7 Questions to Guide Your Search for a Digital Experience Platform (DXP)

1. What is a Digital Experience Platform (DXP)?

Digital experience platforms are comprehensive software solutions that enable organizations to create, manage, optimize, and deliver seamless user experiences across multiple channels and touchpoints.

DXPs allow you to:

• Deliver a highly personalized user experience and reach your audience where they are
• Gather better intelligence into exactly how your audience engages with your content across channels and platforms
• Optimize your customer journey and drive growth for your business

DXPs are not singular products or standalone “things.” Rather, DXPs are a lot like Swiss Army Knives — a combination of disparate tools packaged together into one. DXPs connect content management, personalization, analytics, integrations, and other features into a single platform geared toward empowering you to reach your audience more effectively.

2. How is a DXP Different From a Traditional CMS?

Traditional content management systems focus primarily on enabling marketers like you to publish and edit content on your website. There’s just one problem. As the digital marketing landscape has evolved, your needs as a marketer have evolved too. And now more than ever, you need to a) meet your users where they are and b) know exactly how they’re interacting with your content to thoughtfully move them through your organization’s decision funnel.

That’s why DXPs grew out of CMSs to focus on the overarching experience rather than content alone. Content is an integral part of the DXP equation, but it’s only one piece of a larger puzzle.

Content Management 

Traditional CMSs focus primarily on content creation, storage, and publishing. As such, they provide tools to manage and organize content assets such as text, images, and videos. 

DXPs do that, too. But DXPs are more concerned with how content contributes to the overall user experience. Therefore, DXPs enable you to create highly personalized, targeted content to offer a tailored and engaging experience that more effectively draws your audience in.

Multichannel Delivery

It’s not enough to create engaging content. You also need to distribute it in a consistent, appropriate way across all channels — mobile apps, social media, email, text messaging, and more. 

DXPs make it easy to optimize content for the specific requirements of each channel (e.g., making sure images and text display correctly on Facebook) and push it out in a timely fashion.  By contrast, traditional CMSs are capable of managing content for multiple channels, but they often lack the specific features and integrations required for seamless multichannel delivery.

Advanced Integrations

DXPs typically offer extensive integration capabilities with other systems and technologies, such as customer relationship management systems (CRMs), marketing automation tools, e-commerce platforms, analytical tools, and more. These integrations are an essential part of leveraging customer data, personalizing your experiences, and providing advanced marketing capabilities. 

Traditional CMS can be integrated with various tools and technologies, too. But sometimes the only way to get the functionality that’s desired is to cobble together manual workarounds or invest in expensive custom solutions.

Data Analytics

DXPs offer advanced analytics and reporting features to track and analyze customer interactions and content performance across platforms. This makes it easier to measure campaign effectiveness, optimize content, and make data-driven decisions. 

Again, while some traditional CMS platforms offer basic analytics, they may not reach across channels to provide the depth of insights and actionable intelligence the way DXPs can.

3. What Does a DXP Consist Of?

To further understand what a DXP is and how it’s different from a traditional CMS, it’s helpful to think about it in terms of what it consists of. After all, a DXP is an interconnected ecosystem, not a standalone entity. So if you create a DXP, you (or your web development partner) will need to consider which tools, platforms, and technologies are essential for creating the digital experience you want to offer your audience. 

A DXP consists of core and extended concepts/components (core elements are bolded):

• Content Management System
• Customer Data Platform
• Front-End Experience Management
• Journey Management Tools
• Personalization Tools
• Commerce
• Auto Scaling
• Compliance
• Security/Monitoring
• Digital Asset Management
• Advanced Search
• Social Publishing
• Chat Bots
• Marketing Automation
• CRM/MRM
• Content Delivery Network

The Customer Data Platform (CDP) is a particularly crucial core element of a DXP. A CDP becomes a central source of truth for all your customer data. In that way, it’s the fuel that powers the personalization engine that makes your users’ digital experience what you want it to be. 

You may be asking how many of these other components are truly essential when creating a DXP. And the truth is, you likely won’t need them all. A good web development partner can help you identify and prioritize the components that align with your particular business needs and goals.  

4. Does Your Organization Need a DXP?

Depending on which CMS you use, you may be thinking, “But wait, my CMS can already do everything we’re talking about here.” You could be right. Many CMSs now market themselves as DXPs precisely because they’ve developed a DXP mindset and grown their capabilities over time. (In fact, Drupal is a DXP and a CMS, which we’ll explore in more detail later in this white paper.)

But if your CMS can’t give you the level of personalization, integration, and analytics you need to build a better digital experience for your users, it may be time to invest in something new. It all comes down to your organization and what you’re trying to achieve.

