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The Forrester Wave™: Online Testing Platforms, Q3 2015The Eight Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up

by James McCormickSeptember 22, 2015

For CuStoMer InSIghtS ProFeSSIonalS

FOrrESTEr.cOM

Key takeawaysAdobe, Maxymiser, Optimizely, And SiteSpect Lead The PackForrester’s research uncovered a market in which adobe, Maxymiser, optimizely, and SiteSpect lead the pack. hP, Monetate, and Webtrends offer competitive options. Qubit lags behind.

cI Pros Want Self-Service And A Broad range Of Supporting Servicesthe online testing platform market is growing because more CI professionals see these solutions as a way to address their top digital interaction optimization challenges. growth is largely due to CI pros’ increasing trust in online testing platform providers to act as strategic partners, providing them with advanced digital optimization capabilities and advice.

campaign Management, Enterprise Services, And Multichannel Testing Differentiateas previous technology becomes outdated and less effective, improved campaign management, enterprise services, and multichannel test deployment dictate which providers lead the pack. Vendors that deliver on these critical improvements position themselves to successfully deliver online testing capabilities that support continuous optimization practices.

Why read this reportIn our 40-criteria evaluation of online testing platform providers, we identified the eight most significant ones and researched, analyzed, and scored them. this report shows how each provider measures up and helps customer insights (CI) professionals make the right choice.

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© 2015 Forrester research, Inc. opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. Forrester®, technographics®, Forrester Wave, roleView, techradar, and total economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester research, Inc. all other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. unauthorized copying or distributing is a violation of copyright law. [email protected] or +1 866-367-7378

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table of Contents

Keep Up With Customers By Continually Evolving Interactions

online testing Is a Crucial Component of Continuous optimization

Continuous optimization needs Drive online testing Criteria

Online Testing Platform Evaluation Overview

evaluation Criteria Focuses on Scaling online testing Programs

evaluated Vendors are Committed to Supporting enterprise-Class online testing

Vendors Vary In Functionality, Self-Service, And Blend Of Services

Vendor Profiles

leaders

Strong Performers

Contenders

Supplemental Material

notes & resources

Forrester conducted product evaluations in June 2015 and interviewed eight vendor companies: adobe, hP, Maxymiser, Monetate, optimizely, Qubit, SiteSpect, and Webtrends. We also completed 24 phone reference interviews and surveyed 113 clients of the above vendors.

related research Documents

Decipher the Digital Intelligence technology Code

Supercharge analytics With Digital Intelligence

transform Customer experience With Continuous optimization

For CuStoMer InSIghtS ProFeSSIonalS

The Forrester Wave™: Online Testing Platforms, Q3 2015The Eight Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up

by James McCormickwith Mary Pilecki, Samantha ngo, emily Miller, and Matthew Izzi

September 22, 2015

http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES84441




http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=BIO5524



For Customer InsIghts ProFessIonals

The Forrester Wave™: Online Testing Platforms, Q3 2015september 22, 2015

© 2015 Forrester research, Inc. unauthorized copying or distributing is a violation of copyright law. [email protected] or +1 866-367-7378

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The Eight Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up

Keep up With Customers By Continually evolving Interactions

In the age of the customer it is the customer, not the brand, who dictates the terms of engagement — and the growth of digital interactions has facilitated this shift in power.1 the proportion of uS online adults engaging with online ratings and review sites reached 26% in 2015; while at the same time 70% of them own a smartphone.2 What’s more is that today’s customer expectations from digital interactions are constantly shifting. Companies must respond and keep up with these changing digital behaviors, needs, and wants by becoming customer-obsessed and maximizing the level of intelligent digital interaction.3 Professionals responsible for optimizing customer interactions — such as customer insights pros, marketers, eCommerce professionals, and product managers — find themselves at the center of initiatives to continually evolve the experiences targeted at customers as they interact with digital touchpoints.4

