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<hr /> I’ve been following <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/amplitude">Amplitude</a> for several years, specifically throughout this promising (if not tumultuous) period of AI disruption. The company has continuously pedaled the innovation wheels, exploring new ways to improve insights for marketers and brands as the digital world furiously changes around us. For example, we covered the introduction of its <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/replay-it-again-sam-amplitudes-session-replay-everywhere-rocks-with-analytics-visualizations">Session Replay Everywhere</a> earlier this year, which expands on the company’s initial launch <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/amplitude-expands-platform-capabilities-with-session-replay-and-simplified-pricing">in 2023</a>. This new approach incorporates the replay feature into every workflow to capture broader user engagement, minus the labor-intensive setup and rigid event taxonomies.Bridging this gap between qualitative and quantitative understanding is a powerful salve to what I call The Analytics Blues. It enables marketers to diagnose product issues, improve conversions, identify UX behaviors, innovate faster, and generally build better digital experiences.Experimentation is critical for marketers, and time is always the enemy. They simply can’t afford to wait weeks (or longer) to test an idea. Experimentation is the lifeblood of optimization, and when you run fewer tests, you get fewer learnings – and, ultimately, fewer conversions.In most cases, the holdup rests with the tooling. Many legacy experimentation platforms struggle with visual editors that break when used on modern sites, and marketers can’t address the fixes themselves. That means filing a ticket, waiting for engineering, and praying that the page doesn’t break once their changes go live. All these delays can impact a campaign’s effectiveness. And even when a test is finally running properly, the resulting metrics aren’t always useful.Tests need to work. And they need to be simple. Last year, Amplitude endeavored to solve these problems with its novel <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://amplitude.com/web-experimentation">Web Experimentation</a> solution, and the company says that marketing and growth teams using the service have realized strong gains in testing velocity and conversion optimization. I’ve seen it in action, and there’s real value for marketers.That said, Amplitude has been listening to its customers and evolving the platform’s capabilities. This week, they announced a major update of Web Experimentation, including four new features designed to help marketers and growth teams do more. These features – drag-and-drop visual editing, control variant editing, group cohort targeting, and out-of-the-box widgets – show great promise. And according to Amplitude, users could test three times faster and build with greater autonomy via these enhancements.As part of this announcement, Amplitude is also teasing the launch of its own <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://amplitude.com/ai">AI Agents,</a> which will give marketers and web PMs some slick capabilities like auto-generating experiment ideas based on conversion trends or drop-off points, or draft variant copy and layouts based on behavioral data.  <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:30.19%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/08/image-1756482273106.png" alt="A person smiling at the camera

