Google launched Optimize 5 years ago which is sunsetting on September 30, 2023. Optimize offers website testing and personalisation tools to improve the user experience to all size businesses and enterprise solutions. Any experiments and personalisation's can continue to run until that date. Be sure to download your data from the Optimize user interface before 30 September . The announcement of discontinuation of Optimize left marketers shocked; with many now looking for new solutions in 253 days.
Google is replacing Optimize and Optimize 360 with new A/B testing compatible with Google Analytics 4. Google in a blog post said: "We are focused on bringing the most effective solutions and integrations to our customers, especially as we look toward the future with Google Analytics 4. Google Analytics 4, introduced on 31-July-2019 is an analytics service for measuring engagement and traffic across websites.
So what should we start doing now?
We are expecting more updates and information on the launch of GA4 integration and features.
- In the meantime we will note down all active experiments and personalisation's which are being managed by Optimize to be completed by or before early August.
- We will keep all experiments and screenshots that are only available in the Optimize UI as we get closer to the sunset date.
I’m excited to see how GA4 develops gradually to improve the optimisation of other industry-leading CRO(conversion rate optimisation) tools. It will be interesting to see where Google potential for real-time personalisation ends up.