Online Testing Is A crucial component Of continuous Optimization

a few top digital intelligence practices are starting to build out continuous optimization strategies with the goal of applying analytics-driven approaches at every possible opportunity to evolve and leverage the understanding of customers as they interact across digital touchpoints.5 online testing is at the heart of these programs, applying statistical techniques to compare how variations of customer interactions performed against a control group to determine the best treatment option. Continuous optimization needs online testing, which provides unremitting and objective data-informed guidance to help optimize matching the right visitor segments with the right experience options available through interactions, such as those found within marketing tactics and product engagements.

continuous Optimization Needs Drive Online Testing criteria

at the heart of the continuous optimization vision is the desire to refine digital experience wherever and whenever customers interact. and today’s customers interact digitally throughout the life cycle.6 to support continuous optimization, online testing practices need to scale across the enterprise, supporting use cases and processes that coordinate multiple stakeholders, multiple types of digital touchpoints, complex testing, and high test volumes. today’s top online testing technology vendors must offer online testing platforms and services that support/provide:

› campaign management. Delivering consistently high-value online testing at any scale demands the seamless cooperation of multiple stakeholders — including the content creators, customer experience (CX) designers, developers, marketers, and test analysts. online testing platforms must support processes such as campaign planning and scheduling, quality assurance, and concurrent test interaction management to deliver high volumes of tests across multiple digital touchpoints. and this must be done in a manner that minimizes damaging errors and maximizes the opportunity of continuous optimization.




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› Multichannel deployment. Firms interact digitally with customers far beyond their traditional websites. CI, CX, marketing, eCommerce, and product management pros are seeking to hone digital interactions within mobile websites, applications, and social media — each requiring its own experiment design, execution, and measurement capabilities.7 enterprise-class online testing platforms must now support the deployment of a/B and multivariate tests, and they must collect and analyze rich interaction data within — and across — all of these new and emerging channels.

› Self-service and usability. Centralized digital optimization teams can’t do it all — even with the help of external partners.8 Without business support, online testing programs remain small or very expensive to scale. CI pros must leverage the support of nontechnical participants (such as digital marketers, product managers, and CX professionals) to be active participants in running and managing much of the testing process. online testing platforms must make complex, powerful, self-service functionality safely available through well-designed user interfaces that users find intuitive and easy to use.

› Enterprise services. Mastering the practice of online testing is not a one-off project for implementation and training. CI pros are constantly pressured to evolve their online testing programs for digital business transformation initiatives, which seek to keep up with the way customers prefer to interact with existing digital channels while extending interactions into new and emerging digital channels.9 Many firms tell Forrester they prefer to manage their own online testing programs, but with very few exceptions, these firms depend extensively on the vendor’s services team for success. online testing platform vendors must offer their customers a broad range of enterprise-class professional services — from implementation to managed (or strategic) services — and help them accelerate and maintain the adoption of large-scale, high-volume innovative testing programs.

› Automation. online testing programs that support continuous optimization can typically run hundreds of tests per month. Manually intensive processes are just not scalable. users are already time and resource constrained, and having to manually run the entire testing cycle severely limits the number and types of tests that can be run at any one time. online testing platforms must have the capability to make testing simpler, quicker, and more scalable. to achieve this, automation is required across the entire test-and-learn cycle and must include tasks for test construction, audience discovery, test validation, test execution, test control, data analysis, and acting upon experiment results.

› Digital intelligence. Digital intelligence strategies seek to bring together data to deliver a holistic customer understanding and, ultimately, to optimize customer interactions.10 Delivering a complete digital intelligence solution demands that practitioners leverage a range of technical components.11 Data-driven optimization platforms such as those for online testing are fundamental — but they are only one component of digital intelligence. online testing platform vendors must provide open and standards-driven solution architectures that allow their solutions to easily work within a broader ecosystem of digital intelligence technologies, including data management, analytics, and other optimization capabilities such as behavioral targeting and recommendations tools.




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online testing Platform evaluation overview

to assess the state of the online testing platform market and see how the vendors stack up against each other, Forrester evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of top online testing platform vendors.

