Articles

Episerver Article

<p>Optimizely (formerly Episerver), a leading Digital Experience Platform, <a href="https://www.episerver.com/company/press-room/optimizely-strengthens-its-digital-experience-leadership-with-acquisition-of-customer-data-platform-zaius">announced today that it has acquired Zaius</a>, a Customer Data Platform (CDP).</p>
<p>The announcement comes just months after the company’s <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/episerver-to-acquire-optimizely-the-worlds-leading-experience-optimization-platform/">acquisition of Optimizely</a> last September, which led to <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/episerver-rebrands-as-optimizely-following-acquisition/">Episerver's rebranding</a> of its entire organization under the Optimizely banner.</p>
<p>“At Zaius, we’ve always believed that having the customer’s context was the unfair advantage to creating the most relevant experiences for customers,” said Spencer Pingry, co-founder and co-CEO of Zaius. “Analytics, segmentation, predictions, and personalization fueled by this context lead to experiences that drive customer loyalty. We are proud of how that has created growth for our customers and partners, and look forward to joining Optimizely to expand that story.”</p>
<h3>The race for customer data</h3>
<p>As enterprise content management (CMS) and digital experience (DXP) platforms battle for market share, customer data has become an almost essential component in the fight. With the purchase of Zaius, Optimizely is now positioned with a data-driven stack of services that will power digital experiences for customers – and elevate their competitive posture.</p>
<p>Breaking down "data silos" has become a critical objective for many organizations. According to <a href="https://learn.segment.com/customer-data-platform-report-2021/">Segment’s 2021 CDP Report</a>, 73% of companies say that a CDP will be instrumental to their customer experience strategy. Based on the metrics detailed in the report, 2020 saw exponential growth in customer data – and that only appears to be growing.</p>
<p>DXPs have recognized this problem, and are now making rapid progress towards unifying their data. For example, in the CDP layer of the stack, Segment is connecting customer data from fragmented corners of the ecosystem. This is why Twilio dropped a whopping $3.2 billion to <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/twilio-acquires-segment-for-3-2b-adds-market-leading-cdp-for-building-data-driven-apps/">acquire Segment</a> for building and powering data-driven apps.</p>
<p>Likewise, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/adobe-experience-cloud-adds-new-headless-cms-capabilities-updates-to-commerce-integration/">Adobe has invested</a> heavily in the customer data column, enhancing their platform capabilities for creating personalized, app-like experiences that leverage customer data from end to end. And most recently, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/sitecore-acquires-boxever-and-four51/">Sitecore acquired Boxever</a> – adding a proven CDP to their ecosystem.</p>
<h3>Combining DXP and CDP capabilities</h3>
<p>Optimizely lost little time catching up with the other big platforms (like Adobe), acknowledging that organizations can no longer rely on third-party customer data to personalize experiences. With Zaius, Optimizely will be able to bridge what has traditionally been disconnected data points and bring them into context with one another.</p>
<p>In addition to being data-driven, Optimizely aspires to be customer-centric. With Zaius, they will now be able to segment customer data in combination with their interactions, observe behaviors through experiments, and gain powerful insights. Having a complete understanding of all those factors will enable Optimizely’s customers to create hyper-personalized experiences and maximize their ROIs.</p>
<p>Zaius’s segmentation engine – coupled with Optimizely’s behavioral data from experiments and transactional insights from its content and commerce platform – will provide a new level of agility. Powered by out-of-the-box AI/ML predictions, the combined platform can unlock even more value by providing visibility and guidance through the lens of the customer.</p>
<p>Zaius also brings 50 pre-built app connectors to Optimizely – including <a href="https://www.shopify.com/">Shopify</a>, <a href="https://www.snowflake.com/">Snowflake</a>, and <a href="https://www.zendesk.com/">Zendesk</a> – which are available as one-click integrations. These connectors rapidly streamline the data integration process and automate identity resolution with consent management.</p>
<h3>A Leader on the Gartner MQ for DXP</h3>
<p>Optimizely has been recognized as a <em>Leader </em>for the second consecutive year<em> </em>in the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/key-takeaways-from-gartners-2021-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms/">Gartner 2021 Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms</a>, trailing right behind Adobe and <a href="https://www.acquia.com/">Acquia</a>.</p>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img style="max-width:600px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/s_34fafa0fd97f0b313e9551a1a563ae47406307c485dcb3a22cab4c5d6a2125fe_1616432299291_figure_1_magic_quadrant_for_digital_experience_platforms.png" /></figure>
<p>While the players have shifted positions from 2020, the crop of leaders has made significant investments or acquisitions in customer data platforms to compete more effectively.</p>
<p>On the opposite end of the spectrum, Salesforce has been gaining ground against DXPs in the <em>Challenger</em> quadrant. As the world’s leading CRM and customer data platform, they have elevated their position by addressing key deficiencies on the experience and content management side – which includes the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/salesforce-cms-review-evolving-a-crm-powerhouse-into-a-dxp-challenger/">launch of their own CMS</a> in late 2019.</p>
<h3>What's next for Optimizely and Zaius</h3>
<p>With the purchase of Zaius, Optimizely has fully stacked their deck – adding the all-important customer data piece to the puzzle. As they begin to integrate the core capabilities into their platform offering, it's conceivable that they may give Acquia and Adobe a run for their money in next year's MQ report.</p>
<p>As 2021 continues to unfold, we'll be watching the impact of this investment and how it continues to shape Optimizely's strategy.</p>
<h3>About Optimizely (Episerver)</h3>
<p><a href="http://www.optimizely.com/">Optimizely</a> (Episerver) is on a mission to help people unlock their digital potential. With their leading digital experience platform (DXP), they equip teams with the tools and insights they need to create and optimize in new and novel ways. Now, companies can operate with data-driven confidence to create hyper-personalized experiences. Building sophisticated solutions has never been simpler. Optimizely’s 900+ partners and 1100+ employees in offices around the globe are proud to help more than 9,000 brands, including Toyota, Santander, eBay, KLM, and Mazda, enrich their customer lifetime value, increase revenue and grow their brands.</p>
<h3>About Zaius</h3>
<p>Zaius is the Activated Customer Data Platform that assists growing brands to achieve higher customer lifetime value by delivering relevance across the entire customer journey, from anonymous browsers to loyal shoppers. Zaius aligns entire organizations around customer data allowing digital leaders to create relevant customer experiences through harmonization of their data, understanding and action that differentiates their brand and drives customer loyalty.</p>