AI-generated content may be incorrect." /></figure>Nithya Rajendran, Principal Product Manager, Amplitude I connected with Amplitude’s <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/nithya-r-2a72794/">Nithya Rajendran,</a> a project manager working on the Web Experimentation and AI initiatives, about the frontier of Amplitude’s agentic investment. She provided some insight on what kinds of functionality we can expect and the benefits. “Our Agents work in parallel with teams to tackle essential but tedious activities like monitoring data, spotting patterns and changes, watching user sessions, forming hypotheses, running experiments, shipping changes, and monitoring impact,” Rajendran said. “Our AI Agents are built directly into the platform to help automate these tasks, meaning work that used to take weeks can now take minutes."<h3 id="giving-marketers-more-control-for-expanded-use-cases-">Giving marketers more control for expanded use cases </h3>Marketers are dealing with a lot these days. With dozens of tools to balance in their expanding toolkit – not to mention the diminishing realities of search traffic and the advent of GEO – they need enhanced observability and better analytics to manage the chaos. And when it comes to testing, they need to reduce the friction to make the juice worth the squeeze.Amplitude Web Experimentation has always been geared towards helping marketers run faster, easier, and more impactful tests, so they can optimize and improve their outcomes. With this major update and new features, it promises to deliver marketing and growth teams with more power for building and running experiments in a truly self-service motion – giving them the control they need to be successful. As the company stated in its press release, there are four new features in Web Experimentation. The first is the ability to rearrange elements with true drag-and-drop editing, where you can shift a headline from below a form to above it in seconds. We take these things for granted in CMS and DXP ecosystems, but having an easy-to-use visual editor at the testing level has been elusive. Now, with Web Experimentation, you can move page components around visually instead of relying on an engineering team to do the heavy lifting. With its new out-of-the-box widgets, Web Experimentation now supports more test types. This means simplifying the time and complexity involved with adding banners, CTAs, or pop-ups without custom code.With freshly added group cohorting capabilities, you can target by account, allowing B2B teams to personalize experiments for specific companies or account lists. You can also edit control variants directly, allowing you to update your “default” experience without waiting for developers to push changes.<h3 id="a-seamless-add-on-for-cms-and-dxp-platforms">A seamless add-on for CMS and DXP platforms</h3>Web Experimentation’s new features are designed to give marketing and web PMs a much faster and streamlined pathway to testing. It’s also CMS agnostic, making it much more extensible and easier for organizations to onboard. “It works anywhere you can add a simple script tag, whether that is a traditional CMS or a headless CMS,” Rajendran said. “Once the script is installed, marketers can use a no-code, drag-and-drop Visual Editor to launch experiments directly on their site without developer support.”Amplitude also offers official plugins for <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://c67dcd9a.streaklinks.com/CjlzcGqbWy6jkUcbTQdlL3tq/https%3A%2F%2Famplitude.com%2Fdocs%2Fdata%2Famplitude-wordpress-plugin">WordPress</a><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://c67dcd9a.streaklinks.com/CjlzcGuKCuDX0DOR4QDezJ9N/https%3A%2F%2Famplitude.com%2Fdocs%2Fdata%2Famplitude-shopify-plugin"> and Shopify</a> that make it easy to install Web Experimentation – along with other solutions like Analytics and Session Replay – with minimal setup.Amplitude has also cozied up with the customer data layers across stacks, all the way down to the warehouse layer, where it offers self-service analytics capabilities. As Nithya explained, this connection to CDPs also enhances the overall flow. “Because Amplitude also integrates with CDPs like <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/twilio-acquires-segment-for-3-2b-adds-market-leading-cdp-for-building-data-driven-apps">Segment</a> and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://tealium.com/">Tealium</a>, experiments are tied to consistent customer data that already flows through the rest of the stack,” she said.From a feedback perspective, Amplitude is touting its success with <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://crometrics.com/">Cro Metrics</a>, where its drag-and-drop editor is having a notable impact. According to Co-CEO <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/gwen-hammes/">Gwen Hammes</a>, it’s giving Cro Metrics a new level of agility for its clients, allowing them to spin up high-impact experiments like banners and modals within their marketing and product teams – so they can move from concept to customer faster than ever.“That’s the sweet spot,” Hammes said. “Empowering our clients to iterate quickly to see measurable lift, while freeing up their valuable time for us to collaborate on larger strategic initiatives and integrate test learnings cross-functionally for even greater impact.”<h3 id="amplitude-ai-agents-are-entering-the-stack-">Amplitude AI Agents are entering the stack </h3>As I mentioned, this update also framed Amplitude’s foray onto the agentic AI scene, where we’re likely to see a great deal of automation surrounding various use cases. Analytics is one area where AI is already demonstrating its immense value to glean meaningful insights from large data sets and provide more actionable intelligence. I suspect we’ll see that value translated here. I’ve been watching a lot of demos from vendors in different categories, and the use cases for agentic AI and the harnessing of MCP are yielding some spectacular results. According to Amplitude, we’ll see their applications come to life this fall, with the foundation being laid through these Web Experimentation updates. When put to work, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://amplitude.com/blog/ai-agents?siteLocation=ai-agents-spotlight-cards">Amplitude’s AI Agents </a>will take testing velocity to new levels, simplifying tasks and reducing workloads that used to take weeks into hours. While it’s still early days, Amplitude said its agents will have a huge impact on a myriad of functions, like autonomously prioritizing tests that are most likely to drive lift or interpreting results and automatically recommending actions. AI agents can also assist with some of the more “nefarious” challenges that exist in a flow, like creating better checkout experiences to reduce abandoned carts or improving products by driving users toward their preferred behaviors (think signups or upsells). <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:85.66%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/08/image-1756482272869.png" alt="A screenshot of a computer

