Articles - Page 91

Bland Brands Beware: Optimizely’s New Identity Brings Human Creativity to its Agentic AI and AEO Ambitions

matt-garrepy

"Composable" is becoming the operative word across the DXP marketplace. And rightly so: a composable platform has huge benefits, enabling users to build dynamic web and app experiences more efficiently by reusing content and other components that can be personalized at scale. 
Composable systems also allow for more iterative testing across multiple variants, enabling marketers to optimize performance and gather critical insights faster than ever. We've seen a number of platforms embrace this "composable revolution" over the last few years, and it seems to be paying off. 
Now, Acquia – a leading DXP – on Gartner's Magic quadrant – has announced major updates to its <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/digital-experience-platform" target="_blank">Acquia Open Digital Experience Platform</a> (DXP) that aim to accelerate the development and optimization of composable digital experiences. According to the company, these innovative new features will weave together the workflows of once-siloed digital marketing and development teams in a single platform, making composable strategies more extensible. 
<h2>Expanding the composable value with Acquia Open DXP</h2>
The Acquia Open DXP is an umbrella brand that comprises both the <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/marketing-cloud" target="_blank">Acquia Marketing Cloud</a> and <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/drupal-cloud" target="_blank">Acquia Drupal Cloud,</a> integrating their combined capabilities – including AgilOne, Mautic, and Cohesion – with its existing core. 
This pairing was designed to bring marketers and developers together in a comprehensive, easy-to-use platform powered by machine learning features in both Drupal Cloud and Marketing Cloud – making it faster and easier to launch new websites, applications, and marketing campaigns with modular components.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/acquia-dxp.png" alt="Acquia Drupal and Marketing Cloud Diagram" />
Acquia started making its move to composable enterprise back in July by <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/acquia-introduces-composable-enterprise-features-in-latest-version-of-dxp/" target="_blank">introducing composable features</a> in its last version of its DXP.
"The movement toward the composable enterprise is growing as organizations look to gain agility with plug-and-play services, and velocity with simpler application development and delivery," said Dries Buytaert, creator of Drupal and co-founder and CTO of Acquia. "Executing on this strategy requires a new technical architecture and way for teams to work. Acquia is connecting and automating organizational workflows, spanning content and data, to speed development of digital experiences at scale." 
<h2>What is a composable enterprise?</h2>
The concept of a "<a href="https://www.akana.com/blog/composable-architecture" target="_blank">composable enterprise</a>" is becoming more popular as digital transformation enters its next wave. And it makes sense: leading up to Covid, digital stacks were already becoming decoupled and less monolithic, all driven by the rise of the <a href="https://www.openapis.org/" target="_blank">open API</a>. Much of this investment in a composable enterprise is driven by the rise in composable commerce and its impact on the application landscape. 
Gartner defines a composable enterprise as:
An organization that delivers business outcomes and adapts to the pace of business change. It does this through the assembly and combination of packaged business capabilities (PBCs). PBCs are application building blocks that have been purchased or developed.
Gartner also predicts that by 2023, organizations that embrace composability will <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3986490/composable-commerce-must-be-adopted-for-the-future-of-ap" target="_blank">outpace the competition by 80%</a> in implementing new product features. This underscores the rapid adoption we're seeing across the market for more composable architectures and frameworks – something the <a href="https://machalliance.org/" target="_blank">MACH Alliance</a> has been focusing on from an industry perspective. MACH is an acronym for Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS, and Headless, which crystallizes the core tenants of the modern composable enterprise. 
<h2>What else is new in the Aquia DXP Cloud?</h2>
<h4>Drupal Cloud upgrades accelerate digital experience development </h4>
Updates to the Drupal Cloud developer experience streamline and connect workflows to empower fusion teams with no-code/low-code solutions that span DevOps, WebOps, ContentOps, and ExperienceOps. All new products and features are available on <a href="https://www.acquia.com/blog/introducing-acquia-cloud-next-kubernetes-native-drupal-hosting-platform" target="_blank">Acquia Cloud Next</a>, the newest version of Acquia's cloud platform. Key innovations include:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/drupal-cloud/code-studio" target="_blank">Acquia Code Studio</a>: A new, 100% cloud-based development environment that integrates with GitLab and Acquia Cloud IDE. Developers can now log into Acquia Cloud Platform, spin up an IDE and then click to connect to GitLab (the platform of choice for application development) using frameworks such as <a href="https://reactjs.org/" target="_blank">React</a>, <a href="https://angularjs.org/" target="_blank">Angular</a>, or <a href="https://vuejs.org/" target="_blank">Vue</a>. With Acquia Code Studio, developers have all the tools they need to plan, build, review, test, and deploy any Drupal application—all from a familiar GitLab environment.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://docs.acquia.com/customer-data-platform/actions/" target="_blank">Acquia Cloud Actions</a>: A new, collaborative release management system that automates the process of deploying and managing code to the Acquia Cloud environment. Once development teams write code, Acquia Cloud Actions manages the build, test, and deploy phases to get code into production. By eliminating manual processes, Acquia Cloud Actions fuels faster digital innovation at scale.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.acquia.com/why-acquia/acquia-digital-commerce" target="_blank">Acquia Digital Commerce Integrations</a>: Powered by the no-code Acquia Site Studio, pre-built integration components make it easy for anyone to assemble digital commerce experiences leveraging Acquia's DAM and PIM. Support for <a href="https://graphql.org/" target="_blank">GraphQL</a> and Node.js allows developers to easily extend and enhance Acquia's pre-built integrations with any MACH-compliant commerce vendor and cut the time required to deliver experiences to as little as 90 days.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Marketing Cloud enhancements increase efficiencies and insights across hybrid teams </h4>
Acquia is announcing key innovations to its Acquia Marketing Cloud, including several features focused on composable machine learning, analytics, privacy, and multi-tenant distributed marketing to empower teams across CampaignOps and MLOps. 
<a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/marketing-cloud/customer-data-platform" target="_blank">Acquia Customer Data Platform</a> (CDP) now has several new capabilities that drive citizen data science and analytical insights across the organization. Building on Acquia CDP's world-class data modeling and analytics platform, Acquia now provides more intelligence, ROI insights, and ML-driven efficiencies across more teams and in more ways than any other customer data platform on the market. New features in this release include:
<ul>
<li>Multi-touch attribution: As the first attribution solution built on top of a CDP, this new capability allows marketers to visualize campaign performance through a range of attribution windows and timeframes to understand the true ROI of marketing investments.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>ML Studio: A first-of-its-kind, low-code/no-code machine learning workbench that enables data scientists to build custom ML models on top of unified data, all within Acquia CDP.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>ML Launchpad: As part of Acquia CDP analytics, Launchpad surfaces ML-driven insights into a visual and highly intuitive dashboard for non-technical marketers, so they can see at-a-glance key insights such as audience propensities, recommended actions to take, and more. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Privacy Management: This new tool supports compliance with GDPR, CCPA, and more by allowing faster data erasure.</li>
</ul>
Acquia is also introducing new capabilities in Acquia Campaign Studio and Acquia Personalization, including: 
<ul>
<li>Multi-Tenant distributed marketing automation: This first-of-its-kind capability enables brands using Campaign Studio to scale centralized campaigns across multiple brands, geographies, and teams while adhering to compliance and governance requirements. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Visual email and landing page builder: An extension of WYSIWYG capabilities in <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/marketing-cloud/campaign-studio" target="_blank">Acquia Campaign Studio</a>, this drag-and-drop interface makes it easier than ever to build emails and landing pages for campaigns.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Enhanced A/B testing: Acquia Personalization now has more powerful A/B testing capabilities, including automated self-optimization, which auto-promotes winning variants without requiring any time or effort from marketing teams – and increased website conversion and revenue. </li>
</ul>
<h2>Growing validation with analysts</h2>
Acquia has been named a Leader on the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms (DXPs) for two consecutive years. Additionally, International Data Corporation (IDC) has recognized the usability, extensibility, and enterprise-grade capabilities of the Acquia platform and recently named Acquia a Leader in the inaugural <a href="https://www.acquia.com/resources/report/idc-marketscape-content-management-systems" target="_blank">IDC MarketScape for Worldwide Content Management Systems for Persuasive Digital Experiences 2021 Vendor Assessment</a>.
<h2>About Acquia</h2>
Acquia empowers the world's most ambitious brands to create digital customer experiences that matter. With open source Drupal at its core, the Acquia Digital Experience Platform (DXP) enables marketers, developers, and IT operations teams at thousands of global organizations to rapidly compose and deploy digital products and services that engage customers, enhance conversions and help businesses stand out. Learn more at <a href="https://www.acquia.com/" target="_blank">https://www.acquia.com</a>.