Optimizely Acquires Customer Data Platform Zaius

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<p>Fresh off the acquisition of Optimizely last September, Episerver – a leading content management and digital experience platform – has announced that it will rebrand its entire organization under the Optimizely name.</p>
<p>Episerver’s move follows a string of jaw-dropping news from the top of the CMS and DXP industry. In the last two weeks alone, Sitecore <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/sitecore-embarks-on-1-2b-investment-plan-to-accelerate-growth/">announced</a> that it had secured $1.2 billion in capital investment aimed at accelerating their growth and innovation. Just a few days later, Acquia introduced its <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/acquia-digital-commerce-unifies-data-content-commerce-and-digital-merchandising/">Acquia Digital Commerce</a> platform, the latest in a line of new products and partnerships that are driving their market expansion.</p>
<p>As a leader on the <a href="https://www.episerver.com/reports/gartner-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms">Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms</a>, Episerver is already well-positioned within the DXP landscape. However, the acquisition of Optimizely has launched a new direction for the company, elevating “Optimization as a Service” to the forefront of their product and service stack.</p>
<p>While it’s not uncommon for companies to change their name after a merger or acquisition, this is a bold move for Episerver. By adopting the Optimizely brand, they are changing the narrative and focusing on web targeting, testing, and recommendations to help power – and optimize – the customer experience.</p>
<h3>The reason behind Episerver’s decision</h3>
<p>Episerver’s roots date back to 1994. What began as web-based electronic mail system has evolved into a connected, multi-faceted platform that includes CMS, Commerce, and DXP. Over the years, they have acquired multiple technologies in an effort to expand their ecosystem and enhance the value of their offerings. This includes <a href="https://www.episerver.com/company/press-room/episerver-acquires-omnichannel-personalization-vendor-peerius">Peerius</a> in 2016, a UK-based commerce personalization company, and most recently Optimizely.</p>
<p>Episerver has certainly established its brand on a global stage, competing with the likes of <a href="https://www.adobe.com/marketing/experience-manager.html">Adobe</a>, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/acquia-launches-new-open-digital-experience-platform/">Acquia</a>, and <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/sitecore-updates-experience-platform-and-experience-commerce-releases-new-sitecore-content-hub/">Sitecore</a>. But with such a long and storied rise to market leadership, why change their name?</p>
<p>In a statement from the company, Episerver says that it conducted thorough research with customers, partners, and industry leaders to gauge their overall brand perception. This led to the decision to adopt the Optimizely brand, which aligned more intently with their vision.</p>
<p><img style="max-width:600px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/01/gartner-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms-2021.png" alt="Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms-2021" /></p>
<h3></h3>
<h3>Positioning for greater competition</h3>
<p>While Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for DXPs remains relatively trim, the crowd has thickened in 2020. With players like Salesforce and SAP entering the fray by offering more complete solutions, traditional CMS platforms are struggling to find footing and compete at the enterprise level.</p>
<p>While the move away from monolithic services to custom stacks is still the general trend, leading brands and organizations are in pursuit of personalization – and hungry for real solutions. As CRM platforms like Salesforce and Hubspot bring CMS into their portfolios, stalwarts like Episerver are facing increased pressure to expand their capabilities in new directions.</p>
<p>The Optimizely acquisition gives Episerver an edge in the personalization category, allowing them to deliver on the promise of a truly complete digital experience platform for testing and optimization. This is reinforced by their concept of <a href="https://www.episerver.com/products/capabilities/optimization-as-a-service">Optimization-as-a-Service</a>, which combines the best attributes of targeting, testing, and recommendations from both <a href="https://www.optimizely.com/platform/experimentation/">Optimizely Web</a> and <a href="https://www.episerver.com/products/capabilities/web-content-recommendations">Episerver Content Recommendations</a>.</p>
