Articles - Page 46

Agentic AI for Agencies in 2026

bmckeiver

While COVID-19 continues to impact markets globally, the CMS world has been on a binge of buying, partnering, and releasing new features.
In case you’ve been distracted over the last few weeks by a chaotic news cycle and a U.S. presidential election, here’s a quick recap of what’s been happening in the content management and digital experience world.
<h3>Hyland Completes Acquisition of Alfresco</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/hyland-alfresco-acquisition.jpeg" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/11/hyland-alfresco-acquisition.jpeg 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w1000/2020/11/hyland-alfresco-acquisition.jpeg 1000w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/11/hyland-alfresco-acquisition.jpeg 1200w" /></figure>
Recently, <a href="https://www.hyland.com/">Hyland</a> the enterprise content management (ECM) provider <a href="/hyland-acquires-alfresco-focuses-on-cloud-and-global-expansion-of-enterprise-cms/">announced</a> that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire <a href="https://www.alfresco.com/">Alfresco Software</a> – an open-source content services platform.
Last week, Hyland <a href="https://news.hyland.com/hyland-completes-acquisition-of-alfresco/">completed</a> the transaction, bringing the entire Alfresco business, including all technology and products, under the Hyland umbrella.
“At Hyland, the Alfresco platform will continue to grow and to serve customers’ evolving business needs,” said Bill Priemer, Hyland’s President and Chief Executive Office. “Alfresco customers can confidently continue to use and expand their Alfresco solutions, whether deployed on-premises or in the cloud.”
Future Alfresco versions will enable customers to seamlessly leverage other areas of the Hyland portfolio. These include the Hyland Experience Platform (HxP) — the recently launched, next-generation, cloud-based platform — and newly developed HxP components, such as <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en/platform/product-suite/HxC">Hyland Experience Capture</a>.
<h3>Episerver Completes Acquisition of Optimizely</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/episerver-optimizely.png" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/11/episerver-optimizely.png 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w1000/2020/11/episerver-optimizely.png 1000w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/11/episerver-optimizely.png 1280w" /></figure>
In a big move to evolve their personalization strategy, <a href="https://www.episerver.com/">Episerver</a>, the customer-centric digital experience platform, recently <a href="/episerver-to-acquire-optimizely-the-worlds-leading-experience-optimization-platform/">announced</a> its plans to buy <a href="https://www.optimizely.com/">Optimizely</a> – a leading A/B and multivariate testing platform. A few weeks ago, Episerver <a href="https://www.episerver.com/company/press-room/episerver-completes-acquisition-of-optimizely">completed</a> the acquisition.
“With its acquisition of Optimizely, as with its acquisitions of Idio and Insite in 2019, Episerver substantially increases the value proposition that the company offers to enterprise brands,” said Jacob Groshek, research manager, Digital Experience Management, at IDC. “The Optimizely acquisition adds AI-based experimentation and optimization to the Episerver portfolio. The purchase of Optimizely not only augments Episerver's capacity to automatically deliver personalized content as a central component of users' digital experiences, it also adds another layer of behavioral intelligence for organizations.”
Following the close, Episerver now serves approximately 9,000 customers and more than 900 partners globally in segments including retail, manufacturing &amp; distribution, financial services, insurance, healthcare, media, and technology, among others.
As part of Episerver, the Optimizely progressive delivery and experimentation platform will continue to support customers as a standalone solution, but will also be available as part of Episerver’s offerings immediately.
<h3>Acquia Announces Major Updates to Open Digital Experience Platform (DXP)</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/drupal_9_dxp_0-1.jpg" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/11/drupal_9_dxp_0-1.jpg 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w1000/2020/11/drupal_9_dxp_0-1.jpg 1000w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w1600/2020/11/drupal_9_dxp_0-1.jpg 1600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/11/drupal_9_dxp_0-1.jpg 1920w" /></figure>
After <a href="/acquia-launches-new-open-digital-experience-platform/">launching</a> its new Acquia Open Digital Experience Platform (DXP) this July, <a href="https://www.acquia.com/">Acquia</a> has accelerated their innovation by leaps and bounds. In fact, they recently <a href="https://www.acquia.com/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/acquia-announces-major-updates-open-digital-experience-platform">announced</a> major upgrades to their Drupal Cloud and Marketing Cloud.
So, what are these major upgrades? For starters, on the Drupal Cloud side, they <a href="https://www.acquia.com/drupal9">transitioned from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9</a>. For developers, these enhancements focus on decreasing the time to build, design, and run sites and applications.
Following the successful launch of Drupal 9 in June, the new <a href="https://www.acquia.com/drupal9/accelerate-your-migration">Acquia Migration Accelerator</a> tool significantly reduces the effort tied to a transition from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9. Currently in beta, the tool reduces time to value for Drupal 9 by providing a user-friendly interface to streamline analysis and planning, DevOps, data imports, and content auditing for migrations.
Once organizations are migrated, the new <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/drupal-cloud/cloud-ide">Acquia Cloud IDE</a> makes it faster than ever to build Drupal sites and applications, with one-click access to a cloud-hosted development and testing environment. Acquia Cloud IDE integrates with existing Acquia command line and automated build tools for Drupal, making it faster and easier for developers to build and test their code – even in remote or hybrid work setups.
On the Marketing Cloud side, the major updates include new real-time 360-degree profiles, identity resolution, and unified segment capabilities within the Acquia Customer Data Platform (CDP). These capabilities aggregate data from various sources, eliminate redundancy, and unify data into a single source of the truth for real-time customer segmentation.
Finally, Acquia also added a COVID-19 dashboard that helps marketers understand their customers’ shifts from offline to online channels, as well as changes in channel preferences throughout the pandemic. The dashboard also helps marketers identify changes in product preferences, as well as opportunities for growth in their marketing campaigns.
<h3>Fabric Launches Headless Commerce Platform with $9.5 Million in Seed Funding</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/fabric-logo.png" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/11/fabric-logo.png 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/11/fabric-logo.png 855w" /></figure>
<a href="https://fabric.inc/">Fabric</a>, a headless commerce platform, launched its cloud-native experience and commerce product suite and <a href="https://resources.fabric.inc/blog/seed">announced</a> $9.5 million in seed funding led by Redpoint Ventures with participation from Sierra Ventures and Expa. In addition, e-commerce executive Faisal Masud, who led multi-billion-dollar commerce businesses at Amazon, eBay, Groupon and Staples, has joined the company as CEO.
Brands struggle to compete with Amazon’s continued market dominance in the e-commerce and digital retail space. While big retailers can afford to invest heavily in their own proprietary systems, widening their advantage in data, speed, pricing and convenience, many D2C and B2B brands are challenged by the cost and complexity of modernizing their outdated commerce platforms. COVID-19 has further raised the stakes: during the pandemic, e-commerce sales have grown as much as 55% year-over-year.
“Unlike Amazon, which wins on selection, price and availability, emerging and growing D2C and B2B companies need to win on brand and experience,” said Faisal Masud, CEO at Fabric.
Fabric’s headless commerce platform enables marketers and merchants to deliver world-class commerce experiences without the engineering burden. Its modular API-first platform enables brands to utilize tools that address their specific needs, rather than re-platforming. Fabric gives brands sophisticated capabilities with its Experience Platform Manager (XPM), Product Information Manager (PIM), pricing and offers and Order Management (OMS).
The Fabric platform offers a suite of commerce APIs that allow brands to orchestrate their offerings across all channels, enabling them to support the entire lifecycle of each customer. In addition, Fabric runs on a completely serverless infrastructure to effectively scale during high-traffic retail peaks.
<h3>Cloudinary and Contentful Partner to Help Brands Create “Visual-First” Experiences More Efficiently</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/apps-cloudinary-dialog.png" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/11/apps-cloudinary-dialog.png 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w1000/2020/11/apps-cloudinary-dialog.png 1000w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/11/apps-cloudinary-dialog.png 1340w" /></figure>
<a href="https://cloudinary.com/">Cloudinary</a>, the media experience platform, announced a partnership with <a href="https://www.contentful.com/">Contentful</a>, a headless content management system (CMS). The new partnership offers Contentful users seamless access to Cloudinary’s award-winning media experience solutions, including its headless digital asset management (DAM) within Contentful’s CMS – allowing Contentful users to more easily upload, optimize and deliver engaging visual-first experiences at scale.
"In today's visual economy, fast and flawless rich media experiences are no longer a nice to have, they are critical components to any company’s success,” said Scott Doughman, vice president of Business Development at Cloudinary. “Equally critical is the ability to deliver the right, high-performant content as efficiently as possible to eliminate the challenges that often keep experiences from reaching their true engagement potential. The Contentful-Cloudinary integration eliminates these challenges and we’re pleased to be bringing our media management expertise to the Contentful ecosystem."
With the API-first approach of Cloudinary and Contentful, you can now build a seamlessly-integrated, future-proof stack with your preferred development frameworks and platforms.
<h3>Microsoft Announces Clarity, a Free Visitor Behavior Analytics Platform</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/microsoft-clarity-heatmaps.png" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/11/microsoft-clarity-heatmaps.png 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/11/microsoft-clarity-heatmaps.png 626w" /></figure>
The elder statesman of the digital realm, <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/">Microsoft</a> continues to shock and awe the experience and development fiefdoms with bold moves – including their acquisitions of both <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/">LinkedIn</a> and <a href="https://github.com/">GitHub</a>.
Now, Microsoft has announced a resource that will have an impact on digital experience in the usability, governance, and analytics categories. With <a href="https://clarity.microsoft.com/">Microsoft Clarity</a>, website and content owners will now have access to a GDPR compliant, free-to-use analytics tool to help improve their website experiences by better understanding their visitors' behaviors.
Microsoft Clarity has three main features: heatmaps, session playbacks, and an insights dashboard. Because of their unique delivery, Clarity’s tools won’t negatively impact a website's latency, and can handle variable traffic without incurring additional costs.
Clarity’s heatmaps come in two forms: clickmaps and scrollmaps. The combination will allow users to qualify behavior and trends, and make it easy to provide data-driven justifications for design decisions. The session playbacks allow site managers to record page visits and track where visitors clicked and scrolled, and the insights dashboard provides an overall understanding of the traffic to your site.
<h3>Contentsquare Acquires Dareboost And Launches Find &amp; Fix Product to Solve Revenue-Killing Errors</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/contentsquare-dareboost.png" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/11/contentsquare-dareboost.png 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w1000/2020/11/contentsquare-dareboost.png 1000w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w1600/2020/11/contentsquare-dareboost.png 1600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/11/contentsquare-dareboost.png 1755w" /></figure>
<a href="https://contentsquare.com/">Contentsquare</a>, the Digital Experience Analytics (DXP Analytics) company, <a href="https://contentsquare.com/blog/contentsquare-acquires-dareboost-and-launches-find-fix-product-to-solve-revenue-killing-errors/">announced</a> its acquisition of <a href="https://www.dareboost.com/en">Dareboost</a>, an online tool to test, analyze and monitor websites. Dareboost has been a Find &amp; Fix product for Contentsquare. The integration breaks silos between marketing and IT teams, as well as the rest of a business.
The core capabilities of the new Contentsquare Find &amp; Fix product include web performance monitoring and scoring, error reporting and impact quantification, advanced retroactive search, advanced APM integrations, and comparison and benchmarking capabilities.
<h3>Mediafly Acquires Presentify to Transform Marketing and Sales Content</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sap_mediafly_cloud_diagram.png" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/11/SAP_Mediafly_Cloud_Diagram.png 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w1000/2020/11/SAP_Mediafly_Cloud_Diagram.png 1000w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/11/SAP_Mediafly_Cloud_Diagram.png 1280w" /></figure>
<a href="https://www.mediafly.com/">Mediafly</a> – a provider of sales enablement technology, content management, and advisory services that create interactive, value-based selling experiences – <a href="https://www.mediafly.com/mediafly-acquires-presentify/">announced</a> its acquisition of <a href="https://www.presentify.co.uk/">Presentify</a>, a global visual communication solution.
By adding Presentify’s capabilities, Mediafly users can now build “selling stories” using sophisticated visual communication capabilities all through the Mediafly app – which natively supports the most advanced content formats, animations and modularized assets for elevated sales storytelling.
“More companies are recognizing the need for digital sales transformation, and the importance of using a modern sales enablement platform. But all too often they don’t want to take their antiquated, boring sales content and put it into a sophisticated sales app for fear of garbage in, garbage out,” said Carson Conant, CEO and founder of Mediafly. “With Presentify, Mediafly now tears down the barrier of entry for these companies, allowing them to quickly refresh their sales stories with interactive, animated content — and learn the ‘Presentification’ techniques to create and maintain sales collateral that is a league above their competition.”
And that’s a wrap. Stay tuned for another installment next month.