AI-generated content may be incorrect." /></figure>Source: Amplitude website Here’s where the connection to Web Experimentation comes in: Because these AI agents are built into the broader Amplitude platform, AI Agents won’t just analyze experiments in isolation – they’ll learn from the same analytics, session replays, and surveys you do, and act on them instantly. And the new drag-and-drop editor, widgets, and control features represent three critical channels that Amplitude's AI Agents will use on your behalf.Amplitude has also worked to make these agents as accessible as possible to marketing teams across all skill levels by harnessing a natural language interface. “While marketers will benefit from huge time-savings, they still stay in control,” Rajendran said. “They decide the level of autonomy their Agents have, and as they build trust, they can adjust these guardrails. So that means you can rely on an Agent to recommend content variants, but a marketer approves them before an experiment is rolled out. After the experiment runs, an Agent will analyze the results and recommend next steps, but a marketer makes the final call."<h3 id="pricing">Pricing</h3>Amplitude <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/amplitude-expands-platform-capabilities-with-session-replay-and-simplified-pricing">introduced simplified pricing</a> early last year as part of its Sesson Replay launch, and there’s some decent guidance on their website. I like the inclusion of a free tier as a “jumping off” point, and the Plus plan starts at $49/month for 300K MTUs.Those dreaded MTUs. This is where the challenges exist, and hence why Amplitude offers a Growth tier with custom volumes. But all of its plans feature Web Experimentation, and hence, a gateway for experiencing these new features at any level. You can explore the full breadth of the packages on their <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://amplitude.com/pricing">pricing page. </a>According to Rajendran, there aren’t any pricing details for the Amplitude AI Agents as of yet. In her words, the company is focused on enhancing the overall experience for customers and not monetizing the capabilities.<h3 id="the-verdict">The verdict</h3>Amplitude continues to establish its leadership through innovation, and these new features are aimed at giving marketers even greater control over their experimentation and testing, and that’s a win. Doing it faster – and with stable tools – is the name of the game, and Amplitude is delivering on that front with its easy drag-and-drop capabilities and out-of-the-box widgets.Based on preliminary positioning, the roadmap for Amplitude’s AI Agents looks exciting. Data and analytics are prime real estate for converting value around agentic investments, and the gains in automation could be significant. We’ll have to monitor feedback once we see them in play and assess how these capabilities measure up to other competitive AI enhancements across the stack. There are already AI agents farming analytics from platforms like <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://beam.ai/integrations/mixpanel">Mixpanel</a> to enhance operations efficiency and strategic growth. It’s worth a few demos and some homework on the AI roadmaps as you evaluate options, but Amplitude has a clear vision – and they’re executing for success.  <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:31.61%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/08/storyblok-joyconf-2025-logo.jpg" /><h4 id="storyblok-joyconf-2025"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://joyconf.storyblok.com/">Storyblok JoyConf 2025</a></h4>October 14-15, 2025 – Amsterdam, Netherlands November 4, 2025 – New York, NY November 6, 2025 – Los Angeles, CAJoin us at JoyConf 2025, where the future of content meets the people shaping it. Built for developers, marketers, and digital innovators, this free conference goes way beyond product updates or yet another strategy playbook. It’s where you’ll get inspired, get real, and get connected – to ideas, to the community, and to what’s possible when you build joyfully. Whether you're building lightning-fast frontends or launching cross-channel campaigns, this is where content becomes connection and collaboration becomes second nature. Come for the talks. Stay for the community. Leave with joy. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://joyconf.storyblok.com/">Save your spot.</a> <img style="width:28.9%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/08/sitecore-symposium-2025.jpg" /><h4 id="sitecore-symposium-2025"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://symposium.sitecore.com/">Sitecore Symposium 2025</a></h4>November 3-5, 2025 – Orlando, FLAt Sitecore Symposium, you’ll learn how to meet your customers where they are – across channels, moments, and touchpoints that didn’t exist a year ago. You’ll hear how the boldest brands in the world are transforming content into outcomes and creating experiences that are fast, relevant, and human. Join 1,500 marketers, digital leaders, and technologists in Orlando to see what’s possible when personalization scales, AI accelerates creativity, and trust becomes your competitive edge. This is the Third Wave of the Internet. And this is your moment to lead in it. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://symposium.sitecore.com/">Get your tickets today.</a> <img style="width:31.44%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/08/cms-kickoff-2026-logo.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-kickoff-2026"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff26">CMS Kickoff 2026</a></h4>January 13-14, 2026 – St. Petersburg, FLMeet industry leaders at our fourth annual CMS Kickoff – the industry's premier global CMS event. Similar to a traditional kickoff, we reflect on recent trends and share stories from the frontlines. Additionally, we will delve into the current happenings and shed light on the future. Prepare for an unparalleled in-person CMS conference experience that will equip you to move things forward. This is an exclusive event – space is limited, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff26">so secure your tickets today.</a>

