The 6 best a/b testing tools

A/b testing tools are designed to compare and contrast different variables to gain insight into which variation performs better. Within CRO, these options can range vastly, from two completely different landing page designs to the simple change of a colour of a button. 

Many A/B testing tools share very similar functions, such as split, multivariate and multi-page testing. Along with extensive reporting functions, visual personalisation editors and full-stack development tools for cross-platform implementation. So, many of these tools may come down to personal preference, your maturity level of CRO and organisation size.

VWO

VWO is Impression’s A/B testing tool of choice and preferred tech partner for our CRO team. VWO has a vast range of A/B testing capabilities from web experimentation, behaviour analytics and personalisation options available. VWO’s platform offers solutions for a wide range of industries, most notably ecommerce and SaaS businesses. VWO provides further customer experience solutions including, heat mapping, on-page surveys and more.

VWO is installed using asynchronous coding, meaning it doesn’t block other assets from downloading to your browser or from rendering elements which would otherwise slow your website down.

Pricing: Gated but broken down into multiple service plans with entry-level, middle-weight, and enterprise-level pricing.

Benefits

• Basic and advanced A/B testing options for in-depth insights across desktop and mobile applications, including split, multipage and multivariate testing.
• Personalisation editor for desktop and mobile, with visual and code options
• User personas & behavioural segmentation for more meaningful UX insights
• Out-of-the-box widgets
• SmartStats, Bayesian statistics
• Vast choice for price plans
• 24/7 customer support

Optimizely

Optimizely is a digital experience platform with a focus on CRO. It’s a big player within the industry and rivals many other platforms, like VWO and AB Tasty. Whilst offering a full A/B testing suite, with options for targeting and personalization, it also offers other products within its arsenal of tools. This includes content management, marketing planning and more, so you get a wide range of tools from Optimizely, with the option to combine products together into a wider package but at a greater price tag.

Optimizely’s basic A/B tools and set-up are easy and intuitive to use, such as fast data and results reporting as well as in-dashboard editing. However, they can be taken to an advanced level if users wish to push the boundaries of their CRO expertise.

Pricing: Gated but orientated for more enterprise-level businesses with access to larger budgets.

Benefits:

• Multi-armed bandit, uses a machine learning algorithm for dynamic testing
• Behavioural tools, such as cross-browser testing and heatmaps
• Variation & control, split, multipage and multivariate A/B Testing (MVT)
• Personalisation & visual editor
• Uploaded audiences – optimise experiences based on first-party data collection
• Options to combine products together

AB Tasty

When compared to Optimizely, AB Tasty is purely an A/B Testing piece of software without all the bells and whistles. This isn’t to say that A/B testing is simple, instead, it focuses all of its efforts on providing an in-depth experience at a reasonable price for businesses looking to explore CRO and A/B testing for the first time.

AB Tasty has its products featured mostly in one single funnel, with mainline products like A/B testing, Personalisation and Audience Activation being your standard A/B, split and multivariate testing capabilities, with access to heatmaps, a visual editor, dashboard reports and more. Personalisation is a big thing for AB Tasty, focusing on re-engagement and personalised content. Its AI-personalisation technology uses machine learning to create user profiles and data-driven reports.

Its full-stack option (Flagship) for server-side personalisation and experimentation is far more advanced and can be fully utilised across platforms (web & app) by an experienced CRO.

Pricing: Gated, but centred on targeting entry-level and middle-weight businesses looking to invest in CRO seriously but at a reasonable price tag.

Benefits:

• AI suggested personalisation capabilities
• User personas & advanced audience segmentation
• Variation & control, split, multipage and multivariate A/B Testing (MVT)
• Out-of-the-box widgets & visual editor
• Bayesian report analytics
• Single funnel product with custom price quotes based on desired featured

Google Optimize

Google Optimize is Google’s entry to the CRO-side of marketing, because what does Google not do? Though the benefits of Optimize being a Google product cannot be understated. Optimize’s native integration into other Google products can be a powerful thing, with the ability for data to be funnelled directly into Google Analytics (required) and BigQuery.

It includes most things you would expect from A/B testing tools such as variant & control, split and multivariate tests. As well as personalisation, a visual editor, user attributes and reporting dashboard. But most importantly, it’s completely free! For those looking for more advanced options, there is an Optimize 360 version of this software as a part of the full 360 suite.

