Introduction

Marketing automation enhances your marketing initiatives. And if you and your rivals must carry out similar complicated marketing tasks, some of your competitors are likely to utilize marketing automation already to grow their organizations.

Now, how do you choose the best tool for your business? In this post, we will be drawing comparisons on two of the best tools out there - Optimizely and Markopolo.

What is Optimizely?

Optimizely is a digital experience platform (DXP) that helps businesses create, test, and deliver better digital experiences. It offers a variety of features, including A/B testing, personalization, and feature flags.

It is easy to use and offers a variety of features that can help agencies and businesses of all sizes achieve their marketing goals.

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What is Markopolo?

Step into the future of marketing with Markopolo.ai and its all-in-one Marketing Operating System (OS) designed to empower agencies and businesses. Led by young visionaries Rubaiyat Farhan and Tasfia Tasbin (Forbes 30 under 30 Asia 2023), Markopolo AI combines the expertise of an experienced team with cutting-edge AI technology to deliver unmatched marketing capabilities.

With its extensive collection of data and advanced ML models, Markopolo AI's Marketing OS propels businesses to new levels of success.

Say goodbye to guesswork and hello to data-driven decision-making as you unlock the power of enhanced audience reach and 24/7 campaign optimization. Whether you're an agency aiming to amplify client results or a B2B/D2C seeking to maximize marketing efforts, Markopolo AI's platform reduces human error and frees up valuable resources for strategic initiatives.

Now, let's start with the feature-wise comparison of the two-

Feature-Based Comparisopn

Cross-Channel Advertising: Optimizely supports a range of advertising channels that cover Meta, Google, Twitter and LinkedIn ads.

Markopolo in addition to Meta and Google, supports TikTok, LinkedIn, and Amazon Ads.

Audience Targeting: Optimizely offers standard targeting and geo-targeting features as well as pages and device specific targeting-in order to maximize reach, allowing businesses to target their advertising campaigns to the customers who are most likely to be interested in their products or services.

Markopolo uses machine learning algorithms to analyze customer behavior and uses the data on clustering algorithms for segmentation and fine-tuning the best-performing target audience. Markopolo also has its preset audiences, which it can generate based on every connected data point and of course MarkTag’s Data.

Dynamic Creative: Optimizely has a drag-and-drop editor, library of templates, and split testing features that allow users to create, manage, and improve their creatives.

Markopolo has creative switching in place with its auto-optimization algorithms. It can create multiple sets of experimentation with creativity and copies, ultimately getting the user the best possible ROAS.

Retargeting: Optimizely includes a retargeting feature package that can help you reach your target audience with relevant ads and increase your ROI. These features include Adaptive Audiences, Facebook Audience, and Retargeting Pixels.

Markopolo also has to retarget feature in it. With MarkTag’s implementation, Markopolo can build a synchronous marketing stack where data flows in microseconds among the stack elements. Also being a cross-platform server-side tracker, MarkTag instantaneously gets connected with Meta Pixel, TikTok Pixel, and Google’s GTM.

These enhance Markopolo’s ability to accurately track a visitor’s journey by 25-45%. Coupled with MarkTag’s ease of implementation, omits any possibility of data leakages/funnel leakages, summing up an additional 10-15% enhancement in retargeting ability.

‍Marketing Automation: Optimizely offers automation features that save time and effort by automating repetitive tasks. These include automatically optimizing campaigns, scheduling email campaigns, and lead management.

Markopolo has taken it to a whole new level with its customizable robotic automation capabilities. Being able to manage every aspect of a campaign/ad group/ad, with a huge library of variables, is a huge plus point for an account manager who wants to optimize these 24/7.

Also, Markopolo gives the ability to use offsite conversion/offsite data in its robotic automation feature. These include data generated from direct sales, marketplace sales, and affiliate-based sales.

Offsite conversion or offsite data is any data that has been generated outside of the platforms like Meta/Google/Linkedin. Why it’s important because of the sheer amount of volume data that can be generated from direct sales, marketplace sales, and affiliate-based sales.

‍Performance Reporting and Analytics: Optimizely provides a variety of performance reporting and analytics options that can assist you in tracking the performance of your campaigns and optimizing them for optimal results. A/B testing, heatmaps, session recordings, conversion funnels, goal tracking, reporting, and integrations are among the features available.

Markopolo also provides this. With MarkTag, Markopolo removes any potential attribution gap/data discrepancy. MarkTag syncs in microseconds with the platforms, and the ease of implementation results in almost zero data leakage. The impact can be seen in the Event Match Quality Score or EMQ Score of the users' marketing stack.

Markopolo comes with custom metrics feature, where the user can generate his custom cross-platform metric to be monitored.

‍Email Marketing: For email campaigns, Optimizely provides a drag-and-drop email builder, smart segmentation, and A/B testing.

Markopolo is not focusing on building an email marketing segment for its product roadmap as well. A user can avail of it in Markopolo through a simple Zapier integration.

‍Attribution Reporting: This feature enables businesses to understand the customer journey and the touchpoints that lead to conversions. It helps in identifying the channels and campaigns that are driving the most sales, allowing for more informed decision-making.

Optimizely utilizes both a pixel and a JavaScript SDK for attribution reporting. The pixel is a small, invisible image file that is included on your website's header. When a visitor comes to your website, the pixel is loaded and sends data back to Optimizely. This data can be used to track visitor behavior, measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, and target ads. This is used when the JavaScript SDK is not set up.