Acquia Upgrades Open DXP Capabilities to Expand Composable Enterprise Features

paris-tuzun

Acquia logo against a composite background of Tetris-like pieces fitting together, reinforcing the concept of composable DXP

For those of you who may be looking for something that's simple and easy to use and an effective alternative to traditional CMS or blog platforms, you'll be pleased to hear about TypePublish. Today we're sharing with your our TypePublish Review.
This is a great CMS that offers a very attractive and easy to use interface that is both intuitive and clean.
Installation is quite straight forward and simply involves uploading the downloaded gzip file, unzipping (if you are on windows, winrar and 7zip will handle these files fine) and uploading the contents to your hosts public_html directory.
You can then begin the install by visiting http://yourdomain.com/index.php which will present you with the following screen:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/typepublish2-575x197.png" alt="TypePublish Review" /> TypePublish reminds us of the super quick installs that WordPress is famous for. We continue and are prompted to enter our database details:
Once complete, we move on to setting the name and other info.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/typepublish4-575x541.png" alt="TypePublish Review" /> What we liked about this page is you can provide both copyright info as well as a link to the site's designer which is a nice touch.Next, we create the administrator account:
Now the install process begins and completes.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/zykecms-3-580x304_nnsrvu.jpg" alt="TypePublish Review" /> The installation process this CMS provides is definitely quick and intuitive and runs smoothly. The interface is also visually appealing as well, they've done a good job keeping everything simple.Let's check out the default site.
TypePublish has a very nice default theme with nice use of typography that should be quite easy to adapt to your own. The default theme is simple but very nice visually and provides a great starting point for a site.
The administration system is very nice and clean as well:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/typepublish9-575x339.png" alt="TypePublish Review" /> Content editing is a snap with their well thought out editor:
As you can see, creating visually appealing pull quotes is easy as are box-outs and simple search engine optimization.. everything is right there and easy to get access to.
Adding logos and items to the navigation is equally simple with point and click editing as shown below.
Menu Editing:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/typepublish11-575x512.png" alt="TypePublish Review" /> Logo and website details editing:
There is also a nice and easy to use SEO section that lets you add custom meta tags:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/typepublish13-575x369.png" alt="TypePublish Review" />
Final Thoughts
We're definitely impressed with what the TypePublish team has done. This is an exceptional release that really does well for the community by providing something that is quick, easy and visually appealing. It's easy to install, well laid out and fits all of the needs that the average joe would expect from a content management system.
Check it out at <a href="http://www.typepublish.org" target="_blank">http://www.typepublish.org</a>

TypePublish Review - It Makes Publishing Content Easy

mike-johnston

The world of CMS just got bigger. <a href="https://pagekit.com">Pagekit</a>, a free and open source CMS, has opened its doors to the public.
<a href="https://pagekit.com/"><img alt="pagekit" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/pagekit.png" /></a>
But that's not to imply that Pagekit is untried or untested. In fact, Pagekit has been in development for over two years, attracting over 2,400 Github Stargazers and 20,000 registered website users in the process.
So even on day one, their community is thriving.
Let's take a look at why so many people were interested in Pagekit even before its launch.
<h2>A Look at Pagekit 1.0</h2>
It may be brand spanking new, but Pagekit is already offering up some fierce functionality, <a href="https://pagekit.com/blog/2016/04/13/pagekit-1-0-is-here">as detailed on their blog</a>.
That includes:
<ul>
<li>Intuitive user interface inspired by the Material design guidelines</li>
<li>A site tree to manage content and site structure in one single interface</li>
<li>A powerful users and permissions system</li>
<li>A built-in Marketplace to install and share themes and extensions</li>
<li>A pre-bundled Blog with comments</li>
<li>A Media manager to upload and manage files</li>
</ul>
All the essentials are there, and then some.
The drag-and-drop site tree is an interface that we're seeing more and more of across the content management system marketplace; and for good reason. It's a very user friendly way of managing pages and menus.
<img alt="site-tree" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/site-tree.gif" />
Pagekit also has another feature that caught my eye. Their editor sports a half-half interface, split between markdown and a live preview.
<img alt="editor" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/editor.gif" />
This split editor was made popular by the blogging platform Ghost, and I for one think it's a positive thing that the idea is spreading. Because it's a darn good one.
<h2>An Open Invite to Developers</h2>
Pagekit is open source, and they're eager to get more developers involved in their growing project.
Their extensions and themes total to eighteen at this moment in time, and they can all be found on the <a href="https://pagekit.com/marketplace/">Pagekit Marketplace</a>. Naturally, they want that number to increase dramatically.
To help get developers started, Pagekit has made “<a href="https://pagekit.com/marketplace/package/pagekit/theme-hello">Hello theme</a>” and “<a href="https://pagekit.com/marketplace/package/pagekit/hello">Hello extension</a>” available, to be used as blueprints. They have also published <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2tvrbIClcDXv9AH4kBmwog/videos" target="_blank">video tutorials</a> and <a href="https://pagekit.com/docs">documentation</a>.
I'm always excited by the launch of a new and ambitious platform. And Pagekit seems to be just that.
It looks elegant, and I know it has a hard-working team behind it. You can be sure that I'll be re-visiting Pagekit with a hands-on editorial very, very soon.
<a href="https://pagekit.com">Explore and download Pagekit</a>.