CMS Monthly Recap: Acquia Gets Feature Boosts, Cloudinary and Contentful Partner, Big Acquisition Updates and More

paris-tuzun

We all know it: CRM can get really complex. That's why many organizations turn to implementation partners to help unlock the maximum value of their CRM investment, from purchase to practice. 
To meet this demand head-on, <a href="https://www.sugarcrm.com/">SugarCRM</a> – the innovator of time-aware CX – has acquired W-Systems, Sugar’s North America Reseller of the Year in 2020 and one of the company’s largest global implementation partners. 
With this move, Sugar is expanding its ability to provide turnkey implementation services for its time-aware, AI-powered sales, marketing and service software – designed to help companies deliver a "high-definition" customer experience. In addition, W-Systems has developed numerous add-ons that are in high-demand by Sugar customers including document management, calendar enhancements, file storage, messaging services, and more. 
“We are excited to have the team at W-Systems, with their deep expertise and dedication to customer success, join Sugar to help fuel our continued growth in the North America region,” said Craig Charlton, CEO of SugarCRM. “W-Systems’ exceptional track record with more than 300 successful Sugar implementations and robust development of strategic add-ons perfectly aligns with our commitment to helping companies improve their business outcomes and achieve a high-definition view of their customers.”
The rapid growth of remote and distributed workforces and their reliance on digital – <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/what-800-executives-envision-for-the-postpandemic-workforce">a by-product of the COVID-19 pandemic</a> – has accelerated the need for easy-to-deploy technologies. However, for many organizations, CRM continues to be a challenge to implement and adopt – particularly for distributed teams. By adding W-Systems to their portfolio, it appears that Sugar is doubling-down on its value as a trusted advisor.
“Speed and expertise are critical factors for companies looking to compete on CX,” said Brent Leary, founder and principal analyst at CRM Essentials. “SugarCRM’s acquisition of  W-Systems, a firm with long and deep commitment to serving the Sugar customer community, addresses a growing need for mid-market companies who want a trusted advisor that can help them navigate and succeed in their adoption of next-generation CRM and marketing automation environments.”
According to <a href="https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/top-cx-trends-for-cios-to-watch/">Gartner</a>, organizations are struggling to keep up with the growth of customer insight data. The speed and precision of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and analytics, in addition to human insight, will provide the intelligence needed for the CX of the future. SugarCRM has been focused on innovation in all of these key areas, but adding W-Systems may help translate the complexity of bleeding-edge technologies like AI into practical, business-focused applications that validate the impact on CX.  
Much like <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/">Salesforce</a>, Sugar has also been diversifying their platform services to enhance value and compete more effectively. Most recently, <a href="https://www.sugarcrm.com/press-releases/sugarcrm-acquires-salesfusion/">they acquired Salesfusion</a>, a SaaS marketing automation solution, and Node – an AI platform that leverages CRM data. 
<h3 id="sugarcrm-and-w-systems-what-to-expect">SugarCRM and W-Systems: What to Expect</h3>
Sugar is on the path to becoming more than just a CRM. They are clearly evolving into a unified customer data platform that provides deep intelligence and insights across every facet of CX. Now, armed with marketing automation, personalization, and turnkey implementation services, they have more of the right tools to compete at the top of the market. 
W-Systems has been a long-time partner of SugarCRM, and they are fluent in the platform and its deployment. As previously mentioned, W-Systems has developed a number of custom add-ons for Sugar, which continue to be in high-demand amongst customers. These add-ons directly increase the utility and usability of Sugar Sell and Sugar Market (formerly Salesfusion), so we should expect to see more integration around those features. 
You can request a demo of the SugarCRM <a href="https://www.sugarcrm.com/request-demo/">here</a>.
<h3 id="about-sugarcrm">About SugarCRM</h3>
<a href="https://www.sugarcrm.com/">SugarCRM</a>’s time-aware sales, marketing, and service software helps companies deliver a high-definition (HD-CX) customer experience. For mid-market companies and anyone that wants a CX-driven platform, Sugar gives teams the time-aware customer data they need to achieve a clear view of the customer and reach new levels of business performance and predictability, and increase customer lifetime value. More than 4,500 companies in over 120 countries rely on SugarCRM. 
<h3 id="about-w-systems">About W-Systems</h3>
<a href="https://www.w-systems.com/" rel="noreferrer nofollow noopener">W-Systems</a>, acquired by SugarCRM, delivers sales and marketing solutions on a foundation of CRM to help customer-facing teams increase revenue and solve business problems.

SugarCRM Acquires Reseller W-Systems to Meet Demand for CRM Implementation Services

Communication has always been at the heart of <a href="https://www.twilio.com/">Twilio</a>'s mission, and this week’s acquisition of <a href="https://segment.com/">Segment</a> – a leading vendor in the red-hot Customer Data Platform (CDP) space – sent a clear signal to the market.
With this latest addition to the cloud communication provider’s portfolio, Twilio is doubling down on the digital world’s unquenchable thirst for data. Segment’s ability to process events at scale (roughly 500 billion a month) amplifies Twilio’s focus on customer engagement, helping developers connect with customer data across multiple sources.
This move also demonstrates the impact of accelerated digital transformation in a COVID-19 world, where organizations require more access to data-driven tools to grow and compete. Both Twilio and Segment have seen greater opportunity as businesses shift to a digital-first model in the wake of the pandemic – and that shows no sign of slowing down.
While Twilio’s cloud communication platform enables developers to build integrated solutions with text, email, telephony, chatbots, and more, it lacked direct access to customer data – which is where Segment excels. The combination of their API-driven platforms could lead to even greater innovation around purpose-built apps that enhance the digital customer experience.
The deal, first <a href="https://investors.twilio.com/news/news-details/2020/Twilio-to-Acquire-Segment-the-Market-leading-Customer-Data-Platform/default.aspx">announced</a> on October 12, was closed earlier this week – and Segment had been valued at $1.5 billion according to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-02/startup-segment-is-worth-1-5-billion-thanks-to-companies-troves-of-customer-data?sref=ctSjKj2N">The Wall Street Journal</a>. The $3.2 billion price tag is only the latest in a long line of strategic acquisitions for Twilio – and a “hair” more than the $3 billion they paid for transactional email platform <a href="https://www.twilio.com/press/releases/twilio-completes-acquisition-sendgrid">SendGrid</a> in 2018.
<h3>Customer data meets customer engagement</h3>
Twilio is on a mission to become the leading customer engagement platform. While they have the infrastructure in place, they needed the essential data layer to provide a more complete view of the customer. For developers, this means more access to data intelligence, allowing them to build more unique and purposeful applications with Twilio’s APIs.
“The one thing that’s always been missing from Twilio as we’ve been building up this customer engagement platform is understanding of the end-users themselves,” said Twilio co-founder and CEO Jeff Lawson. “We power the communications, but we don’t actually know who the customers are.”
While the applications have yet to be written, it's all but certain that Twilio will add Segment's core capabilities to their cloud communications platform to enhance a wide variety of channels including SMS messaging, voice, video, e-mail, the Internet of Things (IoT) and more.
<h3>Unifying data sources with Segment</h3>
As the leading customer data platform, Segment enables developers to unify customer data from every customer touchpoint, and empowers marketing, sales, and customer service leaders with the insights they need to design and build relevant, data-driven customer engagement.
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/segment-flow.png" /></figure>
Armed with these data optics, Twilio’s developers will now have the ability to craft apps and experiences based on a more holistic view of the customer. Segment unifies a wide range of data from multiple sources like Facebook, Salesforce CRM, websites powered by CMS, eCommerce platforms and more.
“Exceptional customer engagement requires not only high-quality data, but the infrastructure to activate those insights across every channel and customer interaction,” said Peter Reinhardt, co-founder and CEO of Segment. “By bringing Twilio and Segment together, we will help businesses build a foundation of actionable insights critical to engaging with customers based on their needs and preferences to deliver a positive, seamless and effective customer experience.”
<h3>Destroying the data silos</h3>
Getting the data is only half the battle. The real challenge lies within an organization's <a href="https://www.talend.com/resources/what-are-data-silos/">data silos</a>: isolated sources of data that prevent access from users, groups or applications. Breaking down these silos has become a critical objective for data-driven organizations, and the Twilio/Segment union promises to "bring down the walls" so organizations can realize true data integration.
<blockquote>Data silos destroy great customer experiences.
Segment lets developers and companies break down those silos and build a complete picture of their customer. Combined with Twilio's Customer Engagement Platform, we can create more personalized, timely and impactful engagement across customer service, marketing, analytics, product and sales.
- Jeff Lawson</blockquote>
Attacking the data silo problem takes time. By leveraging their flexible APIs, Twilio and Segment will be able to accelerate the process by connecting developers with a more diverse ecosystem of data sources – such as web apps and analytics tools – all without having to write new code. This will eliminate countless development hours building custom integrations.
<h3>Why the Acquisition Makes Sense</h3>
When Twilio acquired SendGrid, they already offered a broad range of communications services through a set of APIs, allowing developers to integrate custom phone numbers, manage services such as SMS and voice, and tap messaging channels like Facebook, WhatsApp and Google Home. But e-mail was a missing link – and SendGrid closed this gap.
Twilio and Segment are a good fit for many reasons. They’re both API-first products, they’re both developer-centric, and they already offer an <a href="https://segment.com/sources/twilio/">integration</a>.
While it’s still early days, it’s clear that the market sees significant value from this match. CDP continues to be a growth space, so investing in Segment can certainly provide more wind in Twilio’s sails. But their unique focus on powering developers with more access to data aligns perfectly with Segment’s mission, and gives the platform greater reach and appeal.
With a proven infrastructure for handling billions of customer-generated events, Twilio now appears to have everything a developer or organization needs to build data-driven apps – and improve the end-to-end customer experience at every touchpoint. In effect, it will create a single, unified view of the customer journey – making it a holistic customer engagement platform that could rival Salesforce and Adobe.
The real question is: what will Twilio buy next?
<h3>About Twilio</h3>
<a href="https://www.twilio.com/">Twilio</a> is a cloud communication company that powers the future of business communications, enabling phones, VoIP, and messaging to be embedded into web, desktop, and mobile software. They take care of the messy telecom hardware and expose a globally available cloud API that developers can interact with to build intelligent &amp; complex communications systems. As your app’s usage scales up or down, Twilio automatically scales with you. You only pay for what you use - no contracts, no shenanigans.
<h3>About Segment</h3>
<a href="https://segment.com/">Segment</a> is a customer data platform that democratizes access to reliable data for all teams and offers a complete toolkit to standardize data collection, unify user records, and route customer data into any system where it’s needed.
Segment collects user events from every customer touch point (your website, web and mobile apps, tools) and provides a complete data toolkit to every team in your org. They take care of the redundant and repetitive work that comes with integrating new tools, maintaining data pipelines, and managing data quality.
Today, over 20,000 companies across 70+ countries use Segment, from fast-growing businesses like Instacart, Peloton, and Bonobos to some of the world’s largest organizations like Levi’s, Intuit, and FOX. With Segment, companies can connect and activate reliable first-party data across 300+ marketing, analytics, and data warehousing tools.

