Let the Games Begin

We at Offermatica have been evangelizing online testing for 3 years. Statisticians have been practicing multivariate testing (MVT) for decades.

But landing page optimization and multivariate testing leapt in awareness this week with the announcement of Google Website Optimizer, their new offering.

I am delighted by Google's announcement because knowing that MVT tools work is one thing, having Google say Do it is a marching order for many.  There is virtually no amount of marketing budget that I could spend that would be as validating.

I am thrilled because, with any luck, independent marketers, developers, and bloggers will play with Google's free tool and develop skills in continuous optimization. Simply put, the more you test, the better marketer you can become.

You could not give Offermatica a better gift than this.  The marketers are Offermatica's future.

So am I concerned about Google's optimizer?  When a company with $10B in cash enters your market, things are going to change, and we over here at Offermatica may be delusional, but we are not stupid.

But I trust that the market is (mostly) rational, and so I am very optimistic that this will be a tremendous catalyst for Offermatica.

Why? Because Google works for Google, and Offermatica works for advertisers:

1. To use their new tool, you must use Google Analytics.  Forget about Omniture, Coremetrics, or your other package.

2. Google's freebie tool is for Google Adwords.  Offermatica is for Google, Yahoo, MSN, Display Ads, email, affiliates and any other source of traffic.

3. As Bryan Eisenburg pointed out during the eMetrics show, "The Page is Dead".  If you want better advertising, you have to connect the experience, and this requires more that just single page content-switching.

It is instructive to consider what Google is *not* offering to their advertisers - like more price transparency, lower click fraud, or better control of where ads are displayed in the AdSense network. Many advertisers are interested in MVT, every advertiser is interested in lower fraud.

When Google offers consumer services for free (like YouTube or Gmail), they have a clear incentive to create real estate that can be monetized through some form of advertising. The deal is simple and clear.

When Google offers advertiser services for free, it is simply to increase their control of the advertiser value chain. Every advertiser must ask what is in their best interest.

I want to be clear.  Hats off to Brett (and thanks for the beer on Monday) and his team. We are passionate about better online marketing, we appreciate Google's participation, and we toast their success.

There is no looking back now, marketing is now officially beyond the site.

Comments

[Avinash Kaushik]

Matt: I agree with your assertion that this is a good thing for all of us. I don't lose a single opportunity to evangelize the power of testing and experimentation and now we have one of the loudest voices saying the same thing. Google's new service should expand the market considerable and that is good for site owners (even if they only use Google's Optimizer to optimize landing pages for AdWords), it is good for you (as people move up the food chain they'll come looking for you) and it is good for website visitors who will, hopefully, find more relevant content that is right for them.

I think of this as version one of what Google will do. In any scenario I believe the current industry testing players will benefit.

Let the games begin!

-Avinash.

[Jonathan Mendez]

I think Google's entrance into testing is analogous to Ford's introduction of the Model T.

Web Optimizer is a tool for the masses and will get lots of people testing. The same way the Model T grew the market for autos, a larger market for testing and optimization helps us all.

So I guess this does means more games...but what I really think it means more leagues.

[Robbin Steif]

Let's be clear about who bought the beer.
:-)

Robbin