The one constant in the tech space? Change. Rapid, unyielding, unanticipated change. Whether it’s changing algorithms, executive announcements, audience preferences, or new technology – digital leaders are never bored and never caught up.

Today’s culprit? Enter - Google.  

Google recently announced that Google Optimize, Optimize 360, and its integrations will no longer be available after September 30.

“Customers can continue to run their Google Optimize experiments and personalizations until that sunset date, but it’s time to start shopping for an alternative,” explains Joe Mallek, Chief Strategy Officer at Whereoware. “If you wait until September, you’ve waited too long - today’s marketing landscape just moves too fast. You need a solid, reliable experimentation practice to maintain a competitive edge.”

To help you understand next steps, we’re diving into:

• Why is Google Optimize Sunsetting?
• What Should Google Optimize Users Do Next?  
• Why We Recommend Optimizely Web Experimentation if You’re Serious About Testing and Optimization

TL;DR: Google Optimize is sunsetting this September. We recommend combining Optimizely Web Experimentation and a strategic partner, like Whereoware, to continue advancing your culture of experimentation. Optimizely Web Experimentation is recommended by Google, works on any website platform (even if your website isn’t built on Optimizely), and has a wider set of powerful A/B testing and experimentation capabilities across websites, code, mobile apps, channels – everywhere with an Internet connection. Contact us to talk through how we can get you set up and don’t miss out on Optimizely’s one-time-only platform + migration services discount for Google Optimize users.

Why is Google Optimize Sunsetting?

Google Optimize and Optimize 360 were successful gateways to start building an experimentation practice.  

The toolset offered a basic set of A/B testing capabilities but cannot keep up with the changing and more advanced needs of marketing teams.  

Plus, Google is heavily invested in moving users to Google Analytics 4 (and facing considerable backlash), prior to Universal Analytics’ upcoming sunset. In their words:  

“We remain committed to enabling businesses of all sizes to improve your user experiences and are investing in A/B testing in Google Analytics 4.”

Google promises a better user experience for experimentation, with integrated AB testing data accessible in GA4.

(Need a refresher? Get up to date on why you need to set up GA4 NOW with our Google Analytics 4 guide.)  

What Should Google Optimize Users Do Next?

Finished grieving the loss of your beloved experimentation tool? It’s time for a plan.  

Step 1  –  What does this mean for your Google Optimize contract?  

Review your current contract to understand the financial implications and next steps.  

Google outlines impact at a high level here.  

Step 2 – What do you want in your next experimentation tool?

Evaluate your culture of experimentation and future needs. What is your wishlist for your next tool?  

Review use cases, stakeholder involvement, testing success, testing wishlist, and more to choose the right solution to advance your experimentation practice.  

Start by asking:  

• How does experimentation tie to overall business goals?  
• Where has experimentation been most successful at creating business impact?  
• What teams embraced experimentation?
• Where was adoption lagging?  
• How many team members will use the tool?  
• What features or use cases were most popular?
• What could Google Optimize NOT do that you wish it could?  
• What integrations did you have or might you want?  
• What did you find challenging or cumbersome?  

This list is far from exhaustive, but these answers will build an initial must-have list to evaluate alternative platforms.  

Step 3 – Choose an Alternative Experimentation Tool and Strategic Partner

With your wishlist in-hand, think through your budget, resources, and desired timeframes to launch a new tool.  

Build in time to find a strategic implementation partner, research and demo alternatives, evaluate a shortlist, get stakeholder buy-in, set up and integrate the tool, and train your team on the new platform.  

The right partner, like Whereoware, will evaluate and align the platform wishlist against your holistic, near- and long-term goals to help you choose the right tool and maximize its capabilities (so you’re not paying for a Porsche, but using the functionality of a bicycle).  

Whereoware and other agency partners can help you with all aspects of this migration – from

• Selecting the right platform
• Migrating historical data
• Integrating the tool across your MarTech stack
• Launching experiments
• Optimizing testing strategies to continuously gain greater insights.  
• Applying test learnings through strategic optimizations across your website and marketing channels  

Ultimately, we can help you accelerate a culture of experimentation and optimization without disruption.

