Digital Experience Platform DXP Examples

Once upon a time, most customer experiences took place in person or via the telephone. Today, those same customer experiences are more likely to be digital. Essentially, a “digital experience,” is the overall combined experience a customer is offered through a variety of digital channels, including websites, apps, e-commerce solutions, email, online videos, social media, digital documents such as user’s manuals or product descriptions, online product reviews and more. The universe of digital experiences continues to expand, including experiences such as connected products (in which home appliances or industrial machinery are directly connected to the networks of manufacturers, retailers, or service organizations) and even virtual and enhanced reality.

What Are Examples of Digital Experiences?

Of course, it’s not enough to simply offer digital experiences to customers. Companies need to offer relevant, timely, and personalized digital experiences that are customized for the product, event, occasion, or where the customer is on the buying journey. If the customer is in the early stages of buying, for example, sending them how-to videos for product maintenance isn’t relevant. If that same customer is troubleshooting a service issue with a product, sending them content comparing models of similar items also isn’t relevant.

What separates a great digital experience from digital noise is personalization and timeliness. Offering too much information at the wrong time can overwhelm and confuse a buyer, and offering too little information when a buyer is looking for in-depth information can risk losing the sale.

For example, if a customer is sifting through a large product catalog, they probably want fast access to detailed product information. If, however, the customer is comparing two similar products, they’re most likely seeking a high-level overview of the differences between the two products to help them make a choice. Understanding when and how to offer content is more easily accomplished with the help of digital platforms for marketing.

What Are Digital Experience Platforms, and What Is the Meaning of DXP?

As digital channels proliferate, companies are finding that they need a technology solution that helps them quickly and effectively create better digital experiences. A Digital Experience Platform, sometimes shortened to DXP, is a software solution that allows users to create and manage a wide variety of digital experiences, including websites, landing pages, microsites, digital product guides, etc. across the entire customer journey.

A well-crafted DXP allows companies to build an easy-to-use portal at the front end that allows even non-technical users to create an effective, customized digital experience. While some DXPs require effort and input from the IT department, others, such as Lumavate’s, allow users to create the entire digital experience without the need to use code, allowing marketing department employees to create digital experiences promptly, either using templates (if they are novice users) or from scratch if they are more skilled and creative.

Because content lies at the foundation of digital experiences, many DXPs on the market today offer content management capabilities that allow users to easily create, manage, and reuse content such as images, documents, videos, text, logos, and more. Some solutions marketed as DXPs offer only Content Management System (CMS) functionality, while others provide a full Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution.

What Is Key DXP Functionality?

A Digital Experience Platform (DXP) will manage digital experiences across a wide variety of digital touchpoints throughout the customer journey. But a product with high usability will offer more than this basic function. It will provide a way for users to easily create or modify digital experiences from wherever they are – in the office, in a remote location, or working from home.

A Content Management System (CMS). Because content management is at the foundation of great digital experiences, every DXP should have built-in CMS or Digital Asset Management (DAM) functionality. It’s important to note, however, that a CMS solely manages content: it does not provide the capabilities to build a complete digital experience like a DXP.

Analytics. As the old saying goes, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” A good DXP will offer built-in analytics or an easy way to integrate with an external analytics solution so that digital experiences can be tracked and measured for effectiveness. This analytics solution should be able to produce actionable data that will allow marketers to change or adjust their efforts to better meet customer needs. DXP technologies such as Lumavate provide users with a full range of analytics capabilities that help them understand how customers are interacting with digital marketing campaigns. With these analytics results, companies can continually refine and improve their digital experiences to better serve customers and boost sales results.

Personalization. Customers today do not expect a “one size fits all” experience. They are accustomed to personalized digital experiences when they buy, entertain themselves, or navigate. They expect the same levels of personalization in their professional lives and will take their business elsewhere if they do not get it. Most DXP solutions will offer some level of personalization of the digital experience. This might include using media that the customer prefers, changing the content based on where the customer is on the customer journey, or even modifying the tone of communications for companies in different cultures that emphasize more or less formality in business exchanges. The critical element is the ability to dynamically change the experience based on customer needs and wants.