Twilio Acquires Segment for $3.2B, Adds Market-leading CDP for Building Data-Driven Apps

Bloomreach, a leading Digital Experience Platform (DXP), and Exponea, the Customer Data and Experience Platform (CDXP), have <a href="https://www.bloomreach.com/en/news/2020/bloomreach-and-exponea-announce-strategic-partnership.html">announced a strategic alliance</a> to offer more enhanced digital commerce experiences to the market. 
The partnership will provide their joint clients with a more personalized and sophisticated e-commerce solution, combining Bloomreach’s rich catalog of DXP capabilities with Exponea’s customer-centric approach to unifying data.
Partly driving the move is Amazon’s market dominance in the e-commerce and digital retail space. While brands struggle to compete around rapid distribution and free shipping – key attributes to <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazon-has-the-right-businesses-to-weather-coronavirus-but-spending-could-grow-even-faster-2020-04-13">Amazon’s success during the COVID-19 pandemic</a> – they often miss the mark with customer experience. This is where Amazon excels, and where Bloomreach and Exponea plan to focus their offerings.
By combining their unique capabilities, the two companies plan to help brands and retailers create more relevant and personalized experiences based on data and insights. Their innovative catalog of capabilities will help customers to increase retention, drive repeat purchases, recommend relevant products, and increase customer satisfaction.
<h3 id="a-partnership-built-for-digital-commerce-experiences">A partnership built for digital commerce experiences</h3>
Both Bloomreach and Exponea have experienced significant growth as a result of the recent surge in digital commerce worldwide, <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/08/covid19-pandemic-social-shift-ecommerce-report/">accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic</a>. While both vendors maintain solid reputations in the market, this partnership represents an innovation “sweet spot,” leveraging their strengths to offer a more complete solution.
Bloomreach is on a mission to arm enterprises with a superior weapon in their battle against the Amazons of the e-commerce world. In 2018, they <a href="/bloomreach-launches-dxp-for-commerce-so-enterprises-can-beat-amazon/">launched</a> their DXP for Commerce to offer highly relevant and personalized digital experiences. Today, their Bloomreach Experience Platform (brX) drives over $200 billion in digital commerce experiences across many of the world’s largest online retailers, brands, distributors, and B2B manufacturers – representing 25% of retail e-commerce in the U.S. and U.K.
Exponea – <a href="https://go.exponea.com/exponea-named-cool-vendor">which was named a “Cool Vendor” in multichannel marketing in 2020 by Gartner</a> – collects and unifies data from all customer touchpoints. They enrich customer data through AI, providing insights to deliver personalized campaigns to individual targets through preferred channels. Exponea processes more than 2 billion customer profile updates every day on behalf of leading retailers and brands, enabling marketers to leverage over 250 billion behavioral events in real-time to orchestrate powerful 1:1 marketing.
<blockquote>This partnership will amplify both Exponea and Bloomreach’s unique capabilities to drive consistent and laser-targeted customer experiences across marketing and commerce. Combining together Exponea’s customer-centric view with Bloomreach’s catalogue-centric view will enable our joint customers to have the most sophisticated e-commerce experience possible.
- Peter Irikovský, CEO of Exponea</blockquote>
The alliance comes at a time when leading vendors across the digital stack are making big moves to compete more effectively in a crowded, fragmented landscape. As more organizations pivot to online – specifically in the retail sector – demand for rapid, end-to-end solutions is increasing by the day. By aligning their capabilities, Bloomreach and Exponea can fast-track a more effective response to shifting market conditions and challenge the e-commerce space. 
"We've long been on a mission to power exceptional commerce experiences – from search to content, to leveraging our commerce-specific data and AI to drive personalization,” said Bloomreach CEO and co-founder Raj De Datta. “We chose to partner with Exponea for their impressive customer data analytics capabilities, omnichannel campaign execution, and their strong and trusted relationships with our joint customers. Having looked at this closely, we believe they are the clear global leader in driving high performing marketing and customer communications, and the synergies we can drive across our platforms are very meaningful for our customers.” 
“Bloomreach is best-in-class when it comes to the search and commerce experience,” added Peter Irikovsky, CEO of Exponea. “We’ve been impressed by their robust platform and the company’s sophisticated B2B and B2C customer base for quite some time. The combination of our strengths will enhance the personalized customer experience for our joint clients with the most innovative, fast, and impactful solutions in the market.”
<h3 id="about-bloomreach">About Bloomreach</h3>
<a href="https://www.bloomreach.com/en">Bloomreach</a> is digital experience enhancement platform that enables highly personalized digital experiences for retailers, banks, distributors, manufacturers, public service agencies and other enterprises. Its flagship product, brX, is a digital experience platform built specifically for brands, retailers, and B2B companies who want to grow their revenue online while delivering each of their customers a premium, personalized commerce experience. brX combines content management capabilities with market-leading commerce-specific, AI-driven search, merchandising, and personalization in one flexible, API-first next-generation platform. Bloomreach serves over 500 global brands including Albertsons, Staples, Bosch, Puma, FC Bayern München, and Marks &amp; Spencer.
<h3 id="about-exponea">About Exponea</h3>
<a href="https://exponea.com/">Exponea</a> is a Customer Data and Experience Platform (CDXP) that collects and unifies data from all customer touchpoints into a unified Single Customer View and utilizes this data to help e-commerce businesses to convert and retain customers by acting on customer signals with the right message at the perfect time through the preferred channel. Built from the ground up (i.e. no acquisitions) for retail and e-commerce, Exponea collects and unifies data from all customer touchpoints to give businesses the insights and action opportunities they need to execute campaigns that deliver real results.

Bloomreach and Exponea Announce Strategic Partnership to Energize Digital Commerce Experiences

When any web or digital professional thinks “analytics,” the first name that comes to mind is Google. And for good reason: the Google Analytics platform is the most widely used on the planet. Every day, millions of individuals and organizations rely on Google’s insights as their “source of truth,” helping them to better understand their customers and improve their digital experience.
<a href="https://blog.google/products/marketingplatform/analytics/new_google_analytics">Google Analytics 4 was just released</a>, and everyone from developers to digital marketers have been eagerly anticipating this update. The good news: it doesn’t disappoint. Not only is there a much deeper integration with their popular Google Ads platform, but the new Google Analytics offers some cutting-edge, AI-powered enhancements that are certain to delight users across the digital spectrum.
Google Analytics has a legacy that’s almost as old as the tech giant itself. It began when a still-youthful Page and Brin <a href="https://urchin.biz/urchin-software-corp-89a1f5292999">acquired Urchin</a> in 2005, adding their innovative web statistics and analytics technology to the Googleverse. Shortly thereafter, Google Analytics was officially launched, and has continuously evolved its core features for tracking and reporting on website traffic. Today, it’s a keystone of the Google Marketing Platform brand, and provides an SDK for gathering usage data from iOS and Android via their <a href="https://developers.google.com/analytics/solutions/mobile">Google Analytics for Mobile Apps</a>.
The Google Analytics 4 release is a milestone, as it’s the first major deviation from the Urchin framework – providing a new, more intelligent analytics platform that builds on the foundation of the <a href="https://blog.google/products/marketingplatform/analytics/new-way-unify-app-and-website-measurement-google-analytics/">Google’s App + Web property</a> introduced last year. Google previously had two separate analytics tools for web and apps (Google Analytics and Google Analytics for Firebase), but the App + Web resource combines everything to present a holistic view of customer data.
<h3>New insights and predictions powered by machine learning</h3>
By applying advanced machine learning models, Google Analytics 4 can automatically alert you to significant trends in your data – like products experiencing increased demand around specific customer needs. With enhanced predictive modeling, it can even anticipate future actions your customers may take. For example: it can help calculate churn probability so you can more efficiently invest in customer retention at a time when marketing budgets are under pressure.
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/google_analytics_predictive_metrics.png" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/10/Google_Analytics_predictive_metrics.png 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/10/Google_Analytics_predictive_metrics.png 1000w" /></figure>
<h3>Customer-centric measurement without fragmentation by device or platform</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/google_analytics_new_reporting.gif" /></figure>
Google Analytics 4 uses multiple identity spaces, including marketer-provided User IDs and unique <a href="https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9445345?hl=en">Google signals</a> from user opt-in ad personalization – giving you a more complete view of how users interact with your brand. For example, you can track if customers first discover your business from an ad on the web, then later make purchases in an app or from a website. 
You’ll also get a better understanding of your customers across their entire lifecycle, from acquisition to conversion and retention. As has long been the case, Google enhances attribution and intent, giving marketers greater insight to power their Customer 360 strategies.
<h3>Deeper integration with Google Ads</h3>
Google Analytics 4 also offers a deeper integration with <a href="https://ads.google.com/home/">Google Ads</a> and the suite of Google marketing products, letting you create custom audiences based on your web and app traffic. Now, you can better reach your customers with more relevant, personalized experiences to drive higher conversions. These optics are designed to improve the overall ROI of your marketing spend.
<h3>More granular data controls</h3>
<a href="https://www.ionos.com/digitalguide/websites/digital-law/general-data-protection-regulation-new-rules-for-businesses/">GDPR</a> and <a href="https://www.ionos.com/digitalguide/websites/digital-law/california-consumer-privacy-act-ccpa/">CCPA</a> have had a profound impact on digital practices, and Google has been at the center of it. What’s great is that Google Analytics 4 offers enhanced features for managing data privacy and compliance. With these granular controls, marketers can confidently manage how they collect, store, and leverage their Analytics data.
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
Google Analytics has been around the block – and for such a mature and megalithic brand, it’s sometimes hard to expect a lot of product or service innovation. While the core features are still well-represented in this new version, the big shift is the around the unification via App + Web, enabling a more holistic view of the customer experience across both channels. With so much complexity around website traffic and users, making sense of the data is key – and Google seems to be doubling down on that mission.
The tighter coupling with their Google Marketing Platform, specifically Google Ads, is more evidence that the "search king" is connecting all of the various endpoints along the journey. The intended result: a more seamless, end-to-end marketing platform that is becoming increasingly automated by the day. 
If you’d like to upgrade to Google Analytics 4 from your existing analytics setup, you can <a href="https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/10089681#start">create a new Google Analytics 4 property</a> alongside your existing properties. This will allow you to start gathering data and benefit from the latest innovations as they become available – all while keeping your current implementation intact.
If you haven’t used Google Analytics yet… well, 2005 is calling. But it's not too late. Click <a href="https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/provision/#/provision">here</a> to get started for free.
<h2>About Google Analytics</h2>
<a href="https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/">Google Analytics</a> is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic, currently as a platform inside the Google Marketing Platform brand. As of 2019, Google Analytics is the most widely used web analytics service on the web.

