Google Sets Record Straight: No Google Optimize In GA4

Google confirmed today what many had feared: Google Optimize will not be making a return in Google Analytics 4 (GA4). The initial sunset announcement from January 20th has been revised to clarify this, signaling a shift in focus towards investing in third-party A/B testing integrations instead.

Convert Experiences will work hard to get all the connectors and features ready well before September 30th so the transitions will be smooth and integrations up and running.

Dennis van der Heijden, CEO of Convert.com

“We launched Google Optimize over 5 years ago to enable businesses of all sizes to easily test and improve your user experiences. We remain committed to enabling businesses of all sizes to improve your user experiences and are investing in third-party A/B testing integrations for Google Analytics 4”.

Google Confirms: GA4 Integrations for A/B Testing

In a conversation with our CEO, Dennis van der Heijden, our source at Google confirmed that the focus of GA4 will be on integrations with tools such as Convert Experiences, rather than reviving Google Optimize within GA4. Our source also confirmed we won’t see anything like Google Optimize or even a Content Experiments type feature in GA4.

Google Analytics 4 will announce the integrations for these A/B testing partners, starting with their Google Cloud partners VWO, AB Tasty and Optimizely – gradually extending the functionality to tools like Convert Experiences (that run on AWS) before the sunset date of Google Optimize.

Even though the details and design of the integrations have not been released yet, our team explored the potential of GA4 integrations earlier this week, giving us a glimpse into what’s to come.

We do expect that GA4 will offer a new set of features such as Audiences created with Explorer to replace Custom Dimensions (CD) to track each A/B test without losing historical data. Our team has created the design below to give you an idea of what new segmentations might look like in GA4.

Sunset Rumors Started in November, Confirmed on January 20th

When the rumors of the Google Optimize sunset started to emerge in November 2022, many shook their heads in disbelief. Even now, many rumors later, some Google Optimize fans are still holding out hope that GA4 may offer a solution for A/B testing. However, after this latest announcement, it’s becoming increasingly clear that Google Optimize alternatives should be considered.

Google Optimize Used by 5,000 Accounts (and 20% Active)

After a careful analysis of our data, we have determined that the Google Optimize sunset will impact approximately 250,000 domains globally (source: Convert Public Market Share Data).

However, after further investigation, we discovered that these domains actually represent only 25,000 unique accounts with the same snippets installed across multiple domains.

20% of those 25,000 accounts are actively using Google Optimize. This means Google is sunsetting a product that has around 5000 active users (with 12% of those being confirmed Google Optimize 360 accounts).

Vendor Integration Plan

A/B testing tool vendors have since taken great strides to accommodate the affected Google Optimize users.

The best options so far?

VWO’s free VWO Starter plan for up to 50,000 tested visitors.

Convert’s Community Web and Community Full plans are out already, but we also have extensive integration plans with GA4.

What to Expect from the GA4 > Convert Experiences Integration?

Convert Experiences will use GA4 Audience data to provide individual isolation of experiences (including personalizations and deploys), along with the ability to track each experience (and experiments) as it becomes available. The new GA4 Audiences, which serve as a replacement for Custom Dimensions (CD) to track each test, provide users with more flexibility and speed. These Audiences can be created with Explorer and deleted without losing historical data.

We plan to add the ability to import GA4 Audience data for Convert Experiments statistical computation on Bayesian and Frequentist methods through the existing stats engine.

At Convert, we are one of the few vendors that are not only transparent in our pricing but also in our stats engine that got an upgrade in February with added Bayesian features and new settings for Frequentist tweaking. This will bring an end to the time when Google Analytics and Convert Experiences had different numbers.

Dennis van der Heijden, CEO of Convert.com

We anticipate a seamless integration between Google Analytics 4 and Convert Experiences, which will minimize the need for switching between apps and result in a streamlined user interface.