All human’s Digital Performance team has used many A/B testing tools over the years to run experimentation programmes with a wide variety of clients. 

Moving to a new platform can be daunting. This blog looks at some of the options available today and will help you evaluate what best suits your needs as you move away from Google Optimize.

One of the market leaders, VWO is a very powerful platform offering:

• A/B, split & multivariate testing, 
• personalisation, 
• behaviour analytics,
• heatmaps, 
• session recordings,
• funnel visualisation, 
• surveys,
• customer data platform.

It can be used for web, server-side and mobile app experimentation and can roll out successful experiments while you wait for development to implement the changes. In other words, you don’t lose out on the impact in the interim.

I like that it comes with a handy Chrome extension which allows individuals to give ideas or observations for the experiment backlog. You can compare user behaviour from different traffic sources or segments to gain deeper insights and generate experiment ideas.

It also offers custom segmentation which is more powerful than the free version of Google Optimize. There are also plenty of pre-made out-of-the-box widgets and templates ready to use, and unlike Google Optimize, the experiments are flicker-free. It is General Data Protection Regulation(GDPR), California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Payment Card Industry(PCI) and British Standards Institution (BSI) compliant.

Price range: €€€

VWO appears to be one of the more expensive A/B testing tools. However, you can see why with the breadth of features available. It’s also possible to tailor which parts of the application you choose - so you only pay for what is important to your needs. The price is based on monthly tracked users, which means the smaller your site and testing cycle, the lower the cost. Check out their pricing page to calculate costs based on your business needs.

Final verdict

One of the official partners of Google, they are the fastest experimentation platform in the CRO industry (four times faster than the top two competitors). They are an excellent solution for a large-scale experimentation programme. It is robust and includes many features that may mean you can merge several existing research and CRO tools under one roof.

Another great A/B testing platform is A/B tasty, with unlimited experiments allowed. It offers good functionality with the ability to 

• A/B, split & multivariate testing, 
• client-side experiments,
• personalisation,
• pausing & scheduling of experiments, 
• run tests at specific times of day,
• experiment across devices, from desktop to mobile app to connected devices,
• out of the box widgets and templates ready to use.

You can also set winning variations live without cookie consent, creating a stop-gap solution to ensure you get the most impact while features are in development. And you can target particular audiences using personas, including those exposed to a previous experiment or based on an earlier action.

Recently they introduced a new plan targeted at people migrating from Google Optimize. However, it doesn’t include personalisation. 

Again as with VWO, the experiments are flicker-free. It is GDPR compliant with data stored in the EU and is an official partner of Google, and it’s already fully integrated with GA4. 

Price range: €€

A/B tasty has introduced a new pricing structure since the announcement of Google Optimize sunsetting. This allows smaller businesses to switch to a paid tool at a price level that may be easier to justify to the company than others. I recommend getting a demo of the software and a custom quote to see how it best fits your needs.

Final verdict

A/B tasty is an excellent solution for even a small experimentation programme. It doesn’t have all of the broader functionality (such as CDP, heatmaps or surveys) of larger tools, but its A/B testing capabilities are 100% comparable. The interface is very user-friendly and would suit even those without developer capabilities. 

Convert is on the ball and has already introduced some new community plans to help businesses transition from the free Google Optimize to a new A/B testing tool. 

It has all of the features of other A/B testing platforms with a simple interface and includes the following:

• A/B, split & multivariate testing, 
• audience targeting with 40+ filters,
• unlimited experiments (may be limits on the number of active goals per project, so that may cause an upper limit on the number of experiments you can have live concurrently based on your plan) 
• fast and flicker-free
• fast expert support (not applicable on community plans).

Price range: €

If you're currently on the free version of Google Optimize, Convert Community packages are a good starting point if you can't justify high costs to the business or are at a very early stage in your experimentation programme. 

It's also the perfect fit for larger established experimentation teams offering all of the features of other platforms at a keener prive point. They offer different packages based on the number of tested users per month/year. Convert offers a free 15-day trial, so why not try out to see if the platfomr fits your needs? Chock out their prices and see for yourself what is on offer. 

Final verdict

Another good option. There are some limits to the functionality and support as I mentioned on the community packages but it’s fast and flicker-free, GDPR complaint and over 100 integrations with tools are included in the price.

Kameleoon is an extremely powerful enterprise platform with critical features such as A/B testing, server-side testing and AI-powered personalisation. 

It offers

• Unlimited experiments
• Widgets and templates to quickly build better user experience on any device without a developer
• Automatic bot detection and filtering
• Control releases across all devices simultaneously.

It plugs directly into GIT so you can synchronise code in their Chrome extension, saving time copying/pasting code. It’s HIPAA, CCPA, and GDPR compliant. Plus, they make it easy to create and target intelligent segments using AI or custom data layers for segmentation.

Price range: €€€ 

The pricing is definitely in the higher range, similar to VWO, aimed at more established CRO teams that have buy-in from the business. Their pricing is based on monthly site users. Again, it's best to book a demo and see if it's the platform for you.

Final verdict

Kameleoon is another excellent tool for a more established experimentation team with the resources to invest in something robust. Its A/B testing capabilities match the top-tier platforms and boast of being the only optimisation platform to offer hybrid experimentation.

These platforms only touch the surface of possible tools to choose from for A/B testing, which can be overwhelming. When you are investigating your options, try to break them down by the following factors:

• What features can you not live without? Each experimentation team and programme can be pretty individual, so it’s important to know what functionality you need before embarking on this journey.
• Who will be setting up experiments? Do you need a WYSIWYG editor, or will a developer need more expert-level functionality?
• What integrations do you need? Which platforms must be integrated without extra costs, such as analytics, user research, and content management system?
• How much traffic does your site have? Most pricing plans are based on the number of visitors to your site or visitors to the experiments, so this will play a massive part in your decision making.
• What is your budget? This will immediately help with deciding which potential platforms fit within your business needs.

Once you have the answers to these questions, go ahead and book a demo or start with a trial to make your final decision.

Regardless of the tool you are using, the main point is to remember why you are running these experiments. It’s all to increase conversions and drive revenue.

That’s what our dedicated Digital Performance team lives and breathes. We run a unique conversion rate optimisation (CRO) programme focused on driving business growth by using insights from our experiments to improve the customer experience.