Evaluation criteria Focuses On Scaling Online Testing Programs

after examining past research, user needs assessments, and conducting vendor and expert interviews, we developed a comprehensive set of evaluation criteria. We evaluated vendors against 40 criteria, which we grouped into three high-level buckets:

› current offering. to assess product strength, we evaluated each offering against seven dimensions: campaign management; application usability, administration, and security; test deployment and data handling; testing; dashboards, reports, and alerts; integration and native applications; and service and support. For some criteria, we incorporated quantitative client feedback regarding the level to which expectations are met, intuitiveness, and ease of use. these criteria include campaign preview, interface, administration, a/B testing, multivariate testing (MVt) techniques, MVt automation, dashboards and monitoring, reporting, and reports and alerts distribution.

› Strategy. to assess the strength of the vendor’s strategy, we evaluated each vendor against five dimensions: planned product enhancements, deployment and licensing options, customer satisfaction, executive vision, and customer self-service. We also incorporated quantitative client feedback when scoring criteria such as customer satisfaction and customer self-service.

› Market presence. to benchmark the relative size of the vendors’ online testing businesses, we evaluated each vendor company against six dimensions: global revenues, revenues and profit from online testing, online testing installed base, online testing market trajectory, online testing target market, and staff dedicated to online testing. We paid particular attention to the revenue, enterprise clients, and the number of product development, professional services, and technical support staff that are specifically assigned to each vendor’s online testing business.

Evaluated Vendors Are committed To Supporting Enterprise-class Online Testing

Forrester included eight vendors in the assessment: adobe, hP, Maxymiser, Monetate, optimizely, Qubit, SiteSpect, and Webtrends (see Figure 1). each of these vendors:

› Supports a range of data-driven online testing techniques. to meet the requirements of modern optimization practices, all evaluated vendors offer capabilities that support a range of testing techniques. each vendor offers a software platform that delivers both a/B and multivariate testing capabilities, where both capabilities have a significant existing user base. Vendors that did not support multivariate testing were excluded.




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› Offers a standalone online testing platform. When buying an online testing platform, users don’t want to be locked into purchasing the vendor’s other platforms, such as content management, eCommerce, or platforms that support other optimization techniques such as behavioral or recommendations targeting. each vendor in this evaluation offers a platform that delivers online testing capabilities available as a standalone offering that can be used separately from other software products and services.

› Has a solid enterprise track record. this Forrester Wave online testing platform evaluation identifies vendors that meet the demanding requirements of enterprise-class businesses, defined as firms with at least $1 billion in revenue or 1,000 employees. each vendor offers an online testing software platform actively used by at least 40 enterprise-class online testing clients in live production.

› Demonstrates an established online testing business. online testing programs are long-term initiatives that will continue to grow in prominence and importance within firms. users need a partner with proven business success and a commitment to the ongoing development and evolution of their online testing business. revenue is a signal of current success and an indicator of the level of commitment to online testing in the long term. each vendor in this evaluation has generated at least $5 million in revenue from its online testing business within the most recently completed fiscal year.




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FIGUrE 1 evaluated Vendors: Product Information and Selection Criteria

Vendor

Adobe

HP

Maxymiser

Monetate

Optimizely

Qubit

SiteSpect

Webtrends

Product evaluated

Adobe Target Premium

HP Optimost

MaxTest

Monetate for Optimization

Experience Optimization Platform

Deliver

SiteSpect

Webtrends Optimize

Product version

June 2015 release

June 2015 release

9.1

June 2015 release

June 2015 release

Deliver 3

8.3

8.7.1

Inclusion criteria

Each evaluated vendor offers a software platform that delivers both A/B and multivariate testing capabilities, where both capabilities have a signi�cant existing user base.

Each evaluated vendor offers a platform that delivers online testing capabilities that are available as a standalone offering, which can be and is used separately from other software products and services offered by the vendor, such as content management and eCommerce.

Each evaluated vendor offers an online testing software platform actively used by at least 40 enterprise-class online testing clients in live production.

Each evaluated vendor has generated at least $5 million in revenue from its online testing business within the most recently completed �scal year.