Google Analytics 4 Unifies App and Web Analytics, Adds AI and Marketing Enhancements

New partnerships continue to emerge across the digital stack, and CMS platforms are reaping the benefits. Recently, SEMrush, a leading search engine optimization (SEO) and digital marketing platform <a href="https://www.semrush.com/news/semrush-and-yoast-announce-integration-partnership/">announced a strategic partnership with Yoast</a> – the most popular and widely-used SEO plugin for WordPress.
The partnership kicks off with an updated release of Yoast’s SEO plugin for WordPress, the leading open source content management system (CMS). Yoast SEO will now feature a tight integration with SEMrush’s extensive keyword database and SEO services, giving Yoast users access to smarter, SEO-focused keyword suggestions and data within the CMS post editor – and enhancing search engine indexability to drive qualified traffic.
For the <a href="/gutenberg-2-years-later-is-wordpress-better-off/">WordPress</a> community, Yoast is practically a household name. For years, this handy plugin has enabled users to control a multitude of attributes across websites, including meta descriptions, keywords, titles, and more. Yoast has proven to be a go-to solution for driving traffic from major search engines like Google and Bing to leading social media channels like Facebook.
SEMrush has long been regarded as a trusted brainstorming tool for keyword strategy. With standout features such as link building and site auditing, SEMrush provides users with a go-to checklist of features and capabilities for improving technical and on-page SEO.
“At a time when all businesses are becoming even more reliant on their digital strategy to thrive and survive, it is hard to overstate the significance of this partnership between SEMrush and Yoast, two highly regarded names in SEO,” said Eugene Levin, SEMrush’s Chief Strategy Officer. “We are thrilled to announce the seamless integration of one of the largest keyword databases on the market with Yoast’s unrivaled reach into WordPress-powered sites. As many of SEMrush clients run websites with WordPress, this partnership is an important one for our customers. We look forward to cooperating further with Yoast to help as many people as possible become the best digital marketers they can be.”
Yoast founder and Chief Product Officer Joost de Valk added, “As more and more people get online, we see that these people need help with keyword research. Previously we could not give our customers information regarding how people search, specifically which related searches there are for important search terms. Our integration with SEMrush not only makes this possible, it shows it right when and where you need it. I look forward to building out this feature to help people write better content, faster.”
In order to benefit from the new features in the Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress, users will need to have either a free or premium SEMrush account. The full set of SEMrush features available in Yoast SEO will help customers access related keywords that are similar to a user’s query, gather useful metrics for every keyword, and uncover new keyword ideas for their content.
You can download the Yoast SEO plugin <a href="https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/">here</a>.
Sign up for a free or premium SEMrush account <a href="https://www.semrush.com/signup/">here</a>.