Introducing Pagekit

With the enormous number of free PHP based content management systems on the market, it can be difficult at best to weed through the various projects in search of the best one for your needs.
Today, we can hopefully make that task a little bit easier as we announce the winner of the 2014 People's Choice CMS Award for Best Free PHP CMS.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/best_free_php_cms200x0.png" alt="Best Free PHP CMS" />
The contenders this year were Joomla, Concrete5 and Processwire.
While all fought strong, the win this year goes to none other than Concrete5!
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/concrete5_logo_300x360200x0.png" />
Concrete5 has proved itself a tough contender in recent years and with this win over the incredibly popular Joomla, have positioned themselves well as a major player in the free CMS space.
Congratulations to the entire team at Concrete5 on their win. Go check them out: <a href="http://www.concrete5.org/">Concrete5</a>.

The Winner of the 2014 People's Choice CMS Award for Best Free PHP CMS

OpenText, an Enterprise Information Management (EIM) platform, has <a href="https://www.opentext.com/about/press-releases?id=E3D3BCD028D24EF6A1F6782F238DE862" target="_blank">announced</a> two new content services platforms: <a href="http://www.opentext.com/core-content" target="_blank">OpenText Core Content</a> and <a href="http://www.opentext.com/core-case" target="_blank">OpenText Core Case Management</a>.
Both platforms are a part of <a href="https://www.opentext.com/about/press-releases?id=AE94CFC185174B16A949366534C0E403" target="_blank">OpenText Cloud Editions (CE)</a> and were unveiled during the keynote address at the <a href="https://www.opentext.com/opentext-world/europe" target="_blank">OpenText World Europe</a> event. CE provides customers with greater choice, enabling them to run their software anywhere – off-cloud, in a private cloud, in a public cloud, or through cloud API services.
OpenText Cloud Editions are cloud-native, helping users to accelerate innovation and simplify app management. The two new content services join CE’s AppsWorks, AI and Analytics, Customer Experience, eDiscovery, and Security solutions.
“The future of the workplace is digital. Organizations today need digital business process solutions that are quick and simple to deploy, configure, govern, and use,” said Mark J. Barrenechea, OpenText CEO &amp; CTO. “Core Content and Core Case Management deliver the strong records management, case management, API’s, and integration into leading applications that OpenText is recognized for – all delivered as a simple-to-deploy, multi-tenant cloud application.”
Within OpenText Cloud Editions 21.2, OpenText Core Content and OpenText Core Case Management are multi-tenant cloud offerings that are quick and easy to deploy – and can be tailored to address unique lines of business, departmental, and industry needs.
<h3>OpenText Core Content</h3>
OpenText Core Content offers robust content management capabilities and key integrations with leading business applications like the <a href="https://www.sap.com/products/s4hana-erp.html" target="_blank">SAP S/4HANA Cloud</a> and its intelligent ERP system. Some key attributes of OpenText Core Content include:
<ul>
<li>Customizability: OpenText Core Content features template-based business workspaces with team access to content. This enables users to keep everyone on the same page while boosting productivity and collaboration with capabilities like viewing, annotation, and workflows. Core Content’s Smart View UI feature allows users to customize their widgets and dashboards as shown:</li>
</ul>
<img style="max-width:768px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/04/core-content-ui.jpg" alt="Core Content UI" />
<ul>
<li>Ease of deployment: OpenText Core Content is easy to deploy, maintain, and update, requiring little (or no) IT involvement. With Core Content, organizations can leverage out-of-the-box, use-case templates that fit business process needs, and create custom case flows with zero coding.</li>
<li>Enhanced control and governance: OpenText Core Compliance Services, powered by <a href="https://www.opentext.com/products-and-solutions/products/opentext-core-for-federated-compliance?_ga=2.120507848.1368938370.1617044304-192936264.1605283574" target="_blank">OpenText Core for Federated Compliance</a>, provide automated, comprehensive content lifecycle management for Core Content. It delivers an entirely SaaS-based solution to address governance needs across all corporate records and enterprise information holdings.</li>
</ul>
You can learn more about OpenText Core Content <a href="https://www.opentext.com/products-and-solutions/products/saas-content-services-platform?utm_source=core-conten" target="_blank">here</a>.
<h3>OpenText Core Case Management</h3>
With OpenText Core Case Management, users get a no-code SaaS application that empowers workers to make better decisions – and create, adjust, and monitor workflows and tasks in real-time while improving stakeholder visibility.
If you’re wondering what “Case Management” is, here’s a bit of context. According to the <a href="https://www.aiim.org/What-is-Case-Management" target="_blank">Association for Intelligent Information Management</a>, a “case” is any project, transaction, service or response that is “opened” and “closed” over a period of time to achieve resolution of a problem, claim, request, proposal, development, or other complex activity. It is likely to involve multiple persons inside and outside of the organization, with varying relationships to each other, as well as multiple documents and messages.
A simple example of a case is car insurance. It involves many types of information from many sources such as accident reports, body shop quotes, and more. All of this information is collected, analyzed, and summarized to help find a resolution.
OpenText Core Case Management helps businesses by:
<ul>
<li>Improving decision-making: Access all information and collaborate with stakeholders in a unified workspace for smarter, more informed decisions.</li>
<li>Increasing productivity: Create, track and manage cases with a centralized dashboard for a single view of tasks, approvals and case status.</li>
<li>Expanding visibility: Enable internal and external stakeholders to visualize information via dashboards, widgets, and notifications for greater real-time insight.</li>
<li>Accelerating case resolution: Eliminate manual, disjointed processes with seamless access to case information and easily create ad hoc tasks and workflows.</li>
</ul>
You can learn more about OpenText Core Case Management <a href="https://www.opentext.com/products-and-solutions/products/saas-case-management?utm_source=core-case" target="_blank">here</a>.
<h2>17 consecutive years on the Gartner Magic Quadrant</h2>
OpenText has been included in the Leaders quadrant of the <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3993178/magic-quadrant-for-content-services-platforms">2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Content Services Platforms (CSP)</a> – marking its 17th consecutive year. Being one of Canada’s largest software companies, OpenText has a big global presence and a strong ecosystem of over 600 international partners to implement and support multinational clients. Its deep partnership with SAP and its strategy of in-market acquisition have made it number one in the overall CSP market share.
<img style="max-width:570px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/04/figure_1_magic_quadrant_for_content_services_platforms.png" alt="2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Content Services Platforms" />
<h2>About OpenText</h2>
<a href="https://www.opentext.com/" target="_blank">OpenText</a> is a leading Enterprise Information Management (EIM) company that enables organizations to gain insight through market leading information management solutions, powered by OpenText Cloud Editions. OpenText software applications manage content or unstructured data for large companies, government agencies, and professional service firms. OpenText aims its products at addressing information management requirements, including management of large volumes of content, compliance with regulatory requirements, and mobile and online experience management.