A Customer Data Platform. Some DXPs will include a Customer Data Platform (CDP) that allows users to collect and manage customer data, though CDP functionality can vary widely from solution to solution. A CDP’s core function is to collect customer data from a wide variety of sources, then “clean” and store it so it’s available to any employees or departments that might require it. This way, companies can ensure they are using a single, up-to-date, unified customer profile before they begin to craft personalized customer experiences.  

Other Functionality. Some DXP solutions may include e-commerce functionality for those companies that wish to closely link the selling process to the digital experience, as well as built-in Product Information Management (PIM) solutions, text messaging, form builders, integrations, and more. These features might be built into the DXP product, or they might be easily integrated with other popular solutions for these functions.

What Does a DXP Do?

Some solutions marketed as DXP are little more than digital folders in which to store content. Where true DXP happens is in the front end, allowing users with little technical experience to not only access the content but use it to create new experiences or build on existing ones using digital experience tools. Whether an organization is looking to build a new landing page or microsite or make its digital product guides more timely and engaging, it needs a solution at the front end that will act as a kind of gateway to the content and guide users through the process of building or changing experiences with a robust graphical user interface.

Some DXPs require technical resources to create the front-end designs, which often means marketing departments are left waiting in the priority queue of the IT department. With more usable DXPs such as Lumavate, marketers can dispense with the need for technical know-how and build beautiful front-end designs for any digital experience themselves.

Why Do Companies Need a DXP, and Does DXP Replace CMS?

Marketing today, particularly the creation of customer experiences, needs to move at the speed of customer expectations. (In other words, at the speed of thought.) To attain this kind of speed and agility, not to mention creativity, companies require a nimble solution that allows them to easily log in, access the company's digital assets in their most recent versions, and create new (or iterate on existing) digital experiences that will be timely and relevant for customers at the moment. Simply put, it’s not just about a content management system (CMS): it’s about a solution that makes content get up and sing.

Ideally, the best DXP platforms should offer all the necessary elements of file storage, asset management, content management, and a front end for creating, with the ability to integrate with popular complementary solutions the company may already be using, such as customer relationship management, form builders, eCommerce solutions and more. The best digital experience platforms such as Lumavate offer a wide variety of built-in integrations that allow companies to connect to their existing tech stack within minutes. Lumavate is continually growing its platform functionality and integrations with biweekly product releases, ensuring that customers have all the functionality they need to master the digital experience.

The Benefits of a DXP

Nearly all digital experience platforms will provide some core benefits for users wishing to create better digital experiences. These benefits include:

Ease of use. The best examples of DXP platforms will be highly user-friendly, making it easy for any business user to create or modify digital experiences without code.   

DXP vs CMS: a Built-in CMS or DAM. As mentioned previously, most DXPs offer built-in Content Management Systems (CMS) or Digital Asset Management (DAM) functionality as a core part of the solution. The DXP front end is supported by the CMS or DAM back end, which allows users access to all the materials they need to build better digital experiences.

Built-in Analytics. Analytics are critical to DXP platforms for many reasons. They help organizations understand if their efforts are resonating with customers or falling flat. They can identify weak spots in an experience or a campaign, and help a company identify its strengths. For this reason, most DXP solutions will feature either built-in analytics or the ability to integrate easily with a third-party analytics solution. This way, companies can effectively monitor the success or failure of their efforts promptly and adjust accordingly.

Personalization Capabilities. No two customers are the same, so no two digital experiences should be the same. There are a variety of ways to personalize digital experiences, including where the customer is on the customer journey, what their preferences are for digital media, what their industry is, or how they have engaged with a brand previously. With customers in mind, companies should ensure the DXP they choose allows them a full range of personalization options so they can meet both customer needs and expectations.