Amplitude’s New Web Experimentation Upgrade Gives Marketers 3x Faster Testing and More Control

matt-garrepy

<hr /> While attending the <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/from-accessibility-to-ai-and-beyond-five-key-takeaways-from-acquia-engage-boston">Acquia Engage Conference</a> in Boston last November, we covered an array of news and announcements from one of the market’s leading DXPs. The most notable was around accessibility, reflecting <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/acquia">Acquia’s</a> clear strategy to expand its DXP capabilities with a cogent solution – one that supports digital equality and improves its competitive posture. That came in the form of an “acquisition of an acquisition,” so to speak: <a target="_blank" href="https://monsido.com/">Monsido</a>. This week, Acquia issued a press release stating that the acquisition of Monsido has been successfully completed, bringing the full breadth of its investment to bear as it focuses on growth and competitive differentiation in 2024.A leading SaaS-based website accessibility and optimization solution, Monsido has a decade-long legacy of helping customers of all sizes – and across industries – to monitor and improve website accessibility. Monsido’s best-of-breed features also provide resources for maintaining content quality and governance, enhancing search engine optimization (SEO), improving data privacy, and impacting overall website performance.<h3 id="from-civicplus-to-acquia-dxp">From CivicPlus to Acquia DXP</h3>Founded in 2014, Monsido was most recently the domain of <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/civicplus">CivicPlus</a>, an integrated technology solutions platform focused on the public sector.The new deal structured with Acquia allows CivicPlus to retain and serve U.S. local government customers as a Monsido reseller. Meanwhile, Monsido’s team members in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Denmark – including its two co-founders – have also joined Acquia, bringing focused talent and experience to the DXP’s ranks.“Making accessibility and compliance core to Acquia DXP supports our mission of building an inclusive digital future, and enables our customers to provide web experiences that serve all of their users,” said <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-reny-0a2a0a163/">Steve Reny</a>, President and CEO of Acquia. “We are delighted to welcome the Monsido team to Acquia and look forward to bringing the Monsido platform and its capabilities to more organizations globally.”<h3 id="available-as-an-integrated-or-standalone-offering">Available as an integrated or standalone offering</h3>The Monsido acquisition – initially announced on the first day of Engage Boston – expands the capabilities of Acquia’s digital experience platform, positioning it as the only leading DXP that offers a complete solution with Monsido’s full suite of features. The addition of these tools will enable users to build and manage websites and digital experiences that are more accessible – a strategic ambition that Acquia made abundantly clear during its keynote sessions at the Engage conference. From a go-to-market perspective, Monsido is available as part of the Acquia DXP or as a standalone offering. Acquia is touting Monsido’s composable extensibility, reinforcing that the technology continues to work with any <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/what-is-a-content-management-system-cms">content management system (CMS),</a> including <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/drupal">Drupal</a> – the open source CMS that provides the foundation of the Acquia DXP. <h3 id="accessibility:-the-new-imperative-for-open-dxps">Accessibility: the new imperative for open DXPs</h3>Accessibility has been a rapidly evolving initiative for governments and businesses for decades. While some tenants of physical accessibility have achieved widespread adoption, digital accessibility has struggled, relying on loosely legislated requirements. While the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/">Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) procured by the W3C</a> have provided a foundation, many websites still fall woefully short of delivering digitally equitable experiences to users. According to an IDC report, fewer than 10% of websites are fully accessible across visual, auditory, and cognitive disabilities. (1)Legislation such as the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ada.gov/">Americans with Disabilities Act</a> and the upcoming <a target="_blank" href="https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1202">European Accessibility Act</a> are now mandating that vendors address digital accessibility. At the same time, marketers are realizing the potential of accessibility to increase conversions, drive revenue, and broaden customer reach. In today’s connected world, digital experiences must exceed consumer expectations for accessibility. This can help enhance brands, build customer loyalty, and ultimately deliver competitive