SEMrush and Yoast Partner to Enhance WordPress SEO and Digital Marketing

Call Tracking + AI 

Call Tracking + AI that Turns Calls into Leads

#ffffff

If you’re a child of the 1980s – or just a fan of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.netflix.com/title/80057281">Stranger Things</a> – you might remember the directory sign at your local mall. It was the one place you could find exactly what you were looking for in a sea of stores, and they’re still a fixture to this day.Unfortunately, most site searches can’t even get you to the food court. In many cases, you’re left sifting through a morass of results, wondering if you’ll ever find your way to that rad new pair of acid-washed jeans.Like malls, site search has been around for a long time. But now, it’s becoming an even more vital part of the digital experience. After all, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nngroup.com/articles/search-and-you-may-find/">more than half of people are now “search dominant</a>”, meaning they will use a website’s search over the navigation to find what they’re looking for.From an SEO perspective, navigation is key. But modern search tools can add a complementary layer of insights and analytics. These cutting-edge, AI-driven technologies can energize your marketing by understanding how your customers are searching – not just what they’re searching for.One of the best site search tools we’ve seen is Swiftype, which was <a target="_blank" href="https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/09/elastic-acquires-swiftype/">purchased by Elastic in 2017</a>. This powerful SaaS platform has positioned itself as a clear leader in the site search landscape and has evolved to include app search and a host of other features.In this article, we’ll take a close look at Swiftype’s features and explore how you can customize your search results, leverage analytics, and even build marketing strategies within the platform. It’s like a mall for best-of-breed site search capabilities – and we’ll show you exactly where to shop.<h3>Goodbye, Google Search</h3>Back in the day, Google Site Search was the defacto standard. Not only was it easy to implement, but it brought the world's leading search technology down to the website level. Unfortunately, Google deprecated the service in 2018, forcing thousands of websites to scramble for a new solution.Quite a few niche players answered the call, including <a target="_blank" href="https://www.algolia.com/">Algolia</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cludo.com/">Cludo</a>, and others. Enterprise brands also muscled their way into the game, with <a target="_blank" href="https://aws.amazon.com/cloudsearch/">Amazon CloudSearch</a> and Google Search Console offering alternatives.What was missing was the best of both worlds – a cost-effective, cloud-based service that offered core site search with scalable enterprise features. That’s where Swiftype comes in.<h3>What is Swiftype?</h3>Swiftype is a cloud-based SaaS platform that enables organizations of all sizes to create and manage a tailored search experience with real-time feedback, user insight, and search trend analytics. Users are able to monitor which content visitors are searching for and which results they’re engaging with as they browse your website.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/swiftype-analytics-dashboard.png" />Swiftype is incredibly easy to install and customize. Once you sign up and enter your website’s address, Swiftype automatically indexes your site and renders your custom search engine in real-time. In addition to providing a “marketer friendly” no-code experience, Swiftype also gives advanced developers access to resources including their API.Swiftype offers two main products – Site Search and App Search – which can be added to websites and CMS platforms. We’ve explored both in more detail below.<h3>Swiftype Site Search</h3>Swiftype Site Search provides all the tools you need to deliver more relevant search results for your website users. It's simple to set up and use, and has some dynamite out-of-the-box features, including:<ul><li>Autocomplete: Guide users to the content, answers, or products that matter most with real-time results – right as they type.</li><li>Search Refinements: Dynamically expand on simple search, allowing your users to refine results by attributes such as date, price, author, location, or content type.</li><li>Comprehensive Documentation: Swiftype has clear and simple guides that can help you build the perfect search experience. You'll have all the materials you need to become a master of high value search experiences.</li><li>Advanced Search Algorithm: Powered by AI/ML, Swiftype Site Search is built on an advanced search algorithm that delivers relevant results for even the most complicated queries.</li></ul><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/swiftype-site-search-features.png" /><ul><li>Search Controls and Analytics: Site Search surfaces the most important data points and performance indicators for your search. It also gives you the tools to take action and improve performance, including patented technologies that allow you to tweak your search engine’s output globally or on a per-query basis.</li></ul><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/search-controls-and-swiftype-analytics.png" /><ul><li>Developer Tools: One of Swiftype’s strengths is its ability to appeal to marketers with a no-code experience. But it also provides a robust, developer-friendly API for creating custom record schemas, indexing data in real-time, embedding search into any user interface (such as a website or CMS), and programmatically tracking events. You can view the API documentation <a target="_blank" href="https://swiftype.com/documentation/site-search/overview">here</a>.</li><li>Real-time Search Analytics: Swiftype allows you to see what your users are searching for, clicking on, and engaging with as it happens – so you have more actionable insight about their behaviors. With its powerful real-time search analytics, you can track the highest performing content on your website or app, assess which autocomplete queries are most popular, and learn what content was most commonly chosen from autocomplete suggestions.</li></ul><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/real-time-search-analytics.png" /><ul><li>Tracking conversions and autocompletes: Search conversions tell you where your users go after performing a search.</li></ul><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/tracking-conversions-and-autocompletes.png" /><ul><li>Find out What Users Aren’t Finding: Swiftype shows you common searches that return no results – so you can optimize your content strategy. Swiftype’s custom result ranking feature lets you add results to these search terms to help visitors find more of what they’re looking for.</li></ul><h3>Swiftype App Search</h3><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/swiftype-app-search.jpg" />While Site Search provides a powerful solution without a steep learning curve, Swiftype App Search goes deep with developers. You get access to a robust set of APIs that allow you to customize your search experience – all backed by the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.elastic.co/elastic-stack">Elastic Stack</a>.Swiftype App Search harnesses the power of Elasticsearch, built on the constantly improving foundation that Elastic provides. It includes features like typo-tolerance, stemming, bigram and phrase matching – as well as search customization capabilities like Curations, Weights, Boosts and Synonyms.Together, these tools help you fine-tune relevance based on your business objectives in conjunction with data from App Search’s Analytics platform.Other key features include:<ul><li>Real-time Analytics: Measure how users interact with your search engine and track everything in real-time, revealing unique insights into user behavior.</li><li>Relevance Tuning: The App Search Dashboard makes relevance tuning as simple as point-and-click. Make customizations in the web-based interface and preview their impact in real-time – all with no code.</li><li>Schemaless Indexing: App Search supports dynamic schemas and real-time reindexing. Simply send JSON to the API and Swiftype analyzes it for whatever search application you build.</li></ul>You can see the full list of App Search features <a target="_blank" href="https://swiftype.com/app-search/features">here</a>.<h3>How to Add Swiftype Site Search to Your Website</h3>One of Swiftype’s main selling points is its ease of installation – and based on our experience, it delivers as billed.Swiftype’s website claims it takes as little as five minutes, and for the essentials, that was pretty much spot on. The tools were a quick study, and the interface is clean and lightweight, making it pleasant to work in.To set up Swiftype on your website, you first need to <a target="_blank" href="https://swiftype.com/users/sign_up">create your account</a>, then an Engine (short for “Search Engine”). After beginning your Site Search trial, enter your website's URL when prompted.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/swiftype-create-engine.png" />Once the scan is successful, provide your Engine with a name and select its default language. You can choose from over 13 different languages, including English, French, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and German. For the full list, see Swiftype’s documents on <a target="_blank" href="https://swiftype.com/documentation/site-search/crawler-configuration/language-optimization">language support</a>.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/swiftype-choose-engine-language.png" />The final step is adding the search experience to your website. Once you click on the Installation button, you’ll need to configure the design of your Search Field and Result Container. From there, you can choose how to style your results, configure autocomplete, and tune an array of options.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/swiftype-style-your-results-and-other-configurations.png" />Once you have the basic configuration in place, you’ll receive an embeddable JavaScript snippet. Place that snippet on each webpage to enable the search. The snippet will look like this:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/swiftype-javascript-snippet.png" />And that’s it. If you’re savvy and committed, it can take just a few minutes – and that’s pretty slick.<h3>How to Add Swiftype Site Search to Your CMS</h3>Content management systems often miss the mark on their own search capabilities. By adding Swiftype, you can instantly improve a CMS experience and add your CMS content automatically using Swiftype’s <a target="_blank" href="https://swiftype.com/documentation/site-search/tutorials/add_search_to_any_cms">Site Crawler</a>.On the more advanced end, you can even set up callbacks that can be used to hook into content, alerting Swiftype that new content is available to index.While the installation process is relatively straight-forward – and works well for most CMS platforms based on their documentation – there are a few more steps involved. But Swiftype offers some great <a target="_blank" href="https://swiftype.com/documentation/site-search/tutorials/add_search_to_any_cms">step-by-step guidance</a> to build out the experience.<h3>Customer Support</h3>Swiftype offers broad customer support, and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.g2.com/products/swiftype/reviews">according to the reviews</a>, it offers one of the best experiences around.Swiftype Standard and Pro support is focused on making sure your Swiftype Engine is working as expected – and is fully available. To that end, they offer:<ul><li>Analysis of the state of your engine</li><li>Actions you can perform to stabilize or tune your engine</li><li>Pointers to Swiftype documentation or forums if your question is outside the scope of the platform itself</li></ul>Elastic reported their response time and hours below:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/swiftype-customer-support-plans.png" />In addition, they provide a lively community of support for Swiftype users. With the community forums, you can get your more in-depth questions answered.<h3>Pricing</h3>Swiftype has two separate plans for Site Search and App Search. The Site Search plan starts at $79/month and App Search starts at $49/month.Site Search:There are three plans for site search: Standard, Pro, and Premium.The standard plan gives you all the core search features and analytics, as well as multilingual support.With the Pro plan, your website gets crawled twice a day instead of once per week. Additionally, you get cross-domain search and PDF/document indexing.The Premium plan is their enterprise-level search and security.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/swiftype-site-search-plans.png" />App Search:Just like the Site Search plans, Swiftype’s App Search plans offer Standard, Pro, and Premium Packages.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/swiftype-app-search-plans.png" /><h3>Conclusion</h3>While good navigation is important, people always seek the path of least resistance. That’s why site search is so essential: it enables more control over intent, allowing a user to search for specific content quickly and easily – and even discovering new stuff along the way. In that sense, it’s another layer in your personalization strategy.While Swiftype is easy to set up, marketer- and developer-friendly, and offers a broad range of tools, it’s not the cheapest solution on the market. But if you’re looking for a platform that makes search a more strategic part of your experience, Swiftype is at the top of the list. It offers unmatched control and scalability, and brings more power and presence to site search as a strategic asset. With world-class customer support to boot, it’s really a solid platform on every level.You can start a <a target="_blank" href="https://app.swiftype.com/signup?product=ss">free</a> trial today. Acid-washed jeans not included.<h3>About Swiftype</h3><a target="_blank" href="https://swiftype.com/">Swiftype</a> is a search and index company based in San Francisco, California, that provides search software for organizations, websites, and computer programs. Notable customers include AT&amp;T, Dr. Pepper, Hubspot and TechCrunch. Swiftype's site search can be used for faceted search, full text search, real-time search, and concept search queries. The company's plans offer on-demand and live recrawls and indexing of websites. Other features include drag-and-drop result customization, real-time analytics and adjustable weights. In an effort to further grow outside of site search, Swiftype introduced an enterprise search service in February 2017.<h3>About Elastic</h3><a target="_blank" href="https://www.elastic.co/">Elastic</a> builds software to make data usable in real time and at scale for search, logging, security, and analytics use cases. Founded in 2012, the company develops the open source Elastic Stack (Elasticsearch, Kibana, Beats, and Logstash), X-Pack (commercial features), and Elastic Cloud (a SaaS offering). Elastic is used by organizations including Cisco, eBay, Goldman Sachs, NASA, Microsoft, Mayo Clinic, The New York Times, Wikipedia, and Verizon to power mission-critical systems.

Swiftype Review: Add Powerful Elastic Search to Websites, Apps and CMS Platforms

By Janus Boye, <a href="https://boye-co.com">Boye &amp; Co</a>
There’s a million different ways to select a new content management system and having been a part of the marketplace for the past two decades, I thought I had almost seen them all.
Still, the recent CMS selection as a part of the <a href="https://w3.org">World Wide Web Consortium</a> (W3C) redesign project was a different one. A project done out in the open, with a controversial tool selection and an emphasis on accessibility.
Given the public profile of the W3C, this naturally led to increased attention among agencies, analysts, vendors and other industry pundits alike.
<a href="https://craftcms.com/">Craft CMS</a> came out the winner, but let’s take a step-by-step look at what happened and see what others might be able to use in their own selection processes.
<h2 id="finding-a-modern-and-accessible-cms-starts-by-getting-some-help">Finding a modern and accessible CMS starts by getting some help</h2>
A good place to start to get an overview of this process is the <a href="https://www.w3.org/2019/11/website-redesign-rfp.html">W3C website redesign phase 1 RFP</a>. This was issued back in November 2019 and as you see, W3C asked for help with more than selecting a CMS. To quote from the project summary
<blockquote>“W3C is looking to incrementally redesign its Website and revise the information architecture”</blockquote>
As the customer, W3C asked for cost estimates on services like design, SEO, development and consulting on things like migration strategy. Objectives included:
<ul>
<li>Solidify brand authority, consistent design, uniform appearance</li>
<li>Create an engaging and easy to navigate experience</li>
<li>Increase engagement</li>
<li>Create a long-lasting partnership with a web design agency to continue to work with us as our needs and organization evolve</li>
</ul>
The specific requirements included this bullet with three sub bullets:

<ul>
<li>Provide advice on a modern replacement for the custom CMS used for the current site
<ul>
<li>We need a CMS that is long-lived and easy to maintain, because we run our systems for decades.</li>
<li>Full change histories identifying who made each change.</li>
<li>The CMS may need to enable collaborative editing</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>

