In today’s digital landscape, data-driven choices are essential for staying competitive, with experimentation as a critical driver of innovation. To support this, we recently hosted a webinar with experts from Google Cloud and AdSwerve, focusing on how Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and BigQuery can enhance experimentation strategies. GA4 is essential for all marketing teams, providing advanced analytics that, when combined with BigQuery’s data consolidation capabilities, enables more effective testing, personalization, and digital optimization.
Meet the panel
Taige Eoff, Cloud Data AI Lead at Google, has been at Google for twelve years, leading data and AI initiatives for cloud marketing. Taige focuses on developing scalable solutions that support partners like AB Tasty and AdSwerve in optimizing digital experiences.
Alex Smolin, Senior Optimization Manager at AdSwerve, brings extensive experience in media, data, and technology. As a certified Google Premium Partner, AdSwerve provides data-driven brands with solutions ranging from A/B testing to advanced analytics.
Mary Kate, our roundtable host and Head of Growth Marketing for North America at AB Tasty, leads efforts to help companies create impactful digital experiences through AB Tasty’s suite of experimentation, personalization, product recommendations, and site search tools.
AB Tasty’s integration with GA4 & BigQuery
Connecting AB Tasty with GA4 gives marketing teams insights into visitor behavior through advanced analytics on CPA, conversion rate, bounce rate, SEO, and traffic. This integration allows teams to use data from either tool to measure the impact of experiments pre- and post-rollout, generating data-backed hypotheses and fostering innovation.
Google BigQuery, a fully managed cloud data warehouse solution, offers rapid data storage and analysis at scale. With its serverless, cost-effective structure, BigQuery allows businesses to analyze large datasets efficiently, making it easier to make well-informed decisions.
With Google BigQuery, users can effortlessly execute complex analytical SQL queries and leverage built-in machine-learning capabilities.
Why is data from GA4 foundational to any CRO program?
In experimentation, data is the catalyst that drives actionable insights. Data flows in from multiple sources, and businesses generate detailed reports by working with partners to integrate tracking and tagging. But the question then becomes: what comes next? That’s where experimentation enters. Using data from tools like GA4, teams can transform hypotheses into tests, uncovering which changes impact user engagement or conversions most effectively.
GA4’s role extends further by providing a consistent framework for testing across platforms. When integrated with BigQuery, GA4 allows teams to cross-reference test outcomes with other data points, revealing not just what worked but why it worked. As Alex noted, “We gather good data, run good tests, and then verify results across disparate sources like BigQuery to see if what we tested had the expected downstream impact.”
Data accessibility and agility are also important. Trends evolve quickly, with viral content or market shifts requiring rapid adaptability. “Having partners like Google, with all data in one place, and a platform like AB Tasty, where experiments can be quickly set up, is essential for staying competitive” Alex emphasized.
“Having partners like Google, with all data in one place, and a platform like AB Tasty, where experiments can be quickly set up, is essential for staying competitive.”
Alex Smolin, Senior Manager Optimization at Adswerve
How BigQuery powers scalable experimentation
With the growing volume of data, businesses need a way to consolidate and interpret it to drive impactful decisions. BigQuery, as Taige explained, is a robust cloud warehouse that streamlines data for meaningful insights, making it a key player in the experimentation ecosystem.
“Think of BigQuery as a filing cabinet for your organized data,” Taige noted. By consolidating disparate data sources, teams can create a unified view that informs testing and optimization efforts. Through this approach, tools like GA4 and BigQuery enable accurate decision-making that scales with the business. With BigQuery as the backbone, AB Tasty and AdSwerve can build on this structure to optimize user experiences through precise experimentation.
Beyond just data storage, BigQuery integrates with various Google Cloud tools and supports a wide range of use cases—from standard reporting to advanced machine learning. For marketers, this means fewer technical bottlenecks and quicker access to the data needed to stay agile. As Taige explained, “You may not need deep technical skills to access BigQuery’s benefits; the right partnerships and data structure can give you a powerful, accessible foundation.”
Leveraging BigQuery’s built-in AI and machine learning models
BigQuery offers an array of AI models for specific use cases—from translation and personalization to customer segmentation. These models add value by automating processes, such as localization or customer behavior prediction, allowing for smoother, more targeted marketing.
BigQuery’s flexibility means that companies can incorporate custom or third-party models, ensuring compatibility with a variety of AI solutions. This adaptability helps organizations innovate and iterate on experimentation programs, expanding what they can achieve with data.
Simplifying data access for marketing efficiency
For marketing teams, BigQuery’s role as a centralized data hub allows seamless data consolidation from platforms like Google Ads, Salesforce, and GA4. This integration ensures that marketers aren’t slowed down by fragmented data sources, freeing them to focus on insights and execution. As Taige highlighted, “The peace of mind that BigQuery provides comes from knowing that all data is consolidated and accessible, allowing teams to be nimble and creative.”
With BigQuery, marketers can view performance metrics, analyze customer journeys, and refine strategies—all within a unified environment. This lets teams optimize campaigns in real time as new data insights emerge.
Next-Generation capabilities enabled by Google Cloud
Looking ahead, digital is paving the way for more advanced experimentation capabilities. The conversation shifts to AI and machine learning, bringing new opportunities for personalization and optimization. As Mary Kate pointed out, while AI-driven insights can revolutionize customer experiences, many brands are still years away from realizing the full potential of these tools.
True value will come not from adopting every new tool but from understanding the foundational data supporting AI and asking the right questions about how these technologies can serve customer needs. Taige added, “If you don’t have a data strategy, you won’t have an AI strategy.” While AI amplifies data power, it requires organized, high-quality data to work effectively.
By consolidating and centralizing data through BigQuery, teams gain real-time insights and can make informed decisions. This data foundation enables the current wave of omnichannel strategies and sets the stage for future AI applications. Businesses that adopt this holistic approach—consolidating data, optimizing channels, and preparing teams for AI—will unlock new experimentation opportunities and drive impactful customer experiences.
With GA4 and BigQuery, businesses have the tools to streamline data consolidation and power next-generation experimentation. Ready to join your data and experimentation? Discover how AB Tasty can help bring data-driven optimization to life.
