Google Optimize 360 Live

Once again, Google is changing the rules of the game by announcing on Tuesday, March 15th their new enterprise Google Optimize 360 an A/B testing and personalization platform together with their new measurement cloud platform named Google Analytics 360 Suite.

The product will be in limited Beta and is part of the Premium suite of Google’s product aimed at enterprise levels and Google confirmed it to be in the same price range of >150,000 USD a year for its clients and more depending on what apps, customer size, usage, features and services.

We all in the marketing and analytics online business want to understand how our consumers behave in order to find new opportunities to reach them in the right moment with the right message. Nowadays, our lives are made up of micro-moments: where we use our nearest device to look for answers, a store, a product, directions.

Customers decide what to do, where to go and what to buy. – Paul Muret, VP of Analytics, Display, and Video Products at Google.

Back on September 2015, Convert was one of the first ones in predicting Google Optimize would come: “It’s unclear if Google Optimize will be in one of Google’s first paid versions of Google Tag Manager Premium of be a free addition to the platform, maybe we will hear during Google’s Unveil event February 29th.”

Source: https://twitter.com/SimoAhava/status/646268583169912832

Next month, Google made it official and Google Optimize – Confidential Beta invitation was released through a public form for beta sign-ups that is no longer available.

As expressed in Google Inside AdWords article, Google defines its new product Google Analytics Suite 360 as an enterprise-class solution for a multi-screen world.

Say hi to the Google Analytics 360 Suite – built for the enterprise: https://t.co/ofAQh0aHfA pic.twitter.com/nZkHM0OC2O

— Google Analytics (@googleanalytics) March 15, 2016

This Suite is designed to provide more integrated, easier-to-use tools, he said, that can measure, provide insights and lead to actions that reach customers in those small windows of engagement.

The decision to build this new system came from the needs from the enterprise marketers that were looking for solutions that didn’t exist in the market before Google jumped in to solve the problems they were facing:

• See the complete customer journey
• Useful insights
• Enable better sharing within their organization
• Deliver engaging experiences to the right people

[Tweet “Live! @GoogleAnalytics 360 Suite: an enterprise-class solution for a multi-screen world. #Suite360”]

The volume of data of the interactions created by the consumers that interact with brands can be overwhelming to many marketers, that’s why Google Analytics Suite 360 is so powerful, because marketers will be able to have access all the data in and out of various systems, according to Muret declarations.

Consumers engage with brands in a growing number of ways today, and the volume of data these interactions create can be overwhelming for many modern marketers, according to Muret.

Marketers today are trying to engage with brief moments of engagement, those mostly mobile interactions that Google has described as micro-moments. If the value is not delivered at the right time within those brief opportunities, consumers will quickly move on. – Vice President of Analytics, Display, and Video Products Paul Muret interview with Marketing Land.

Image credit: Search Engine Land

Not only Facebook does people-based marketing. Google is moving to one-to-one marketing models at scale. -Paul Muret, Google VP of  Analytics, Display, and Video Products, Google via Search Engine interview.

The Suite is loaded with six products -which four of them are in beta mode- that can be used together or on their own:

• Google Audience Center 360 (beta): This is Google’s first powerful and awaited data management platform (DMP) that offers native integration with AdWords and DoubleClick, being open to third party data providers and demand-side platforms (DSPs).

• Google Optimize 360 (beta):  This is their site testing and personalization products that allows marketers to deliver better and multiple experiences.

• Google Data Studio 360 (beta): Data analysis and visualization that not only integrates data across all suite products and other sources but generates interactive reports and dashboards that are built-in real-time with sharing collaboration across cross-functional teams and product areas based on Google Docs.

• Google Tag Manager 360: This is a new standalone product outside Google Analytics and technically a brand new product that allows to take faster and confident decisions based on data accuracy and streamline workflows.

• Google Analytics 360 (formerly known as GA Premium): This is the measurement product, in Google words “it will serve as the measurement centerpiece by analyzing customer data from all touch-points and integrating with our ad products to drive marketing effectiveness”.

• Google Attribution 360 (formerly known as Adometry): This product was completely rebuilt so marketers can analyze performance across channels, devices and systems.

[Tweet ““The beta launch means #Google is nearing the full ad tech stack” -@paulmuret #Analytics360”]

With this beta launch, Google is near to be the full ad tech stack. Muret expressed that they are very excited about the Suite and how it links advertising and marketing systems, at the same time that has a strong position on measurement.

So far, L’Oreal Canada, Progressive and Google-owned Nest are the early users of Google Analytics 360.

Google expands beyond its star measurement tool for enterprise marketers, Google Analytics Premium, to provide an enlarged set of data-analyzing, -testing and -targeting tools for websites, apps and ads. -Marketing Land.

The new products are already available in limited beta, while Google Analytics Premium and Adometry will be relaunched under their new branding and users will be notified when they’re eligible to join the new betas.

According to Paul Muret words, “Google built the Google Analytics 360 Suite as an open system because we recognize marketers want to use other products, but we don’t believe they are getting a good view of cross-device/cross-channel, and are not able to take action immediately”.

The era of fractional attribution in programmatic marketing is here and requires a measurement platform really built for this multi-screen world. – Paul Muret, VP of Analytics, Display, and Video Products at Google vía Business Insider interview.

Access to the Suite can be customized according on which products are in use and to each user level.

In regards pricing, is still unknown, but according to Search Engine Land information “each of the six solutions is an open product able to integrate with not-google and third party products and will be available for purchase à la carte. Setup will be customized depending on which products a company chooses.”

According to what Google spokesman Joe Osborne told VentureBeat, Google acknowledges that 150,000 USD a year is the fee you’ll have to pay for one of the main products of the 360 Suite, but you’ll need to pay for additional products where additional fees will apply directly related with customer size, increased usage, features and services.

Google Optimize

Convert predicted that it will be probably in the range of 100,000 USD a year range: “If this will be rolled out as part of Google Analytics Premium Suite it makes sense that Google Optimize will be a free feature of the Enterprise solution for A/B testing. We have also heard that it will be part of a new premium offer of Google Tag Manager (GTM) so that will get you back 100,000 USD a year…”

Google is now challenging Optimizely and  Adobe’s Marketing Cloud going after the market where both are currently playing.

Considering that “Google Ventures already has a minority stake in Optimizely when they joined the first and second funding rounds of almost 100 million dollars rounds that Optimizely raised”, could it be possible that Google is against its own product?

Let’s remember a little bit of history, in 2007, Google Website Optimizer -Google’s first tool-,  was born. It was basically a free tool that anyone could use to run basic A/B and multivariate tests.

Three years later, in 2010, Optimizely appeared in the a/b testing arena offering the ability to have a WYSIWYG editor making things easier. In 2012, Google Content Experiments, appeared, which integrated into Google Analytics for the first time, unless the tool still didn’t provide a WYSIWG editor nor make testing easier.

It took almost 10 years, but Google got every business’ attention with their solid and game changer Google Optimize 360.

Google Optimize Editor

Image credit: e-nor

Google Optimize Report

Image credit: e-nor

As Marketing Land states, “the date for the public release of the full Suite has not yet been announced”. In the upcoming weeks Google will announce the capabilities and benefits of each product.

Will you add another $150,000 USD to your budget for this premium enterprise tool? Or will you give Convert Experiences a try where prices are more affordable? Get started with your Convert free 15-day trial.