What's the most compact solution for a new website with split testing?
I meet a lot of wantrepreneurs who are very smart but not at all into the plumbing of websites. They totally get concepts such as minimum viable product and split testing, and they want to be hands-on with the propositions and the copy. But definitely not with the pipes and joints.
As a recovering programmer, I tend to shy away from all-in-one web solutions. Even if they solve my problem today, I can always see how just around the corner I'll need more than is on offer. So my default answer involves them finding a friendly web developer, a CMS with a ready market in custom skins and some best-of-breed solutions to manage basic analytics and A/B testing.
That's still my answer for established products and services, but for new stuff... well, I'm not so sure.
So what are:
- Existing all-in-one answers for CMS with full analytics and split testing?
- Genuinely simple, robust combination solutions that don't require geek skills to manage?
If you'd like a concrete example, take this one: a dental practitioner, who wants to branch out into some value-added services promoted online - very bright, but very definitely never wants to see a line of HTML or javascript!
Performable's 'Marketing CMS' is the nearest I can think of, but it seems to me over-rich in features and over-expensive for this kind of startup.
Technology Analytics Website Ab Testing
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And why would someone be a wantrepreneur just because they don't want to deal with technical guts of what (by your description) is a marketing outlet? – Russell Steen 14 years ago
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@Russell I'm not using wantrepreneur as a perjorative term. – Jeremy Parsons 14 years ago
1 Answer
Existing all-in-one answers for CMS with full analytics and split testing?Dharmesh's HubSpot is the only more or less startup friendly CMS with deep analytics I can think of. Then there are tonnes of high-end CMS systems (Vignette etc), which can integrate with high-end analytics like Omniture. They all have a learning curve like a brick wall, a price that is off the charts, and far fever features than you would expect given the price.
Genuinely simple, robust combination solutions that don't require geek skills to manage?For just pushing web pages, without the deep analytics part? Hosted Wordpress, SquareSpace etc.
The "CMS that just works, has all required features, and has a low learning curve" isn't invented yet. Seriously.