To get the hang of this software, it’s best if you’re already familiar with Google’s suite of products, such as Google Analytics as they share a similar look and feel to other products from a UI perspective. Much like with any A/B testing software on this list, the implementation of Google Optimize should be simple. However, this should really be done by an experienced CRO or developer as there are various synchronous and asynchronous installation options for your website, with each potentially having an effect on the performance of your site.

Even though it is a free piece of software, there are limitations to the amount of testing you can do. For example, in the free version of Optimize, you can only run up to 5 tests simultaneously, whilst in Optimize 360, you can run more than 100. More importantly, Optimize 360 can use Google Analytics Audience targeting, which allows you to run a test targeted to an audience based on your own first-party data, to engage visitors who have already interacted with areas of your site. The value here cannot be understated when it comes to making informed personalisation decisions to boost your conversions.

These limitations are fine for most small to medium-sized businesses but for larger enterprises, you would want to be looking at Optimize 360 which can come at a hefty price tag. However at this point you may be using the 360 suite on a regular basis for data collection, analytics and advertising – or a specialist agency with access to a wide range of CRO tools.

Price: Free! But paid options available for Optimize 360

Benefits

• First-party chrome extension available
• Free version but with limitations. Paid version available for larger enterprises
• You can make it as simple or as complex as you require with native integration (BigQuery, Ads and Analytics)
• Visual editor & personalisation
• Variate & control, split and multivariate testing
• Reporting via Google Analytics

Adobe Target

Adobe Target is ideal for enterprise-level businesses and CROs that have vast experience with Adobe’s suite of products. Much like Google Optimize, it’s not particularly flashy and may take some time to get used to. The key points that Adobe Target sells itself on are omnichannel personalisation and AI-personalisation, which are extremely important in today’s marketing world from both a user experience and data-science perspective. 

Adobe’s visual (WYSIWYG) editor can be used for web and mobile applications, a standard for most A/B testing tools. User personas can be used to create a seamless, personalised customer journey across channels. To truly appeal to enterprise businesses with websites which may have an extensive amount of pages, its AI and machine learning algorithms allow you to test and personalise at scale via Adobe Sensei. It also means that it can dynamically personalise pages based on real-time user behaviour and other conditions, which isn’t unique but impressive nonetheless. Whilst this does take away some of the heavy lifting from teams that would have to manually personalise pages, AI isn’t perfect, not yet at least. So, if you are using it, I would recommend having some human oversight.

Pricing: Gated, but if you’re already using the Adobe suite and its analytics software as a large business, then this is your go-to. If not, then there are more affordable options available.

Benefits

• The focus on omnichannel, data and machine learning means that Adobe is aware of the importance of these concepts, which are vital for the future of marketing.
• Variate & control, split, multivariate and multi-page testing
• Integration with Adobe Analytics for audience targeting & segmentation
• Machine learning and AI personalisation for optimisation at scale

Convert

The aptly titled ‘Convert’ is a CRO platform that specialises in a/b testing for websites. If you’re quite familiar with free a/b testing platforms like Google Optimize and you’re looking to take your work to the next level without a hefty price tag, Convert is a great alternative software to many other platforms out there. Convert sells itself as an excellent a/b testing tool but without the fancy bells and whistles, and it’s quite open about it too! As found on their website, they have comparison pages between other platforms such as VWO, Optimizely, and AB Tasty. The platform is quite open with what it can and cannot do, as well as how much it costs, which is refreshing compared to the rest of the platforms featured here.

Convert features what is considered to be industry standard for A/B testing software, despite missing a few functions. This includes multiple types of variate testing, alongside WYSIWYG editors, goal customisation and audience segmentations. However, there are a few things which may put a potential buyer off, such as lack of native heat maps, account management/technical engineers, mobile app testing and no discount over time for continual use. In our opinion, if you choose not to go with VWO then Convert is your next best due to its honesty, functionality and better price tag.

Pricing: Custom for Enterprise-level plan. $979/mo for Expert 1 plan, $1,889/mo for Expert 2 plan. $699 for Growth-level plan.

Benefits

• Much more affordable than other competing brands
• Emphasis is put on the A/B testing experience (no bells and whistles)
• Enterprise full-stack for server side testing if needed
• Environmental friendly commitments
• No forced plan upgrades for future use

Convert makes up for its lack of additional features though integration with other software like Hotjar, Crazy Egg and Google Analytics to expand on its current offering. However this also means that you need to purchase the software first before linking it up with Convert, meaning that the initial cost of Convert you see could cost a lot more than is first presented if you’re planning on integrated these services.

Comparison table

Learn more about conversion through our CRO blog. We also have CRO webinars available on our resources page for you to explore.