<p>“We believe that every experience can and should be optimized,” says Alex Atzberger, CEO of Episerver. “We all know the real work only starts when the site or digital experience goes live. Optimizely’s name captures this ambition.”</p>
<h3>What does the change mean for Episerver?</h3>
<p>The new Optimizely aims to deliver the most modern digital experience platform with headless CMS and commerce, experimentation, AI-driven recommendations, and many other market-leading digital experience components. As part of their mission, they endeavor to remove the “guesswork” and “gut decisions” from optimization, replacing it with data-driven insights.</p>
<p>“Digital experience is a journey without a finish line,” says Atzberger. “Ultimately, our customers want to innovate and use data to confidentially create and optimize every customer experience based on actual outcomes. The Optimizely brand very much galvanizes this vision and uniquely positions us to define the future of the DXP market.”</p>
<p>Bringing together robust capabilities for data, content, commerce, and optimization, Optimizely empowers brands to unlock behavior-based decision-making, confident creation, and outsized outcomes. Optimizely now offers an even more robust combination of user and site-level data, tied with omnichannel experimentation insights – giving marketers, merchandisers, and developers the advanced analytics they need to understand what is happening in each experience as well as how to continually optimize it.</p>
<p>“We’re pleased to see Episerver make the shift to become known as Optimizely, elevating an already well-known brand with a benefit to create, connect and optimize the customer experience across a growing number of digital channels. This move represents a differentiator for the company in the digital experience market,” said Marci Maddox, Research Director, Digital Experience Strategies, IDC. “The value optimization brings to the digital experience is often underestimated, and the new Optimizely brand gives the company an opportunity to marry creative personalization with data-driven optimization techniques. The digital experience services market is evolving quickly, and there is a significant opportunity for Optimizely to be a leader in the space with its data-driven approach to optimizing every experience along the customer journey.”</p>
<p>In 2020, Episerver and Optimizely recorded double-digit revenue growth, supporting go-lives for more than 250 customer including Microsoft, Atlassian, KLM, and the Wall Street Journal. The fourth quarter marked accelerated growth for both companies and their DXP offerings in particular, with Optimizely B2B Commerce Cloud and Content Cloud seeing more than 20% growth. The new Optimizely plans to hire 40+ new employees per month through the first half of 2021 to fuel their continued growth.</p>
<h3>What’s next for Optimizely and the DXP Industry</h3>
<p>There’s no question about it: change and consolidation are rampant in the upper echelon of the CMS and DXP marketplace. In an increasingly digital world that’s been forced to transform throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, opportunities are abundant – but competition is fierce. The winners will be able to offer more completeness of vision, not just single products or solutions. This is where Episerver and Optimizely have excelled and will continue to do so as a combined force.</p>
<p>While Episerver has strong awareness and a solid heritage, adopting the Optimizely name might be one of their smartest moves yet. It’s still a slick, up-and-coming brand that’s certain to give the aging CMS a shot in the arm – and allow them to shape the future of the digital customer experience.</p>
<h3>About Optimizely (Episerver)</h3>
<p><a href="http://www.optimizely.com/">Optimizely</a> (Episerver) is on a mission to help people unlock their digital potential. With their leading digital experience platform (DXP), they equip teams with the tools and insights they need to create and optimize in new and novel ways. Now, companies can operate with data-driven confidence to create hyper-personalized experiences. Building sophisticated solutions has never been simpler. Optimizely’s 900+ partners and 1100+ employees in offices around the globe are proud to help more than 9,000 brands, including Toyota, Santander, eBay, KLM, and Mazda, enrich their customer lifetime value, increase revenue and grow their brands.</p>