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Vendors Vary In Functionality, Self-Service, and Blend of Services

the evaluation uncovered a market in which (see Figure 2):

› Adobe, Maxymiser, Optimizely, and SiteSpect lead the market. leaders have achieved a good balance of self-service and usability while at the same time building out the enterprise-class functionality and services offerings needed to enable CI pros to deliver sophisticated online testing campaigns at scale. While all leaders have consistently strong offerings when compared against most criteria evaluated, there are areas of significant differentiation among them, including native applications, professional services, and agency and services partners. this cohort of vendors also shows significant variation in their scores for market sizing and market trajectory criteria.

› HP, Monetate, and Webtrends offer competitive options. Strong Performers have robust offerings when evaluated against criteria such as support for campaign scheduling, campaign preview, administration, and test deployment and data handling within fixed websites. areas for improvement for all vendors in this category include reports and alerts distribution, internationalization, and base of customers installed. Scores for vendors differentiate significantly for criteria such as campaign delivery and deploying tests and handling test data within applications.

› Qubit is a contender. as the only Contender in this Forrester Wave, Qubit performed well for campaign access, campaign preview, application interface, overall customer satisfaction, market trajectory, and staff dedicated to online testing. however, the vendor has a significant opportunity for improvement across many criteria, including but not limited to multivariate testing, reports, native applications, and internationalization.

this evaluation of the online testing platform market is intended to be a starting point only. We encourage clients to view the detailed product evaluations and adapt criteria weightings to fit their individual needs through the Forrester Wave excel-based vendor comparison tool.




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FIGUrE 2 Forrester Wave™: online testing Platforms, Q3’ 15

Challengers Contenders LeadersStrong

Performers

StrategyWeak Strong

Currentoffering

Weak

Strong

Go to Forrester.com to

download the Forrester

Wave tool for more

detailed product

evaluations, feature

comparisons, and

customizable rankings.

Adobe

HP

MonetateOptimizely

SiteSpect

Webtrends

Qubit

Maxymiser

Market presence




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FIGUrE 2 Forrester Wave™: online testing Platforms, Q3’ 15 (Cont.)

CURRENT OFFERING Campaign management Application usability, administration, and security Test deployment and data handling Testing Dashboards, reports, and alerts Integration and native applications Service and support

STRATEGY Planned product enhancements Deployment and licensing options Customer satisfaction Executive vision Customer self-service

MARKET PRESENCE Global revenues Revenues from online testing Online testing installed base Online testing market trajectory Online testing target market Staff dedicated to online testing

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ting

50%20%10%

20%15%15%10%10%

50%35%10%5%

30%20%

0%5%

40%35%5%5%

10%

3.913.803.95

4.704.442.054.653.80

4.154.003.005.004.005.00

3.954.005.003.001.005.004.00

2.883.102.70

2.703.002.752.903.00

3.103.003.003.004.002.00

1.805.001.001.001.005.005.00

3.994.403.60

4.203.004.004.404.20

4.605.004.003.005.004.00

3.952.004.004.004.005.004.00

3.213.304.05

4.202.442.353.352.50

3.203.003.005.004.002.00

2.552.003.002.003.002.003.00

3.433.303.35

3.604.403.102.753.10

3.803.003.005.004.005.00

3.652.003.005.005.001.003.00

1.772.003.00

2.200.881.651.051.50

2.252.003.005.002.002.00

1.551.001.001.005.002.004.00

3.844.204.30

3.903.404.104.052.60

3.954.005.005.004.003.00

2.251.002.002.003.005.003.00

2.742.903.05

3.002.402.752.302.50

3.103.003.003.004.002.00

1.453.001.001.002.003.003.00

All scores are based on a scale of 0 (weak) to 5 (strong).

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HP

Max

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Vendor Profiles

Leaders

› Maxymiser. the Maxtest online testing platform is part of a suite of optimization products that includes testing, insights, and personalization. Maxymiser has solidified its position as a leader through a continued and focused commitment to online testing and currently has a competitive offering with strengths in most criteria. Its key differentiators are support for campaign planning and control, segment development and execution, professional services, and executive vision. the platform will appeal to marketing and digital experience teams wanting a close vendor relationship while being able to manage most of their optimization program via self-service. Maxymiser’s customer feedback on ease of use and overall satisfaction was good, but not as good as for some of the other evaluated vendors. With the recent announcement of oracle’s agreement to acquire Maxymiser, the vendor must now double up on its efforts to reassure its customers and seek to meet and exceed customer expectations for platform usability and overall solution delivery.12

