Essential components of a DXP for seamless digital experiences

Highlights

You'll learn about the core components of a digital experience platform (DXP).

• Headless CMS: Manage content and deliver to any channels via APIs
• Personalization tools: Deliver experiences tailored to the needs of customers
• AI-driven analytics: Leverage predictive analytics for better decision-making

There is so much more you can incorporate into your DXP. Keep reading to learn more.

The digital experience platform (DXP) market is expected to reach $41.7 billion by 2032, driven by a focus on customer experience and an increase in digital touchpoints. The report also states that the growth will support the rise in omnichannel integration and demand for personalized experiences.

As DXPs power digital strategies now and long into the future, here are the core components that make them stand out as a tool to transform digital experiences.

What is a DXP?

A digital experience platform (DXP) is a SaaS solution that allows you to curate and oversee digital experiences. It goes beyond content management, allowing businesses to manage customer journeys and deliver customized experiences. With a DXP, you can integrate multiple business capabilities, such as:

• Content management
• personalization tools
• Analytics
• E-commerce
• marketing automation, etc.

These packaged business capabilities enable you to deliver personalized and seamless experiences across multiple touchpoints.

Benefits of a composable DXP

DXPs offer a unified platform, giving you control over your tech stack. Businesses that implement a DXP benefit in the following ways:

• Modular simplicity: Modular DXPs are more flexible and easier to scale as business capabilities are not tightly coupled. They are also cost-effective as you avoid paying for unused functionalities.
• Reduced vendor lock-in: The modular and headless approach also ensures you are not tied to a single vendor. Instead, you can integrate multiple vendor solutions via APIs, giving you freedom and control.
• Higher customer engagement: A modular DXP can help digital businesses enhance the customer experience by enabling personalized content and product recommendations.
• Better operational efficiency: A composable DXP streamlines workflows. It is also easy to update and upgrade. You can swap out outdated technologies for newer ones. It also offers more resilience, so if one module goes offline, it does not affect the others.

To enjoy these benefits, you need to build the platform with the right components. The components you choose could depend on your industry or use case. Here are some essential elements to consider when building a digital experience platform.

Core components of a DXP

These components create a unified and personalized digital experience for customers, driving engagement, conversions and long-term customer loyalty.

Headless CMS

A headless CMS separates content creation from its delivery. Hence, you can create content once and distribute it across multiple platforms using APIs. By focusing on back-end content concerns, it allows you to deliver consistent and on-brand content to any front-end framework of choice. A headless CMS is a staple in a DXP.

Customer data platforms (CDPs)

CDP software provides a unified customer database for other systems to access and use. While many offer CRM functionality, a CDP is not a CRM platform. CDPs are more of a back-end system, while a CRM is mainly a front-facing system.

When developing new campaigns, DXPs depend on a CDP for insightful and simplified customer data. A CDP aggregates customer data from several sources into a single, unified profile, ensuring a 360-degree view of the customer. This allows DXPs to segment customers and deliver personalized content and offers across multiple digital channels.

Front-end hosting

Scalable and robust hosting solutions are crucial for ensuring the fast, reliable deployment and performance of customer-facing applications. Front-end hosting tools should be flexible, compatible with existing systems and fully integrated, ensuring they eliminate silos in your tech stack. 

A front-end hosting platform enables you to deploy applications and push codes with ease and efficiency. For instance, with Contentstack's Launch, you can leverage a fully integrated, fully automated MACH-compliant front-end hosting platform that allows you to work with any framework of choice, synchronize deployments and eliminate friction. It is cloud-agnostic, supports EDGE and can cost up to 50% less than alternative options.

Marketing Automation & CRM

A proper CRM allows you to build customer experiences that act as the focal point of your business. Whether you are creating content, managing email campaigns, generating and nurturing leads, or creating personalized customer journeys, there are so many tasks to manage in the marketing process. Some of these tasks can be manual, and most are repetitive and time-consuming.

Marketing automation and CRM tools allow you to simplify and automate these tasks when integrated into a DXP. These tools increase efficiency and consistency while enabling teams to focus on delivering better customer experiences.

AB testing tools

AB Testing allows you to compare two versions of a design, piece, or strategy to determine which performs better. It also helps you understand content or design performance based on real-life experiments with real users. 

A/B testing tools are essential in a DXP because they support a data-driven approach to improving customer engagement and the overall digital experience. They offer data-backed insights into what resonates with your target audience the most, allowing you to optimize for higher conversions.

Analytics tools

Analytics tools enable businesses to track and optimize user experiences across digital platforms. To track your web or social channels, you can integrate tools like Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Hootsuite, etc.

These tools provide insights into customer behavior, enabling better decision-making. They can also measure the performance of marketing campaigns, allowing you to optimize ads, marketing content and resource allocation for increased customer engagement and conversions.

AI and machine learning

Considering how a DXP integrates multiple systems, channels and digital services, it uses vast amounts of data. With AI and machine learning, you can analyze text in the form of customer feedback using sentiment analysis. AI algorithms can also be deployed to power chatbots that enable you to deliver timely responses to customer queries. 

AI tools integrated into a DXP also improve brand interactions by offering predictive insights that allow you to recommend products, content and offers based on customer needs.