From here, DXP solutions may offer more benefits outside the core functions. These might include the following:

Quick and Easy Implementation. Some platforms, such as Lumavate’s, can be up and running within a matter of hours. 

Integration into other solutions. Analytics aren’t the only function that can effectively connect to a DXP. Some companies might wish to integrate their customer relationship management (CRM) solution, a Product Information Management (PIM) solution, a form builder, text messaging, e-commerce capabilities, and more. Lumavate offers 40 integrations with its platform and releases new product functionality every two weeks.

Affordability. Lumavate is 75 percent more cost-effective than competitive DXP solutions, putting it within reach of most organizations.

No IT Department Required. There are no technical resources required to implement or maintain Lumavate’s DXP solution. The platform is fully no-code and designed to be used by anyone in marketing.

Manufacturing Expertise. Lumavate’s platform was designed with manufacturing companies in mind, allowing them to centralize their often extensive and complex product data, manage their digital assets, and create digital product experiences for the companies that use their products, or the resellers in the supply chain that integrate their products.  

What Are Some Types of DXPs?

Just as different DXPs offer different features, these solutions can differ in how they are fundamentally structured, which will affect their cost, delivery (premise-based versus cloud-based versus hybrid), integration, and function. What’s right for a company will depend on its unique needs, budget, skills, marketing style, campaign, industry, and customers. Before shopping for a DXP solution, customers should make a list of their needs and wants to help them evaluate the varied solutions on the market.

Some of the most important differences between digital experience solutions on the market today involve product functionality. Some solutions provide only very core functionality and presume that users will wish to choose any extra functionality from third-party providers and integrate these extras with the core solutions. Other providers have crafted their platforms for companies looking for an all-in-one solution that contains all the features necessary to create customized digital experiences without the need to purchase anything else.

For example, the DXP may integrate with a customer relationship management (CRM) solution, but it may not integrate with a competitive third-party solution for digital asset management. Users may find this type of DXP limiting because it restricts them to a single solution for all aspects of the digital experience strategy.

Another type of DXP might offer core functionality for the front-end solution for creating digital experiences but integrates with third-party solutions for nearly all other functionality, including content management or digital asset management, analytics, personalization, and more. Buyers might be attracted to this type of solution because it presents the most options: it allows them to shop for best-of-breed products for additional functionality and build their own ideal solution. Cost, however, is a big drawback with this approach, as buying separate solutions for most functions will become expensive.

There is a third option when it comes to DXP types. This DXP offers a significant amount of built-in functionality (similar to the first type), but it also integrates easily with competitive third-party solutions. Products like this – Lumavate is a great example — provide users with the most flexibility because they can benefit from the combination of the DXP’s built-in functionality as well as third-party solutions the business might already be using, allowing them to connect to their existing tech stack quickly. Lumavate is one of the few digital platform company solutions providers to offer this level of flexibility when compared to other digital marketing platforms.       

What Is an Example of a DXP Platform?

There are a variety of DXPs on the market today, as a search for the best digital experience platform examples – perhaps in the Digital Experience Platform Gartner Magic Quadrant — will show. The best digital experience examples include Adobe Experience Manager, Sitecore DXP, Liferay, Acquia, Optimizely, and Lumavate. Each of these DXP examples on the list of digital platforms offers the core functionality necessary to be called a DXP: the ability for business users to create digital experiences. From here, however, these solutions can vary considerably. 

Some solutions among the digital experience platform examples require more technical resources than others. Adobe DXP, for example, requires considerable effort from a company’s in-house IT personnel and even hours by outside technical consultants for the initial implementation and setup. Other DXP solutions on the list of digital platforms are built with ease of implementation and use in mind. 

Lumavate’s DXP solution can be set up within a matter of minutes by anyone on the marketing team authorized to use the solution, allowing companies to install, log in, and quickly begin to create.