› Adobe. adobe has integrated its test&target platform within its target solution, now called adobe target Premium. this product brings together online testing functionality with a broader optimization set, including those for rules- and machine-based targeting and recommendations. the target Premium solution remains itself a component of the adobe Marketing Cloud. the online testing platform offers strong capabilities within most criteria categories. adobe’s key differentiators include capabilities to deploy test on social sites and applications, a/B testing, the availability of related native applications, and internationalization. the platform will appeal mostly to marketing and eCommerce teams with strategies to optimize digital experiences through data-driven personalization — especially those invested in other parts of the adobe Marketing Cloud. Complete support for continuous optimization means online testing platforms must support the needs of optimization tactics outside of the traditional marketing domain, such as within product delivery, product development, and customer support. to build on its leader position, adobe must position its online testing platform to appeal more to a nonmarketing and eCommerce user base.

› SiteSpect. SiteSpect’s a/B and multivariate testing platform is part of a suite of customer experience optimization solutions that includes products for targeting and personalizing experiences and optimizing site performance. SiteSpect shows strength across most criteria and attains a leadership position through its continued approach to a tagless deployment model.13 other areas of differentiation include winning results selection, administration, test deployment and handling within fixed web domains, reports, and deployment and licensing options. the solution will appeal to technically astute buyers from all market verticals seeking the benefits of this tagless deployment model and wishing to run tens if not hundreds of tests per quarter. to retain and build on its leader position, SiteSpect must continue to build out the ability for campaign delivery, improve the deployment of tests and handling of data within applications, and grow its agency and services partner program.




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› Optimizely. Since its inception in 2010, optimizely’s experience optimization Platform has quickly become a disruptive force in the online testing space. this is due to the vendor’s continued dedication to ease of use and self-service, while at the same time building out sophisticated enterprise capabilities. optimizely differentiates itself through above-average feedback from customers on the usability and ease of use of its a/B testing, as well as its dashboard and monitoring capabilities. the vendor also boasts the strongest agency and services partner programs. Firms looking to kickstart their digital optimization practices by delivering quick value through a self-service model will find this product compelling. to maintain its trajectory, optimizely must broaden its appeal to enterprise users by developing a robust professional services practice and continuing to build out native capabilities for behavioral targeting and personalization.

Strong Performers

› Monetate. Monetate for optimization is part of a suite of online experience optimization products that makes up a large part of the vendor’s complete offering. It includes online testing, personalization, and recommendations. Monetate attains its position as a Strong Performer due to its solid leadership team and its understanding of and focus on the retail market. Its offering will be attractive to retailers with a/B testing requirements wanting to leverage their vendor’s professional services team for implementing, managing, and running their optimization campaigns. to broaden its appeal to other market verticals and challenge the leaders, Monetate must build out its self-service and multivariate testing capabilities and credentials.

› HP. hP optimost is part of the hP Marketing optimization suite of products, which includes solutions for digital engagement, customer communications, digital experience, and workforce optimization. given hP’s heritage, it’s no surprise that its professional services offering is a strength, as it is both extensive and widely available. the platform will appeal to marketing and digital experience teams within most market verticals that want the vendor’s professional services team to own and run most, if not all, of the online testing program. to catch up to the competition, hP must quickly develop in critical areas such as self-service, usability, and mobile app testing capabilities.

› Webtrends. Webtrends’ online testing capabilities are part of the Webtrends optimize suite, which also includes modules for targeting and segmentation. Webtrends is a Strong Performer because its strategy focuses on an automated optimization vision to create relevant and engaging digital customer experiences. Practices from all market verticals wanting to adopt a managed services approach to online testing should consider this vendor, as roughly 90% of its existing customers use the vendor’s services team to implement, run, and managed most of the tests and output. to advance on its current Strong Performer position and further broaden its appeal, Webtrends must focus on improving the existing usability and self-service capabilities of its online testing platform.