differentiation in a noisy, fragmented world of marketing messages. This is one of the key reasons why accessibility is a strategic imperative for Acquia. As the company noted in its press release, accessibility is also a prerequisite for open DXPs to deliver exceptional digital experiences for all customers. With the acquisition of Monsido, Acquia now offers a complete solution for building, managing, and delivering fully optimized websites to meet modern standards and digital content guidelines – and comply with WCAG and web accessibility legislation. <h3 id="why-it-matters">Why it matters</h3>For SaaS companies, being purchased once is a big deal. But three times? Lightning in a bottle. While this phenomenon might raise eyebrows for some, Monsido has repeatedly proven itself to be a best-of-breed technology platform and a trustworthy brand. The continued interest and pursuit of its technology also speaks volumes about the efficacy of its software, the value of its intellectual capital, and the addressable market for accessibility and digital experience optimization. Acquia’s purchase of Monsido also reflects how DXPs are getting creative with their expansion strategies. Now armed with core functionality around DAM, CDP, and marketing automation – all now juiced with AI – optimization is becoming a pinnacle initiative for growth and a competitive differentiator within a tight enterprise market. While somewhat unorthodox, Monsido’s textured journey to the Acquia ecosystem may have been worthwhile. The platform’s tenancy under the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/civicplus-completes-acquisition-of-optimere-301565466.html">Optimere</a> umbrella (the parent company of ArchiveSocial and NextRequest) likely injected additional innovation into its roadmap and team culture. As an organization, Monsido no doubt “learned” from its stint at CivicPlus, which purchased all three Optimere solutions in 2021 as part of an integrated, frictionless vision for public sector customers – a marketplace where accessibility is of paramount concern. Government agencies have been swarmed by an onslaught of accessibility lawsuits and evolving compliance requirements for the last decade, and tools like Monsido have become indispensable.  All this experience likely positioned Monsido as a new piece to Acquia’s DXP puzzle. As we covered last November, the company seems genuinely committed to accessibility as a strategic imperative, embracing digital equality at a cultural level and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.acquia.com/blog/acquia-accessibility">vocalizing its path to building accessible software</a>. The investment in an accessibility platform with this clout and staying power is a testament to Acquia’s aggressive growth strategy – and a reinforcement of its commitment to delivering digital equality.(1) IDC, “Web Accessibility: Preparing for Compliance in 2025 Brings an Intersection of DEI and Customer Experience” by Marci Maddox, May 2023 (IDC #US48610922). <hr /><figure class="image"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/11/cms-kickoff-2024-banner.jpg" /></figure><h3 id="join-us-at-cms-kickoff-2024-next-week!">Join us at CMS Kickoff 2024 next week!</h3>CMS Critic is a proud conference partner at this second annual edition of the prestigious international Boye &amp; Co conference, dedicated to the global CMS community. This event will bring together top-notch speakers, Boye &amp; Company's renowned learning format, and engaging social events.Tired of impersonal and overwhelming gatherings? Picture this event as a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. Prepare for an unparalleled in-person CMS conference experience that will equip you to move forward in 2024. Hear from leading voices across the industry on a wide range of topics, including:<ul><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/speakers/andrew-kumar">Andrew Kumar</a>, GVP at Uniform</li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/speakers/becky-brown">Becky Brown</a>, Content Strategy Lead at Johnson &amp; Johnson</li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/speakers/marli-mesibov">Marli Mesibov</a>, Content Strategy at Verily</li></ul><h4 id="-"> </h4><img style="width:39.13%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/11/don-cesar-hotel.jpg" /><h4 id="the-don-cesar:-a-world-class-venue">The Don CeSar: a world-class venue</h4>Is there a better location for a winter kickoff than Florida's beautiful, sugary sand beaches? CMS Kickoff 2024 will be held at the iconic Don CeSar, just steps from the Gulf of Mexico. Dubbed the “Pink Palace,” this majestic hotel and resort provides a stunning backdrop to the conference, along with access to the local food and culture of St. Petersburg Beach.  <h4 id="get-your-tickets-today">Get your tickets today</h4>CMS Kickoff offers an intimate, highly focused experience. Space is limited, and only a few seats remain. Don't miss this exclusive opportunity!<a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff24/tickets">Purchase tickets now &gt;</a>