Customer engagement tools

Customer engagement platforms provide an interface for real-time interaction with leads, users and customers. They bridge the functions of customer support, sales, marketing and product teams, ensuring they are in sync. 

Customer engagement tools also enable businesses to streamline customer interactions. Businesses have various options to consider, such as chatbots, live messaging, tailored notifications, etc. The tools help companies keep up with customer queries, improving overall engagement and experience.

E-commerce integration

An e-commerce platform, along with a data and content management system, is one of the pillars of a DXP platform. So, beyond the tightly coupled nature of monolithic systems, e-commerce APIs are a critical part of a digital experience platform. Customers want seamless, painless and frictionless shopping experiences, and e-commerce integration allows you to select the best tools to deliver them.

It connects an online store with tools like payment systems, inventory management, CRM and shipping providers. E-commerce tools give you better control of your business. That way, you can manage inventory, payments, shipping and other services without one getting in the way of the others.

Payments

While payments are always part of the e-commerce setup, they can act as a standalone component for regular digital experiences. DXPs make them easy to integrate with your social media, mobile apps and web applications. 

Payment services in DXPs give your users options to pay for services, digital products, or subscriptions via multiple ways, like credit cards, PayPal, etc. They also integrate with location services to allow users to see payment amounts in their local currency. A DXP integrates these features and provides robust security that supports safe and seamless transactions for users.

Personalization engines

Considering that 81% of customers want their shopping experience personalized, delivering tailored experiences must be a front-burner issue for modern businesses. Personalization engines are AI-driven. They track customer interaction patterns to enable you to curate and deliver tailored experiences. With these tools, you can curate and customize digital experiences at a granular level.

Chatbots and virtual assistants

Virtual agents and chatbots use conversational platforms to direct digital users and offer immediate assistance. They are programmed to manage customer support and attend to inquiries and queries without human support. This improves the user experience by delivering prompt, effective and reliable service.

Search & discovery

The search and discovery system built into a DXP improves directions and makes information easier for users to locate. It is more than a basic search bar—instead, it provides navigation, filtering and information resources for entire pages. It ensures that users can find specific information, thus improving the user experience.

Case studies

1-800-Flowers e-commerce integration

After struggling with a device and channel-specific CMS, 1-800-FLOWERS needed a composable architecture. They needed flexible content delivery and automated updates via APIs. Contentstack provided the e-commerce tools, enabling them to control the content and layout of its landing pages, category listings, product pages, etc.

Hear from Matt McHale, the Senior Vice President of Application Development: "We're building a true customer community where customers can not only purchase products but also access helpful content that guides them through life's meaningful moments and helps them build relationships."

Keep reading to see how 1-800-Flowers integrates e-commerce into its DXP.

Brad's Deals integrates Contentstack Automate

With multiple CMSes handling different kinds of content, Brad's Deals struggled with consistency. The systems also required extensive manual work for content updates. 

Opting for Contentstack Automate and headless CMS enabled them to unify all the platforms and automate content management and delivery. It reduced costs by 70% and improved production and publishing times by 95% and 99%, respectively.

Hear from Keith Mazanec, the Director of Software Engineering. "Thanks to Contentstack, we can now have a content strategy that leverages all of our assets. We're no longer limited by the silos of our tech stack."

Read on to learn how Brad's Deals re-energized its content strategy with a bespoke automation platform.

Golfbreaks leverages Contentstack's AI Accelerator

Golfbreaks was looking to run a cost-effective operation and wanted to deploy AI to achieve that. Contentstack's AI Accelerator program gave them the chance to learn how they could use AI to reduce the cost of multiple processes. Applying the strategies improved publishing speed by 90%, reduced time-to-market by 78% and saved them 7 hours per week.

"With Contentstack's help, our AI use case has been expanded into a much more powerful tool that's helping us to save time and move faster. Now, we are able to achieve so much more," said Jack Simkins.

FAQ section 

What are the critical components of a digital experience platform?

The core components of a modern DXP are a headless CMS for content, CDP for data and an e-commerce platform. Other essential components are analytics tools, personalization engines, automation tools, etc.

How does a DXP enable better customer experiences?

DXPs use analytics and AI features to analyze customer data, allowing you to tailor offers and content to customer needs. They also support the delivery of omnichannel experiences, ensuring that customer experiences are consistent and seamless across platforms.

What industries can benefit from DXPs?

Industries such as retail, healthcare, finance and education rely on personalized, omnichannel digital experiences, making a DXP valuable to them.

Can a DXP integrate with existing systems?

Yes. Modern DXPs like Contentstack support API-based integrations, allowing them to work with third-party tools and services.

Learn more

A composable DXP is a flexible platform that enables you to deliver tailored digital experiences. Given its modular design, you are not locked into any specific vendor solution. That gives you the freedom to bring your innovative ideas to life.

A composable DXP is also easy to use, as it relies on API integration and does not require endless hours of development work. However, building one requires integrating the vital DXP components as outlined. 

Contentstack offers the leading composable DXP, built on MACH principles. It also easily integrates with essential components such as front-end hosting, automation, personalization, generative AI, etc. Go composable to stay ahead of your competitors and future-proof your tech strategy. Talk to us to get started.