Huge fan and proponent of Optimizely and the platform they offer, we made them an integral part of our agency for our performance based CRO clients as a tool we could bring to the table to help execute our ideas for the past 3 years.
That is, until they changed their model and began to push agencies off the platform by insisting that the client and not the agency must have the account relationship with Optimizely, and the agency can then "work" on the account but no longer under one account spread across multiple clients.
I have no objections to pricing changes and strategy pivots, more power to them and I understand to develop more and more features, pricing must be raised to match usage. We would happily pay more per month, however we don't see the business sense in handing over our client relationships directly to Optimizely so that our clients could then choose to drop us as an agency at anytime, but keep the Optimizely account.
An account that would be full of our work product, testing ideas and custom code developed to implement tests that a client could now easily take to another agency and continue benefiting from the work.
(Yes, we have contracts with our clients, but we are not naive enough to think that clients won't look for a way to do away with our fees if they can take our services and work product with them.)
Our ability to utilize the tools provided by Optimizely and build winning tests has helped us grow our business, but this change in agency support has caused us to need to look for alternate solutions.
It would be great if some of this latest raise could be used to re-invest in agencies again, providing a client manager style interface where multiple accounts/sub-accounts can reside under one login. Even if each client needs to have a different pricing structure based on their usage patterns, can't share visits across clients, but could be arranged and managed by the agency as one point of contact and billing.
I'd love to kick back up our usage of the platform, as the new features I see them rolling out are enticing and I am sure this raise will only accelerate that, but we can't commit to a vendor that seems to actively enable and almost encourage our clients to circumvent our own service model.
Really great breakdown of the pros and cons, I have two cousins who went the "Code school" route, but with a company sponsoring the cost and a job to "graduate" right into. Takes some of that risk out of it for sure, but to date - 2+ years, they are still building their skills and learning on the job.
I've had in a hand in a few Groupon/daily deal campaigns for some clients and their experiences all seemed to depend on the quality of the product/service they could provide. An established restaurant I would find it hard to believe they would extract value out of this type of discount. However, a new product to market that believes a customer can have a good enough experience and can deliver on that the first time they try it out, may be more apt to succeed on daily deal type of sites. It follows the "free trial" model of direct response (without the shady autobilling on the backend), just get the product in their hands and let it do the talking for you.
As a consumer, I love the model. As a business owner/marketer, the results have been so/so.
Although I am sure my kids would love to be able to live in some Disney worlds, from my own experiences with VR headsets to date, have there been any studies done on what that type of sensory immersion can do to kids vs. adults? I know it will get better as the tech develops, but as my children's brains develop, I do wonder what the effects could be - obviously it's our job as parents to regulate and decide for ourselves. I can see the discussions coming though as Disney hops in the game.
It's the "Nigerian Prince wants to give you $100M" email scam scaled up another notch.
Where that was a pure numbers game, the criminal knows if they send out 1M emails, 1% will engage, and of that 1% they will get 1% to send money, that "scam" could easily be thwarted with a simple click of the delete button in you inbox or the increase of spam filtering to help the unsuspecting or unknowing not start the process at all.
This online extortion is certainly more aggressive and has an immediate effect on your life. Criminals are always looking for the next way to get ahead, I wonder where the "spam filter" to thwart this effort will come from and what they will move on to next.
20 years ago, I lived in a house that had a city implemented carpool pickup spot in the East Bay - every morning carpoolers would line up and wait for a rid into SF to get through via the carpool lane, back when the toll was only $2.
Since it was city property, I don't believe my parents got anything out of it, and we couldn't park in front of our house Mon - Fri mornings, my brother did have the enterprising idea of selling coffee in the mornings, much like a lemonade stand with a forced audience.
Seems like there was a demand for this type of service 20 years back though, interesting to see it is still an issue that companies are looking to solve today.
That is, until they changed their model and began to push agencies off the platform by insisting that the client and not the agency must have the account relationship with Optimizely, and the agency can then "work" on the account but no longer under one account spread across multiple clients.
I have no objections to pricing changes and strategy pivots, more power to them and I understand to develop more and more features, pricing must be raised to match usage. We would happily pay more per month, however we don't see the business sense in handing over our client relationships directly to Optimizely so that our clients could then choose to drop us as an agency at anytime, but keep the Optimizely account.
An account that would be full of our work product, testing ideas and custom code developed to implement tests that a client could now easily take to another agency and continue benefiting from the work.
(Yes, we have contracts with our clients, but we are not naive enough to think that clients won't look for a way to do away with our fees if they can take our services and work product with them.)
Our ability to utilize the tools provided by Optimizely and build winning tests has helped us grow our business, but this change in agency support has caused us to need to look for alternate solutions.
It would be great if some of this latest raise could be used to re-invest in agencies again, providing a client manager style interface where multiple accounts/sub-accounts can reside under one login. Even if each client needs to have a different pricing structure based on their usage patterns, can't share visits across clients, but could be arranged and managed by the agency as one point of contact and billing.
I'd love to kick back up our usage of the platform, as the new features I see them rolling out are enticing and I am sure this raise will only accelerate that, but we can't commit to a vendor that seems to actively enable and almost encourage our clients to circumvent our own service model.