Optimizely update: why the platform keeps on going from strength to strength
Optimizely is one of the core Digital Experience Platforms (DXPs) that we work with here at 3Chillies. It’s a mature, feature-rich and flexible platform and offers a range of capabilities, with a number of recognised strengths in areas such as optimisation and A/B testing.
When people think of the world’s leading DXP solution they don’t always first think of Optimizely, but it is actually one of the major solutions on the market. Over the past few years Optimizely has come a very long way; at one point it was known as EpiServer and its biggest market was still focused on the Nordics. An injection of funding, a number of acquisitions and a name change later, Optimizely continues to go from strength to strength.
One of the reasons we enjoy working with the platform is that just like Sitecore and Umbraco, you can create rich and immersive websites. Like rival products, Optimizely has also continued to evolve and improve, with an active product roadmap and a drive to defend and deepen its market position.
It’s a while since we covered Optimizely on the 3Chillies blog. In this post we’re going to explore some of the major updates on the platform from the past year or so and why they add up to an exciting future for Optimizely.
- Revenue growth and recognition as a market leader
The growth of Optimizely over a number of years has seen it’s arrival as a major player in the market. In May 2024 Optimizely announced that it had reached $400m in annual recurring revenue (ARR), a significant milestone. This has been achieved through customers subscribing to multiple products – accounting for 52% of revenue. For comparison with another leading provider, Sitecore just announced that it has reached $500m ARR.
Analysts are also confirming Optimizely as a market leader. It was one of the three “leaders” identified by Gartner in their Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms and has also been identified as a leader in multiple others including Forrester.
- Rebranding to Optimizely One
In 2020 and 2021 Optimizely’s core product suite was built up through a number of acquisitions – combining the Episerver CMS, the Optimizely optimization engine, the Zaius Customer Data Platform (CDP) and the Welcome content marketing platform.
Since then, significant levels of integration work has taken place, culminating in the relaunch of the platform as Optimizely One in late 2023, available on a PaaS or a SaaS basis. This is positioned as a “marketing operating system” which emphasises a highly integrated platform with a unified workflow across its different components. Within Optimizely One, a number of different products are available on a standalone basis including a commerce solution, a DAM system, experimentation modules and the new personalization product.
The new integrated platform presents a simplified and flexible offering to marketing teams with options on which products to include, as well as the opportunity to support headless publishing and composable architecture.
- New features including a no code visual builder launched
With the launch of Optimizely One, the platform has continued to add new features and improvements. Optimizely’s continuing investment in the product is good news for marketing teams, offering continuing healthy choice in the DXP market.
One of the most notable improvements is a new no-code editing experience – branded as the Visual Builder – that can be used to design and modify layout templates, all within particular brand guidelines if desired. Interestingly the Visual Builder has been first offered on a SaaS basis.
Another notable advancement is the launch of Optimizely Graph, a content search and aggregation engine that uses a GraphQL API to intelligently index all content. The Optimizely Graph runs independently of the CMS and can support headless scenarios.
- AI-powered capabilities continue to be added to the platform
Unsurprisingly, the introduction of more AI-powered features and the integration of Large Language Models (LLMs) is currently an area of focus for most DXP and CMS providers, with many emphasising their existing and new AI powers and credentials. To be fair. Optimizely’s messaging around AI has not been as deafening as some of the other providers, but the integration of more AI services is expected.
Currently there are a number of AI-powered features across the product suite including Opal, an AI-powered digital assistant that provides support and suggestions for users, and the intelligent tagging and cropping of images in the DAM. Content generation is available in Optimizely’s Content Marketing Platform. There is also now the ability to integrate the platform with an LLM of choice, for example to generate text and images.
From time to time new AI features drop across different products, such as the Variation Generator, providing AI-powered suggestions for teams using Optimizely’s experimentation capabilities.
- Launch of Optimizely Personalization
Optimizely has recently announced the launch of Optimizely Personalization, a new native personalization engine that brings together a number of capabilities including:
- Collaboration capabilities around personalization, including approval processes, planning tools, idea capture and more, replicating collaboration features already found in Optimizely’s experimentation suite of tools.
- One to one personalization based on machine learning and customisable algorithms that dynamically adjust the best user experience, with targeted content bases on user attributes.
- “Edge delivery” with faster page loads and flicker-free content delivery, leading to improved SEO and a better user experience.
- An intuitive editing experience with the addition of pre-built templates.
- Accompanying analytics.
- And more!
According to Rupali Jain, the Chief Product Officer at Optimizely, the new module is designed to increase the proportion of marketing teams using real-time personalization by lowering “barriers” created by “complex tech stacks, fragmented workflows and inadequate data.”
On one level the new product makes sense, complementing existing capabilities around experimentation, and making it available on a standalone basis. In our view, anything that reduces the barriers to introducing personalisation is welcome.
- Bring data warehouse capabilities to Optimizely via the acquisition of NetSpring
Recently Optimizely has announced the acquisition of NetSpring, a warehouse-native analytics company focusing on product and customer journey analytics. NetSpring was founded in the US in 2019.
The acquisition brings an intriguing data warehouse capability to the Optimizely platform which will enable organisations to tap far bigger datasets for to drive insights, optimisation, experimentation and data visualisation, while also ensuring data privacy and keeping costs down.
According to Alex Atzberger, the acquisition “accelerates our leadership position in the experimentation market while also serving as the future analytics platform across all of Optimizely One…We are the only DXP in the market with this capability.”
- CMS 13 is on the horizon
Optimizely continues to have an active product roadmap. The next major milestone will be the release of CMS 13 which is due to drop sometime in Q2 2025. Some of the features were discussed at the latest Opticon (Optimizely’s series of user conferences) and among other things will bring improvements to the Visual Builder and the Optimizely Graph search. We hope to cover the release of CMS13 in more detail in a future blog post.
Optimizely continues to go from strength to strength
We’re happy that Optimizely is one of the world’s leading DXPs and CMSs and we expect that to continue through 2025.
If you’d like to discuss using Optimizely One for your website or digital project, then get in touch!
