The new VWO was released last June 27th and we’ve jumped over the fence to provide you with a full analysis of what it’s shipping and what it has to offer to users.
With over 300.000 testing experiments and campaigns, and 1.5 billion visitors globally, VWO has evolved into a marvelous product for marketers, experts and testers. It is no longer just a TOOL but a complete integrated PLATFORM.
This blog post contains:
- The Next Generation of VWO
- CRO Taken to the Next Level
- Why These Features Came to Life
- Workflow Features – A/B Testing, Segmentation and Campaigns
- Customer Success Management for Enterprises
- Conclusions
The Next Generation of VWO
As expected, the new generation of VWO allows you to tweak, optimize and personalize your website with minimal IT help. As for existing users, they won’t need to change anything, as pricing is not changing and the current platform will continue to work. Whistl users may select the option to switch to the new platform with one click, all their campaigns and experiments, including data and settings will be adapted transparently. Therefore, there are no changes required from the user’s side.
Pricing has been re-thought for new accounts, adding value to the Enterprise segment. They’ve also made it flexible and affordable for start-ups and agencies. It is by all means an improvement, and will encourage more users to get started with it.
There are plently of things to comment on, so we’ll start breaking them down into what this upgrade means to users interested in increasing conversion…
CRO Taken to the Next Level
What this means to you
First of all, the biggest difference in comparison to the previous version is the enhanced and comprehensive repository of tools that provide all functionalities that you may require for enhancing conversions and sales across multiple platforms. To take VWO a step further from the competition, the company has layed out 4 areas for optimization: Research, Testing, Personalization and Analytics. A bit later below, we’ll focus on each of these parts in a way that makes sense to your needs.
Empowering Power Testers
At Proudsugar are vouchers the positive step forward of VWO with the concept “Power Testers”. They are those who setup at least one testing/optimization campaign every 15 days, in a clycical manner, without hesitation. It’s currently about a 5% of all active users but represents future according to VWO.
But how does a platform help you become one, and should you? Their aim is to get everyone running relevant experiments on a constant basis, and to allow them to successfully and accurately do exactly that. It promises to provide everyone with such power. With multiple platform support, they are covering the whole spectrum without any extra effort on your side. Whether tests are run for desktop, mobile (both native and html-based) or responsive layouts… All and all with zero-friction set-up and little to none IT help.
This sounds fantastic and it is in our opinion how everyone should think about testing. I am going to recommend we do it by using the same process advocated by them. Let’s break it down into the four steps mentioned above:
Research: figure out which ideas generate return on investment
Let’s say we need to find some improvements on our landing pages. First is to think what to test next, and it’s perhaps the most important factor rather than how to run a particular test. In the new VWO you are pointed into the right direction with tools that help you easily decide on that:
- Heatmaps, understand visually what your users are doing
- Generate and automate ideas based on your industry and needs
- Qualify your hypotheses using common practices and presented test case studies
- Wizard tool and experts help
Testing: zero-to-none technical limitations
Given the big number of testing options available in this new version, all types of websites are supported. They have particularly set some focus on solving problems that we’ve all been facing with various approaches to technology:
- Mobile and responsiveness.
- No more problems with ajax, single-page apps.
- No more issues with login or checkout walls.
- Native mobile apps testing without requiring a new release.
Personalization: use almost any parameter(s) and target your audience
Decide on your sector, and get suggestions for your next text, divide and conquer. When possible, selecting a concrete type of users, helps you decide on “Personas”, think of user psicology and customize your product to maximize conversion.
- Geolocation, sources, device… Combine multiple areas to come up with the perfect segment.
- Personalize an app or website, based on profile parameters.
- Traffic sources or demographics, you choose.
Analytics: measure and segment at any time in your campaign.
From revenue to clicks, all the analytics for campaigns in one place. With advance segmentation changeable at any point of a campaign.
Get insights into user behavior
Discover personalization opportunities
Join accounts with provider API’s and send data to Google, Clicktale, and other services.
Why These Features Came to Life
VWO is run a few studies, in which they found the sectors with the greatest amount of active users for A/B testing:
- ECommerce is one of the most active user of A/B testing
- Agency / Consultancy / Digital marketing
- Software / SaaS / Downloads
- Media / Publishers / Bloggers
Given the fact that 40% of testers only need 1 hour to run an experiment, it makes sense they’re in need of a very integrated, easy to setup, zero-coding approach. Other relevant data that helps us understand VWO’s product update:
- Success chances: One in seven A/B test campaigns producea statistically significant improvement.
- Average improvement: When a test produces significant improvement, the average amount of increase in conversion rate is 49%.
- Revenue increase: Average revenue per unique visitor for ecommerce firms is about $3 and a successful A/B test typically will likely increase it up to 50%.
- Test duration: A typical A/B test runs for more than one week but not more than two months.
A markerter should be able to execute and then analyze like as a scientist.
VWO packs a whole bunch of tools to let a marketer optimize customer experience on web and mobiles in a scientific, methodical manner. Therefore minimizes or removes dependence on IT department.
So in these lines, the most impactful feature is IMO testing and optimization for Native iOS Apps:
- Create A/B tests for native iOS apps without any coding.
- Use the same “visual” and intuitive point-and-click interface for creating A/B tests on native apps as you do for the web.
- Vision: connect the customer experience between mobile app and desktop website.
- You can find the free closed-beta of A/B testing for native mobile apps here.
Get help with automation and ideas with the next new features:
- IdeaFactory: Case studies and testing Ideas in on section of the interface.
- Test chooser wizard: Helps in choosing which test campaign to run.
- Contextual Help with an Integrated Knowledgebase.
Workflow Features – A/B Testing, Segmentation and Campaigns
We’ve been granted a much better workflow for testing and CRO:
- Intelligent and tile-based reports: tiles adapt to your campaign type (testing, personalization, heatmaps, etc.) and highlight important information that you need to know.
- No more reloads while using VWO.
- Blazing fast loading: Pre-fetches future screens for instant loading experience.
- Helpful panels, indicators and status markers of your running tests.
- Slice and dice your A/B test results according to any customized segment
- Arbitrary slice-and-dice of data without needing the user to pre-specify segments
- A list with all features is available here.
Customer Success Management for Enterprises
What this mean to you and me, is that a network of consultants is available for training and for providing A/B testing ideas within the platform, in order to help you plan and execute CRO.
Conclusion
Mainstreaming A/B testing like any other areas, it’s a process. Services like VWO make our life easier, specially when such a massive step forward is produced, it’s not only an enhancement it’s likely to be a game-changer. We’re excited to discover where VWO will take us as an agency and a user. We’re also looking to see which other challenges come to surface in the ground of optimizing websites and apps. In this everchanging and evolving area, learning is everything. VWO has just made this learning a much more pleasant path to walk.
Read more about what’s included at https://vwo.com/blog/launching-new-vwo/
Virtual Website Optimizer (VWO) is an intuitive platform for websites and apps to increase online sales and conversions by enabling marketers to constantly test and tweak the marketing funnel and run personalized one-to-one campaigns in minutes.