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contenders

› Qubit. While Qubit’s online testing capabilities are its primary revenue earner, it does offer other marketing related products and services including those for personalization, recommendations, voice of the customer (VoC), and analytics. The vendor is building out these capabilities on top of a common data and analytics architecture. Qubit has focused on developing the A/B testing capabilities along with associated segmentation and analytics. Retailers with browser-based A/B testing requirements preferring to leverage their vendor’s professional services team to implement, manage, and run their optimization campaigns may find the offering compelling. Qubit must advance its capabilities and credibility within critical areas such as self-service, multivariate testing, and mobile applications to compete with the other online testing vendors in this evaluation.

Supplemental Material

Online resource

the online version of Figure 2 is an excel-based vendor comparison tool that provides detailed product evaluations and customizable rankings.

Data Sources Used In This Forrester Wave

Forrester used a combination of four data sources to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each solution:

› Vendor surveys. Forrester surveyed vendors on their capabilities as they relate to the evaluation criteria. once we analyzed the completed vendor surveys, we conducted vendor calls where necessary to gather details of vendor qualifications.

› Product demos. We asked vendors to conduct demonstrations of their product’s functionality. We used findings from these product demos to validate details of each vendor’s product capabilities.

› customer reference calls. to validate product and vendor qualifications, Forrester also conducted reference calls with three of each vendor’s current customers.

› customer reference online survey. to establish a level of customer satisfaction across a number of categories including product functionality, flexibility, usability, services, and support, Forrester also conducted an online survey of a maximum of 15 of each vendor’s current customers.

The Forrester Wave Methodology

We conduct primary research to develop a list of vendors that meet our criteria to be evaluated in this market. From that initial pool of vendors, we then narrow our final list. We choose these vendors based on 1) product fit, 2) customer success, and 3) Forrester client demand. We eliminate vendors that have limited customer references and products that don’t fit the scope of our evaluation.




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after examining past research, user need assessments, and vendor and expert interviews, we develop the initial evaluation criteria. to evaluate the vendors and their products against our set of criteria, we gather details of product qualifications through a combination of lab evaluations, questionnaires, demos, and/or discussions with client references. We send evaluations to the vendors for their review, and we adjust the evaluations to provide the most accurate view of vendor offerings and strategies.

We set default weightings to reflect our analysis of the needs of large user companies — and/or other scenarios as outlined in the Forrester Wave document — and then score the vendors based on a clearly defined scale. these default weightings are intended only as a starting point, and we encourage readers to adapt the weightings to fit their individual needs through the excel-based tool. the final scores generate the graphical depiction of the market based on current offering, strategy, and market presence. Forrester intends to update vendor evaluations regularly as product capabilities and vendor strategies evolve. For more information on the methodology that every Forrester Wave follows, go to http://www.forrester.com/marketing/policies/forrester-wave-methodology.html.

Survey Methodology

Forrester fielded its north american Consumer technographics® online Benchmark Survey (Part 1), 2015 in March 2015 of 61,222 uS individuals and 6,642 Canadian individuals ages 18 to 88. For results based on a randomly chosen sample of this size (n = 61,222 in the uS and n = 6,642 in Canada), there is 95% confidence that the results have a statistical precision of plus or minus 0.4% of what they would be if the entire population of uS online adults (defined as those online weekly or more often) had been surveyed and plus or minus 1.2% of what they would be if the entire population of Canadian online adults had been surveyed. Forrester weighted the data by age, gender, income, broadband adoption, and region to demographically represent the adult uS and Canadian online populations. the survey sample size, when weighted, was 61,222 in the uS and 6,638 in Canada. (note: Weighted sample sizes can be different from the actual number of respondents to account for individuals generally underrepresented in online panels.)

Forrester fielded its north american Consumer technographics online Benchmark Survey (Part 2), 2015 in april 2015 of 32,188 uS individuals and 3,067 Canadian individuals ages 18 to 88. For results based on a randomly chosen sample of this size (n = 32,188 in the uS and n = 3,067 in Canada), there is 95% confidence that the results have a statistical precision of plus or minus 0.6% of what they would be if the entire population of uS online adults (defined as those online weekly or more often) had been surveyed and plus or minus 1.8% of what they would be if the entire population of Canadian online adults had been surveyed. Forrester weighted the data by age, gender, income, broadband adoption, and region to demographically represent the adult uS and Canadian online populations. the survey sample size, when weighted, was 32,055 in the uS and 3,051 in Canada. (note: Weighted sample sizes can be different from the actual number of respondents to account for individuals generally underrepresented in online panels.)