When it comes to optimizing your website for better performance, experimentation is key to uncovering the areas that will make the biggest impact. Every page and interaction is an opportunity to boost conversions, streamline the user experience, and reduce friction. But with so many possibilities, where do you start testing? What are the key hotspots on your website that can deliver quick wins and meaningful improvements?
Finding the right areas to test can be tricky, but knowing where to focus is important for getting results quickly. That’s why we’ve identified five key questions to help guide your experimentation efforts:
Is the content relevant to “me” (the visitor)?
Is the next action clear?
What may be distracting?
What could cause anxiety?
What is creating urgency?
By addressing these questions, you can start identifying the areas on your website—what we call Experimentation Hotspots—that offer the most potential for improvement. In this guide, we’ll explore these important areas, from the homepage to the checkout funnel, that are ideal for testing. Whether you’re optimizing for mobile, app, or desktop, these tips will help you kickstart your experimentation journey and start making impactful changes.
1. Homepage
The homepage is where you show people who you are and what your brand means. It serves as the gateway to various sections, from product categories to special offers, and is where users often return mid-session. Your homepage often sets the tone for the rest of the user’s journey, making optimization crucial.
One effective strategy is to experiment with the placement and labels of your call-to-action (CTA) buttons. Ensuring that users can quickly locate key actions, such as signing up or starting their shopping journey, can make a significant difference in engagement. Testing different CTA labels, such as “Explore Now” versus “Shop Now,” helps determine which drives the most conversions.
Additionally, it’s essential to test the layout and how content is presented. Category links, sales promotions, and other critical pieces of content should be placed in a way that draws attention without overwhelming users. Small adjustments—like changing the placement of sales banners or highlighting popular categories—can enhance the overall user experience and increase interaction with your content.
Areas to optimize
Header
Main Navigation
Categories
Content Pushes
Layout
AB Tasty customer success in action
The beauty brand, Lush, shifted its homepage messaging by testing two variations—one focused on self-care and another on gifting care packages. The version centered on gifting led to a 250% increase in engagement, showing how even minor tweaks in messaging can significantly improve user interactions.
2. Product listing page (PLP)
The product listing page (PLP) is where users begin narrowing down their choices. This page is most effective when visitors can scan and compare products easily, helping them make decisions more efficiently. While it might seem like there’s limited space to display information, there’s a lot of room for optimization that can smooth the path to purchase.
Testing how high-quality images, clear pricing, and CTAs like “Add to Cart” are displayed can improve product visibility. Adding reviews or badges like “Best Seller” can boost credibility and urgency. Experiment with hover effects to show additional details when users hover over a product.
Experiment with the placement and functionality of filters to make product discovery easier. Test whether a sidebar, dropdown, or dynamic filtering works best for your users. Simple adjustments to category labels or sorting options, like by price or ratings, can enhance the shopping experience.
Areas to optimize
Product Card Information (e.g., imagery, price, CTA)
Reviews and Badges
Hover States
Filters and Sorting Options
Headers/Banners
AB Tasty customer success in action
Clarins UK reintroduced the wishlist functionality to their PLP and PDP. This allowed users to save their favorite products for later, which led to a 1.54% increase in basket page views. It also increased the number of transactions by 1.83%, showing the value of small user experience enhancements.
It’s also important to consider the differences between mobile and desktop experiences when testing. A solution that works well on desktop might not perform the same on mobile due to varying user behaviors. Despite a long-standing focus on mobile optimization, it’s still common to overlook these differences.
3. Product display page (PDP)
The product description page (PDP) is the centerpiece of any e-commerce experience and at the center of a customer journey. Many retailers are now asking, “How can we make the PDP feel more like a landing page?” With more customers arriving directly on PDPs from social media, rather than the homepage, the PDP often serves as the first touchpoint. This makes it even more crucial, as it’s where customers ultimately decide whether or not to make a purchase. Reducing friction and providing clear, relevant information are essential to driving conversions at this stage.
Testing how high-quality images, clear pricing, and CTAs like “Add to Cart” are displayed can improve product visibility. Adding reviews or badges like “Best Seller” can boost credibility and urgency. Experiment with hover effects to show additional details when users hover over a product.
Experiment with the placement and functionality of filters to make product discovery easier. Test whether a sidebar, dropdown, or dynamic filtering works best for your users. Simple adjustments to category labels or sorting options, like by price or ratings, can enhance the shopping experience.
Key areas to experiment with
Product Imagery and Descriptions: Ensure your images and descriptions are high-quality, answering common questions about the product (e.g., size, fit, material).
Call-to-Action Buttons: Test the wording, design, and placement of your CTAs to find what drives the most conversions.
Additional areas to optimize
Page Layout (order of information)
Product Images and Videos
Shipping & Return Messaging
Cross-Sell Items
Call to Actions
Reviews and User-Generated Content
Experience for New Visitors
Mobile vs Desktop Experience
Add-to-Cart Behavior & Mini Cart
AB Tasty customer success in action
French beauty product L’Occitane implemented a social proof widget on its PDP, showing how many people had recently viewed a product. The first variation displayed “X people are viewing this product,” while the second version said “Selling Fast.” This simple tweak created urgency and reassurance, leading to a 5.76% increase in transaction rate and a 3.36% increase in revenue per visitor.
Social proof taps into user psychology—when customers see that many others are viewing or purchasing a product, it creates a sense of urgency and reduces anxiety, helping to drive sales.
4. Checkout funnel
The checkout process is where the real magic (or frustration) happens. It’s the final step in the customer journey, and even small obstacles here can lead to abandoned carts. Simplifying the checkout funnel can make the difference between completing a sale and losing a customer at the last moment. This stage is not just about speeding up the process—it’s also about building trust and ensuring customers feel confident in their purchase.
Optimizing your checkout involves refining everything from the mini basket to the confirmation page, making the experience as seamless as possible.
Testing opportunities
Product Imagery and Descriptions: Ensure your images and descriptions are high-quality, answering common questions about the product (e.g., size, fit, material).
Call-to-Action Buttons: Test the wording, design, and placement of your CTAs to find what drives the most conversions.