Acquia Tackles Accessibility and Optimization as it Completes Monsido Buy

cms-critic-staff

<a href="https://amplitude.com/" target="_blank">Amplitude</a>, a digital optimization platform trusted by leading brands like Ford and Walmart, today announced the launch of two new tools: Experiment Results, a new feature of <a href="https://amplitude.com/amplitude-experiment" target="_blank">Amplitude Experiment</a>, and new innovations within the <a href="https://amplitude.com/?utm_source=adwordsb&amp;utm_medium=ppc&amp;utm_campaign=Search_AMER_US_EN_Brand&amp;utm_content=branded_split_home0522&amp;utm_term=amplitude%20analytics&amp;gclid=CjwKCAjwp7eUBhBeEiwAZbHwkRQ_RMbM6I-uLvu9QVZPRkzRvt7RV7IQ45IXedOoauMiA92YUdF36xoCZ_kQAvD_BwE" target="_blank">Amplitude Analytics</a> suite – including Campaign Reporting. These new tools will enhance Amplitude's insights around digital optimization and growth performance. 
We've been following Amplitude's rise across market segments for quite some time, and it continues to challenge the staple offerings with its rich mix of analytics features. Companies are finding significant value in Amplitude's behavioral insights, which help organizations to devise new strategies for improving user engagement, retention, and revenue. With the addition of these new tools, Amplitude seems poised to elevate its value for product and marketing teams – and give competitive platforms a run for their money. 
<h2>Accelerating and streamlining A/B testing with Experiment Results</h2>
A/B testing has become a powerful resource for understanding how the market is reacting to products and services. With the right insights into customer behavior and sentiment, organizations can optimize content, pricing, and other dimensions of their offerings to enhance conversions and sales. 
OK... so what's the downside?
The fact is (and we can corroborate this), most testing solutions and processes are incredibly time-consuming. Further, many conventional platforms focus on "vanity metrics" that don't fully reveal whether customers are happy with a product, service, or experience. According to Amplitude, Experiment Results will accelerate and streamline experimentation, empowering companies to make more informed product decisions, accelerate innovation, and drive business outcomes. 
Experiment Results allows teams to plan, track, and analyze experiments to make smarter decisions while using their existing feature flagging system. Product and data science teams can now dramatically scale experimentation with Amplitude's powerful self-service experimentation analysis – all built on the industry's #1 product analytics solution. Amplitude says that Experiment Results will deliver the right data and analytics for teams to set goals, determine if experiments reach a required level of statistical significance, and automatically provide recommended next steps.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/05/pr-54-experiment-results-t-test-results.png" alt="Experiment Results - T-test Results" />Experiment Results - T-Test Results
The top product teams test all new features – often running tens of thousands of experiments to understand the impact of each product change. The biggest barrier to scaling product experimentation is having data and analytics to analyze the results of experiments. Many companies already have infrastructure to deliver new experiments, but rely heavily on data science teams and homegrown infrastructures to formulate the results and provide recommendations on what to do next. 
Experiment Results effectively removes those bottlenecks with self-service experimentation – so more teams can run more experiments quickly and efficiently. Starting today, companies can pair their existing feature flagging infrastructure with Amplitude's sophisticated experimentation analysis capabilities to inform product decisions, accelerate innovation, and drive revenue.  
"Winning product leaders use data-driven insights to determine what product changes to make. With Experiment Results, customers can exponentially increase the number of experiments they run, and get recommended next steps on their experiments," said Justin Bauer, SVP of product at Amplitude. "This means non-technical teams can make smarter decisions faster at scale and ultimately deliver the right features that drive value for their customers and growth for their organizations." 
Key innovations from the company's announcement include:
<ul>
<li>Multi-Metric Causal Analysis: Experiment Results helps teams determine the causal, statistically significant outcomes of experiments – like identifying if users increased their average order spend due to the product change. It reduces the effort to define metrics, analyze data, and present results, supporting both sequential testing and t-test analysis within the Amplitude Experiment product.</li>
<li>Downstream Analysis for Experiments: With predefined metrics and pre-populated charts, Experiment Results moves teams from experimentation to decision-making stages faster. Amplitude's easy-to-understand dashboards enable cross-functional leaders to quickly share experiment results for accessible downstream analysis.</li>
<li>Automated Goals and Recommendations: Experiment Results also guides users to set the right goals, automatically uncovers whether tests are statistically significant, and provides recommended next steps in a quick snapshot.  </li>