Ready to choose a platform? To speed up your research, we recommend Optimizely Web Experimentation as the best replacement for Google Optimize.  

Why We Recommend Optimizely Web Experimentation to Replace Google Optimize

“If you’re serious about Experimentation, it’s crucial to choose the right tool to maximize the efficacy - and thereby value and revenue - of a mission-critical web presence.” Said Joe Mallek, “As the category leader, Optimizely Web Experimentation builds upon the Google Optimize offering with more powerful capabilities for personalization and performance improvement.”

Built on Google Cloud, Optimizely Web Experimentation let’s you seamlessly run all of the experiments you’re currently running and more – from personalized experiences, targeted messages, multivariate tests, and recommendations. As the category creator, Optimizely launched their third-party digital testing platform in 2010 and has more than a decade of experience leading and innovating in this space.  ‍

As an Optimizely Platinum Partner, we’re sharing our favorite Web Experimentation capabilities and how they track against Google Optimize.  

*Note, Optimizely Web Experimentation offers different tiers – we’re highlighting the most robust tier for simplicity’s sake. See a full comparison table to Google Optimize below.  

10 Reasons to Use Optimizely Web Experimentation

1. Works with Your CMS

Run Optimizely Web Experimentation on your current website platform (Adobe, Sitecore, Magento, etc.) – building your website on Optimizely is not required. Simply add a snippet of code to the pages you’re testing or tracking goals.

2. Visual Editor

Empower your team to collaborate with an easy-to-use visual editor without using developer time to get things up and running. Like Google Optimize, your website will load within the visual editor, so you can easily see the changes you’re testing on the page.  

3. Fastest Experimentation Platform

Experiment load times under 50 milliseconds, so you can run more experiments in more places, without impacting page performance or worst, frustrating your users.  

4. Built for the Enterprise

Run multiple experiments concurrently – on the same page – across your robust enterprise without slowing performance or effectiveness with the industry-first exclusion groups feature. Plus, send preview tests to stakeholders and team members to improve collaboration and streamline QA.  

5. Deep Integrations Across Your MarTech Stack

Seamlessly integrates with all your Google products and across your MarTech stack, enabling you to leverage cross-channel data (like Salesforce, for example) to build tests based on your real user base.

6. Statistically Sound

Easy to use Stats Engine with enterprise-grade reporting, error-proof sequential stats.

7. CDN A/B Testing

Maintain speed with an easy, no-flicker snippet, using CDN testing or even in-code, so you can experiment without sacrificing performance.

8. Program Management + Reporting

Help your team increase experiment velocity by up to 5x with new tools for ideation, collaboration, and program reporting. Plus, measure primary and secondary metrics to measure the full customer journey – for example, from click, cart, to revenue (including offline events, like subscription tracking).  

9. Feature Experimentation package

Validate new features and deploy high-quality releases — safely and quickly.

• SDKs in 10 programming languages
• Advanced audience (AI) targeting
• Cached data files keep your app fast
• Robust community and docs

10. Recommendations Package

One comprehensive solution for targeting, testing, and recommendations to create the ultimate system of differentiation. Get prescriptive guidance in real-time, so you know what content will convert and drive revenue.

• Replace manual content audits, and instead, power audits with AI and NLP dashboards
• Know how to stay relevant by understanding which topics are driving the most conversions and revenue
• Prove a clear ROI

Comparison Chart - Google Optimize vs Optimizely Web Experimentation

‍The Clock is Ticking – We Can Help You Get Started

Whether you’re an advanced Google Optimize user with a robust experimentation program or you’re just starting out, Whereoware can help you create a programmatic experimentation plan and strategy to learn more about your customers and drive more profitable interactions.  

We can help you choose the right experimentation platform, set up your experiments, and migrate your historical data out of Google Optimize, so you don’t miss a thing.  

Finally, if you’re interested in learning more about Optimizely Web Experimentation – and taking advantage of their current discount – we can help you make a confident decision.