Additional areas to optimize
Basket Summary
Step Progression
Login and Guest Checkout Options
Account Creation
Form Field Labels & Microcopy
Payment Methods
Coupon Field Visibility & Design
Cross-Sells & Product Recommendations
Confirmation Page
AB Tasty customer success in action
Calvin Klein ran a test where they displayed a “last viewed” carousel on the empty cart page after a user removed all items from their cart. This reminded users of previously viewed products, reducing the bounce rate by 4.19% and increasing orders by 7.5%. By preventing the cart from feeling empty and offering product recommendations, the brand successfully retained potential customers and increased conversions.
5. Personalization
Personalization is key to creating a unique and engaging experience for each visitor. In an online shopping survey, 88% of respondents rated personalized product recommendations as helpful when asked to score them on a scale of 1-5 (with 5 being very helpful and 1 not helpful). By understanding user behavior and segmenting audiences, you can deliver tailored content that enhances user satisfaction and drives higher conversions. Personalization not only improves the shopping experience, but also fosters customer loyalty, encouraging repeat purchases over time.
Start with
Behavioral Targeting: Personalize content based on how users interact with your site. For example, use data on past clicks or scrolling behavior to serve more relevant offers.
Abandoned Cart Reminders: Encourage users to complete their purchase by reminding them of items left behind.
AB Tasty customer success in action
French fashion retailer, Maje created a personalized campaign for users who abandoned their carts. When those users returned to the site, they were shown the products they had previously left behind, making it easy for them to continue shopping. This strategy resulted in an 11% increase on click rate on the pop up, with a significant portion of those users completing their purchases.
In addition, AB Tasty tools like Emotions AI can help recognize emotional triggers or online body language (e.g., scroll behavior or clicks) to tailor content even further, providing users with the most relevant experiences.
Wrapping up
From optimizing your homepage to personalizing the user experience, every aspect of your website offers an opportunity for growth. Even small tests—like changing the placement of a carousel or adjusting CTA wording—can lead to significant results.
By regularly experimenting and optimizing key hotspots on your site, you can improve user engagement, reduce friction, and ultimately increase conversions. Remember, every site is different, so test frequently and use data to inform decisions. This approach helps ensure that you’re continually refining your site for optimal success.
If you want to get all the details. – watch the webinar below.
We invited Oliver Walker from our partner Hookflash to talk us through the practical ways you can use GA4 with your experimentation.
Although many people are talking about GA4 as a different platform from the previous version (Universal Analytics), conceptually it lets you do largely the same things. Its primary functions are to help you to understand and optimize your media; to understand and optimize your website; and to understand and segment your website visitors into audiences. However, with GA4 several features can really help you to power an experimentation program.
Here we’ll outline how to use GA4 to its full potential to drive results for your testing program.
Understanding User Behavior
At its core, Google Analytics has always been great for helping website owners to understand their website traffic. Whether it’s where they started their journey or where they ended their digital journey, or whether they sought help halfway through, there are a few options to know about. What we know about GA4 already is that it’s not the most intuitive tool in the world so here are some quick tips on that front:
Landing Pages – use Explorations – although there is a default report for landing pages…it’s not the best. Not just because there’s a known bug resulting in an empty row, but also because it doesn’t have the most useful metrics, i.e. bounce rate or engagement rate. If you build a report in Explorations, you can use a different dimension (called “Landing page + query string”) and choose the dimensions you’d find useful:
Exit rate – similar to the above, you no longer get Exits (or Exit Rate) in the default Pages & Screens report. Again, rebuilding the report in Explorations gives you both the ability to add Exits as a metric, and you can choose your preferred pages dimension. The default dimension in the Pages and Screens report does not include query strings but if you’d prefer to use the one that does, choose the dimension “Page path + query string”.
Site search – and finally, where’s the Site Search report gone!? There’s no longer a default report for this but you can rebuild this in Explorations. You can understand which search terms were most often looked for, by building an Exploration with the dimension of “Search term” and the metric “Event count”.
Understanding User Flow
What Universal Analytics was not particularly good at is visualizing how people traverse through a website. The flow reports were horribly sampled and just merely teased you as to what you could have had. GA4 has on-the-fly path exploration reports that can be used and tweaked, very flexibly. You can find these within Explorations too, just choose Path Exploration and then tweak, as per the following:
Get the pages view – for some unhelpful reason, the default view is Event Name, within each step. In the visualization, click the drop-down underneath Step +1 and change Event Name to be your preferred page dimension to get a view of how users move from page to page.
Double-click the page you are interested in to see where users go next. You can also click the +15 more (or whichever number) link at the bottom of each column to get the longer tail
Choose a dimension to “breakdown” by lets you easily compare routes through the site for different users, for example mobile vs. desktop or for each of the different browsers. Likewise, you can use segments here to review a certain audience type, e.g. non-UK traffic or Purchasers.
Audience targeting & triggers
Speaking of audiences, this was always a great feature of Universal Analytics and when Google Optimize was in its pomp, the ability to share audiences from UA to Optimize was one of its prime features. With GA4 you get the same ability to build audiences and to share audiences natively with other Google Marketing Platform (GMP) plus some neat additional elements:
The ability to use user behavior to trigger new types of goals. For example, if you’re a publisher and you want to engage people to read a certain number of articles in a particular time frame, it’s possible to create an audience for this and then have that set of behavior trigger a new event. It’s called audience triggers. And this becomes a powerful new metric with which to optimize your testing campaigns, by importing that conversion into your chosen testing tool
This is generally a great leap forward as GA4 also has the concept of users being added, and removed from audience groups, whereas most testing tools don’t have this feature.
Advanced analysis using BigQuery
The final area where GA4 really steps forward beyond its predecessor is that all GA4 accounts have a native integration with Google BigQuery. Whilst the integration itself is free, it’s worth noting that you do incur costs by storing or processing data in BigQuery, although a good partner will be able to advise on what that might look like for you.
