Studies show that 93% of companies experiencing data loss for more than 10 days may face bankruptcy within a year.

Since product data loss and mismanagement have become more common in our times, businesses turn towards technology that helps them resolve these issues.

One such technology is the DXP, or Digital Experience Platform, which can manage your product data from a single place, providing a smooth user experience.

The right digital experience services help avoid negative user experiences and product data mismatch, so your business can function smoothly. This blog will explore DXPs in detail.

Why Businesses Need DXPs Today?

Due to the shifting customer expectations (personalized omnichannel, real-time, etc.), DXPs are in high demand for major businesses across the globe.

Let us look at the different business drivers in place that lead to the high DXP usage:

• Digital Channels: Web, mobile, and social media are a few channels that have become popular, driving major customer engagement for businesses.
• Social Media: With the advent of social media, unstructured methods of customer interactions have surfaced, so businesses influence public sentiment through it.
• Mobile Devices: Due to the localization of mobile devices, companies have found better ways to interact with customers on a ground level.
• Data Insights: Data of a single customer helps agencies to target the pain points of a potential customer, offering them highly personalized experiences.

These are some of the many reasons why DXPs are in demand today. Since there are many more channels to capitalize on engagement from, DXPs help in centralizing information and improving user interactions for them.

How DXPs Differ from Traditional Digital Technologies?

DXPs did not originate from scratch. They were a by-product of another product. Through enough trial and error, businesses concluded that unifying product data to improve the customer experience platform is much needed today.

Let us understand how it differs from other digital experience technologies of the past.

CMS vs. DXP (content-only vs. integrated experience)

A Content Management System (CMS) is a platform that creates, manages, and publishes digital content. A DXP, on the other hand, has a better software suite that also contains a CMS with integrated tools. These tools help in personalization, analytics, e-commerce, and marketing automation to display a single source of data.

Marketing Automation vs. DXP (point solutions vs. holistic platform)

The majority of businesses confuse marketing automation platforms with DXP. It is important to differentiate between the two since the result can be disappointing if not done so. This would enable businesses to make more informed decisions about their customer data experiences.

Types of Digital Experience Platforms

With so many DXPs on the rise, businesses find it difficult to filter the right one that aligns with their company’s principles. There are two types of DXPs when it comes to user experience and product data unification. Let us understand both of them.

Monolithic DXPs (all-in-one platforms)

Turning a proprietary CMS software into a full-fledged DXP with a ready-made software suite is called a monolithic DXP. This offers you an all-in-one software suite.

One vendor controls the entire platform in a monolithic DXP. All the features are contained within the same dashboard or suite, making it difficult to integrate them with external tools.

If your business wants to handle everything from one place, the monolithic approach is perfect for you. It also reduces the effort to integrate the platform due to a single access to the same vendor.

Composable / Modular DXPs (API-first, microservices-based)

A composable DXP is like building your own toolkit with the best software pieces for each task instead of depending on a single system that tries to do everything.

Owners will have more control over their tech stack than they had in the monolithic approach. This is possible due to the MACH principle that composable DXPs run on.

MACH stands for:

• M: Microservices (independent tools for specific needs)
• A: API-first (connecting them)
• C: Cloud-native (software that runs and updates in the cloud)
• H: Headless (freedom to design and deliver content on any device)

This unit-based approach makes the platform quicker, cheaper, and more adaptable for businesses to release new features and develop personalized digital experiences without offering access to a single vendor.

Choosing the Right DXP – What to Consider

Understanding the kind of DXP you want to go for is not enough. If you want your product data to be smoothly managed, you also need to ask yourself a few more questions regarding DXPs. Let us look at them and how they can help you pick the right one for your business.

Asking the right questions is a start to picking the right DXP. If the desired DXP ticks all of the above boxes, then it is perfectly suited for your company.

The next step is to make sure that your business goals and objectives are aligned with the platform so there are no last-minute disagreements with the DXP’s features.

Popular Examples of DXPs in the Market

Let us look at the different industrial instances of DXPs that help businesses centralize their product data.

1. Adobe Digital Experience Platform

Adobe’s natively built Experience Platform provides solutions for analytics, audience engagement, activation, omnichannel customer journey management analysis, and optimization.

Features

• Unified profiles: A centralized CDP will allow users to unify customer data from all sources to provide real-time profiles, consistent insights, and quicker engagement.

• Audience management: Users can create and manage AI-based audience segments with centralized control and integration across multiple platforms.

2. ContentStack

This API-first headless CMS provides organizations with personalized content experiences, which allows them to gain multiple audiences that are not limited to augmented or virtual platforms.

Features

• Journey mapping: Users can build flows, real-time triggers, and design cross-channel journeys for anonymous and known customers.

• Content management: Users can define and manage unit-based structured components for their content that will grow across teams, markets, and digital channels.

3. Mouseflow

Mouselfow is a digital experience analytics platform that focuses on businesses looking to improve their website experience. It helps businesses identify hidden friction that hides in plain sight on their website to reduce customer drop-offs.

Features

• Friction detection: This feature allows users to detect where customers struggle and allows AI-based recommendations to guide them to the resolutions that boost conversions.

• Session replays: Users can record customer sessions to identify hidden drop-off points, complex UX, and lost conversions, and fix them.

4. Pimcore

This platform specializes in data management and beyond basic content management. Some Pimcore features also include support for product information, master data management, and digital assets for larger databases.

Features

• Customer Data Platform: This feature unifies data and personalizes the user experience that boosts both engagement and conversions.

• Experience Portals: These portals allow stakeholders to access, search, and share product data and assets instantly without needing any logins or barriers.

Check out our Pimcore development services.

5. Ibexa

Ibexa is a digital experience platform built for B2B and B2C organizations looking to centralize their content, commerce, and product data to offer smooth and personalized digital journeys.

Features

• Headless: Reduce the amount of money and time invested in your business on administration, personalization, and distribution of digital content with this feature.

• Commerce: Ibexa provides users with a unified platform that can customize all aspects of the e-commerce experience.

Implementing Digital Transformation with DXPs Through DRC Systems

Picking the right DXP is only half the journey, as the next steps require results and how it’s implemented, integrated, and improved to match your business goals and requirements.

Contact DRC Systems, as we can help you build your custom, scalable, and future-based DXPs that form a smooth connection with your existing environment.

We provide both Pimcore and Ibexa development services to deliver organizations personalized and omnichannel digital experiences while also providing high data security and cost-efficiency.

FAQs

Q1. What types of businesses benefit the most from DXPs?

Industries like finance, healthcare, education, e-learning, manufacturing, media, and entertainment benefit majorly from DXPs due to the excess of data in their databases.

Q2. How does personalization in a DXP actually work?

Personalization in a DXP is powered by customer data and smart guidelines. The platform collects information from multiple sources, like browsing history, purchase behaviour, and location, or even offline interactions.

Q3. What’s the typical cost range for implementing a DXP?

The typical cost range of small to mid-sized businesses is from $30,000 to $100,000 for setup, integration, and licensing. Costs for enterprises range from $250,000 to $1M+ for advanced personalization and multi-channel integrations.

Q4. What challenges should I expect when migrating from a CMS to a DXP?

A few challenges to look out for when migrating from a CMS to a DXP include:

• Content Migration
• Integration Complexity
• User Training and Adoption
• Cost and Time Investment
• Change Management