Google Optimize is a popular conversion rate optimization (CRO) tool from Alphabet (parent company of Google). With it, you can run A/B, multivariate, and redirect tests to figure out which web page designs perform best.
Google Optimize seamlessly integrates with Google Analytics (GA). It also has a free tier. So many marketers chose it as their default A/B testing tool…until recently.
Google will sunset Google Optimize by 30 September 2023.
Starting from this date, Google will no longer support Optimize and Optimize 360 (premium edition). All experiments, active after this date, will be paused automatically and you’ll no longer have access to your historical records (unless these are exported in advance).
The better news is that you still have time to find a Google Optimize alternative — and this post will help you with that.
Disclaimer: Please note that the information provided in this blog post is for general informational purposes only and is not intended to provide legal advice. Every situation is unique and requires a specific legal analysis. If you have any questions regarding the legal implications of any matter, please consult with your legal team or seek advice from a qualified legal professional.
Best Google Optimize Alternatives
Google Optimize was among the first free A/B testing apps. But as with any product, it has some disadvantages.
Data updates happen every 24 hours, not in real-time. A free account has caps on the number of experiments. You cannot run more than 5 experiments at a time or implement over 16 combinations for multivariate testing (MVT). A premium version (Optimize 365) has fewer usage constraints, but it costs north of $150K per year.
Google Optimize has native integration with GA (of course), so you can review all the CRO data without switching apps. But Optimize doesn’t work well with Google Analytics alternatives, which many choose to use for privacy-friendly user tracking, higher data accuracy and GDPR compliance.
At the same time, many other conversion rate optimization (CRO) tools have emerged, often boasting better accuracy and more competitive features than Google Optimize.
Here are 5 alternative A/B testing apps worth considering.
Adobe Target
Adobe Target is an advanced personalization platform for optimising user and marketing experiences on digital properties. It uses machine learning algorithms to deliver dynamic content, personalised promotions and custom browsing experiences to visitors based on their behaviour and demographic data.
Adobe Target also provides A/B testing and multivariate testing (MVT) capabilities to help marketers test and refine their digital experiences.
Key features:
- Visual experience builder for A/B tests setup and replication
- Full factorial multivariate tests and multi-armed bandit testing
- Omnichannel personalisation across web properties
- Multiple audience segmentation and targeting options
- Personalised content, media and product recommendations
- Advanced customer intelligence (in conjunction with other Adobe products)
Pros
- Convenient A/B test design tool
- Acucate MVT and MAB results
- Powerful segmentation capabilities
- Access to extra behavioural analytics
- One-click personalisation activation
- Supports rules-based, location-based and contextual personalisation
- Robust omnichannel analytics in conjunction with other Adobe products
Cons
- Requires an Adobe Marketing Cloud subscription
- No free trial or freemium tier
- More complex product setup and configuration
- Steep learning curve for new users
Price: On-demand.
Adobe Target is sold as part of Adobe Marketing Cloud. Licence costs vary, based on selected subscriptions and the number of users, but are typically above $10K.
Google Optimize vs Adobe Target: The Verdict
Google Optimize comes with a free tier, unlike Adobe Target. It provides you with a basic builder for A/B and MVT tests, but none of the personalisation tools Adobe has. Because of ease-of-use and low price, other Google Optimize alternatives are better suited for small to medium-sized businesses, doing baseline CRO for funnel optimisation.
Adobe Target pulls you into the vast Adobe marketing ecosystem, offering omnipotent customer behaviour analytics, machine-learning-driven website optimisation, dynamic content recommendations, product personalisation and extensive reporting. The app is better suited for larger enterprises with a significant investment in digital marketing.
Matomo A/B Testing
Matomo A/B Testing is a CRO tool, integrated into Matomo. All Matomo Cloud users get instant access to it, while On-Premise (free) Matomo users can purchase A/B testing as a plugin.
With Matomo A/B Testing, you can create multiple variations of a web or mobile page and test them with different segments of their audience. Matomo also doesn’t have any strict experiment caps, unlike Google Optimize.
You can split-test multiple creative variants for on-site assets such as buttons, slogans, titles, call-to-actions, image positions and more. You can even benchmark the performance of two (or more!) completely different homepage designs, for instance.
With us, you can compliantly and ethically collect historical user data about any visitor, who’s entered any of the active tests — and monitor their entire customer journey. You can also leverage Matomo A/B Testing data as part of multi-touch attribution modelling to determine which channels bring the best leads and which assets drive them towards conversion.
Since Matomo A/B Testing is part of our analytics platform, it works well with other features such as goal tracking, heatmaps, user session recordings and more.