So where does BigQuery help? The data schema provided by integrating GA4 and BigQuery is raw-level data – that means each row is effectively an event, with a time stamp, and all the associated parameters. It lets you have a greater degree of flexibility over what you analyze, provided you’re able to query the data (using SQL, or your friendly AI-driven chat tool.) For example:
If you want to understand how long it takes a user to complete a particular flow or set of actions. Worth noting that Google Analytics does batch events so this isn’t perfect, but it is easier than within the interface
If you want to look at user flows at an even greater level of detail, for example, how users traverse through the site having landed at a particular page
If you want to stitch together any data that GA didn’t capture but that also exists in Google Cloud, e.g. following a lead to submission through to outcome.
If you want to conduct a deeper analysis within your post-experiment analyses. All testing platforms will pass events and parameters to denote whether a user was part of an experiment and the variation they saw, so GA4 is a powerful additional tool to deep-dive into results
It’s not all doom and gloom
Yup, GA4 does have some limitations, it’s a big change to a tool that lots of people loved and it’s hard to pick-up. BUT when you start to understand certain concepts and familiarize yourself with capabilities, there are lots of features to help you with your experimentation program.
We are thrilled to announce that AB Tasty is now an official Google Cloud Partner, the next step in the strengthening of our partnership with Google.
With this partnership, our clients and partners can now benefit from the combination of AB Tasty’s powerful digital experience tools and Google’s secure and reliable platform.
Whether you are looking to engage and activate your clients or create resilient digital products that deliver exceptional customer experiences and strong business results, AB Tasty’s suite of products is now easier than ever to access.
From experimentation to personalization, server-side testing, feature flags, search and product recommendations, our solutions are designed to help you achieve your goals and take your digital experiences further.
Google Cloud Marketplace
With AB Tasty available on the Google Cloud Marketplace (GCM), product and marketing teams can easily integrate AB Tasty’s digital experience tools into their existing Google Cloud vendor relationships, without the need for time-consuming vendor certification processes.
The streamlined marketplace transactions and standardized terms also provide added peace of mind, requiring less involvement from legal and contracting teams, and enabling product teams to deploy AB Tasty solutions quickly and efficiently.
It also means businesses can be more flexible and agile if they want access to our experimentation tools to quickly set up accounts and contracts through Google. Businesses with an annual commitment to Google Cloud can easily incorporate AB Tasty solutions into their existing packages and quotes, while also gaining access to established vendor relationships with Google Cloud.
Additionally, the partnership allows businesses to take advantage of Google Cloud’s flexible billing options, as GCM automatically breaks up annual commitments into monthly charges on their Google Cloud Platform (GCP) bill. This makes it easier for businesses to manage their digital marketing budgets and adjust them according to their needs.
Finally, it enables businesses to count their AB Tasty departmental spend against their broader GCP Cloud infrastructure committed spend, helping them maximize their overall investment in Google Cloud. Partnering with Google Cloud and AB Tasty provides businesses with a more streamlined and cost-effective approach to digital marketing.
Our Strengthened Relationship with Google
Following the announcement of our integration with Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and AB Tasty being chosen at one of Google’s vendors of choice after the sunset of Google Optimize, this news takes our relationship with Google to new heights:
“As the first platform to integrate bi-directional synchronization with Google Analytics 4, and being one of the three partners highlighted by Google for the Optimize sunset, AB Tasty has established strong ties with the tech giant.” said Remi Aubert, CEO and Co-founder of AB Tasty. “Moreover, as one of the top Google Cloud partners and the largest digital native on the platform, AB Tasty is the ideal partner for navigating the Google Optimize sunset.”
As AB Tasty continues to help clients improve each touchpoint of their customer experience journey, we’re pleased to cement our ties with Google so strongly. Our work with Google fuels the growth of our software for experimentation, personalization, recommendation and intelligent search. In an increasingly competitive market, this strategic alliance provides businesses with the competitive edge they need.
We know how important data is to our clients. Understanding what people are doing on your website, app, or mobile site, is vital for businesses to create the best digital experiences. To meet customer demands for a more personalized experience, brands turn to AB Tasty to optimize at every stage of the digital customer journey.
And now we’re taking your data-driven optimization strategy even further with our GA4 integration.
What this integration means for marketing teams
By connecting AB Tasty and Google Analytics 4 (GA4), marketing teams have a clearer vision of how visitors interact with their site via advanced analytics on CPA, conversion rate, bounce rate, SEO and traffic. This integration means you can use data from either tool to better understand the effects of your experimentation during or post-rollout and drive more innovative ideas with data-backed hypotheses.
With this simplified integration, you can seamlessly connect Analytics with AB Tasty enabling you to leverage the robust reporting and intelligence features of Analytics, while taking advantage of our digital experience software.
The AB Tasty and Google collaboration offers businesses a powerful toolkit for optimizing their digital experiences and driving better results. By combining advanced analytics capabilities with sophisticated testing and personalization features, businesses can gain a competitive edge and deliver more value to their customers, deepen their understanding of users’ behavior and preferences, and use that knowledge to create more effective and engaging experiences.
With the ability to test and personalize every element of their digital experiences, businesses can ensure that their websites, apps, and campaigns are optimized for maximum engagement and conversion, ultimately leading to increased revenue and customer loyalty. In short, the AB Tasty and Google integration is essential for businesses looking to stay ahead of the curve in today’s fast-paced digital landscape.
AB Tasty partners with Google Cloud
As AB Tasty strengthens its partnership with Google, we are delighted to announce that we are an official Google Cloud Partner.
This means that clients and partners can access AB Tasty’s digital experience tools and Google’s secure platform. Engage and activate your clients through AB Tasty’s suite of products, testing and experimentation, personalization, server-side testing, feature flags, search and product recommendations, to create resilient digital products, make exceptional customer experiences, and deliver strong business results.
A continued partnership
This strategic alliance is crucial for businesses looking to offer exceptional products and services to their customers. By harnessing the advanced capabilities of AB Tasty’s platform and Google Cloud’s cutting-edge technologies in AI and ML, this partnership promises to empower companies in delivering optimized solutions that drive superior outcomes for their consumers.
Businesses with an annual commitment to Google Cloud can easily add AB Tasty solutions to their packages and quotes with ease. The partnership will also enable customers to access existing vendor relationships with Google Cloud, streamlining the deployment of AB Tasty on the platform.
