Optimizely (YC W10) Increases Homepage Conversion Rate by 29%

First is ease-of-use and simplicity: we hope Optimizely is a product anyone can use, not just IT or engineers. Paras Chopra, the creator of VWO recently said on Quora: "Optimizely is a great tool and perhaps even bit easier than VWO, so I would recommend you to signup for a free trial of both the products and see which one is suited best to your needs."

Secondly, we enable power-users: all of the changes you make in Optimizely can be transformed into JavaScript statements that correspond to those changes. We enable you to see the JavaScript that gets generated and even edit it or write your own if you want to create sophisticated transformations of your page (click the "Edit Code" button in the bottom-right corner in the editor).

Third, we enable you to track any numbers of goals, even if you decide you want to measure a goal AFTER you've started your experiment. You can track any pageview, JavaScript event, or custom event and match these goals exactly, using a substring or regular expression. We keep all of the data you've sent us so you can always add and remove goals even if the experiment is still running. This gives you the flexibility and power to measure any goal you have on your website in real-time.

In addition to these three we are also unique in offering automated cross-browser testing, behavioral targeting, undo/redo, and unlimited simultaneous experiments.

Yup, you can track as far down the funnel as you like. Here is an article in our knowledge base that explains how you can do this: http://support.optimizely.com/kb/goal-tracking-and-reporting...

Let me know what you think!

I think tools like Optimizely can track to the final sale if you have an online (ecommerce only) transaction. This works well when the user is expected to complete the transaction online and without changing computers or deleting their cookies during the consideration process.

If you have an offline sales process (where a salesperson takes an order in person or on the phone) or customers who pay by invoice, or a longer and more considered sales process (bigger ticket items), you need a closed loop marketing tool that connects your marketign leads database to the CRM that the sales team is using. HubSpot does this, and connects to Salesforce.com, NetSuite, Highrise, Sugar CRM, Microsoft Dynamics, ACT, Goldmine, or pretty much any CRM.

So, Optimizely for small ticket / ecommerce, and HubSpot for large ticket / offline sales.

Thanks, Mike Volpe (CMO @ HubSpot)

That would be a great resource for initial usability and design decisions. After which, can be tweaked and further optimized by their product.