</ul>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/05/pr-54-experiment-results-create-metric.png" alt="Experiment Results - Create Metric" />Experiment Results - Create Metric
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/05/pr-54-experiment-results-dashboad-distribution.png" alt="Experiment Results - Dashboad Distribution" />Experiment Results - Dashboard Distribution
<h2>Campaign Reporting, Metrics, and Data Tables in Amplitude Analytics </h2>
With <a href="https://amplitude.com/amplitude-analytics" target="_blank">Amplitude Analytics</a> — Amplitude’s #1 ranked product analytics solution — marketing and product teams can measure campaign and channel performance alongside downstream product metrics like user engagement and retention. Now, with the addition of Campaign Reporting, those same teams will have unprecedented visibility into metrics across the entire funnel, all in a single system. 
Additional new features in Amplitude Analytics include outcome-focused Metrics and Data Tables. These enhancements will empower teams to discover how their marketing programs and product usage meaningfully affect key business outcomes such as sales and revenue. Together, these tools enable cross-functional teams to quickly close the insights-to-action loop and make better business decisions.
Traditionally, there’s been a disconnect between product and campaign data. Organizations leverage product analytics for visibility into customer behaviors and product changes, but struggle to connect marketing performance metrics like attributing user growth to specific channels. For the first time, Amplitude is bringing both marketing and product teams together in a single system to understand how their investments drive growth.
Key innovations in Amplitude Analytics include:
<ul>
<li>Campaign Reporting: With Amplitude’s new Campaign Reporting capabilities, businesses can see which acquisition channels users are coming from across organic and paid sources, understand how marketing programs impact product KPIs using built-in attribution modeling, and understand cross-channel return on ad investments with brand new integrations into their advertising data platforms. </li>
<li>Metrics: With new outcome-based Metrics from Amplitude, product and marketing teams can quickly create a standard set of metrics that make it easy to connect behaviors with outcomes such as sales or revenue. Teams can now align around common definitions for the metrics that matter most to their business and make faster decisions with trusted insights. </li>
<li>Tables: With new Data Tables, customers can measure multiple KPIs in a single view in order to compare and make decisions about their business. Data tables allow for more flexible reporting so marketing and product can have a side-by-side analysis of metrics across the entire customer journey.</li>
</ul>
“Traditionally, marketing, product, and analytics teams have all relied on separate tools to do their jobs, but today, this siloed approach is no longer effective as organizations seek to understand how every decision and action impacts their most important metrics,” said Justin Bauer, Chief Product Officer at Amplitude. “With these customer needs in mind, we’re doubling down on digital analytics and investing in new tools that will provide holistic product insights faster. The introduction of campaign reporting, outcome metrics, and data tables make it easier for teams to consolidate their analytics solutions while expanding the types of metrics they can track across the end-to-end customer journey.”
You can learn more about Amplitude Analytics <a href="https://amplitude.com/blog/new-digital-analytics" target="_blank">here</a> or watch a <a href="https://info.amplitude.com/watch-amplitude-demo" target="_blank">demo</a>. If you're interested, Amplitude is currently hosting <a href="https://amplitude.com/amplify" target="_blank">Amplify 2022</a>, its product and growth conference, through May 26, 2022. You can <a href="https://web.cvent.com/event/6b55d27c-9646-4126-86af-bd79f33821fe/regProcessStep1:ee30c3a1-0f30-4fee-ba8c-32147f226758?refid=linkedin_organic&amp;rp=f066f728-f047-4d92-a561-ec9cf275401b" target="_blank">live stream</a>, follow on <a href="https://twitter.com/Amplitude_HQ" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, and read the <a href="https://amplitude.com/blog/" target="_blank">Amplitude blog</a> for more updates. 
<h2>About Amplitude</h2>
Amplitude is the pioneer in digital optimization software. More than 1,700 customers, including Atlassian, Instacart, NBCUniversal, Shopify, and Under Armour rely on Amplitude to help them innovate faster and smarter by answering the strategic question: "How do our digital products drive our business?" The Amplitude Digital Optimization System makes critical data accessible and actionable to every team — unifying product, marketing, developers, and executive teams around a new depth of customer understanding and common visibility into what drives business outcomes. Amplitude is the best-in-class product analytics solution, ranked #1 in G2's 2022 Spring Report. Learn how to optimize your digital products and business at <a href="https://amplitude.com/" target="_blank">amplitude.com</a>.