Google Optimize Sunset
AB Tasty is excited to be a launch partner for Google Analytics newly released experimentation dimension and to help Google Optimize customers transition to new software.
By making the move to AB Tasty, you can gain access to top-of-the-line experience optimization tools to elevate your digital experiences to the next level. For companies that have progressed further in their CRO journey and require more extensive experimentation capabilities, AB Tasty provides a superior solution.
Discover the perks of our advanced solution that delivers a range of integrations with diverse providers, personalized features, pre-built widgets for optimizing the customer journey, and expert CSMs and account managers to offer personalized support throughout the entire contract period. This includes seamless transfer of your test history and data from Google Optimize.
The GA4 and AB Tasty integration levels up your ability to create highly personalized experiences for each step of the customer journey with a wide range of audience targeting options and in-depth data on user behavior.
Are you ready to make the move?
The post-Google Optimize world doesn’t have to be bleak.
As one of Google’s top picks as your new A/B testing platform, AB Tasty is a best-in-class A/B testing tool that helps you convert more customers by leveraging experimentation to create a richer digital experience – fast. This experience optimization platform embedded with AI and automation can help you achieve the perfect digital experience with ease.
With Google Optimize’s retirement on the horizon, companies are now faced with the daunting task of finding an alternative tool to carry out their tests and experiments after Google’s announcement that it will be sunsetting its web testing and personalization tool on September 30.
If you haven’t already, it’s time to start your research for a new tool as soon as possible to stay on track with your testing and CRO strategies. September will be here faster than you think, so you need to act soon for a smooth migration post-sunset.
Why the time to find a Google Optimize alternative is now
With roughly 6 months left, teams should already be thinking about the best way for them to carry out their experiments.
You may have to anticipate that some features on Google Optimize will no longer work properly. Not to mention that migrating from one tool to another — and the transferring of all the data — can be a complicated process.
Making an informed decision requires extensive research. Finding a platform that suits your experimentation needs is only the first step. You also need to factor in how long it will take the migration processes to be successfully completed and the learning curve of your new tool. In other words, time is of the essence if you want to make a smooth migration to a new platform.
Therefore, teams need to make sure that they have fully migrated onto their new tool well before the sunset date of September 30.
What’s next? The current and future state of your optimization journey
As a free or low-cost solution, Google Optimize is a great starting point for those at the beginning of their optimization journey.
However, in light of the sunset announcement, organizations should start rethinking their website optimization and experimentation strategies and looking ahead to anticipate their CRO needs.
This should start with evaluating your current and future CRO goals. In other words, you may look into the possibility of investing more resources to optimize your website that will enable you to turn your passive users into active ones by providing a more personalized customer journey.
Consequently, your team may want to delve into other features beyond A/B testing capabilities offered by more advanced solutions. This will enable them to better optimize the website. For example, you may consider venturing beyond surface-level modifications and running more sophisticated tests tied to back-end architecture.
This will ultimately allow teams to provide the best customer experience possible so visitors can turn into customers with the click of a button.
Put simply, engaging your visitors along the entire customer journey up until the point of purchase or conversion should be a central part of your CRO strategy.
Taking into account all these factors will help you understand the current state of your CRO and whether it’s time to take your optimization roadmap to the next level.
How to prepare for a successful migration post-sunset
Selecting the right tool will take considerable time in terms of research and set-up. Therefore, early on, teams will need to follow some crucial steps to take them on the right track to a seamless transition from Google Optimize and to ensure successful implementation of the new tool.
Here’s a checklist for a successful migration:
Evaluating your experimentation program: Analyzing your CRO strategy and results is important to help you set the requirements for your next testing tool.
Considering your CRO strategy and budget: This will help you determine what kind of features you need and how scalable it is and the kind of budget you need to execute it.
Selecting the tool: Evaluating alternative testing tools to suit your budget and needs (you may consider looking into Google-preferred partners for a smoother transition).
Setting up and installing the tool on your website: This will include migrating all your data and tests from Google Optimize. You should consider if you will need coding experience and if you have sufficient developer resources for that. Otherwise, you should consider opting for low-code/no-code solutions instead. Additionally, you will need to run A/A tests to get acquainted with the new platform and ensure that it’s working as expected when it comes to data accuracy and level of significance.
Integrating the tool with your stack: Take into account the tools you’re currently using and how they will fit together with the new tool.
Offering internal training for the new tool: Depending on the kind of support you’ll be receiving from your new tool, you need to make sure that your teams can easily and efficiently use the tool.
Evaluating your experimentation program means taking stock of all the tests you’ve run on Google Optimize to understand what went well with the tool and where it fell short. This will give you an indication of your current situation and how you’d like to evolve when it comes to your testing strategy so you can pick your new tool accordingly.
Each step can take a considerable amount of time to complete so we recommend starting as early as possible.
How AB Tasty fits into your post-Optimize world
As a Google-preferred partner, AB Tasty provides you with best-in-class experience optimization tools to continue optimizing your digital experiences.
While Google Optimize also offered a 360 version with more advanced features, it had its limitations, especially for companies further along their CRO journey and looking for deeper experimentation capabilities.
Here are a few reasons why AB Tasty is the right choice post-Google Optimize to empower you to animate the entire digital consumer journey and take your testing to the next level:
AB Tasty offers a variety of integrations that will fit seamlessly into your existing tech stack including seamless integrations with Google Analytics and other analytics providers to help you stay on top of your data.
Explore endless possibilities with a library of widgets to optimize the customer journey. Activate your audience and engage users with banners and pop-ups among other flexible, visually appealing and impactful components.
Worried about support during your switch? AB Tasty has dedicated CSMs and account managers to provide you with 1:1 support throughout the contract, including transferring your test history and data over from Google Optimize.
Take the next big step with AB Tasty
Are you still on the fence on whether AB Tasty is the right pick for you? Below you will find the answers to all your burning questions about our platform to help make your decision easier:
We’re here to answer your questions
What is AB Tasty’s take on privacy and security?
AB Tasty is GDPR compliant and committed to respecting the principles of this legislation, which consists of regulating data collection.
Can I use AB Tasty to target Google ads campaigns?