Key features
- Run experiments for web, mobile, email and digital campaigns
- Convenient A/B test design interface
- One-click experiment scheduling
- Integration with historic visitor profiles
- Near real-time conversion tracking
- Apply segmentation to Matomo reports
- Easy creative variation sharing via a URL
Pros
- High data accuracy with no reporting gaps
- Monitor the evolution of your success metrics for each variation
- Embed experiments across multiple digital channels
- Set a custom confidence threshold for winning variations
- No compromises on user privacy
- Free 21-day trial available (for Matomo Cloud) and free 30-day plugin trial (for Matomo On-Premise)
Cons
- No on-site personalisation tools available
- Configuration requires some coding experience
Price: Matomo A/B Testing is included in the monthly Cloud plan (starting at €19 per month). On-Premise users can buy this functionality as a plugin (starting at €199/year).
Google Optimize vs Matomo A/B Testing: The Verdict
Matomo offers the same types of A/B testing features as Google Optimize (and some extras!), but without any usage caps. Unlike Matomo, Google Optimize doesn’t support A/B tests for mobile apps. You can access some content testing features for Android Apps via Firebase, but this requires another subscription.
Matomo lets you run A/B experiments across the web and mobile properties, plus desktop apps, email campaigns and digital ads. Also, Matomo has higher conversion data accuracy, thanks to our privacy-focused method for collecting website analytics.
When using Matomo in most EU markets, you’re legally exempt from showing a cookie consent banner. Meaning you can collect richer insights for each experiment and make data-driven decisions. Nearly 40% of global consumers reject cookie consent banners. With most other tools, you won’t be getting the full picture of your traffic.
Optimizely
Optimizely is a conversion optimization platform that offers several competitive products for a separate subscription. These include a flexible content management system (CMS), a content marketing platform, a web A/B testing app, a mobile featuring testing product and two eCommerce-specific website management products.
The Web Experimentation app allows you to optimise every customer touchpoint by scheduling unlimited split or multi-variant tests and conversions across all your projects from the same app. Apart from websites, this subscription also supports experiments for single-page applications. But if you want more advanced mobile app testing features, you’ll have to purchase another product — Feature Experimentation.
Key features:
- Intuitive experiment design tool
- Cross-browser testing and experiment preview
- Multi-page funnel tests design
- Behavioural and geo-targeting
- Exit/bounce rate tracking
- Custom audience builder for experiments
- Comprehensive reporting
Pros
- Unlimited number of concurrent experiments
- Upload your audience data for test optimisation
- Dynamic content personalisation available on a higher tier
- Pre-made integrations with popular heatmap and analytics tools
- Supports segmentation by device, campaign type, traffic sources or referrer
Cons
- You need a separate subscription for mobile CRO
- Free trial not available, pricing on-demand
- Multiple licences and subscriptions may be required
- Doesn’t support A/B tests for emails
Price: Available on-demand.
Web Experimentation tool has three subscription tiers — Grow, Accelerate, and Scale with different features included.
Google Optimize vs Optimizely: The Verdict
Optimizely is a strong contender for Google Optimize alternative as it offers more advanced audience targeting and segmentation options. You can target users by IP address, cookies, traffic sources, device type, browser, language, location or a custom utm_campaign parameter.
Similar to Matomo A/B testing, Optimizely doesn’t limit the number of projects or concurrent experiments you can do. But you have to immediately sign an annual contract (no monthly plans are available). Pricing also varies based on the number of processed impressions (more experiments = a higher annual bill). An annual licence can cost $63,700 for 10 million impressions on average, according to an independent estimate.
Visual Website Optimizer (VWO)
VWO is another popular experimentation platform, supporting web, mobile and server-side A/B testing and personalisation campaigns.
Similar to others, VWO offers a drag-and-drop visual editor for creating campaign variants. You don’t need design or coding knowledge to create tests. Once you’re all set, the app will benchmark your experiment performance against expected conversion rates, report on differences in conversion rate and point towards the best-performing creative.
Similar to Optimizely, VWO also offers web/mobile app optimisation as a separate subscription. Apart from testing visual page elements, you can also run in-app experiments throughout the product stack to locate new revenue opportunities. For example, you can test in-app subscription flows, search algorithms or navigation flows to improve product UX.
Key features:
- Multivariate and multi-arm bandit tests
- Multi-step (funnel) split tests
- Collaborative experiment tracking dashboard
- Target users by different attributes (URL, device, geo-data)
- Personal library of creative elements
- Funnel analytics, session records, and heatmaps available
Pros
- Free starter plan is available (similar to Google Optimize)
- Simple tracking code installation and easy code editor
- Offers online reporting dashboards and report downloads
- Slice-and-dice reports by different audience dimensions
- No impact on website/app loading speed and performance
Cons
- Multivariate testing is only available on a higher-tier plan
- Annual contract required, despite monthly billing
- Mobile app A/B split tests require another licence
- Requires ongoing user training
Price: Free limited plan available.
Then from $356/month, billed annually.
Google Optimize vs VWO: The Verdict
The free plan on VWO is very similar to Google Optimize. You get access to A/B testing and split URL testing features for websites only. The visual editing tool is relatively simple — and you can use URL or device targeting.
