Interview with Brian Clifton About Google Website Optimizer

May 25th, 2007 by Lars Johansson

Interview with Brian Clifton, Head of Web Analytics for EMEA at Google.

Who should use Website Optimizer?

Website Optimizer is targeted at the same audience that AdWords is – that is, pretty much anyone! When you own/manage a web site there are several steps you need to achieve from a marketing perspective. Firstly there is the acquisition of visitors – be it paid, organic, email, affiliate, offline activity etc. Once those campaigns are in place, you track your visitors with a web analytics tool such as Google Analytics. Often after analysing the data from such tools, the next question asked is “what changes should I make?”. Because there are multiple combinations of page elements that could be changed, this is often a stumbling block. Website Optimizer removes the guess work from this by allowing you to test multiple variations at once – so your customers decide what works.

Is there still a need for paid solutions or is Website Optimizer sufficient in your opinion?

Website Optimizer is a self-help tool that runs experiments and collects your data – it uses the same back end conversion technology as Google Analytics. However you still need experts to provide the professional service that goes around it. That can be your organisation’s own staff or a third party. From my experience there is very much a need for paid third party services. As for paid tools, it is up to our competitors to differentiate themselves.

Which is, in your opinion, the most exciting result that a business has had from using Website Optimizer?

The most rewarding part of my job is when you see the impact such tools can have and the excitement this then generates for a customer as they get the analytics bug.

For example, one recent case study client improved their conversion rate by 14% within a week by simply changing their product image and adding a user testimonial. That sounds very straightforward to do, but in reality there were numerous sections of the landing page that could have been altered with many different permutations of alternatives. Testing with Website Optimizer automated the delivery of the alternatives and produced an accurate clear cut winning combination whose impact has improved the bottom line for the client in excess of $1m over a 12 month period. It really wasn’t a great deal of work to do. Sometimes I wish I worked on a commission basis!