Yes, campaigns from Google ads can be easily triggered. With AB Tasty’s granular targeting capabilities, customers can target their visitors based on the campaign source in conjunction with any other events or metrics they see fit to provide the most personalized end-user experience possible.
What type of support do you offer in setting up and migrating to your tool?
Our in-house Customer Success team is on hand to support new and existing clients. If you need assistance setting up new campaigns or transferring existing ones then we can take on the heavy lifting for you to ensure a smooth transition.
Can you link Google Analytics with AB Tasty?
Yes, you can link Google Analytics with AB Tasty to be able to analyze your campaigns or you can have them sent to an in-house tool. You can find more information about our Google Analytics integration here.
How can we set up segmentation and personalization campaigns?
AB Tasty has a wide range of extremely granular targeting capabilities. This allows customers to target their visitors based on any other criteria/events/metrics of their choice to provide a more personalized user experience. This can all be set up in a matter of seconds with no code required.
How does AB Tasty differ from Google Optimize in terms of speed and performance?
AB Tasty has the lightest tag on the market available today that still offers complete functionality. Alongside our detailed performance centre which highlights where improvements can be made, customers can expect greater performance from AB Tasty than they ever had with Google Optimize. Find out more about how we compare here.
How many tests can I run and can they be run concurrently?
With our user-friendly experimentation suite, you can create an unlimited number of A/B tests and you can also run multiple tests simultaneously if needed.
Are you ready to make the move?
The post-Google Optimize world doesn’t have to be bleak.
As one of Google’s top picks as your new A/B testing platform, AB Tasty is a best-in-class A/B testing tool that helps you convert more customers by leveraging experimentation to create a richer digital experience – fast. This experience optimization platform embedded with AI and automation can help you achieve the perfect digital experience with ease.
You know it best: shaping the customer journey on your sites or apps from search to cart has become key for conversions. That’s why you’re using state-of-the-art tools to collect data, run campaigns as well as experiment and personalize experiences. But these are just tools that help you execute your plan. A big part of your job is to think about and play with ideas to tackle your business goals around loyalty, conversions, and turnover. Did you know that you can rely on your stack for shaking your ideation process and detecting ROI-driven business opportunities?
If you’re using AB Tasty, enjoy now tailored sources of inspiration available for you, such as the Audience Recommendation, available for websites in English and French.
Dedicated to letting your good ideas take flight, Audience Recommendation will quickly identify segments of customers that are likely to be leveraged efficiently in your conversion strategy. Once connected to your site, it will suggest ideas of audiences based on your visitors’ interests that are likely to be converted into a thematic journey.
But that’s not the only way to quickly find opportunities and turn them into wins.
Read this article that suggests 5 ways to detect personalization journeys that will help marketers meet their business goals.
1. Engage your consumers based on the content they like
Let’s say you’re in charge of an e-commerce website: clothing, shoes or books. Think about the wide range of products or services that are available. Thousands of references. Do your buyers browse your entire catalog before adding items to the cart? We doubt it. We rather assume on the one hand you deal with bestsellers items, and on the other you have niche, premium or overstock that have trouble selling. How do you handle them today in your conversion strategy?
Our suggestion: Come play matchmaking with AB Tasty’s Content Interest. Identify key audiences that are sensitive to content found on your site – and combine topic-interested visitors with these items that make perfect sense for them. Our in-house AI suggests building segments based on browsing and transaction history thanks to Natural Language Processing. And that enables you to think about customer experience differently, aligning visitors’ interests and business needs in deeply personalized campaigns.
But even better: you will always be aware of current trends on your site – therefore able to adapt quickly to these always-changing consumers’ needs.
Let’s take a look at a typical online store such as a shopping website for shoes, on which our AI runs for content interest. You can see below an example of content segments and the volume of views and transactions it represents.
Wearers of black leather boots? Or rather low-top sneakers? Associated views and transactions help you make decisions about campaigns you could be inspired about. Of course, content-based messaging, with relevant offers such as targeted discounts, free shipping, or loyalty points, is very likely to be effective.
2. Build the journey based on visitor engagement
Looking to seduce newcomers to engage with you? Or to reward those who are loyal to your brand? But there are also those who come regularly and never shop. Do you already have a strategy in place for your different groups of visitors?
With AB Tasty you can target shoppers based upon the profile they have with your site. Here again, our AI comes into action. It will automatically allocate traffic into 4 logic groups of users: Disengaged, Wanderers, Valuable and Loyal consumers. That means you can have a dedicated strategy for each group and deploy it easily, combined with dedicated triggers to increase even more campaign success.
Like these newcomers, you don’t want to scare them right? Let them browse a bit or take action before displaying your campaign. Timing is key!
A good use case? Kiehl’s Australia decided to display a specific message for those visitors that are navigating and revisiting but not buying, these are wanderers. “Still deciding?” Discover our latest limited time offers”. Using stress marketing and acknowledging the uncertainty of these shoppers combined with deep targeting options resulted in an uplift of 2,26% in transactions for the brand.
3. Seize the low-hanging fruits
They started shopping with you but left – and are now back on your site! Within AB Tasty you can very easily build campaigns based on abandoned carts, that target – as the name already says – those who were just one step away from completing their purchase journey. You can decide to target them all, or you could do different scenarios depending on cart value or numbers of items in the shopping cart.
Our secret tip for these? Experiment! Find out whether shipping costs, promo code or components of your checkout page can be leveraged to optimize conversions and re-engage on cart abandonment. You can trust our experience there: there’s nothing like A/B testing to know best what ideas work and what ideas don’t work.
Then, only you can really define what elements contribute to retaining abandoners on your site.
4. Rely on your experimentation strategy
We just mentioned it. Seems obvious, especially if A/B testing is part of your strategy, but analyzing campaign results in depth allows you to detect…ideas.
When you test ideas, while this idea might not prove consequently winning regarding the output on the entire audience, it still might be a large win for certain audiences, e.g. for mobile users against desktop users. Or for returning visitors rather than new ones.
When reading A/B test reportings, don’t forget to filter and narrow down to detect these opportunities. Because statistics can prove that the magic you were trying to achieve for everyone is at least working for certain groups of people.