Episerver Rebrands as Optimizely Following Acquisition

Image showing Episerver turning to Optimizely

<p>While COVID-19 continues to impact markets globally, the CMS world has been on a binge of buying, partnering, and releasing new features.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<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>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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>.</p>
<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>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<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>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<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>
<p><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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>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).</p>
<p>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.</p>
<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>
<p><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.</p>
<p>"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."</p>
<p>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.</p>
<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>
<p>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>.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<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>
<p><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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<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>
<p><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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>And that’s a wrap. Stay tuned for another installment next month.</p>


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

<p>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. </p>
<p>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>.</p>
<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>
<p>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. </p>
<h3>Better control of layouts, logic and more</h3>
<p>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. </p>
<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>
<p></p>
<h3>Improved Outcomes</h3>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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. </p>
<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>
<p>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. </p>
<h2>Optimizely: A Proven Platform</h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/dLMqzpXcZNNUoM1_OxXHAQW1ztCKyaZL4aVhaJAVs1_UVxT0KktqrmanWkG0uW0SU0QF346MtL2UJUhVp2dv5XCrDERdCgK9E-lUEC6ns7owJUTODlJOOsATD1DccyehEvOnINOn" /></figure>
<h3>About Optimizely</h3>
<p><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.</p>
<h3>About Episerver</h3>
<p><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.</p>


