Does your agency do multivariate testing? A few weeks ago when I sat down with Jonathan Mendez to discuss his new company Ramp Digital he said most of the companies doing multivariate testing had been acquired, and “Traditional agencies don’t really have that knowledge in house to deliver that to clients.”
Over lunch last week with Widemile‘s CEO and president Robert Bergquist, he laughed and wouldn’t decline to agree with his friend Mendez’s statement regarding the shortage of multivariate-capable companies. He welcomed the advantage Widemile has as it prepared to announce an agency solution at Search Engine Strategies this week.
After two and a half years with the Partner Zero product working with clients like Microsoft, The Weather Channel, Miva, Telenav, and other companies, the company is setting its sights and services on the agency. Entering beta is an on demand service that agencies will use to test all matter of creative from Web sites, landing pages, microsites, banner ads, text, images, and any other aspects of the Web you can design an A and a B or a C group for. Widemile also provides training to agencies to get account reps up to speed. The interface is accessed through a dashboard, and integrates with existing analytics services. Agency clients get a limited view based on what the agency sets up.
Bergquist isn’t concerned Widemile’s Partner Zero clients will turn their services over to their agencies, in fact, in many cases Widemile is helping its clients do just that. The Enterprise market is already overloaded with analytics, keyword testing, and other issues. As far as testing, he sees the move towards involving agencies with this product as the third wave in testing and optimization.
Initial agency clients include Avenue A | Razorfish, Zaaz, DDB, Red Bricks Media, TMP Direct, Closed Loop Marketing, Solutionset, Ascentium, Palazzo Interactive, ZeroDash1, Brand Digital, and Portent Interactive.
