Table of Contents
- Summary
- Market Categories and Deployment Types
- Key Criteria Comparison
- GigaOm Radar
- Vendor Insights
- Analyst’s Take
- Methodology
- About Sue Clarke
- About GigaOm
- Copyright
1. Summary
Digital experience platforms (DXPs) provide the core capabilities required for managing the content that is used to build online experiences. Although these solutions should be headless so they can be used as a repository and integrated with other applications to build experiences for delivery across multiple channels, they must also be capable of being used as a traditional web content management (WCM) system. This means that integration is a key aspect of a DXP.
A good selection of connectors to common third-party applications is something that should be considered when selecting a DXP, along with an easy mechanism for creating custom integrations. Also important is workflow, with the ability to integrate business process management (BPM) systems when complex processes are required to support interactions with customers that need integration with backend systems.
The ease with which personalized experiences can be created is vital to the success of a DXP. The ability to make recommendations, serve up dynamic content, and offer targeted, engaging content that results in sales can mean the difference between success and failure, particularly at a time of increasing competition and shrinking markets. Personalization requires good analytics capabilities to gather the metrics to create profiles of visitors, which in turn enables personalized content to be delivered. Some vendors include analytics in their core platforms, while others may provide advanced analytics as an add-on. Still others use third-party analytics, which are sometimes integrated into the DXP but in some cases require customers to license the analytics tools separately. Popular third-party tools are provided by cloud providers such as Amazon and Google.
DXP is evolving as new technologies are added. A few years ago, speech-to-text conversion was an emerging technology supported by only one or two vendors. Now many vendors either provide the capability themselves or integrate with third parties. This is a feature that is also available from some cloud providers. Now the ability to output content to social media sites is an emerging technology, as are chatbots. Specialist vendors provide chatbots, but increasingly, DXP vendors are adding this capability to their portfolios. They are also increasingly supporting social media as a delivery channel.
DXP will continue to evolve. Some vendors already have marketing automation and e-commerce capabilities ranging from light capabilities to fully featured standalone applications. The relationships among DXP, marketing automation, and e-commerce will continue to tighten as more vendors offer all three capabilities in a single solution so as to provide end-to-end marketing solutions.
This GigaOm Radar report highlights key DXP vendors and equips IT decision-makers with the information needed to select the best fit for their business and use case requirements. In the corresponding GigaOm report “Key Criteria for Evaluating Digital Experience Platforms,” we describe in more detail the key features and metrics that are used to evaluate vendors in this market.
How to Read this Report
This GigaOm report is one of a series of documents that helps IT organizations assess competing solutions in the context of well-defined features and criteria. For a fuller understanding, consider reviewing the following reports:
Key Criteria report: A detailed market sector analysis that assesses the impact that key product features and criteria have on top-line solution characteristics—such as scalability, performance, and TCO—that drive purchase decisions.
GigaOm Radar report: A forward-looking analysis that plots the relative value and progression of vendor solutions along multiple axes based on strategy and execution. The Radar report includes a breakdown of each vendor’s offering in the sector.
Solution Profile: An in-depth vendor analysis that builds on the framework developed in the Key Criteria and Radar reports to assess a company’s engagement within a technology sector. This analysis includes forward-looking guidance around both strategy and product.