Finally, the RFP also included this sentence on budget:
<blockquote>“The average cost estimate of $200,000 is based on figures given by people who are in the ecosystem. We would like vendors to propose what they recommend even if it exceeds $200,000.”</blockquote>
Several agencies responded during December, including UK-based <a href="https://www.studio24.net/">Studio 24</a>.
Studio 24 which was awarded the contract in early February. Although slightly delayed by a few weeks, given the holidays, that’s not a much longer response time than many other projects.
If you look at the project tweets from W3C, you can see a more detailed timeline for selection
<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card">
<blockquote>
Our W3C Website redesign RFP has now concluded. 
We awarded the project to <a href="https://twitter.com/studio24?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@studio24</a> who we are very much looking forward to working with. 
Thanks to the 31 other bidders for the excellent quality of their proposals.<a href="https://t.co/RCtmGY6VBn">https://t.co/RCtmGY6VBn</a>
— W3C (@w3c) <a href="https://twitter.com/w3c/status/1225796276555567105?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 7, 2020</a></blockquote>
</figure>
You might also want to see the <a href="https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-website-redesign/2019Dec/att-0024/W3C_Website_redesign_RFP_Proposal_Studio_24.pdf">winning proposal from Studio 24</a> (PDF)
My take:
Nothing out of the ordinary in the opening. A high-profile customer. A reasonable budget to relaunch a notable website. The project pretty much looks like any other website redesign including a new CMS to power the website. Also worth mentioning, that a customer showing an ability to make decisions at the beginning is a good starting point.
<h2 id="cms-strategy-to-inform-the-selection">CMS strategy to inform the selection</h2>
The project kicked off in mid-March and following user group research and design discussions, then moved onto CMS strategy and requirements in May.
This led to the creation of a comprehensive <a href="https://w3c.studio24.net/docs/cms-strategy-and-requirements/">CMS strategy and requirements document</a>. This covers technical requirements, accessibility, content editing, forms, search and much more. 
There’s also a section on licensing models. To quote:
<blockquote>“W3C has a strong preference for an open-source license for the CMS platform.”</blockquote>
And later in the same chapter:
<blockquote>“We will consider commercial software that fits the requirements for W3C.”</blockquote>
The document also outlines questions to be answered for each potential system as well as a section on headless CMS and static site generators.
My take:
While there’s no set formula for how a CMS strategy should look like and any rules on required chapters, I found the work done here comprehensive and understandable, also by non CMS experts.
From the perspective of an analyst or customer, I would also consider the importance of the ecosystem around the system and the quality of the documentation. Depending on who you ask, some might also consider a look at company/community vision and roadmap. Are they aligned with what you want to achieve?
<h2 id="narrowing-down-the-shortlist">Narrowing down the shortlist</h2>
As the project moved forward, the time also came to narrow down the list of potential systems.
Given the public nature of the project, you can read more in this document: <a href="https://w3c.studio24.net/docs/w3c-cms-selection-process-update/">W3C CMS platform selection - full status update</a>. To quote from the chapter on shortlisting:
<blockquote>“We then looked at a series of CMSes from a high level. We looked at their marketing material to understand their philosophy and their main features; got a sense of the level of activity of their development team and community; scanned their user and developer documentation.
Based on this first review, we for example excluded all static site builders (e.g. Gatsby, Jekyll). Jekyll and Gatsby can have performance issues when building large sites, which we would rather avoid. Others such as Hugo are built on technology we are not familiar with in the studio.”</blockquote>
This led to a shortlist of three candidates, all based on the PHP technology stack familiar to the W3C:
<ul>
<li>Craft CMS</li>
<li>Statamic</li>
<li><a href="https://www.boye-co.com/vendors/wordpress">WordPress</a></li>
</ul>
Later in the document, there’s strengths and weaknesses with each of the three finalists. To me they looked balanced, but I in particular noticed this sentence on WordPress:
<blockquote>“Because we have a lot of experience with WordPress, we are also very much aware of its limitations in the context of a project of this size and longevity.”</blockquote>
My take:
This is a phase of the project, which can be either extremely difficult without outside help or left to random circumstances. Working with an agency with real implementation experiences like Studio 24 provides valuable insights to finding the right system.
It’s refreshing to read how marketing material provides a starting point for understanding the systems. In other processes, industry analysts like Forrester, Gartner or Real Story Group are also pulled in to provide insights to making the technology decision. Either via their reports or through their analyst services.
According to Simon Jones, the Gartner Magic Quadrant was reviewed as a part of the process, although this wasn’t noted in the project documentation.
As a part of our conversation for this article, Simon also mentioned that the PHP technology stack was a big decider on limiting CMS choice. Using the tech stack to narrow down the list is quite common.
<h2 id="not-selecting-wordpress">Not selecting WordPress</h2>
Judging from the outside, it looks like the most controversial part of the process was removing WordPress from the final three.
In the <a href="https://w3c.studio24.net/docs/w3c-cms-selection-process-update/#the-review-process">CMS selection review process</a>, Studio 24 wrote this about the process they used to test the finalists:
<blockquote>“This is how we tested Craft and Statamic (we didn’t submit WordPress to that test as we already have extensive experience working with it).”</blockquote>
And later in the document this quote:
<blockquote>“We have already rejected the use of Gutenberg in the context of this project due to accessibility issues.”</blockquote>
A few weeks later in the <a href="https://w3c.studio24.net/updates/weeknotes-11-sept/">CMS selection project weeknotes from 11 Sept</a>, there’s this sentence:
<blockquote>“We have shortlisted two CMS platforms at present.”</blockquote>
In other words: WordPress was out.
This created quite some debate in the community. Let’s look at the timeline:
<ul>
<li>24 September: WordPress Tavern - <a href="https://wptavern.com/w3c-drops-wordpress-from-consideration-for-redesign-narrows-cms-shortlist-to-statamic-and-craft">W3C Drops WordPress from Consideration for Redesign, Narrows CMS Shortlist to Statamic and Craft</a></li>
<li>25 September: Web consultant focusing on standards and accessibility Adrian Roselli expanded a Twitter thread to this post:  <a href="https://adrianroselli.com/2020/09/gutenberg-accessibility-costs-wordpress-the-w3c-work.html">Gutenberg Accessibility Costs WordPress the W3C Work</a></li>
<li>26 September: Member of the WordPress Accessibility Team Amanda Rush - <a href="https://www.customerservant.com/w3c-is-prioritizing-accessibility-over-its-open-source-licensing-preferences-why-is-that-a-bad-thing-again/">“W3C Is Prioritizing Accessibility Over Its Open Source Licensing Preferences”. Why is that a bad thing again?</a></li>
<li>27 September: Accessibility consultant and WordPress contributor Joe Dolson was cited in the WordPress Tavern article and published this piece as a response: <a href="https://www.joedolson.com/2020/09/the-w3c-drops-wordpress-from-consideration/">The W3C Drops WordPress from Consideration</a>.</li>
<li>29 September: WordPress Tavern with this update - <a href="https://wptavern.com/w3c-selects-craft-cms-for-redesign-project">W3C Selects Craft CMS for Redesign Project</a></li>
</ul>
Simon Jones from Studio 24 also responded with <a href="https://w3c.studio24.net/updates/on-not-choosing-wordpress/">a separate update on not choosing WordPress</a>. This post includes chapters on the challenges of Gutenberg. Specifically, the issue with Gutenberg for agencies that create bespoke websites is the development process. To quote Marie Manandise from Studio 24:
<blockquote>“It is very difficult to create custom blocks and make it profitable. And that is due to the necessity of using React for making any changes, including simple ("front-end") changes to the markup rendered by Gutenberg.”</blockquote>
In the post, Simon also addressed the topic of licensing and the different types of open source.
This tweet also sums up the issues around front-end complexity or “Reactification of frontend development.”
<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card">
<blockquote>
"The use of React complicates frontend build. We have very talented frontend developers, however, they are not React experts - nor should they need to be. I believe frontend should be built as standards-compliant HTML/CSS with JavaScript used to enrich functionality" <a href="https://twitter.com/simonrjones?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@simonrjones</a>
— Ben Furfie (@frontendben) <a href="https://twitter.com/frontendben/status/1310137650955911168?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
</figure>
My take:
It’s far from unusual for vendors or even champions of open source projects to respond negatively to not making the final cut. As a customer it’s good to be prepared for this and the tactics tend to come in different shapes and sizes.
In the case of a very public project done out in the open, it’s no surprise that the discussion made it to Twitter, <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24596769">Hacker News with 100s of comments</a>, and other websites. Simon from Studio 24 spent quite a bit of time responding to different questions and comments.
To quote Simon Jones:
<blockquote>“it's not easy working in the open but it's a really good thing to do.”</blockquote>
Finally, it is worth noting that while the WordPress community came out loud, the Drupal community responded much more understandingly and with positive feedback, even though they were also not on the final shortlist.
<h2 id="the-importance-of-accessibility">The importance of accessibility</h2>
As is now clear, accessibility became a major theme in this selection process. Still, accessibility was not more of a decisive a factor as the development process for example.
According to Studio 24:
<blockquote>“The reason we had to spend so much time looking into accessibility is because information about the level of accessibility of software is very hard to come by. CMS developers themselves are often not in a good position to give that information. It requires a lot of time and niche expertise to make that assessment. And also because none of the CMSes out there fit the bill, we had to be creative in coming up with a solution to meet the accessibility requirement.”</blockquote>
There’s now also an <a href="https://www.w3.org/WAI/atag/report-tool/">ATAG Report Tool</a>, which was released in June. The tool helps evaluators report on the accessibility of authoring tools and guides you through the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) requirements.
The Web Accessibility Initiative (a working group in W3C) are trying to use this tool to help create a list of accessible authoring tools (e.g. CMSs). This list doesn't exist yet since they don't have enough data.
In a recent talk on <a href="https://talks.hiddedevries.nl/2AxSl2/advancing-authoring-tool-accessibility">advancing authoring tool accessibility</a> by Hidde de Vries he looks at how better “authoring tools” can improve accessibility (for content editors and for web users), and share some of the new resources that the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) is working on.
My take:
These days, it’s far from unusual for accessibility to be a topic when it comes to website design, also due to government regulations. Still, it’s quite rare that editor accessibility is such a decisive factor in selecting which platform to choose.
When we covered this case study in our recent <a href="https://www.boye-co.com/groups/cms-experts">CMS Expert group</a> meeting, we talked about accessibility not being high enough on the list for most customers.
Kudos to W3C as a standards organization for raising the topic!
<h2 id="final-thoughts-improving-the-cms-marketplace">Final thoughts: Improving the CMS marketplace</h2>
In our conversation with the CMS Experts, several vendors said that their clients are asking more and more for an accessible CMS. This increased focus on accessibility is now visible on roadmaps and will hopefully lead to tangible improvements soon.
On the agency side, one of the Boye members had to switch the CMS at the last minute in order to use an accessible tool.
As a community, we are big fans of this type open of sharing and reflection. While vendors move quickly and clearly keep innovating, more openness about the process can help us all push the marketplace forward.

What can we learn from the W3C CMS selection process

janus-boye

Contentstack, a headless Content Experience Platform (CXP), has <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/company/press/partnership-with-gatsby-to-build-fast-enterprise-mach-enabled-websites">announced</a> a strategic partnership with Gatsby – a modern React-based, open source framework for creating high-performance websites and applications. The partnership will enable customers to leverage the combined power of both platforms to build high performance, blazing-fast websites to deliver personalized, omnichannel experiences at scale.
The partnership between Gatsby and Contentstack is the latest in a year of significant moves across the CMS landscape, including the <a href="/episerver-to-acquire-optimizely-the-worlds-leading-experience-optimization-platform/">recent purchase of Optimizely by Episerver</a>. As competition continues to increase, platforms are seeking more strategic avenues – including partnerships – to position their offerings.
For Contentstack, Gatsby represents a powerful channel of opportunity for accelerating website performance with a headless CMS that is purpose-built for omnichannel experiences. The partnership offers an enterprise-class, cloud-native solution to provide the best possible speed, security and flexibility for creating digital experiences.
<h3 id="going-headless">Going Headless</h3>
Over the last few years, headless CMS platforms have become far more prevalent, evolving from template-based platforms to API-driven and decoupled systems. Unlike traditional content management systems where the content is tied to the frontend, headless CMS platforms separate the content from the presentation – allowing creators to pull, store, and display their content any way they want, using the frameworks or programming languages they prefer.
As an API-first headless SaaS platform, <a href="/contentstack-introducing-headless-cms/">Contentstack</a> is at the intersection of content management and digital experiences, enabling business and IT to “remove the silos” and more easily collaborate. Their microservices architecture provides an extensible framework for scaling across endpoints, from websites to devices to frontend apps, giving content creators more control over an expanding world of channels and services.
Gatsby also takes a headless approach to content, leveraging modern web technologies such as React, GraphQL, and Javascript to provide a faster frontend experience powered by a headless CMS. The result is a dynamic, lightweight website that improves the user experience without compromising control from the CMS layer.  
"In today's digital world, speed matters – losing customers to a slow, low-performing website is not acceptable," said Peter Fogelsanger, Global Head of Partnerships at Contentstack. "Ensuring that the storytelling from the content creators is delivered to customers quickly and seamlessly is critical to every company's success. This partnership with Gatsby makes it possible. Businesses can bring together their marketing and development teams to deliver blazing fast websites and applications with the best, most up-to-date digital content for their customers."
Together, Contentstack and Gatsby are providing a complete solution for improving website performance and unifying both marketing and development teams. By adopting the MACH (Microservices based, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS and Headless) approach delivered by both platforms, businesses can now create faster, more scalable websites that enhance the customer experience.
"Working with Contentstack allows marketing and content to harmonize with the development team," said Linda Watkins, Vice President of Partnerships at Gatsby. "When both business and technical teams are enabled by a microservices-based architecture, the agility in adapting and improving customer experiences is a game changer. Gatsby Cloud enables businesses to integrate seamlessly with Contentstack's API to manage content and control publishing. Our joint customers can more easily deliver the best digital experiences and truly stand out from their competition."
As part of the partnership offering, joint customers will have access to an API-connector between the Contentstack and Gatsby technology platforms. Contentstack <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/docs/developers/sample-apps/build-a-sample-website-using-gatsby-and-contentstack/">offers</a> a tutorial, providing step-by-step instructions on how to create a website using Gatsby and Contentstack. Gatsby also has an exclusive <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.com/guides/contentstack/">guide</a> for integrating Gatsby with Contentstack.
<h3 id="about-gatsby">About Gatsby</h3>
<a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.org/">Gatsby</a> is a web development framework that brings together all the best, modern ways to build on the web. Specifically designed to help frontend engineers leverage the advantages of cloud native architecture, Gatsby provides the most collaborative, secure, and performant way to build websites with access to a broad ecosystem of tools and enhancements via easy to setup integrations. Used by Fortune 500 companies including ButcherBox, Capital One, DraftKings, IBM, and Impossible Foods, the company is backed by Index Ventures, CRV, Trinity Ventures, Dig Ventures, Mango Capital, Fathom Capital, and prominent angel investors.
<h3 id="about-contentstack">About Contentstack</h3>
<a href="https://www.contentstack.com/">Contentstack</a> is a headless SaaS Content Experience Platform (DXP) that enables enterprises to manage content across all digital channels. The preferred API-first CMS for SAP customers, Contentstack was designed from the ground up for large-scale, complex, and mission-critical deployments. Contentstack is a founding member of the MACH Alliance, an industry organization that advocates for an open and best-of-breed enterprise technology ecosystem that is Microservices-based, API-first, Cloud-native and Headless.

