What Are the Capabilities of DXP Platform?

A Digital Experience Platform, or DXP, allows companies to take control of how they create and present digital experiences, like never before. To understand the potential of a Digital Experience Platform it is necessary to understand what it is, how it operates, and what its full capabilities are. This article can serve a guide to break down what you need to know about DXP technologies.

What Are DXP Platforms?

DXP meaning digital experience platform is software that enables users to create and manage a wide variety of digital experiences from one central location. Whether the goal is to manage websites, landing pages, microsites, or digital product guides, a DXP allows you to manage all of this across the entire customer journey.

Most DXPs work by allowing you to build out the front-end design of the digital experience, while some DXPs, such as Lumavate, allow you to create the entire digital experience without needing to use any code. DXPs have allowed users to mediate and control their customer's digital experience like never before.

Additionally, many DXPs have content management capabilities. This allows companies to easily create, manage, and reuse content, whether that content is images, videos, documents, text, and more. While some DXPs are limited to offering just this Content Management System (CMS), some DXPs, like Lumavate, go further in offering a full Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution.

So much of our companies' business interactions with customers occur online today. Which is why so much of our success is dependent on allowing customers to easily navigate our digital assets, interact with them where they feel most comfortable, while also allowing the company to be able to control its own digital image from top to bottom.

What Is the Purpose of DXP?

DXP technologies allow businesses to take control of their marketing messages across the entire digital experience of their customers. DXPs give business users, specifically marketing teams, the power to build and iterate a wide variety of digital experiences without ever having to use code. This cuts out the need for any sort of middleman in building a company's digital experience, and allows your marketing team to apply their expertise directly to where it is most needed: the customer experience.

What Are the Capabilities of DXP Platform?

We've discussed what a DXP platform is, and what it's overall purpose is, but what happens when a DXP platform is put into use? The capabilities of a DXP platform allows for a truly interactive digital experience for the customer. Through digital experiences — microsites, landing pages, etc. — consumers can get to know the company and the products it sells in a manner that is most conducive to their browsing habits and needs. A DXP enables a  company to guide customers through the messaging and branding of its choosing.

When a customer encounters a product online they were just discussing or receives a branded birthday message, these are examples of a DXP at work. The DXP manages experiences across a wide variety of digital touch points throughout the customer's journey.

To be effective, a DXP must employ either a built-in Content Management System (CMS) or Digital Asset Management (DAM) functionality. It is also critical for a DXP to have built-in or allow for integrated analytics tools. It is these capabilities which allow users to monitor customers' digital experiences and make changes based on data to ensure the most effective marketing results. Another feature most DXPs offer is personalization. This can range from the more basic type of personalization that allows for specific pieces of digital content to be personalized to a more robust system of personalization, allowing the entire digital experience to dynamically change based on a customer's specific location on their journey with a brand. Some DXPs now include a version of a Customer Data Platform (CDP) in order to collect and manage customer data. This allows for integrated analytics within the DXP, although currently the CDP functionality within DXP solutions can vary a great deal. Some of the other capabilities offered by DXP platforms include eCommerce functionality, built-in Product Information Management (PIM) solutions, text messaging, form builders, and integrations.

What Is an Example of a DXP?

There are numerous DXP solutions available in today's marketplace. A list of digital platforms worth noting in the industry include Adobe Experience Manager, Liferay, Optimizely, and Lumavate. Sitecore DXP and Acquia DXP are a couple of additional DXP examples.

While each of these DXP companies offer businesses the ability to build digital experiences, it's important to note that some require more technical expertise to get started than others. For instance, Adobe DXP not only requires technical resources, it often necessitates using outside consultants for its initial implementation. In contrast, Lumavate's DXP solution can be set up in minutes by anyone on your marketing team.

One major difference to note between different DXP examples is whether they offer just a Content Management System (CMS) or a more complete Digital Asset Management (DAM). Lumavate, for instance, goes beyond just offering a DAM, as it also offers a built-in Product Information Management (PIM) solution, form builder, text messaging functionality along with 40 out-of-the-box integrations.