OpenText Adds New Content Services to Power Modern Work in the Cloud

A growing number of content management systems today either are themselves a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), or offer a SaaS in one way, shape or form.
Today, <a href="http://www.instartlogic.com/" target="_blank">Instart Logic</a> – creators of the world’s first Web Application Streaming Network™, have introduced a new vertical product line into the world of SaaS providers, making it easier than ever before to deliver premium, zero-wait web experiences to their customers on any device, and any network.
The aim of Instart Logic has always been to empower web publishers to deliver current and next-generation web applications that dramatically boost user engagement, customer loyalty and drive new revenue streams. So, let's take a close look at what they now have in store for SaaS providers.
<h2>Boosting the Performance of Browser-Based Applications</h2>
The SaaS market is growing at rapid speeds. In fact, technology researchers <a href="http://www.gartner.com/technology/home.jsp" target="_blank">Gartner</a> has forecast the global value of SaaS spending to hit $45 billion in 2017, up from $15 billion in 2012.
To help capture that growth, web-based SaaS providers such as New Relic, VersionOne, IFTTT and RelateIQ are increasingly turning to Instart Logic to help them accelerate premium “native-like” application experiences for their browser-based applications.
David Peterson, VP of Site Operations at New Relic had this to say of Instart Logic's service:
<blockquote>“We deliver an application performance tool as a service so we needed to make sure that our own web-based application performed at the highest levels of performance for our tens of thousands of customers from Australia to Austin, Texas. We selected Instart Logic because of their innovative approach, their company wide focus on performance and the great support we've received.”</blockquote>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/8700x0.png" alt="Instart Logic" />
Additionally, Ian Cullin, CTO of VersionOne explains how Instart Logic improved their platform's performance by a staggering 50%:
<blockquote>“We provide an entirely web-based system to over 50,000 agile development teams worldwide building mission critical code with our agile project management software. Our customers are largely developers. They are extremely intolerant of poor application performance. So we need to make sure that our own application performs at the highest level no matter where our customers are. Instart Logic’s innovative services give VersionOne users fast, fresh updates from constantly-changing projects and improved our performance by 50% – something CDNs could never do.”</blockquote>
To get a better understanding of just how much Instart Logic's service can improve performance, take a look at the video below, where VersionOne SaaS application can be seen loading both with and without Instart Logic in place. You can also view <a href="http://go.instartlogic.com/Case_Study_VersionOne.html" target="_blank">Instart Logic's detailed VersionOne case study</a>.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMTh-IxM1cs
<h2>Unique Web-Performance Technology</h2>
In a constantly evolving world of web-technology, where users and platforms rely more heavily upon cloud services and mobile devices, CDNs are stuggling to serve highly dynamic web applications.
Previously, WAN optimization controllers could provide some point-to-point relief for internally hosted applications, but even their efficacy has slowly but surely wavered due to application backends moving to the cloud and users continue to become more mobile orientated.
In response, Instart Logic has focused on building unique web-performance technology not available anywhere else. Instart Logic’s performance advantage is based on two new and improved technology offerings, as detailed below.
<ul>
<li> Global Network Accelerator (GNA) uses a new purpose-built binary middle-mile protocol for intra-proxy transmissions. This new protocol, called IPTP (Inter Proxy Transfer Protocol), sets up a persistent matrix of connections between Instart Logic’s global serving locations, and then efficiently frames and multiplexes dynamic transfers through it to erase network bottlenecks caused by distance and congestion. IPTP has been built using Google’s protobuf technology. Google, which uses protobuf extensively for implementing its own internal communication protocols, has open-sourced the technology.</li>
<li> Dynamic HTML Streaming is a new application-intelligent technology that distinguishes between unique and non-unique dynamic HTML. This solution automatically sends non-personalized portions of the application from the closest server so the user can start being productive with the web application much sooner. In this latest iteration the system has been expanded to leverage Instart Logic’s transparent client-side virtualization layer, the NanoVisor™, to allow use with even completely personalized HTML code.</li>
</ul>
Manav Mital, CEO and co-founder of Instart Logic, had this to say about his company's newly enhanced features:
<blockquote>“We are responding to strong demand from SaaS providers with a genuinely disruptive solution that gives them a new class of web application acceleration tools. With these technologies, SaaS vendors are better able to give their end customers exceptionally high performance and data freshness on any device and any type of network.”</blockquote>
To find out more about Instart Logic's newly implemented SaaS acceleration features, <a href="http://instartlogic.com/solutions/saas/" target="_blank"> check out their SaaS Solutions page</a>.