Episerver To Acquire Optimizely, Adding Experimentation And Optimization To DXP

<p>If you've been waiting to cast your vote for your favorites in the People's Choice Awards, now is the time to do so.</p><p>Voting has officially opened and you may now <a href="/cms-critic-awards/">cast your vote</a>! So head on over to our <a href="/cms-critic-awards/">awards page</a> and submit your favorites.</p><p>If you are in the running, we have created a handy badge you can use to spur interest...</p><p>Simply download the graphic (shown below) and link it to <a href="/cms-critic-awards/">https://www.cmscritic.com/critics-choice-cms-awards/</a>.</p><p>For those who missed it, here are the nominees in each category:</p><h3><a href="/cms-critic-awards/">Best Open Source CMS</a></h3><p>2013 Nominees ( <a href="/announcing-the-peoples-choice-for-best-open-source-cms-nominees">read the announcement </a>):</p><ol><li><a target="_blank" href="https://modx.com/">MODx</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.dnnsoftware.com/">DNN Platform</a></li><li><a href="/products/liferay">Liferay</a></li><li><a href="/products/processwire/">Processwire</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://e107.org/">e107</a></li></ol><h3><a href="/cms-critic-awards/">Best Free CMS</a></h3><p>2013 Nominees ( <a href="/announcing-the-peoples-choice-for-best-free-cms-nominees/">read the announcement </a>):</p><ol><li><a target="_blank" href="https://processwire.com/">Processwire</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://tiki.org/HomePage">Tiki</a></li><li><a href="/products/concrete-cms">Concrete5</a></li><li><a href="/products/wordpress/">WordPress</a></li><li><a href="/products/umbraco/">Umbraco</a></li></ol><h3><a href="/cms-critic-awards/">Best Small to Midsize Business CMS</a></h3><p>2013 Nominees ( <a href="/announcing-the-people-s-choice-for-best-small-to-midsize-business-cms-nominees/">read the announcement </a>):</p><ol><li>Adobe Business Catalyst</li><li><a href="/products/ingeniux/">Ingeniux</a></li><li><a href="/products/kentico/">Kentico</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.percussion.com/">Percussion</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.progress.com/sitefinity-cms">Sitefinity</a></li></ol><h3><a href="/cms-critic-awards/">Best Enterprise CMS</a></h3><p>2013 Nominees ( <a href="/announcing-the-peoples-choice-for-best-enterprise-cms-nominees/">read the announcement </a>):</p><ol><li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.adobe.com/solutions/web-experience-management.html">Adobe Experience Manager</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.hannonhill.com/products/cascade-cms/index.html">Cascade Server</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.optimizely.com/">EpiServer</a></li><li><a href="/products/liferay/">Liferay</a></li><li><a href="/products/sitecore/">Sitecore</a></li></ol><h3><a href="/cms-critic-awards/">Best eCommerce Solution </a> (New for 2013!)</h3><p>2013 Nominees ( <a href="/announcing-the-people-s-choice-for-best-ecommerce-solution-nominees/">read the announcement </a>):</p><ol><li>3dcart</li><li>Aspxcommerce</li><li><a href="/products/bigcommerce/">BigCommerce</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://business.adobe.com/products/magento/magento-commerce.html">Magento</a></li><li><a href="/products/shopify/">Shopify</a></li></ol><h3><a href="/cms-critic-awards/">Best Website Builder</a></h3><p>2013 Nominees ( <a href="/announcing-the-people-s-choice-for-best-website-builder-nominees/">read the announcement </a>):</p><ol><li>Adobe Business Catalyst</li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.jimdo.com/">Jimdo</a></li><li><a href="/products/squarespace/">Squarespace</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.ucoz.com/">UCoz</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.webydo.com/">Webydo</a></li></ol><h3><a href="/cms-critic-awards/">Best Forum Solution </a> (New for 2013!)</h3><p>2013 Nominees ( <a href="/announcing-the-peoples-choice-for-best-forum-solution-nominees">read the announcement </a>):</p><ol><li><a target="_blank" href="http://vanillaforums.org/">Vanilla Forums</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="http://nodebb.org/">NodeBB</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.simplemachines.org/">Simple Machines Forum</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.vbulletin.com/">VBulletin</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.invisionpower.com/">Invision Power Board (IPBoard)</a></li></ol><h3><a href="/cms-critic-awards/">Best Social Networking Solution</a></h3><p>2013 Nominees ( <a href="/announcing-the-people-s-choice-for-best-social-networking-solution-nominees/">read the announcement </a>):</p><ol><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.dnnsoftware.com/products/evoq-engage">Evoq Social</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.phpfox.com/">PHPFox</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.oxwall.com/">Oxwall</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.socialcore.com">SocialCore</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://socialengine.com/">Social Engine</a></li></ol><h3><a href="/cms-critic-awards/">Best Hosted/Cloud CMS </a> (New for 2013!)</h3><ol><li><a target="_blank" href="http://acquia.com/products-services/acquia-cloud">Acquia Cloud</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://agilitycms.com/">Agility CMS</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.paperthin.com/products/commonspot-cms.cfm">CommonSpot</a></li><li>Gutensite</li></ol><p>Best of luck to all who are in the running!</p>

It's Official! Voting is Now Open for the People's Choice Awards!