Contentstack and Gatsby Announce Partnership to Power Ultra-Fast Websites with Headless CMS

Agility CMS has <a href="https://agilitycms.com/resources/posts/agility-pricing-structure">announced</a> a new pricing model for their all-in-one headless content management system, aimed at helping a broad range of customers ­– from developers to the enterprise – expand their digital strategies. 
Founded in 2002, Agility CMS has positioned itself as a “Content-First” SaaS headless platform, giving users a significant amount of flexibility over their digital experiences through powerful, lightweight APIs. This includes the full array of JAMstack (Javascript, API, Markup) and browser-based frameworks – including static React site generators like Gatsby – that simplify and accelerate website performance while acting as a unified content hub.
Agility’s new pricing tiers reflect a shift in the CMS market, where platforms are offering both developers and enterprise organizations expanded options while simplifying the procurement process. As licensing has shifted to more subscription and SaaS-based models, many CMS platforms have raced to add more value to their offerings, including free entry points and streamlined pricing at multiple levels.
"We want to give [users] more, yet simplify things,” said Jon Voigt, CEO of Agility CMS. “We kept hearing that people are upset with the complex pricing models out there; we wanted to provide a better free edition and an unlimited community-supported edition that was based on value."
The chief reason behind the pricing change is to provide greater access to the Agility CMS across the marketplace, allowing users to increase productivity and collaboration between marketing, sales, and development teams. In addition to their advanced headless capabilities, unmatched load speeds, rapid development, and low-code content management, each of Agility’s paid packages are loaded with features.
<h3>The New Agility CMS Pricing Model</h3>
Agility is now offering four pricing tiers: a free Developer option, a Standard package for small teams, a Pro tier for high-performing businesses, and a custom enterprise option. 
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/agility-cms-pricing.png" /></figure>
Let’s take a look at these <a href="https://agilitycms.com/pricing">packages</a> in more detail:
Free: Agility CMS offers a free package for web developers. This plan includes 5 users, 10GB bandwidth, 2,500 content items, and community support – and it’s free forever. You can even <a href="https://account.agilitycms.com/sign-up?product=agility-free">sign up</a> without giving your credit card information. This plan is ideal for users who want to learn web development and content management, do some general tinkering, and have fun building. If you feel like you reached the limits of the free package, you can easily upgrade. 
Standard: For $47 per month, this package delivers unlimited users and content items. Community support and 500GB of bandwidth is also included. Starting with the Standard Package, every Agility CMS tier includes Content Management, Ecommerce, Ticketing, Search and User Generated Content. If you're running a small site with 500 pages or less, this package is ideal. 
Pro: At $579 per month, the Pro package is designed for high-performance business websites and includes unlimited users, unlimited content items, 1TB of bandwidth, and direct support from the Agility CMS team. With Pro, you can sell more products with rich eCommerce, generate custom reports, manage federated search over multiple domains, and more. 
Enterprise: Starting at $2,500 per month, the Agility CMS Enterprise package is for large-scale organizations that need highly customized setup with world-class support. Enterprise includes more direct support, a dedicated account manager, and greater control over the granular needs of your organization. Pricing varies based on the bespoke requirements of an organization; for a custom quote, contact their sales team.
All Agility CMS plans – including the free tier – include these features:
<ul>
<li>Roles &amp; Permissions     </li>
<li>Approval Workflows</li>
<li>Content Modelling and Versioning</li>
<li>Rich Text Editor</li>
<li>RESTful API &amp; Webhooks</li>
<li>Open Source SDKs (Javascript &amp; .Net)</li>
<li>Single Sign-on (SSO)</li>
<li>24/7 Monitoring</li>
<li>Unlimited Languages/Locales</li>
<li>Unlimited Content Definitions</li>
<li>Unlimited Asset Requests</li>
<li>Unlimited API Requests</li>
</ul>
<h3>Focused on Developers</h3>
One of the best parts of Agility’s pricing is its free tier for developers. Like most “freemium” models, it’s limited in its scope and capabilities. But it can still power an actual production solution, including access to APIs. An enterprising coder can build a basic proof-of-concept for a project or even power a small website – all for free. But be warned: the API will not charge overages for this package, so if you hit your limits, your calls will be blocked.
With a path for easy upgrades – and even alerts to tell you when you’re approaching your limits – Agility helps its users to scale more seamlessly based on their needs. As a headless platform, this is even more advantageous, as developers have more freedom to create in the language or framework of their choice and shape digital experience across a multitude of channels.
Because it’s a multi-tenant SaaS-based solution, Agility appears to have more control and flexibility over their pricing, and they’ve endeavored to make it easier to understand. However, because it’s a multi-tenant SaaS-based solution, it might be a limitation for organizations that require on-prem hosting or security governance for all of their websites and CMS platforms.
You can try Agility CMS for free <a href="https://account.agilitycms.com/sign-up?product=agility-free">here</a>.
<h3>About Agility CMS</h3>
<a href="https://agilitycms.com/">Agility CMS</a> is a SaaS headless “Content-First” platform with fast, flexible development and familiar authoring tools. Designed for developers, marketers, and enterprise organizations, Agility CMS is trusted by customers in the US, Canada, and across the globe – including Visit Orlando, PepsiCo, Polaroid, Hockey Canada, California State University Long Beach, Cineplex Entertainment, Scotiabank and more.

Agility CMS Introduces Simplified Pricing Tiers For Headless Content Management

Hyland, an enterprise content management (ECM) and process management provider, <a href="https://news.hyland.com/hyland-enters-definitive-agreement-to-acquire-alfresco/">announced</a> that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Alfresco Software – an open source content services platform.
Both vendors appeared on the <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en/explore/gartner-magic-quadrant-for-content-services-platforms#:~:text=In%20its%202019%20Magic%20Quadrant,vision%20and%20ability%20to%20execute.&amp;text=For%2010%20years%20in%20a,(ECM)%20and%20content%20services.">Gartner Magic Quadrant for ECM in 2019</a>, with Hyland ranking as a “Leader” in the overall category. With Alfresco firmly in a challenger position, the combination brings a number of market-leading advantages to Hyland’s global growth strategy – particularly as it looks to the cloud.
“With this acquisition, Alfresco brings significant geographic and industry experience to Hyland, as well as an open-source community as a new source of product innovation,” said Jay Bhatt, president and CEO of Alfresco. “Both companies share the same passion for customer success and innovation and together will offer increased value for customers and partners.”
Hyland’s news is the latest in a recent “buying spree” that’s been playing out across the digital experience landscape. In just the past few months alone, <a href="/acquia-launches-new-open-digital-experience-platform/">Acquia received a major investment from Vista Equity Partners</a>, <a href="/episerver-to-acquire-optimizely-the-worlds-leading-experience-optimization-platform/">Episerver announced</a> plans to buy Optimizely, and just last week <a href="/nordic-capital-invests-in-siteimprove-plans-international-expansion-and-development/">Nordic Capital acquired 70% of Siteimprove</a>.
A leading ECM provider, Hyland is best known for its Onbase and Perceptive content management products, which securely centralize enterprise content and deliver relevant information to users across a wide variety of industries – including healthcare, finance, insurance, higher education and manufacturing.
Headquartered in Boston, Alfresco offers a modern, cloud-native Digital Business Platform that delivers enterprise content services and solutions to connect, manage, and protect critical information for organizations. Alfresco’s cloud capabilities may be a big ingredient in Hyland’s recipe for success as they eye a more cloud-centric strategy to scale their growth.
<h3 id="a-legacy-of-strategic-acquisitions">A Legacy of Strategic Acquisitions</h3>
Alfresco is one of Hyland’s many purchases, which have included a number of smaller digital optimization tools. Just this year, <a href="https://news.hyland.com/hyland-acquires-rpa-software-provider-another-monday/">Hyland acquired</a> Another Monday, the robotic process automation (RPA) software, <a href="https://news.hyland.com/hyland-completes-acquisition-of-streamline-healths-ecm-business/">Streamline Health ECM</a>, and <a href="https://news.hyland.com/hyland-acquires-blockchain-credentialing-provider-learning-machine/">Learning Machine</a>, a company that develops and markets blockchain-secured digital credentialing solutions. Other acquisitions include OneContent, Perceptive (which became one of their flagship products) and <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en/company/acquisitions">many more</a>.
“We continue to grow our business and advance our platform organically and via acquisitions,” said Bill Priemer, president and CEO of Hyland. “This acquisition will expand our global reach, enabling us to help more organizations achieve their digital transformation goals and become more informed, empowered, and connected.”
Alfresco has also had its own share of acquisitions, <a href="https://www.alfresco.com/news/press-releases/alfresco-acquires-content-services-specialist-technology-services-group">purchasing</a> its long-time services partner, Technology Services Group (TSG), to leverage their deep expertise in the insurance, manufacturing, life sciences, and compliance verticals. They also purchased <a href="https://www.alfresco.com/news/press-releases/alfresco-acquires-integration-specialist-pernexas">Pernexas</a> to add their portfolio of SAP capabilities.
<h3 id="why-the-alfresco-acquisition-is-important">Why the Alfresco Acquisition is Important</h3>
Over the years, Alfresco has grown into a respected and innovative enterprise content management provider with an array of proven solutions. But perhaps their most prudent and prescient decision was embracing the cloud – and partnering with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to scale their service offerings. Within the ECM industry, this has proven to be a uniquely strategic asset, and one that Hyland can use to accelerate their journey to a more modern, cloud-native posture. If properly integrated, this could be a game changer for Hyland – the kind that puts them in the leadership position on the Gartner Magic Quadrant.
<h3 id="about-hyland">About Hyland</h3>
<a href="https://www.hyland.com/">Hyland</a> is an enterprise content management (ECM) software platform, combining integrated document management, business process management, and records management in a single application. Hyland software allows organizations to manage, control, and share digital content with employees, business partners, customers, and other constituencies.
<h3 id="about-alfresco">About Alfresco</h3>
<a href="https://www.alfresco.com/">Alfresco Software</a> is a commercial, open-source software company. The Alfresco Digital Business Platform accelerates the design and delivery of “cloud-first” solutions for the enterprise that are process and content-intensive. It is a single, integrated platform built from the ground up to digitize processes, manage content, and securely govern information. Alfresco helps more than 1,300 industry-leading organizations, including Cisco, Pitney Bowes, Capital One, US Department of Navy, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and NASA, to be more responsive and competitive.