5. Use the force of your datalayer
Segment, Google Analytics 4, Tealium, Mixpanel, …. No matter what solution you use to analyze, understand and follow your customers, you might have identified already interesting audience segments from your first-party data. Why not use these to run your personalization strategy directly on AB Tasty? Once you have connected your preferred solution there, you can launch campaigns on these segments (or cohorts or traits) and couple them with further targeting and triggering options.
Example? Imagine a site offering holiday flats to rent. They know when their loyal customers usually book their holidays. That’s why they run campaigns targeting either those who enjoy Summer or on those – in the screenshot below – who like booking their vacations when Santa is around. In the same spirit, we could also couple that targeting with a weather trigger – snow or sea alternatives when it’s raining on the favorite destination.
We could even make it snow on the screen with AB Tasty’s no code snowflake widget, but that’s a question of idea.
Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia is equipping the next generation of product leaders with data-driven strategies powered by experimentation.
Experimentation has paved the way for Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia, founder and CEO of Product School. Faced with a long career in coding after completing his degree in computer science, Carlos opted instead to continue his education at business school in Silicon Valley only to discover it lacked the hands-on practicality that he so enjoyed.
With his engineering and business school experiences, Carlos saw an opportunity to fill the skills gap between the two and launched Product School in 2014. Today, Product school is a leader in product management training with a community of over one million product professionals and a network of instructors from top global organizations such as Google, Meta, Netflix, Paypal, Uber and Amazon.
AB Tasty’s VP Marketing Marylin Montoya spoke with Carlos about the purpose, accessibility and implementation of experimentation as well as the growing need for product managers (PM) within organizations and how to succeed in this role.
Here are some of the key takeaways from their conversation.
Normalize experimentation within company culture
When we break experimentation down to its most basic level, we see that its purpose is to understand each user and provide a personalized experience that caters to their needs. There are no limits to this quest. Once you start experimenting, you can continue to refine the process, learn about different users and leverage the data to improve their experience.
This mindset should apply to the entire company culture, with both a top-down and bottom-up approach. Experimentation is not only reserved for engineers, designers and product managers. High-level executives should also be experimenting with business models, new offerings and new markets.
Being a data-driven company which supports experimentation at all levels is important because most experiments will fail. While that might sound intimidating, it’s actually necessary to embrace failure during the experimentation process in order to gather valuable feedback and improve.
Carlos suggests running multiple experiments simultaneously over a short period of time, as it allows you sift through the results and double down on the ideas that are working.
Having the support of the organization’s leadership team offers the psychological safety necessary for employees to really experiment. This sense of freedom is what enables the best ideas to surface and leads to better products and overall business results.
The democratization of experimentation
The scope for digital experimentation has expanded. Once reserved for engineers, experimentation is now accessible to product, marketing and content teams with the help of simplified tools.
With the rise of product tech came an increased need for product management and a greater demand for low-tech tools to facilitate independent experimentation. This advancement in technology means that various teams within an organization can run small sets of experiments without involving engineers and data teams.
While some scenarios may require a deep dive with the help of engineers, others may just call for minor tweaks and these low-code or no-code tools allow non-technical teams to advance autonomously. When teams are empowered in this way, they are able to ship a better product, faster.
These tools are also bridging the gap between large and small companies. It’s no longer necessary to employ an entire team of data scientists or engineers to run experiments. Technology enables creators to be self-sufficient and make changes of varying complexities from color and copy to page formatting in order to offer a personalized experience to the user, gauge their response and continue to adapt accordingly.
The key to success as a product manager
Product management is a multi-faceted leadership role, whose key responsibility is to hone in on the best ideas to improve a given product. Rather than conjuring the idea yourself, this involves gathering data and facilitating conversations within your team to bring these ideas to the surface.
With an increased demand for data products, there have never been more product management roles to be filled. Product managers find themselves positioned at the intersection of business, design, engineering, customer success, data and sales. If you’re looking to succeed in this role you need to be competent across the board.
Experimentation is a key skill to master as a product manager, alongside road mapping, data, analytics and prototyping. With a cohesive plan, the engineering and design teams can advance while you prepare the next iteration.
When considering which company to join as a product manager, there are a few factors to consider. What is the structure of the product team? What are their biggest experimentation failures or successes? What is the CEO’s attitude and background? How are business decisions made? Is the company data-driven?
Asking these questions will help you gather an understanding of the company culture, find out whether experimentation is supported by the top levels of management and identify how you can make an impact within the organization.
What else can you learn from our conversation with Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia?
Build vs. buy: how to allocate your resources for internal collaboration tools.
How Product School teaches experimentation.
How the integration of specialist tools in the tech ecosystem improves user experience
The future of product management: the next generation of PMs.
About Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia
Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia has been building global companies and digital products for the past 12 years. Following his higher education in Global Business Management and Marketing, Computer Science and Industrial Engineering, he founded Floqq, which was the largest online education marketplace in Latin America. In 2014, he founded Product School, the global leader in Product Management training.
About 1,000 Experiments Club
The 1,000 Experiments Club is an AB Tasty-produced podcast hosted by Marylin Montoya, VP of Marketing at AB Tasty. Join Marylin and the Marketing team as they sit down with the most knowledgeable experts in the world of experimentation to uncover their insights on what it takes to build and run successful experimentation programs.
We’ve spent the past couple of months at AB Tasty developing our product integrations with the leading Product Analytics providers. In this post, I’m excited to highlight Heap. Not only does Heap feature my favorite color (dark purple) in its branding, it offers its users an unbridled view for product managers and marketers to see how their customers engage with and move through digital journeys.
We think that’s quite a feat, and we want to showcase how our customers can create actionable programs to capitalize on the insights provided by Heap.
Without having a full understanding of your basic user journey and the various offshoots that customers may take along the way, marketers and product teams are forced to guess or rely on qualitative feedback to improve, optimize, or build on digital experiences.
Evolution, rapid iteration, and growth begins with understanding precisely how your users behave and why.
You need to have a clear picture of your user experience to understand their frictional moments and have the ability to quickly and efficiently test different hypotheses and action plans to find the best way to resolve those pain points.
