Businessmodel of Optimizely

Customer Segments

Optimizely has a mass market business model, with no notable differences between customer segments. The company markets its offerings to all companies that want to optimize the performance of their websites and mobile apps.

Value Proposition

Optimizely offers four primary value propositions: accessibility, customization, convenience, and brand/status.

The company’s platform allows integration with the top digital analytics providers. Also, it is available in at least 10 languages, including Dutch, Danish, German, French, Japanese, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish, and Spanish. These features increase its accessibility to audiences.

The company’s platform enables personalization by allowing users to target visitors by geography, device, browser, behavior, URL, and third-party integrations. Further, it allows users to create customized experiences based on visitor behavior, making them more comfortable. Its APIs and developer tools facilitate the building of custom experiments, regardless of their complexity.

The company’s platform offers convenience in a variety of ways. It provides real-time measurement on its dashboards, helping users to respond quickly to data changes. In addition, it allows users to integrate testing and optimizing data into their reporting, analysis, and content management platforms so that they can create a seamless experience for visitors.

The platform’s popularity has helped to enhance the company’s brand. It has over 6,000 customers who have run over 190,000 experiments and created over 30 billion optimized experiences. Customers include leading brands such as CNN, Priceline, Starbucks, eBay, Disney, Crate & Barrel, and Virgin America. Moreover, Optimizely has been recognized on many prominent lists. It was identified as a leader in testing by Forrester Research and ranked as the most utilized optimization platform in Alexa’s Top 10,000 sites, as well as the #1 app optimization platform by Mixrank.

Channels

Optimizely’s main channel is its direct sales team, which acquires its customers. The company also markets its offerings on its website and social media pages.

Moreover, it promotes its solution at virtual events and conferences. The most prominent among the latter is Opticon, an annual user conference hosted by the firm at which it often announces new products.

Customer Relationships

Optimizely’s customer relationship is primarily of a self-service, automated nature. Customers utilize the service through the main platform while having limited interaction with employees. The company’s website has numerous resources for users, including articles, webinars, a content library, and an “Academy” featuring interactive courses.

That said, there is also a community component in the form of a forum where customers can receive assistance from peers.

Key Activities

Optimizely’s business model entails maintaining and updating its software platform for customers. The platform includes its website and mobile app.

Key Partners

Optimizely has the following types of partners:

Technology Partners – This involves firms who integrate Optimizely with their existing solutions to provide a more comprehensive offering for their customers. The company provides them with technical and business resources so they can build integrations, get certified on the platform, and collaborate on sales and marketing campaigns. Specific partners include Adobe Analytics, DemandWare, Google Analytics, KISSmetrics, Mixpanel, Wordpress, and comScore.

Solutions Partners – This involves firms who assist Optimizely’s customers with strategy and execution in their use of the platform. The firms are certified in use of the solution; specific partners include Blue Acorn, CROmetrics, Razorfish, CrossView, E-Nor, and TWT Interactive.

Developers – This involves firms who want to build on the existing Optimizely platform with their own enhancements. They are given an Optimizely Software Development Kit and APIs and allowed to do the following:

• Integrate with their content management system so they can run experiments without logging into Optimizely
• Install the SDK so they can run personalized experiences and experiments in their apps without needing to provide updates
• Send specified audiences to Optimizely so they can target personalized experiences and experiments to their most important customers
• Receive complete access to Optimizely Stats Engine so they can observe the performance of their personalized experiences and experiments in their chosen tool
• Override the company’s default bucketing process so they can personalize the point at which experiments activate in mobile apps and on web pages
• Track the events and actions most important to their business so they can more effectively target experiences and segment reports ### Key Resources

Optimizely’s main resource is its proprietary software platform, used by over 6,000 clients.

It also depends on its human resources in the form of technology, sales/marketing, and customer service staff members to maintain, promote, and support the platform.

Lastly, as a start-up it has relied heavily on funding from investors, raising $146.2 million from 37 companies as of October 2015.

Cost Structure

Optimizely has a cost-driven structure, aiming to minimize expenses through significant automation and low-price value propositions. Its biggest cost driver is likely sales/marketing expenses, a fixed cost. Other major drivers are in the areas of administration and customer support/operations.

Revenue Streams

Optimizely has one revenue stream: the fees it charges for usage of its platform. Its pricing options are as follows:

• Pay As You Go – Customers only pay for what they use. They are charged $49 per 1,000 MUV (monthly unique visitors). First-time signers are often offered a $500 credit.
• Enterprise – Customers’ fees are tailored to their needs. Those who choose an annual commitment receive a lower rate.