Instart Logic Launches New Web Acceleration Service for SaaS Providers‏

The SMB market is a hot one right now and while some former SMB CMS solutions are focusing on the Enterprise space, this has opened up a ton of opportunities for some other players to gain market share. Today, I'm going to announce which Small to Midsize Business CMS was selected by the judges to win the Critics Choice award Best Small to Midsize Business CMS for 2013.
To begin, a little about the selection process. To make things fair, we sent a list of the various categories to each judge with no individual products listed anywhere within the document and asked them to list their top three choices for each category. They were not restricted in any way with their selections and were free to choose from any of the products on the market. We agreed that if any judges came back with the same answers in the same categories, we would automatically select that answer as the winner. This keeps the awards unbiased and makes the selection of the winner fun and fresh each year as we never know what options might be brought to the table.
This year, the CMS that we feel is most deserving of the Critic's Choice Award for Best Small to Midsize Business CMS for 2013 is…
<h2>eZ Publish</h2>
<img style="max-width:150px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/best-small-to-midsize-business-cms-1150x0.png" />
Why eZ Publish?
eZ Publish is an incredible platform that has really grown over the years. Within the publishing sector, for example, they are second to none in the industry and offer an excellent all-in-one solution with the eZ Publish Platform – Web publishing, mobile and multichannel content delivery, digital marketing, e-commerce, and workflow. eZ Publish also offers a community edition that has been developed under the open-source development model, giving them access to thousands of eager developers worldwide who contribute code to better their platform.
eZ Publish has been continuing to make great strides in the industry since the release of version 5 and now, with 5.1 have really started to strut their stuff. We can't think of a better platform to give this year's award to and would like to congratulate eZ Publish on their win.
Check out this video to learn more about eZ Publish:
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/koDex3KhHNM?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
Want to learn more about this great CMS and the winner of our Critic's Choice Award for Best Small to Midsize Business CMS? <a href="https://www.ibexa.co/">Visit ezPublish</a> or learn more in our <a href="/products/ibexa/">CMS Directory</a>.

2013 Critic's Choice Winner for Best Small to Midsize Business CMS

Power your CMS on AWS

Manage your websites & apps in the most trusted cloud.

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Nuxeo, the provider of a content management platform for business applications, today announced the availability of Nuxeo Platform 5.8, a major Long Term Support version of the open-source content management platform. With advances in workflow, content synchronization, and REST APIs, this version is a major step forward for developers and product managers who build content-centric applications to manage business information.
An accumulation of three previously released 5.7.x Fast Track versions, this new version contains a host of new features and enhancements for developers, administrators, and end-users that have already been fully vetted by early adopters in the Nuxeo community. Nuxeo Platform 5.8 includes a new set of resource-oriented endpoints for the REST API, adaptive capabilities for the integrated workflow engine, improved processing and navigation of digital assets, and Nuxeo Drive, a desktop synchronization client for the Nuxeo content repository.
In addition, this version benefits from the initial groundwork for nuxeo.io, the upcoming PaaS offering, with expanded REST API endpoints and increased flexibility for quickly building web applications.
<blockquote>“This new version of the Nuxeo Platform offers the increased flexibility and easy access that developers and product managers need for building business applications to manage structured content,” said Eric Barroca, Nuxeo CEO. “We believe that providing a complete application building environment enables those closest to a particular business problem to provide the right solution, faster.”</blockquote>
Highlights of Nuxeo Platform 5.8 include:
<ul>
<li>New REST APIs designed for direct consumption by JavaScript or other scripting languages, enabling fast development of content-centric web applications,</li>
<li>Nuxeo Drive, for bi-directional device-to-repository content synchronization,</li>
<li>Enhanced support for designing adaptive workflows, with rule-based escalation and a new task management service,</li>
<li>A new, highly configurable media asset navigation user interface for Digital Asset Management applications,</li>
<li>Deep application monitoring and metrics collection using the Yammer Metrics library, with easy integration with most metrics storage systems,</li>
<li>Full OSGi compliance for the Content Automation client, a fluid Java wrapper for the Nuxeo REST API which runs on the JVM or on Android,</li>
<li>Optimizations in the Nuxeo content persistence engine such as support for Oracle on Amazon RDS and Microsoft SQL Server 2012, and faster updates of complex properties,</li>
<li>Enhanced user experience with saved search sharing, a workflow tab to group tasks and run bulk operations, and a CSV importer, among many other new features.</li>
</ul>
Nuxeo Platform 5.8 is available for download immediately. The installation wizard gives access to a free 30-day trial of Nuxeo Connect, a portal providing maintenance upgrades, easy installation of add-ons, and Nuxeo Studio, a design environment for easy configuration and customization of the platform. A special release webinar will be held November 6 at 2pm ET. More information about the release is available at <a href="http://www.nuxeo.com/en/products/nuxeo-platform-5.8">http://www.nuxeo.com/en/products/nuxeo-platform-5.8</a>.
<h3>Gallery</h3>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/parallel_workflow-nuxeo_platform58600x0.png" alt="parallel_workflow-nuxeo_platform58" />
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/dam_configurable_ui_nuxeo_platform_58600x0.png" alt="dam_configurable_ui_nuxeo_platform_58" />
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/dam_all_docs_nuxeo_platform_58600x0.png" alt="dam_all_docs_nuxeo_platform_58" />

