Marketing Technology

Does my business need a Digital Experience Platform (DXP)

DXP is short for Digital Experience Platform. A short introduction into this recent class of software that I describe as a single-vendor MarTech stack.

Experiences.

DXP is short for Digital Experience Platform. Gartner defines a DXP as “an integrated and cohesive piece of technology designed to enable the composition, management, delivery and optimization of contextualized digital experiences across multi-experience customer journeys.

A short introduction into this recent class of software.

The genesis of DXP

Expanding further on this, a Digital Experience Platform is an emerging category of software that supports companies in digitizing at a rapid pace, with the ultimate goal of providing a superior Customer Experience (CX). The DXP’s have grown around technical solutions for digital content delivery, like content management systems, and out of solutions that unified Online Marketing solutions across different digital touchpoints, like Web Experience Management (WEM). And now they have merged more and more into a single category.

Theoretically, DXP's combine “Content Management” with “Engagement Management”, to allow teams the flexibility of creating omni-channel content, with the reliability of agile workflows, data-driven insights, and consistent user-journeys.

Full stack or best of breed DXP

Simplified, DXP's can commonly come in two forms:

A full-stack suite of harmoniously compatible solutions, from a single provider, like the Salesforce Cloud or SAP Commerce Cloud, or Adobe Marketing Platform, Bloomreach, Kentico, Sitecore and Optimizely DXP.
A range of products from multiple providers that connect together to create a powerful DXP that is customized by organizations based on their needs, such as a combination of products like a CMS, Customer Data Platform (CDP), Analytics, Customer Engagement, A/B Testing, and so on.

Who typically needs a DXP?

In either instance, DXP's target customer focused businesses that solve complex problems but don't have the capacity to solve them on their own. Most companies will be B2C and operate on scale. Think of Telecom Providers, Cable Companies, retail. Companies who do not just provide information but often actively engage with a (subscribed) customer base and want to measure and optimize these online interactions.

The emergence of DXP's coincide with the rise of utilizing a new architecture designed around microservices and API's, that reduce the unnecessary IT complexity that most organizations are known for.