An Optimized 2012: The Year in New Features and Milestones

Happy 2013! As we blast off into a new year of optimization greatness, we thought it would behoove all of us to glance back at the products and features we launched in 2012, and some important moments that happened along the way. We’ve outlined our top 10 exciting milestones and product releases from 2012 in no particular order. We initially thought we’d try to organize them in order of what we think you, dear reader, would be most excited about. That failed when we realized that you are super excited about every one of them. How did you do in 2012? What would you like to see from Optimizely in 2013? Leave us a comment below.

#10 Optimization for your Mobile Site

In 2013, more people than ever before will use a mobile device to land on your website. The ability to optimize your tests for mobile experiences with Optimizely is a game changer. Turn more visitors into customers or clicks in 2013 by designing your tests for iPhone, iPad, Android phone or Android tablet users.

#9 Explosive team and customer growth

2012 was a big year for us. Our team grew from 9 people to 46 people in 2012. That means more desks, more work for ZeroCater, and more talented people to enable our customers to become more successful testers through support and features. Without this amazing team, we wouldn’t have been able to achieve another big milestone: surpassing  3,000 customers. In 2013, we are poised for an even greater, more explosive year growing our product, customer base, and our team. Notice those placeholders at the bottom of the picture above? We are looking for talented individuals to fill those boxes (and many more). Check out our jobs page and apply!

#8 Targeting visitors based on location

With this feature, you can target your test down to the very location those visitors are coming from, be it a continent or a city. As the web moves to a more personalized place, we expect to see custom experiences based on our past web behavior and location. Geotargeting in Optimizely enables you to create these personalized user experiences.

#7 Redesigning our Site Increases Engagement 31%

Original                    Redesign

This redesign – which happened to be the 100,000th experiment run with Optimizely – is an example of us eating our own dog food. We used customer feedback, A/B testing, multivariate testing, and a great team of designers to make our website easier to use and more visually appealing. We even published all of our testing results as further proof of the power of website testing.

#6 Testdrive JavaScript APIs in our Sandbox

As part of our initiative to empower and educate developers about website testing with Optimizely, we’ve launched a sandbox to allow users to test drive the Optimizely API. While Optimizely is easy for nontechnical folks to use, we want to show the engineers using our platform the possibilities beyond the visual editor.

#5 See More Data with Analytics Integration

As far as finding the low-hanging fruit for test ideas and measuring how your tests perform with a finer tooth comb, analytics integration with A/B testing is crucial. With just one click you can integrate your Optimizely tests with your analytics platform. Sync your experiment data with MixPanel, KISSmetrics, Google Analytics, or Omniture SiteCatalyst.

#4 Build Bigger Testing Teams with User Roles

In 2012 we saw more companies establish optimization and testing teams. With more people using Optimizely at one company comes the need for more specific responsibilities. User roles allow you to manage who can access what within Optimizely.

#3 Developers, Introducing our Client-side API

Dear developers, this one’s for you. The client-side API enables function calls and the Optimizely data object for advanced implementations.

#2 See Heatmaps of Variations With Just One Click

Of all the digital marketing tools out there, heat maps give you the best insight into exactly where your visitors are navigating on your web pages.  With the ability to integrate Optimizely with leading heat map services, ClickTale or Crazy Egg, you can see how users engaged with each variation. Then you can better decide which elements to optimize or which variations perform best.

#1 Easily Test Checkout Funnels and More

With multi-page experiments you can maintain a consistent user experience through a funnel or even across your whole website. For an e-commerce business whose goal is to lead visitors through a series of pages with the end goal being the “thank you for purchasing” page, consistency is vital. Many of our commerce based businesses requested to easily edit multiple pages simultaneously within the Optimizely editor. You spoke, we listened and now multi-page experiments is a reality.

There you have it, our 2012 top 10. Ultimately, this is all about you. We’re curious about your testing experiences in 2012 and what 2013 holds for you. Share a comment below. How was 2012 for you? What was the most exciting, counterintuitive test you ran in 2012? What kind of tests are you going to try in 2013?