Nuxeo Releases a Major Version of the Nuxeo Platform

There aren't normally a large number of sites providing premium Drupal themes, but we felt that we should help showcase some on a monthly basis in hopes that the number of participating sites increases. We personally feel there is a strong market for them and we'd love to see more advanced themes than the normal ones released on Drupal.org daily.
Here are the three new theme releases for April that we know of. Let us know if you are aware of others.
#1 – Stingray by Themeshark
Description:
<blockquote>
It's a magazine theme similar to the customer favorite Galapagos and it's got everything you've come to expect from us and more: there's 11 custom regions, including two Feature blocks that are controlled by the Views module.   There's six different, vibrant color styles to choose from, and we've included support for CSS3 rounded corners that can be switched on and off in the theme settings (supported by Firefox and Safari).
And, of course, most noticably we've incorporated a shiny new Dynamic Display Block.
</blockquote>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/stingray.png" alt="stingray" />
Website: <a href="http://www.themeshark.com/" target="_blank">http://www.themeshark.com/</a>
#2 – Corporate Business by Jimmyme (Available at Themeforest)
Corporate Business is a nice slick Corporate theme (and one of the few available on Themeforest)
Features: – Valid XHTML and CSS – Tableless layout – Fluid Content Boxes – Works in all major browsers – PNG fixes for IE – Includes special styles to improve Drupal backend interface
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/corporatebusiness.png" alt="corporatebusiness" />
Website: <a href="https://www.cmscritic.comhttps://www.cmscritic.com/themeforestitem/corporate-business-drupal-theme/38601" target="_blank">https://www.cmscritic.comhttps://www.cmscritic.com/themeforestitem/corporate-business-drupal-theme/38601</a>
#3 – Platino by forDrupal
Nice theme from forDrupal. Unfortunately, we think it's incredibly overpriced but some people might be willing to pay for it.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/platino.png" alt="platino" /> 
<ul>
<li>25 Regions</li>
<li>jQuery Menu (works without JS enabled)</li>
<li>Block Highlights</li>
<li>Drupal 6.x and Acquia</li>
<li>Workable as Administration theme</li>
<li>Professional Typography</li>
<li>Form Tooltips</li>
<li>Customize using Theme Settings</li>
<li>Tested in IE6/7/8, FF, Safari, Chrome, Opera</li>
<li>Fixed Layout</li>
<li>PSD file and Demo Site included</li>
</ul>
Website: <a href="http://fordrupal.com/premium/platino-drupal-theme" target="_blank">http://fordrupal.com/premium/platino-drupal-theme</a>

Premium Drupal Theme Releases for April 2009

For nearly as long as the Internet has been around, there have been website builders of all types. The earliest versions of these were decidedly far more limited than they are today, but even back then developers understood there is a huge market for DIY website builders.
As one would expect, the website builder market is a busy one with around 35 main vendorsand numerous more that aren’t as popular. This is a steadily evolving and quickly growing market and, with all of these <a href="/key-website-builders/">website builders</a> to choose from, it can be difficult for business owners to decide on the right one for them and their brand.
This particular review is going to take a close look at one of the more popular website builders, <a href="https://www.squarespace.com/">Squarespace</a>, which has been around since 2004. We’ll take a look at the pros and cons of this tool, as well as offer some insight into who would be most ideal for.
<h2>An Overview of Squarespace</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/squarespace_review_1934x0-is.png" />
Squarespace was developed as a website publishing platform that makes it possible for users to have attractive, professional-looking websites without having to know how to code or having to hire an expert. Additionally, Squarespace is designed with a highly user-friendly CMS that makes it easy to update and edit your website.
<h3>Customizable Templates</h3>
There are numerous different types of templates to choose from, divided up by category.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/squarespace_review_2947x0-is.png" />
The vast majority of these templates are eye-catching, attractive, and have a very modern feel to them. This is one thing that puts Squarespace ahead of the other popular website builders, and is a big reason why it has around 50,000 active users.
As a paying customer, you have access to all of these templates – around 80. They are all responsive, so customers don’t have to worry about them not working on mobile devices. Squarespace automatically generates a mobile-optimized version of your site, without the user having to do anything extra.
To go with these customizable templates, there is a wide array of different web fonts that can be used to make your website look and feel exactly the way you want.
<h4>Editing the Templates</h4>
While virtually all of the templates are customizable, the degree to which you can edit them mostly depends on which one you’ve chosen.
Some templates allow you to change pretty much all of the design elements, from font spacing to the page backgrounds. Others, however, are more “as-is” and are incredibly difficult to change without adding your own custom CSS to your website.
This is one of the main issues with this website builder. One of the main attractions of this platform is that it’s a code-free builder. Users having to resort to adding their own CSS defeats the purpose.
On a similar note, some templates let users add sidebars and others do not. Depending on the user and what they intend to do with their website, this can most definitely be an issue. However, there are still plenty of other templates to choose from.
<h2>Ease of Use</h2>
Squarespace is very easy to use, and does not require the user to have extensive technical knowledge in order to create a professional-looking website.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/squarespace_review_3578x0-is.png" />
The page editor makes things very simple.
Simply click on the part of the page you want to edit, and the above menu will pop up. You can add everything from text to video, with numerous other options available.
<h3>Importing and Exporting Content</h3>
If you’re leaving another site, such as WordPress or Blogger, there is an import tool available to help you switch all your existing content over to your Squarespace site.