On the other hand, while experimenting to identify potential solutions, you need to have insights into their impacts and how they resolve a frictional experience.
Measure everything along the customer journey with Heap. Plan actions and set up experimentation and personalization campaigns to optimize your user experience with AB Tasty then analyze the results of your campaigns.
Allow me to take you through an example, which may hit home for many readers. I know it hits home with me, personally, although I am a proud member of #teamhotleads scrapping for the coveted demo request as opposed to shopping cart conversions. Anyway…
The journey starts with Heap. Within the Heap platform, you can track all aspects of your users’ digital experiences, identify critical drop-off points in the clickstream that prevent conversions while identifying ways to simplify and clarify steps for customers.
Maybe you have a snazzy new checkout page that has increased your purchase rate. How can you be sure you’re funneling the maximum amount of traffic to that snazzy new page to reach your full purchase potential? Enter Heap.
Use your Heap platform to pin-point exact moments in your users’ journeys that result in drop-offs or, spinning it as a positive, as we like to do, “areas for improvement.” Once you’re able to identify these less-than-optimal moments in the journey within Heap, you need to formulate a game plan to take action to improve your traffic flow to your snazzy new checkout page. How? Enter AB Tasty.
Within AB Tasty you can craft experimentation programs ranging from changing your button colors to targeting hyper-specialized segments of visitors with powerful personalization campaigns. Using your experimentation results, create optimization roadmaps that allow you a path to realizing your full traffic potential on that checkout page that you spent so much time developing.
Formulate hypotheses and create an action plan, then conduct precise personalization and experimentation campaigns with real-time and retroactive data with the AB Tasty optimization platform. Once you’ve taken action, you can measure the impact and track the success in the Heap platform.
This seems pretty tactical, right? Let’s take it up a few levels to understand where this can provide strategic value.
Running ad hoc experiments can sometimes yield surprising and valuable improvements in certain metrics. An experimentation roadmap can bring you even more impact to those improvements.
By focusing your experiments on targeted points within the customer journey and building a roadmap of your experimentation plan, you can achieve compounding improvements to your customer experience, and, as a result, your revenue goals.
To learn more about how to set up your AB Tasty campaign data with Heap, check out our knowledge base article.
If you’ve played any role in a product development team, you’re probably very familiar with the tricky question of the product roadmap. To build a functioning roadmap, timing, priorities, company goals/vision, customer expectations/feedback, technology, competitive benchmarks, and much more need to be taken into consideration. No easy task!
Luckily, there are a multitude of books that can help you keep on top of all these factors. Here are our favorites, in no particular order.
In this book, Moore proposes the “crossing the chasm” marketing theory. He segments customers into five groups, namely innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards.
If you look close enough, you’ll learn to form a blueprint to market your products that win over not only the visionaries and early adopters, but also the mainstream customers. But the key to succeeding according to Moore is to focus on one group at a time, using each group as a base to market to the next one.
If you want in on how your company can recognize and use disruptive technology, then this is the book for you. Citing examples from across various sectors, Christensen defines the innovator’s dilemma and why they fall short of disrupting the market. It’s from his careful analysis that you learn how to become a product manager with a vision and also gain confidence to make tough decisions.
There are lessons for entrepreneurs too who want to overtake the big, established companies leading with sustainable technology and disrupt their hold over their market.
According to Reis, startup founders think they already know what people want and spend a lot of time trying to perfect a business plan for a product which no one actually wants or wants to pay to use. And this overconfidence is exactly the reason they fail.
To reset this failure-driven mindset, Reis teaches the Lean Startup approach which helps entrepreneurs become agile and ‘grow a business with maximum acceleration’. Surely you’ll find his advice practical and build a product that already has a solid customer base.
Mironov’s book is a compilation of some of his most popular articles from the column, Product Bytes, that he wrote between 2002 and 2008. Divided into five sections, there’s plenty of advice on how to get into customers’ heads, price products, and build and maintain product organizations. Reading it, you’ll find everything Minrov says resonates with you, because it’s the same struggle for everyone in product management, except no one quite writes about it the way he does.
Authors: Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Patricia Papadakos, Gregory Bernarda, and Alan Smith
Value Proposition Design is the second book by the same team of authors that published Business Model Generation. Which is also why many readers consider this as a sequel. Overall, in the book the authors explain the oft-misunderstood concept of value proposition, and give people practical tools they can use to discover what customers find valuable, and then design, test, create, and manage products and/or services.
Start at the End offers a framework of designing products that’s grounded in behavioral science. The author’s argument in the book is based on the ‘Intervention Design Process’, by which you create a product with the goal of behavior change in mind. He breaks down complex ideas in the easiest manner possible and packs a punch with his humorous writing style and numerous case studies.
In fact, those who’ve followed the framework have been able to shift the culture in their organization, mainly because they firmly believed in what the author says: ‘creating behavior change is messy, but that’s not the reason not to do it.’
Dunford is a positioning consultant and in her 25-year old career worked with 6 successful startups and launched 16 products. Clearly, she knows why some products click with their customers in a market where every product seems to claim they’re innovation personified.
So do yourself a favor and pick this book, especially if you’re someone who thinks their product is ‘obviously awesome’, but can’t figure out why it isn’t a rage in the super crowded marketplace. Even if you think you’ve figured it all out, you’ll learn how you can use positioning to know what people know and ‘help them understand what they don’t’.
Authors: C. Todd Lombardo, Bruce McCarthy, Evan Ryan, and Michael Connors
“A good roadmap is not so much a project plan as a strategic communication tool, a statement of intent and direction.”
If your definition of a roadmap is any different, you must read this book right away and reboot for success. It comprehensively covers the whys, hows and the whats of product roadmapping alongside giving examples and practical advice to help you come up with your own functional roadmap.
Authors: Richard Banfield, Martin Eriksson, and Nate Walkingshaw
Want to pick the brain of the who’s who in the product management world? Get this book. The authors with decades of their combined experience of creating products come together to compile interviews with nearly 100 leading product managers from around the world. Overall, you’ll find actionable tips on becoming not just better product managers, but better product leaders.
Are your favorites in the list? If not, we’d love you to know which books you’d recommend!