Free VWO reports, however, lack the advertised depth in terms of behavioural or funnel-based reporting. In-depth insights are available only to premium users. Extra advertised features like heatmaps, form analytics and session recordings require yet another subscription. With Matomo Cloud, you get all three of these together with A/B testing.
ConvertFlow
ConvertFlow markets itself as a funnel optimisation app for eCommerce and SaaS companies. It meshes lead generation tools with some CRO workflows.
With ConvertFlow, you can effortlessly design opt-in forms, pop-ups, quizzes and even entire landing pages using pre-made web elements and a visual builder. Afterwards, you can put all of these assets to a “field test” via the ConvertFlow CRO platform. Select among pre-made templates or create custom variants for split or multivariate testing. You can customise tests based on URLs, cookie data and user geolocation among other factors.
Similar to Adobe Target, ConvertFlow also allows you to run tests targeted at specific customer segments in your CRM. The app has native integrations with HubSpot and Salesforce, so this feature is easy to enable. ConvertFlow also offers advanced targeting and segmentation options, based on user on-site behaviour, demographics data or known interests.
Key features:
- Create and test landing pages, surveys, quizzes, pop-ups, surveys and other lead-gen assets.
- All-in-one funnel builder for creating demand-generation campaigns
- Campaign personalisation, based on on-site activity
- Re-usable dynamic visitor segments for targeting
- Multi-step funnel design and customisation
- Embedded forms for split testing CTAs on existing pages
Pros
- Allows controlling the traffic split for each variant to get objective results
- Pre-made integration with Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager
- Conversion and funnel reports, available for each variant
- Access to a library with 300+ conversion campaign templates
- Apply progressive visitor profiling to dynamically adjust user experiences
Cons
- Each plan covers only $10K views. Each extra 10k costs another $20/mo
- Only one website allowed per account (except for Teams plan)
- Doesn’t support experiments in mobile app
- Not all CRO features are available on a Pro plan.
Price: Access to CRO features costs from $300/month on a Pro plan. Subscription costs also increase, based on the total number of monthly views.
Google Optimize vs CovertFlow: The Verdict
ConvertFlow is equally convenient to use in conjunction with Google Analytics as Google Optimize is. But the similarities end up here since ConvertFlow combines funnel design features with CRO tools.
With ConvertFlow, you can run more advanced experiments and apply more targeting criteria than with Google Optimize. You can observe user behaviour and conversion rates across multi-step CTA forms and page funnels, plus benefit from first-touch attribution reporting without switching apps.
Though CovertFlow has a free plan, it doesn’t include access to CRO features. Meaning it’s not a free alternative to Google Optimize.
Comparison of the Top 5 Google Optimize Alternatives
| Feature | Google Optimize | Adobe Target | Matomo A/B test | Optimizely | VWO | ConvertFlow |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Supported channels | Web | Web, mobile, social media, email | Web, mobile, email, digital campaigns | Websites & mobile apps | Websites, web and mobile apps | Websites and mobile apps |
| A/B testing |  | | | | | |
| Easy GA integration | |  | | | | |
| Integrations with other web analytics apps | | | | | | |
| Audience segmentation | Basic | Advanced | Advanced | Advanced | Advanced | Advanced |
| Geo-targeting | | | | | | |
| Behavioural targeting | Basic | Advanced | Advanced | Advanced | Advanced | Advanced |
| Heatmaps | | | No extra cost with Matomo Cloud | 〰️ *via integrations | 〰️ *requires another subscription | |
| Session recordings | | | No extra cost with Matomo Cloud | | 〰️ *requires another subscription | |
| Multivariate testing (MVT) | | | | | | |
| Dynamic personalisation | | | | | 〰️ *only on higher account tiers | 〰️ *only on the highest account tiers |
| Product recommendations | | | | 〰️ *requires another subscription | 〰️ *requires another subscription | |
| Support | Self-help desk on a free tier | Email, live-chat, phone support | Email, self-help guides and user forum | Knowledge base, online tickets, user community | Self-help guides, email, phone | Knowledge base, email, and live chat support |
| Price | Freemium | On-demand | From €19 for Cloud subscription From €199/year as plugin for On-Premise | On-demand | Freemium From $365/mo | From $300/month |
Conclusion
Google Optimize has served marketers well for over five years. But as the company decided to move on — so should you.
Oher A/B testing tools like Matomo, Optimizely or VWO offer better funnel analytics and split testing capabilities without any usage caps. Also, tools like Adobe Target, Optimizely, and VWO offer advanced content personalisation, based on aggregate analytics. However, they also come with much higher subscription costs.
Matomo is a robust, compliant and cost-effective alternative to Google Optimize. Our tool allows you to schedule campaigns across all digital mediums (and even desktop apps!) without any compromises on user privacy. Also, you can receive even more comprehensive analytics by using other CRO features like heatmaps, user session recording, and multi-touch attribution, which are included in your Cloud subscription.
Start your free 21-day trial now to test-drive Matomo A/B Testing features. No credit card required.