Amplitude Announces New Testing and Analytics Tools for Making Smarter Product Decisions at Scale

In its early days, the Cloud was focused on helping businesses scale their capacity and trade CapEx for OpEx. Now, it's helping organizations leverage advanced services like AI and machine learning that enhance optimization and personalization.
On that note: <a href="https://www.optimizely.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Optimizely</a>, a leading digital experience platform (DXP) provider, <a href="https://www.optimizely.com/company/press/optimizely-and-google-cloud-partner-to-drive-joint-innovation--next-gen-experimentation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Google, which includes moving its market-leading experimentation solutions to <a href="https://cloud.google.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google Cloud</a>. The multi-year agreement indicates a commitment by the two companies to collaborate on innovative opportunities to develop advanced, digital-first marketing solutions.
Through the new partnership, customers will benefit from Optimizely's experimentation-driven digital experience capabilities combined with Google Cloud's secure infrastructure and its AI, ML, and analytics. This includes Optimizely's <a href="https://www.optimizely.com/products/intelligence/web-experimentation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Web Experimentation</a> and <a href="https://www.optimizely.com/products/intelligence/full-stack-experimentation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Full Stack Experimentation</a> resources, which allow marketers to take the guesswork out of delivering personalized, meaningful engagements.
The alignment with Google will enable Optimizely to innovate and evolve its services with the power of the Cloud. According to the press release, Google and Optimizely will also coordinate a joint go-to-market and sales execution strategy to deliver seamless experimentation solutions to customers across the globe.
"Through this partnership, Google Cloud infrastructure will underpin Optimizely's fast-growing and widely-adopted customer experience platform," said Rob Eslin, President of Google Cloud. "It's critical that businesses deliver exceptional products and services to consumers, and this partnership will enhance their ability to do so, driven by the Optimizely platform, data and Google Cloud's capabilities in AI and ML."
<h2>Elevating "Optimization as a Service" with Google Cloud</h2>
As the name intuitively suggests, Optimizely focuses on optimization – specifically as it relates to content and digital experiences. This is a key reason why <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/episerver-rebrands-as-optimizely-following-acquisition/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Episerver rebranded under the Optimizely moniker</a> following its acquisition. 
While already a Leader on the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/key-takeaways-from-gartners-2021-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms/">Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms</a>, Episerver's acquisition of Optimizely launched a new direction for the company, elevating "Optimization as a Service" to the forefront of their product and service stack. The acquisition also gave 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. 
As part of the multi-year agreement, Optimizely and Google Cloud will collaborate closely on co-innovation, developing new and expanded digital offerings that bring the best experience possible to new and existing customers. Joint Optimizely and Google Cloud customers will reap the robust benefits of the combined offering, including greater flexibility and control, unmatched security, and increased productivity and reliability. 
<h2>The critical role of experimentation in digital marketing</h2>
As marketing continues to evolve, successful programs will rely on data-driven decision-making and optimized customer experiences. Having the scalability of Google Cloud will enable Optimizely to support the growing demand for experimentation to provide more actionable insights – giving marketers greater confidence around the performance of their content and campaigns. 
In an industry plagued by rapid disruption and constant consolidation, this partnership will help ensure that Optimizely's innovative solutions are more accessible, scalable, and quickly achievable for marketers looking to gain an edge and deliver optimal digital experiences.
"I couldn't think of two tech companies that are more relevant for the data-driven growth marketer than Google Cloud and Optimizely," said Alex Atzberger, CEO of Optimizely. "We share the same philosophy on leveraging data, AI, and experimentation to replace guesswork with certainty. By entering into this strategic partnership with Google Cloud, we're empowering marketers to unlock their digital potential, create exceptional customer experiences and deliver strong business outcomes all on a trusted, secure platform. It's a true win-win-win situation for Optimizely, Google Cloud, and the marketing industry overall."
<h2>MACH versus monoliths</h2>
Optimizely had quite an active year in 2021, acquiring both <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/optimizely-acquires-customer-data-platform-zaius/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Zaius</a>, a Customer Data Platform (CDP), and <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/optimizelys-acquisition-of-welcome-signals-expanded-focus-on-marketers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Welcome</a>  – a content marketing (CMP), marketing resource management (MRM), and digital asset management (DAM) platform. 
While these strategic acquisitions demonstrate Optimizely's ambition to deliver a full stack of value to marketers, it further positions the digital experience platform as a more monolithic player in the landscape. This is in direct contrast to the more recent energy and growth in the MACH (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-first SaaS, Headless) category, where <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/uniform-raises-28m-in-series-a-funding-round-for-composable-dxp/">composable DXPs like Uniform</a> are disrupting the market. The promise of more extensible solutions – and never having to replatform – is gaining traction with users and companies as they consider the future of their digital stacks. 
Still, leading platforms like Optimizely are responding to large-scale enterprise needs from customers who crave integrated data and solutions from a single platform. As pure-play members of the MACH Alliance continue to grow, they may face opportunities to expand value with more monolithic attributes. This is a key reason why <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/elastic-path-secures-60m-in-funding-for-composable-commerce-growth/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Elastic Path</a> has chosen to forego membership in the MACH Alliance and pursue a more flexible ecosystem model to build a community of composable commerce solutions.
<h2>About Optimizely</h2>
Optimizely is on a mission to help people unlock their digital potential. With its leading digital experience platform (DXP), Optimizely equips 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. Learn more at <a href="https://www.optimizely.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">optimizely.com</a>. All third-party trademarks cited are the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference purposes. 
For more information on how Optimizely and Google Cloud will partner together, please visit: <a href="https://www.optimizely.com/google/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.optimizely.com/google</a>.

Optimizely Partners with Google Cloud to Take Experimentation to the Next Level

paris-tuzun

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

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

Episerver To Acquire Optimizely, Adding Experimentation And Optimization To DXP

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