Content can also be exported to a WordPress format XML file. However, this only exports text and images, but does not export not products (for those who are using it as an online store). This could be a problem for many users.
<h3>Drag-and-Drop Content Blocks</h3>
When it comes to getting the layout the way you want it, Squarespace offers a lot of versatility within its drag-and-drop “layout engine”.
Simply click on the block of content you want, and then drag it to where you want it to go. This measure of flexibility is a definite pro when it comes to using Squarespace.
The types of content blocks that users can add to their pages include:
<ul>
<li>
Text
</li>
<li>
Images &amp; image galleries
</li>
<li>
Markdowns
</li>
<li>
Audio
</li>
<li>
Video
</li>
<li>
Content summaries
</li>
<li>
Code
</li>
<li>
Maps
</li>
<li>
Calendars
</li>
<li>
Charts
</li>
</ul>
As an additional bonus when it comes to content blocks, users can choose from a whole host of pre-defined page layouts. This includes contact pages, team pages, and about pages. This can make it a lot easier – and faster – to get your website designed, ready, and live.
<h3>Images</h3>
Squarespace makes it very easy to add and edit images. Users can resize, rotate, crop, and edit their images as much as they want. They can also be added to galleries, with multiple presentation options that include slideshows, grids, and carousels.
This makes Squarespace an excellent option for photographers and other creative professionals.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/squarespace_review_4315x0-is.png" />
If you do not have enough images of your own, or having trouble finding available stock images, you can browse through and purchase Getty images directly through Squarespace. Once you’ve purchased them, you can insert them directly onto the page in the exact spot you want them.
<h3>Blogging Platform</h3>
Squarespace really stands out when it comes to its blogging platform. Unlike many other website builders, Squarespace allows its users to have as many blogs as they want on their website. Users can even add a drop-down menu (depending on the template) to their navigational bar, so as to not have things looking cluttered and chaotic.
Overall, the blogging aspect of Squarespace is a good one. However, there are some things that pose an issue.
<ul>
<li>
There is no autosave, which is a BIG issue and a fairly huge thing to have omitted when designing this website builder. If you’re not careful, you will have to start all over again when adding a new blog post.
</li>
<li>
Blog excerpts are the meta descriptions for your blog posts, and this is unable to be changed.
</li>
</ul>
<h2>Squarespace Pricing</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/squarespace_review_5930x0-is.png" />
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/squarespace_review_6927x0-is.png" />
The plans and pricing are easy to follow, with four monthly pricing options available. These pricing plans are divided up into two groups: Websites and Online Stores.
Any of the pricing plans allow you to sell products through your website, which makes this division a tad confusing.
The two Website pricing plans are:
<ul>
<li>
Personal – $12 per month, billed annually, or $16 month-to-month ($144 or $192)
</li>
<li>
Business – $18 per month, billed annually, or $26 month-to-month ($216 or $312)
</li>
</ul>
The two Online Store pricing plans are:
<ul>
<li>
Basic – $26 per month, billed annually, or $30 month-to-month ($312 or $360)
</li>
<li>
Advanced – $40 per month, billed annually, or $46 month-to-month ($480 or $552)
</li>
</ul>
Paying upfront for the full year would be cheaper, but the mont-to-month plan is a good choice for those who don’t have a few hundred to drop right away.
The key differences between the plans are in the features, all of which are listed under each pricing plan.
The pricing is more expensive than other website builders, and Squarespace does not offer a free plan. There is a 14-day free trial, but that’s it.
Squarespace is geared more toward professional websites, rather than personal ones, and it seems as though this is factored into the pricing. There are numerous features that would be unneccessary for someone who just wants a personal site.
<h2>Pros and Cons of Squarespace</h2>
Just as with any other type of website builder, Squarespace has both positive and negative aspects. These should be carefully weighed when deciding whether or not Squarespace is the right choice for you and your brand.
<h3>Squarespace Pros</h3>
<ul>
<li>
Templates: Squarespace offers a large amount of professional, attractive templates. Most of these can be customized, but the degree to which they can be altered depends almost entirely on the design. Most of the differences between the templates depend on which images are being used for the website.
</li>
<li>
SEO: Squarespace users don’t have to worry as much about the technical side of this. Squarespace helps you to get found on search engines, offering features such as custom page titles, custom URLs, meta descriptions, and 301 redirects.
</li>
<li>
Blogging: Users can have as many blogs as they want, and there is a wide variety of available content types. Users can even host podcasts through Squarespace.
</li>
<li>
Cover Pages: Visually-stunning, one-page websites. These act as great entry points for your website, or as landing pages for digital marketing.
</li>
<li>
Domain Hosting: Domains can be purchased through Squarespace, which will host your website.
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Squarespace Cons</h3>
<ul>
<li>
No Autosave: The lack of autosaving when it comes to blog content is a huge drawback. One wrong click, and you have just lost hours worth of work.
</li>
<li>
Pricing: Squarespace is considerably more expensive than the other popular website builders out there. Even with its targeted audience of professionals and business owners, this is still an expensive builder.
</li>
<li>
Page Speed: Many of the templates load very slowly, which may adversely affect search engine rankings and user / customer experience.
</li>
</ul>
<h2>Final Thoughts</h2>
<a href="http://www.squarespace.com" target="_blank">Squarespace</a> is one of the most popular website builders out there on the market, and it’s easy to see why. This one is best for professionals and business owners, but those looking for something to host a personal website would probably do better going elsewhere.
<h4>Have you tried Squarespace? Share your thoughts in the comments below!</h4>

