages where you direct your marketing traffic to.

This is where Google Optimize (GO) comes in.

Similar to the first generation of tools such as VWO and Optimizely, Google Optimize is brought to you by Google to make the task of A/B testing your landing pages easier and in typical Google fashion, it brings you a range of enterprise-level software for free.

And, this really is the biggest selling point of GO.

Most of us are already using Google Analytics which means getting started with your A/B testing is not only super easy, you will get access to far more metrics and KPIs to measure, test and evaluate than you would with a 3rd party solution such as VWO.

This deep integration also enables the storage of most of your testing data in GO of course but also Google Analytics which is a huge time-saver if you’re running tests frequently.

The other benefit is the shorter learning curve in learning how to use GO compared to other tools.

If you’ve never setup an A/B landing page test you’re not alone. Although, majority of most small business budgets is spent towards traffic acquisition as opposed to conversion, landing page optimisation is extremely important as the cost of implementing any digital marketing strategy whether that is SEO or PPC or Social rises every year as competition heats up and after a certain point, maximising your website’s conversion rate is where you will get the additional rewards.

VWO and Optimizely are the 2 other biggest landing page testing tools and whilst  none of them are particularly difficult to work with, they aren’t as effortless as working with GO.

What’s more, if you’re familiar with the dashboard of other Google products such as Google Analytics or Google Ads, you’re likely to find GO rather easy to use.

Here’s a quote from Krista Seiden, Google, who looks after GO

“Your test stats are available in the Reporting tab within the Optimize UI. They are also available in Google Analytics in a number of ways: Every hit from Optimize is sent to GA with an Experiment Name, Experiment ID, and Variant number automatically attached. This means that you can get much more creative with how you analyze your test data outside of the Optimize UI. You can:

 

• Segment and add secondary dimensions to a report with Variant #, Exp ID, and Exp name

 

• Create audiences and segments based on previous test behavior, and even target to future test experiments based on being a part of a prior test” (via Digital Debrief)

 

Finally, GO offers quite a few options on what sort of test you want to set up and whilst that can be a bit overwhelming at first, esp. If you’re new to the world of A/B testing, getting the hang of it won’t take too long.

Here are some examples of tests you can carry out in Google Optimize:

 

 

A/B

 

– The most basic type of test where you compare one element against another. You could test one landing page vs another or a headline or a call-to-action…the list is endless.

 

 

Redirect tests

 

– Similar to a A/B test excepting that you’re testing the 2 elements separately. For example, before launching your new website, you could test it with real users showing only one version to one set of users and another to a different set.

 

 

Multivariate tests

 

– Think A/B/C/D… You can test multiple variants of multiple elements at the same time. In other words you can combine testing landing page with the headline on one version with the call-to-action on another and so on….

And there you have it.

We hope this serves as an easy to use starting point if you want to try out Google Optimize.

We highly recommend it not only because it’s fairly simple to use once you get used to it but as importantly, because split testing is a great way to improve your conversion rates and your ROI from your marketing efforts.

Of course, if you ever need help with setting up Google Optimize or split tests for you, give us a call and we’ll be happy to help.