For example, do you need or want to:

• Manage your users’ digital experience and journey down to the last detail?
• Offer a personalized, customized, fully tailored user experience that’s relevant to your audience’s specific needs?
• Leverage multiple platforms and channels to reach your prospects and lead them through the sales or decision funnel?
• Enable user data to flow back and forth from your website to one or more third-party platforms (e.g., a CRM like Salesforce)?
• Push content to all your channels in a simultaneous or highly coordinated fashion?
• Give your audience the ability to self-serve and more easily find answers to their questions?
• Gain a more holistic view of audience behavior and dive deeper into qualitative and quantitative user data?
• Run a more efficient, automated, campaign-oriented marketing program? 

Answering “yes” to even one of these questions is reason enough to consider making the leap from traditional CMS to modern DXP. 

5. Who Shouldn’t Invest in a DXP?

DXPs are for solving complex business problems. They’re not right for everyone, and that’s ok. If you have simple, straightforward marketing needs — or if your marketing and IT teams are small and under-resourced — you probably don’t need a DXP. An easy-to-maintain brochure website, powered by a what-you-see-is-what-you-get CMS is likely sufficient.

Think about it this way. Imagine you're planning a get-together with friends and you’re at the store buying food to serve them. If they’re arriving at the dinner hour and you serve them light refreshments, they’re likely to leave hungry — and more than a little annoyed. But if they’re coming to your place after indulging in a large meal, you only need to offer them coffee and dessert.

Again, it all comes down to finding the right-sized solution for your specific situation. 

6. Which is Better: An Open Source Solution or a Proprietary Product?

The pros and cons for an open source versus a proprietary DXP solution are the same as the advantages and disadvantages of an open source versus closed source CMS. And which one you choose comes down to your level of sophistication and the kind of business requirements you have.

Open Source DXPs

An open source DXP is better if you’re looking for:

• Flexibility. Since you have access to existing code and solutions, you can work with a developer to customize and modify the platform to suit your unique needs.
• Fast-paced continuous improvement. Open-source software typically benefits from a large community of contributors who actively improve and enhance the platform over time. That means the pace of innovation is rapid and there are always new extensions and plugins to consider.
• Affordability. Custom-built, open source DXPs are often cheaper to maintain over time. Why? Proprietary solutions come with a hefty initial price tag plus pricey licensing fees year after year. 

With an open-source system, you’re not tied to any specific vendor or hosting platform. You can make changes as you see fit and select a web development partner that’s familiar with your unique situation (e.g., industry and/or functionality requirements).

Closed Source DXPs

On the other hand, proprietary DXPs offer:

• Out-of-the-box functionality. Proprietary DXPs usually come with a comprehensive set of features and functionalities, specifically designed for various use cases. They often provide intuitive interfaces, user-friendly tools, and extensive documentation.
• Dedicated support. With proprietary solutions, you typically have access to dedicated support services from the vendor. This can be beneficial in terms of timely assistance, bug fixes, and updates. However, working with a relationship-oriented web development partner offers the same benefits, often with a speedier response time.
• Accountability and liability. When using a proprietary DXP, you have a single vendor responsible for the product, ensuring accountability and assuming liability for the platform's performance and security.

Proprietary DXPs are often favored by organizations seeking comprehensive features, dedicated support, and a sense of accountability from a single vendor. 

Ultimately, the choice between open source and proprietary DXP depends on your organization's specific needs, technical capabilities, budget, and long-term goals. You should evaluate both options carefully and consider the trade-offs before making a decision. However, an open source solution is often the best choice if you need flexibility and the ability to grow and scale over time, with recent reporting showing that the value of open source is rising in terms of benefits vs. cost. 

7. Can Drupal Function as a DXP?

Yes. It’s really that simple. 

Drupal’s capabilities as a CMS extend beyond content creation and management and have evolved to embrace DXP capabilities. And with the introduction of key modules and enhancements, Drupal now provides a comprehensive suite of tools for managing content, personalizing experiences, and delivering omnichannel journeys. 

In fact, because of its composable, plug-and-play nature, Drupal can provide you with every capability (and more) touted by branded proprietary solutions like Adobe Experience Manager. Acquia DXP is even built on Drupal, utilizing additional functionality and capabilities within a single product.

Like other DXP’s, Drupal as a platform offers: 

• Powerful content authoring and editing capabilities
• Flexible content modeling
• Advanced user and access control
• Multilingual support
• Robust API capabilities and options for custom integrations
• Seamless integration with third-party systems
• Personalization options based on user behavior, demographics, and preferences

Drupal's modular architecture, customizable content management features, theming system, integration capabilities, and scalability make it an excellent choice for building complex and highly customized digital experiences that propel your audience toward action.

Ready to Harness the Benefits of a DXP? 

Drupal offers endless possibilities for creating a DXP that will enable you to perform at a higher level. You just need the right web development partner at your side. 

ImageX knows what it takes to build sophisticated web experiences that solve the most complex business problems. We also happen to be a team made up of nice, approachable people — which can make all the difference when you’re looking at a months-long or multi-year engagement. 

We’d love to help you reach your audience and your goals. So let’s talk.