LiveBall is a template-driven testing tool that allows users to set up a test in as little as three clicks. It provides great templates, but leaves little room for “out-of-the-box” testing.
Despite that drawback, based on our past experience with them, we can say that their team is very responsive and flexible when new templates or changes are needed. But, that’s a minor issue that can be solved if you have someone on staff who is HTML-savvy; since they’ll most likely be able to modify the templates themselves.
One the best features of this system is its advanced rules engine, which can be used to test different offers based on several factors, including location and campaigns. This form of routing or personalization is based on geolocation.
LiveBall was launched in 2007. Its clients range from Fortune 100 companies to small businesses. Here are a few points to consider if you’re thinking about implementing LiveBall…
Key benefits
- Liveball is a hosted, software-as-a-service solution
- Can be used as a Content Managing System even though it was not designed for that
- Can build microsites and conversion paths (we’ve used it to build a microsite for a Research Partner)
- Has a point-and-click interface, which means there’s no code to write, no need for a designer and no involvement from IT
- Product is installed and ready to test within one to two weeks for most clients
- LiveBall builds 15 branded page templates at the start of the contract
- Can launch an A/B test in as few as three clicks
- Quick Start program offers auto-responder emails, forms, reports and data exports (LiveBall account manager will work with you to create two standard reports)
- Can create and upload new templates if you know HTML
- Auto-optimization feature will automatically route traffic to the best performing treatment
- Can create surveys and quizzes to gather data from your customers Advanced rules engine allows users to do 18 different actions based on 26 different conditions – this conditional landing page logic allows you to create dynamic content based on keywords or campaign codes, personalization based on user behavior, and geo target content based on location–(geo targeting feature is built into Adobe Test&Target but costs extra)
- Offers real-time reports with day parting (diving the day into different data sets) and automatic report setup
- Has a centralized library that stores all landing page assets
- Can setup data export to CMS
- Allows users to create tests and pages
- Creates a unique URL for testing or a subdomain
- Setup in tool – LiveBall provides and IP address and you point subdomain or unique URL to LiveBall
- Can upload video, Flash and images
- Can route traffic to the control page or LiveBall will help recreate the page
- Provides preformatted Excel files
- Can integrate third-party code
- Has tag clouds, visual for reporting
But keep in mind…
- Everything is template-based, so to make many layout changes, you’ll need to have some HTML knowledge and alter the master layout
- Interface takes a while to get used to due to naming conventions that are not typical
- LiveBall is not installed; instead all code is hosted at a third-party location. Can post data but not API for custom databases – would need to be a custom solution, which means more time and more custom code
- Can’t be used for ecommerce because of inventory
What types of elements can you test?
- A/B
- Multivariate
How does it validate?
- Has a confidence interval and report that shows margin of error when manually optimizing
- LiveBall testing is technically a two-tailed t-test for both A/B and multivariate
- The Multivariate confidence intervals that the console displays on the elements and combinations tabs, and the ones used in multivariate auto-optimization use the basic 2-tailed t-test (with null hypothesis that the difference between the conversion rates of combination X and combination 0 is zero)
Cost
- Price is based on unique visits:
- Subscriptions start at $1,295/month for 10,000 unique visitors to the pages you create and launch
- Up to 2 million visits a month for $16,895/month
Support
- There’s no charge for custom technical items, templates or training
- Dedicated account manager
- Available to help with questions in coaching package
- Available to help if you feel you’re deficient in certain areas, such as data review
We’d love to hear some customer reviews as well. Use the comments to share your experience with LiveBall. And stay tuned to this blog as we provide quick guides for more online testing solutions to help you choose a platform that is best for your individual situation.
Related Resources
Quick Guide to Visual Website Optimizer
Quick guide to Adobe Test&Target
Quick guide to Google Website Optimizer
I started using Liveball in May and it has been so valuable that even though I first thought I’d use it for some testing and then move on, I can’t imagine trying to manage all of my campaigns without it now! It has an API for Salesforce too and it’s so easy to use – the support and every person at Ion Interactive I have ever dealt with has been AMAZING and they go way above and beyond to help me whether it’s for strategic testing insight or just for a simple “how do I…?” question. Our conversion rates have jumped considerably since using this testing platform and being able to see the test results myself so easily and anytime I want is really valuable. It’s definitely affordable and worth every penny and more! I HIGHLY recommend anyone who wants to bump up their landing page conversion rates should consider using Liveball (accept my competitors of course) 🙂
Hey Gina,
Liveball sounds good. It would be great if sometime you guys had a cross-sectioned review system for testing tools. Each tool could be rated for how well it integrates with Facebook, AdWords, and other ad networks. There also could be a rating for how it integrates with Clickbank and other affiliate networks.
–Dan
We have been using LiveBall for over two years now. We developed and tested numerous micro sites, segmentation pages and conversion paths. The flexibility and speed of LiveBall’s no-code approach to creating beautiful web experiences and testing them enables us to focus on what we’re testing, instead of how we’re going to do it. Once we settled on quite a flexible template, we found it to be very accommodating. This flexibility and basic html knowledge allowed us to conduct numerous A/B and multivariate tests to improve customer experience.
Whereas before it would take us months to test just one aspect of our online campaigns, in the same amount of time we’ve now tested: video testimonials, long-tail messaging, incentives, second-level segmentation and three levels of narrowing by visitor’s intent. This has lead to a 3X conversion rate improvement, higher quality of leads and a web experience that reflects our value proposition.
The technology is very reliable and their customer service is phenomenal. We are looking forward to conducting many more tests and implementing customer experience improvements in the New Year.