Please note that respondents who participate in online surveys generally have more experience with the Internet and feel more comfortable transacting online.




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endnotes1 We have entered the age of the customer, which Forrester defines as a 20-year business cycle in which the most

successful enterprises will reinvent themselves to systematically understand and serve increasingly powerful customers. Digital business transformation is a key imperative for competing for and retaining this newly empowered customer. See the “Winning In the age of the Customer” Forrester report.

2 adults engaging with online ratings and review sites reached 26% in 2015. Source: Forrester’s north american Consumer technographics online Benchmark Survey (Part 1), 2015.

Smartphone ownership has jumped to 70%. Source: Forrester’s north american Consumer technographics online Benchmark Survey (Part 2), 2015.

3 to keep up with the customer digital intelligence analytics and optimization practices must capture, manage, and analyze customer data to deliver a holistic view of the digital customer experience that drives the measurement, optimization, and execution of digital customer interactions. See the “Supercharge analytics With Digital Intelligence” Forrester report.

4 Competing for today’s empowered customer with continually shifting expectations demands that firms continually evolve and refine online experiences in order to consistently meet and exceed expectations. See the “transform Customer experience With Continuous optimization” Forrester report.

http://forr.com/1einFan

http://www.forrester.com/Analyst-Advisory/-/E-MPL172








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5 Forrester defines continuous optimization as “an analytics-driven approach that seeks to leverage every customer interaction to evolve the understanding of the customer, which is in turn used to evolve and optimize current and future customer experiences.” See the “transform Customer experience With Continuous optimization” Forrester report.

6 Firms must replace traditional funnel based approaches with customer life cycle-based approach. Doing so across the enterprise guides changes to marketing strategy, organizational alignment, analytics, measurement, and marketing technology. the customer life cycle describes six phases of customer engagement with firms: discover, explore, buy, use, ask, and engage. See the “use the Customer life Cycle to Power Your transformation to Customer obsession” Forrester report.

7 even previously nascent optimization practices such as mobile online testing are gaining traction. When Forrester surveyed 182 mobile executives, 19% of them stated that their firms were applying online testing tools and techniques. See the “Win Mobile Moments With Digital Intelligence” Forrester report.

8 During Forrester’s research into continuous optimization practices, we found that the most successful large-scale online testing programs were the result of a strong partnership with nontechnical users who were response for different parts of customer journey. See the “transform Customer experience With Continuous optimization” Forrester report.

9 the pressure from increasing digital customer interactions is continually transforming digital channels and disrupting business and operations functions. Digital not only accelerates the pace of change but also brings new opportunities for firms that can embrace the technology fast enough. See the “the Digital Business Imperative” Forrester report.

10 Digital intelligence isn’t available through an all-in-one product suite. CI professionals must employ a combination of technologies to collect, process, store, analyze, distribute, and act upon digital insights. See the “Supercharge analytics With Digital Intelligence” Forrester report.

11 a complete digital intelligence solution requires a range of technical capabilities spanning infrastructure components such as databases, software applications for analysis and action, and integrations to cross-pollinate data and functionality between systems. See the “Decipher the Digital Intelligence technology Code” Forrester report.

12 In august 2015, oracle announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Maxymiser and the transaction has closed. Source: “oracle Buys Maxymiser,” oracle press release, august 20, 2015 (https://www.oracle.com/corporate/acquisitions/maxymiser/index.html).

13 Most online tests implemented by the evaluated vendors are deployed via browser script tags that typically refer to a JavaScript files, which the browser then fetches, compiles, and executes. For the purpose of this report, Forrester refers to this scenario as a tag-based deployment. Solutions that are not tag based are referred to as a tagless solution with a tagless deployment model.









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