The JavaScript SDK is a small piece of code that is added to your website's body. When a visitor comes to your website, the SDK is loaded and starts tracking the visitor's behavior once it's set up. The SDK can track a variety of events, such as page views, clicks, and form submissions. Both the pixel and JavaScript are client-side tracking mechanisms.

However, Markopolo’s MarkTag gives it a clear edge over Optimizely in terms of Attribution tracking. A more detailed analysis of the scene technology difference is described below.

***Pixel-based tracking (Optimizely)*** or client-side tracking, involves inserting a small snippet of code (or pixel) onto a webpage, usually within the website's header or body.

‍Pros of Pixel-Based Tracking:

1. Simple Implementation : Pixel-based tracking is relatively simple to implement. Once the pixel is embedded in the web page or ad, it will start collecting data automatically whenever the page is loaded or the ad is clicked.
2. Real-Time Data : Because the pixel sends data back to the server every time it is activated, you get real-time information about user interactions.

Cons of Pixel-Based Tracking:

1. User's Browser Dependency : Since pixel-based tracking relies on the user's browser to send data back, it is affected by browser settings and limitations. If a user's browser blocks third-party cookies, for instance, the tracking pixel may not work.
2. Latency : Since the tracking process involves making a request to a server and then waiting for a response, it can introduce latency (or delay) to the page load time.
3. Growing Privacy Concerns : The use of tracking pixels has raised privacy concerns, as they can be used to collect a great deal of information about a user's behavior online without their knowledge or consent.

***Server-Side Tracking (Markopolo)***Server-side tracking, on the other hand, involves capturing and processing user data at the server level. Instead of relying on the user's browser to send data back, this method involves the server directly receiving and processing data.

‍Pros of Server-Side Tracking:

1. Less Affected by Browser Limitations : Since server-side tracking does not rely on the user's browser to send data back, it is less affected by browser settings and limitations. It can still capture data even if third-party cookies are blocked.
2. Faster Load Times : Since the tracking process takes place on the server, it does not introduce additional latency to the page load time.
3. More Robust Data Collection : Server-side tracking can capture a wider range of data than pixel-based tracking, as it is not limited to the data that can be captured by a pixel.

Cons of Server-Side Tracking:

1. Complex Implementation : Implementing server-side tracking can be more complex than implementing pixel-based tracking. It requires a deeper understanding of server-side technologies and may require the collaboration of both developers and marketers. Markopolo solves this with their Implementation Helper Suite.‍
2. Possible Data Inconsistencies : Since server-side tracking involves processing data on the server, it can lead to data inconsistencies if the server and the client (i.e., the user's browser) are not perfectly synced. This is solved with Markopolo's Instant Sync Technology.‍
3. Delayed Data : Unlike pixel-based tracking, server-side tracking does not always provide real-time data. Depending on how the server is set up, there may be a delay between when an event occurs and when it is recorded. However,  Markopolo fixes this, providing Data in <2 microseconds.

‍AI Optimization: Optimizely's AI optimization features include feature experimentation, advanced personalization, and program management.

When we launched Markopolo, it was built keeping in mind MSMEs who don’t have that much data in their marketing stacks.

These added a uniqueness itself, as all the algorithms that we have built till now are built keeping low data scenarios in mind, including our submitted provisional patent ‘Method of suggesting high performing audience interests and keywords for online advertising.’ (EFS ID: 44479531, Application Number: 63287822).

Businesses that suffer from unorganized siloed data in marketing stacks got to see major improvements with Markopolo from these algorithms.

Markopolo utilizes offsite conversion/offsite data in its optimization architecture. These include data generated from direct sales, marketplace sales, and affiliate-based sales.

While setting up cross-platform budget optimization, users can select these variables as the primary goal to be improved too. We trained the software to be efficient in a range of monthly advertising budget limits across platforms.

Till now we trained it with 13 million campaign performance data points. CMOs/Marketing Managers can now let the software spread their whole monthly advertising budget across platforms. Markopolo can do it seamlessly based on cross-channel campaign performances.

Integration: Optimizely integrates seamlessly with various platforms like Hubspot, Salesforce, Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, Magento, WooCommerce-among others. This helps businesses with tracking leads and managing customers across all marketing channels.

Markopolo integrates with Shopify, HubSpot, Amazon, and any Marketplace available currently globally. We have built a generalized proprietary architecture to get connected with these Marketplaces.

Now, let's take a look at the pricings offered by these two-

Markopolo vs Optimizely: The Better Financial Option

While both focus on marketing campaigning strategies, the pricing packages also differ, considering different features.

Pricing: Optimizely

Optimizely offers many plans you can buy, which consist of:

• Start (Free)
• Manage ($79/user/month)
• Create
• Orchestrate

For the Create and Orchestrate plans, you’re required to contact Optimizely to get the exact price directly.

Pricing: Markopolo

For its wide range of features, Markopolo charges a very fair price.

We have 2 types of pricing plans for you depending on your organizational needs: Self-Serve & Enterprise.

Under Self-Serve, we have-

• Starter: $47/month
• Growth: $152/month

And under Enterprise, we have-

• Starter: $999/month
• Growth: $1999/month
• Evolution: $2999/month

The Verdict

Now that we are at the end of the ride, we can understand that both Markopolo and Optimizely know their way of warming up to their respective audience. 

However, both companies have rooms for improvement.

But for now, see which solution would work best for your business and go ahead. Remember, it’s all about focusing on the positives; thus, it depends on which would be more beneficial for your business.

Want to know how to go about creating a proper marketing funnel? Check out this article.