Hyland Acquires Alfresco, Focuses On Cloud and Global Expansion Of Enterprise CMS

In yet another active week for technology movers and shakers, Nordic Capital has signed a deal to become the majority shareholder in Danish-based <a href="/siteimprove-seo-provides-all-in-one-capabilities-for-enhancing-search-performance/">Siteimprove</a> – an enterprise SaaS company with solutions for improving website governance and performance.
Founded in 2003, Siteimprove has been focused on web usability, providing an all-in-one, cloud-based Digital Presence Optimization (DPO) platform. Their suite of tools and services help organizations enhance their digital accessibility, data privacy, compliance management (such as <a href="https://gdpr-info.eu/">GDPR</a>), content quality and search engine optimization.
<h3 id="leaders-in-website-accessibility">Leaders in Website Accessibility</h3>
Siteimprove has built a strong reputation around their industry-leading accessibility solutions, helping websites deliver an equitable digital experience to people with disabilities. 
One key to Siteimprove’s growth has been an elevated demand for accessibility scanning and monitoring, as websites in places like the U.S. have been under fire for <a href="https://www.natlawreview.com/article/ada-website-litigation-likely-to-increase">ADA compliance litigation</a> – particularly in the public sector. As accessibility awareness has grown, Siteimprove has also matured its training and partner programs, and developed integrations with content management systems (CMS) to help accelerate adoption.
Additionally, Siteimprove’s SEO and analytics tools are powering digital marketing programs and helping brands to enhance their overall website performance. As more businesses pivot to digital transformation in a COVID-19 world, the value of search and website health are becoming more critical than ever.
<h3 id="why-did-nordic-capital-decide-to-invest-in-siteimprove">Why did Nordic Capital Decide to Invest in Siteimprove?</h3>
Nordic Capital stated that Siteimprove has significant long-term growth potential, driven by increasing market penetration, expansion in key customer segments, and past investments in product development and platform solutions. Their goal is to fund Siteimprove’s continued innovation and expansion while elevating awareness for their social mission.
“We have long admired Siteimprove as one of the top SaaS companies globally, with great potential for further growth due to its world-class product offering, strong customer base, and expanding market coverage,” said Fredrik Näslund, Partner and Head of Technology &amp; Payments, <a href="https://www.nordiccapital.com/">Nordic Capital Advisors</a>.
“Nordic Capital will draw upon its significant experience and success in developing technology companies, working closely with the management team to continue Siteimprove’s journey as a strong and sustainable company. We are impressed by the Company and how its products reduce inequality in society by helping people with disabilities gain access to a digitalized world and drive growth across essential digital disciplines.”
<h3 id="more-acquisitions-and-outside-investment">More Acquisitions and Outside Investment</h3>
The last few years have certainly seen a “buying spree” across the digital experience and eCommerce landscape, with Adobe <a href="https://news.adobe.com/news/news-details/2018/Adobe-Completes-Acquisition-of-Marketo/default.aspx">acquiring Marketo</a> <a href="https://news.adobe.com/news/news-details/2018/Adobe-Completes-Acquisition-of-Magento-Commerce/default.aspx">and Magento</a>, Acquia <a href="/acquia-launches-new-open-digital-experience-platform/">receiving a major investment from Vista Equity Partners</a>, and Episerver recently <a href="/episerver-to-acquire-optimizely-the-worlds-leading-experience-optimization-platform/">announcing</a> its plans to acquire Optimizely. 
In a fierce race to acquire customers and compete against commoditization, leading platforms are relying on M&amp;A and outside equity to grow their market value. Leading enterprise platforms – from CRM to email marketing – also appear to be consolidating, offering more all-in-one solutions in a monolithic manner. MailChimp, ConstantContact, and <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/">Salesforce</a> are just a few platforms that are now offering digital marketing, CMS, and other capabilities all in one place.
With this recent announcement, it appears Siteimprove is the latest player to enter the investment game in a world gone digital.
<h3 id="about">About</h3>
<a href="https://siteimprove.com/">Siteimprove</a> offers the world's most comprehensive cloud-based Digital Presence Optimization (DPO) software. The Siteimprove Intelligence Platform provides eye-opening insights that empower more than 7,500 teams to create higher quality content, drive better traffic, measure digital performance, and work towards regulatory compliance – all from one place. They also offer best-in-class technical support, academy courses, services, and technology integrations.

Nordic Capital Invests In Siteimprove, Plans International Expansion and Development

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In another dramatic shift to the content management and digital experience landscape, Episerver <a href="https://www.episerver.com/company/press-room/episerver-to-acquire-optimizely-the-worlds-leading-experience-optimization-platform">has announced</a> its plans to buy Optimizely. 
Episerver, the customer-centric digital experience platform, is recognized as a leader in the <a href="https://www.episerver.com/reports/gartner-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms">Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms</a>. With the acquisition of Optimizely, an innovator in experience optimization, Episerver appears to be ramping up its competition with enterprise DXP players like <a href="https://www.adobe.com/marketing/experience-manager.html">Adobe</a>, <a href="/acquia-launches-new-open-digital-experience-platform/">Acquia</a> and <a href="/sitecore-updates-experience-platform-and-experience-commerce-releases-new-sitecore-content-hub/">Sitecore</a>.
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/gartner-magic-quadrant.png" alt="Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/09/gartner-magic-quadrant.png 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w1000/2020/09/gartner-magic-quadrant.png 1000w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/09/gartner-magic-quadrant.png 1432w" /><figcaption><a href="https://www.episerver.com/reports/gartner-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms">Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms</a></figcaption></figure>
In today’s data-driven market, experimentation has become essential. Today's brands need to adapt to consumer changes faster than ever and create more personalized experiences based on data. By combining Episerver’s content and commerce capabilities with Optimizely’s experimentation and optimization, marketers will now be able to build custom digital experiences that get smarter over time and drive more purchases and conversions. 
<h3>Better control of layouts, logic and more</h3>
Together, Episerver and Optimizely will enable organizations to run better experiments across both frontend layouts and backend logic with easy-to-use, tailored recommendations. According to Episerver, the combined power will give organizations the ability to optimize the entire experience across multiple touchpoints while increasing revenue, improving productivity, and realizing cost savings. 
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/layouts-and-logic.png" alt="Layouts and Logic" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/09/layouts-and-logic.png 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/09/layouts-and-logic.png 785w" /><figcaption>Layouts and Logic</figcaption></figure>

<h3>Improved Outcomes</h3>
A/B testing has long been an established practice for marketers, helping teams to develop more unique, highly targeted digital experiences for each customer – while scaling to thousands. These "experiments" can help drive transformation, enhance customer engagement and improve brand differentiation.
Embracing a culture of experimentation is driving improved outcomes for many brands, particularly those leveraging the enhanced capabilities of a digital experience platform. Leading platforms like Adobe and Sitecore have integrated deep personalization and analytics into their offerings, and testing has become a key pillar of the experience optimization stack. 
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/outsized-results.png" alt="Measure the outcomes of every action" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/09/outsized-results.png 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/09/outsized-results.png 785w" /><figcaption>Measure the outcomes of every action</figcaption></figure>
That said, companies are no longer limiting their experiments to A/B testing, and instead are expanding their efforts (A/B, C/D and so on) across all aspects of the digital experience. Episerver's move to incorporate Optimizely into their platform demonstrates a growing demand for more insight around consumer data, as well as greater speed and control over adapting the digital experience. 
<h2>Optimizely: A Proven Platform</h2>
Optimizely is a leader in experimentation and progressive delivery. Founded in 2009, it became synonymous with A/B testing, subsequently building a broader suite of testing tools for marketers. Its proven platform has run over 2 million experiments across the user journey to optimize the customer experience for some of the world’s most prominent brands like Peloton, Nike and Uber.
The union of Episerver and Optimizely will combine an advanced set of customer-centric digital experience capabilities with more freedom to experiment, enabling digital teams to replace guesswork with evidence-based outcomes.
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/dLMqzpXcZNNUoM1_OxXHAQW1ztCKyaZL4aVhaJAVs1_UVxT0KktqrmanWkG0uW0SU0QF346MtL2UJUhVp2dv5XCrDERdCgK9E-lUEC6ns7owJUTODlJOOsATD1DccyehEvOnINOn" /></figure>
<h3>About Optimizely</h3>
<a href="https://www.optimizely.com/">Optimizely</a>'s leading platform offers a complete set of digital experience optimization technologies – including AI-powered personalization and experimentation – which encompasses A/B testing, multivariate testing, and server-side testing. Optimizely enables brands to deliver more relevant experiences driven by data, including Gap, StubHub, IBM, The Wall Street Journal, and many more. To learn more, visit optimizely.com.
<h3>About Episerver</h3>
<a href="https://www.episerver.com/">Episerver</a> empowers businesses to scale through the most customer-centric approach to digital experiences. Its Customer-Centric Digital Experience Platform™ features best-in-class content management and robust commerce, both backed by AI-powered data and personalization solutions. The platform has consistently earned industry, analyst, and media recognition for its vision, capabilities, and customer commitment. Episerver’s 900+ partners and 825+ employees in offices around the globe are proud to help more than 8,000 brands enrich their customer lifetime value, increase revenue, and grow their brands.

Episerver To Acquire Optimizely, Adding Experimentation And Optimization To DXP

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