Website Builder Review: Squarespace

In order to help provide the highest level of benefit for our users, we've upgraded our forums to the excellent PlushForums (<a href="/plushforums-review/">check our review here</a>). You now have the ability to not only earn likes on your posts, ask questions (and seek advice) from the CMS Critic team and our community but also to blog!
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/forum_home978x0.png" />
Yes, you can now blog on CMS Critic and share your thoughts (as long as it's relevant to our community of course). We encourage CMS developers and web designers to use this functionality to share their progress on their site designs, development of their projects and more!
To use this feature, simply sign up for our forums and start a new discussion. To make it a blog post, simply check the blog checkbox and that's it!
Once we have enough posts up and going, we'll begin to showcase them on the front of the forums for all to see. This is a great way to not only drive interest in your work but also to get advice and critiques from our team and community to help you a) build a better product or b) build a better website.
Enjoy and we look forward to seeing your posts!
~Mike

We've Updated our Forums for You!

Held at the Salt Lake Palace Convention Center, the <a href="http://summit.adobe.com">Adobe Digital Marketing Summit</a> has grown into one of the largest summits on digital marketing in the world. Clearly, Adobe knows how to market themselves and was all about letting everyone know where to go in Salt Lake City…
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/adobe-450x675.jpg" alt="Adobe Logo on the Convention Center" />
This year's summit boasts over 4,000 attendees, which is a pretty remarkable turnout. To give you an idea as to the size of this event, check out this picture of the crowd exiting one of the general sessions:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-17-1_lxqzmu.png" alt="Adobe Digital Marketing Summit 2012 boasts huge attendance" />
The keynote kicked off  today and the General Session opened with an impressive show of lights, video and music. Opening the keynote was Senior Vice President &amp; General Manager, Brad Rencher, who took us through the various announcements of the day and showcased some of the unique ways Adobe is helping to shape the world of marketing.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/ad1-450x300_bpewdy.jpg" alt="Brad Rencher's opening keynote." />
Aptly named The Power of the Digital Self, his keynote was a great introduction into the new array of products Adobe is bringing to the table. Adobe CEO, Shantanu Narayen, joined Brad on stage to discuss Adobe's new products and shared with us some of his visions for the world of marketing.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/ad4-450x299.jpg" alt="&quot;I'm a firm believer in the human mind. Technology is a help, not a replacement.&quot; - Shantanu Narayen" />
One of the products showcased was <a href="/adobe-introduces-adobe-social-one-product-for-ad-buying-analytics-publishing-and-social-media-monitoring/">Adobe Social</a>, (part of their Digital Marketing Suite) which combines social publishing and engagement with monitoring, social ad buying and analytics that can help marketers attribute social activities with results for their businesses.
Additionally, Adobe announced a number of new updates and functionality to their digital marketing suite such as:
<ul>
<li>New predictive marketing capabilities within their Digital Marketing Suite which allows marketers to uncover behavioral patterns in data which, in turn, allows them to sort through a huge amount of data and find /leverage it to predict future results.</li>
<li><a href="/adobe-cq-5-5-now-available-integrated-with-digital-marketing-suite-to-build-brand-and-drive-demand/">Updates to their Web Experience Management solution</a>, at the heart of which is CQ5.5, the company's web content management software. New functionality has been added to the system which allows for deeper integration with several other products in their digital marketing suite such as Scene7, Search&amp;Promote and SiteCatalyst.</li>
</ul>
Here are some screenshots showcasing some of the new features they are bringing to the table:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/screenshot_2015-07-05-10-05-49_nzjxt5.png" /> 
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/screenshot_2015-07-05-10-06-33_qwylev.png" /> 
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/screenshot_2015-07-05-10-07-08_zgzbah.png" /> 
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/screenshot_2015-07-05-10-06-23_zt0t0w.png" />
As someone who is in the business of marketing and publishing content, I couldn't help but think of how incredibly far along the world of digital publishing has come. Adobe has really brought some game changing innovations to the table with these new products and it's going to be incredible to be able to watch the marketing landscape change. Their products bring an immense amount of power to the hands of CMO's around the globe and enable interaction with the customer in ways that I've not seen in any other products to date.
I'll be speaking with Kevin Cochrane of Adobe tomorrow in a one on one to get more details into how CQ5.5 will tie together with these amazing products and the advancements that it brings to the world of WCM, so stay tuned.
For those who were unable to attend, here are some additional pictures from the keynote:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/nuxeo-zago-x_logo_symbol_small_transp_hkomw9.png" />  <img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/advanced-eu-compliance-1024x524_tq9tzm.png" />  <img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/new-design-b-2-1024x528_bkpxbo.png" />
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/gi_149548_vertical-logo-2015_wtkdcs.png" />  <img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/ad9-150x95.jpg" />  <img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/luckyorange-logo_fworn8.jpg" />
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/wp_engine_logo_bb_700x0_ouprty.png" /> 
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/ad14-150x95.jpg" />
<a href="http://twitter.com/cmscritic">Follow us on Twitter</a> for more live updates from the summit.

Adobe kicks off the Digital Marketing Summit in Style

Many businesses seem to lump email marketing and marketing automation into the same boat, without actually differentiating the two. Both systems allow you to market your product/services via email, both allow you to capture leads and onboard new customers, and both include the word ‘marketing’. 
So what is the difference between Email Marketing and Marketing Automation – and is there one at all?
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/screen-shot-2016-04-09-at-20_11_45.png" alt="Pixabay" />
The answer is a resounding yes. 
Email marketing is designed to track your email marketing interactions only. In contrast, marketing automation tracks and influences buyer interactions/behaviors to guide them through the sales funnel.
<h1>Email Marketing</h1>
Whilst email marketing is not a comparative alternative to marketing automation, it’s still a tool in the marketing automation process. 
Often, smaller companies will start off using email marketing and then start to employ marketing automation once the company grows in size. With an <a href="https://markthemarketer.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/73-astonishing-e-mail-marketing-statistics-you-need-to-know/">impressive ROI of 4,300%</a>, email marketing is a proven method of building relationships with new customers and increasing loyalty within your current customer base.
Using email marketing, you can:
<ul>
<li>Create newsletter and emails via pre-designed templates.</li>
<li>Measure the results of email marketing campaigns via opens and click-through rates.</li>
<li>Segment leads.</li>
<li>Nurture leads.</li>
<li>Send mass email bursts and deliver batch emails to groups of contacts.</li>
</ul>
Email Marketing might be for you if:
<ul>
<li>You’re a small business.</li>
<li>You have a small target market – if you have a small target market it’ll be easier to segment your email marketing efforts.</li>
<li>You only require simple and generic emails/newsletters.</li>
<li>You already have a steady stream of incoming leads </li>
<li>You’re on a tight budget – if you’re a small business then you may not have the money or resources to invest into upscaling to a marketing automation system, and you may not need it yet anyway.</li>
</ul>
But you may have issues such as:
<ul>
<li>The process can be time-consuming, i.e. if you have a large and diverse target market.</li>
<li>Your sales team may get frustrated with the quality of leads; you can’t dial down on how warm or cold you leads are as you’re simply relying on click-throughs and open rates.</li>
<li>You lose track of your leads and where they are in the buying cycle, so you miss out on a lot of potential sales opportunities.</li>
<li>You can’t tie your revenue to your email marketing results, so it’s not very measurable.</li>
</ul>
<h1>Marketing Automation</h1>
Marketing Automation is the perfect solution for medium to larger sized businesses with a diverse customer base. The more varied your audience is, the more beneficial it will be to take a highly targeted approach to your marketing. 
A solid marketing automation platform will provide you with basic capabilities such as lead capturing, lead nurturing, landing page development, site visitor tracking, a centralized marketing database, CRM integration, and data analysis/reporting. 
Your marketing automation tool should help you to determine what stage of the buyer process your customer is at, and then get them to the next stage, and the next – until they convert into a sale. This comprehensive tracking process allows you to see exactly what’s working and not working in your marketing campaign.
Marketing Automation might be for you if:
<ul>
<li>You have a diverse and extensive customer base, i.e. you sell different products or services to a range of different demographics.</li>
<li>You need to push out tailored, targeted, and more relevant content.</li>
<li>You have the resources to manage your marketing automation processes and create daily content.</li>
<li>You have a drawn-out customer buying process that takes longer than a few days.</li>
<li>You want to manage campaigns across multiple channels. </li>
<li>Your sales people aren’t happy with the quality of leads they’re receiving.</li>
<li>You need a better means of measuring your marketing results that ties in with revenue.</li>
</ul>
Any potential issues you’ll have with marketing automation will all boil down to whether or not your business is ready for it in the first place. We recently outlined why some businesses aren’t ready for marketing automation <a href="/small-business-isnt-ready-marketing-automation-system/" target="_blank">in this post.</a>
<h1>Have You Made The Switch?</h1>
Have you recently moved from email marketing over to a full marketing automation approach? 
If so, we’d love to hear more about what marketing automation software you’re using and how well it’s working for you. Why not leave us a comment below and fill us in on your own experience?

Marketing Automation Systems Vs Email Marketing Systems: What's The Difference?

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Call Tracking + AI that Turns Calls into Leads

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Call Tracking + AI that Turns Calls into Leads