mike-johnston

<p>This year has been an amazing one and we've had tons of nominations for all kinds of great projects in all of our categories. Over this month until voting begins on September 1, 2013, we're going to announce the nominees for each category in the awards.</p>
<p>Without further delay, here are this years Peoples Choice Nominees for Best Enterprise CMS in our <a href="/cms-critic-awards/">Critics Choice CMS Awards</a>.</p>
<h3>Liferay</h3>
<p>Liferay Portal is an open source enterprise portal written in Java and distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License and proprietary licenses. It is primarily used to power corporate intranets and extranets.</p>
<p><a href="/products/liferay/">Learn more.</a></p>
<h3>Adobe Experience Manager</h3>
<p>Adobe Experience Manager is last year's Critics Choice for Best Enterprise CMS and was nominated again this year for Peoples Choice. Adobe Experience Manager is part of the Adobe Digital Marketing Cloud and is an easy-to-use enterprise CMS with a heavy marketing side.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.adobe.com/solutions/web-experience-management.html">Visit their Website</a></p>
<h3>Cascade Server</h3>
<p>Cascade Server is a web content management system that uses push technology and is developed by Hannon Hill. Cascade Server is built with Java, and comes bundled with Apache Tomcat as its Servlet container.</p>
<p><a href="/products/cascade-cms/">Learn more.</a></p>
<h3>Episerver</h3>
<p>EPiServer is a .NET Content Management and E-commerce product company providing robust, flexible and highly customizable software solutions for the next generation of websites.</p>
<p><a href="/products/episerver/">Learn more.</a></p>
<h3>Sitecore</h3>
<p>Sitecore is a web content management system software company that provides enterprise website, intranet, portal and marketing automation software.</p>
<p><a href="/products/sitecore/">Learn more.</a></p>
<p>Congratulations to all of these fabulous nominees. Voting begins on September 1, so be sure to check back and vote for your favorites!</p>


Announcing the Peoples Choice for Best Enterprise CMS Nominees!

<p></p>
<p>PALO ALTO, Calif. — April 7, 2010 — Ephox, a leading provider of software for improving web content management (WCM), today announced a new integration with EPiServer, the world’s fastest growing provider of WCM, online community and e-commerce platforms. The new integration of Ephox EditLive! with EPiServer CMS will bring rich, intuitive online authoring capabilities to EPiServer customers, enhancing business user productivity and improving web site quality.</p>
<p>“This integration provides great features to professional and occasional editors who use EPiServer CMS,” said Allan Thraen, senior solution architect for EPiServer. “Editors at all levels have come to expect desktop-like functionality when editing web content. EditLive!, which we view as one of the best WYSIWYG editors in the market, is a perfect fit with a familiar feel, nice usability and an excellent accessibility checker.”</p>
<p>The latest version of EditLive! includes several features that enable content creators to work together more efficiently and effectively. Templating functionality gives content administrators the ability to create reusable content templates for consistent web site styles and standards that can be employed by business users. For improved collaboration, context-based commenting capabilities enable users to comment directly on any text or object in an online document, and track conversations related to specific comments. As the only web-based editor that supports Autosave, EditLive! preserves content even if the web browser crashes or the server session times out. Additional features include broken hyperlink reporting, Auto-Correct, the ability to import Word documents, and Thesaurus.</p>
<p>“Through the use of its guiding principle, ‘power through simplicity,’ EPiServer has been helping its customers create unique and engaging websites. Our Rich Text Editor, EditLive!, was created on similar principles,” said Andrew Roberts, CEO of Ephox. “Now, businesses can take advantage of the power of the EPiServer CMS, while enabling their non-technical users to easily and quickly create compelling web content. This integration provides the best of both worlds.”</p>
<p><strong>Availability</strong></p>
<p>EditLive! for EPiServer is available immediately and can be downloaded at http://editlive.com/episerver.</p>
<p><strong>About Ephox</strong></p>
<p>Ephox develops enterprise-class solutions for authoring content for business websites, wikis and blogs. The company’s technology is licensed by leading web content management vendors including EMC|Documentum, IBM, Oracle, and Percussion. Ephox products are used by hundreds of thousands of web content authors in over 1,500 organizations across 35 countries. For more information, please visit <a href="http://www.ephox.com">www.ephox.com</a>.</p>
<p></p>


Ephox Announces New Integration with EPiServer CMS

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