GigaOm Key Criteria for Evaluating Digital Experience Platforms (DXPs)v3.0

1. Executive Summary

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns kicked off a large-scale move to online shopping. In turn, increased competition and the need to both showcase products in new and innovative ways and to target consumers with engaging and highly personalized content have made digital experience platforms (DXPs) more important than ever. The ability to dynamically create and deliver experiences has become a requirement for organizations, as has the use of real-time analytics to gather and analyze metrics as consumers navigate through a website so organizations can deliver content targeting individual users.

There are many more channels now than there were a few years ago—websites, social media, digital signage, kiosks, video screens, and television. One of the key advantages of a DXP is the ability to reuse content across multiple channels. Content can also be delivered to multiple devices and form factors ranging from large-screen PCs to small personal devices such as smartphones.

DXP capabilities have also evolved since the last DXP Key Criteria and Radar reports in 2023. A new key feature is the customer data platform (CDP). Most vendors either include CDPs in their portfolios or provide out-of-the-box integrations with at least one CDP.

The DXP market is mature, with many vendors. The majority are specialists that only provide DXPs, but there are a few with a wider portfolio, including OpenText, Oracle, and Salesforce. There have been many acquisitions and mergers in this area over the past 20 years, and we expect this to continue in the future.

Business Imperative
Marketers and creative teams are the main beneficiaries of DXPs. For marketers, DXPs provide an environment for creating content that can be published through a variety of channels, enabling them to run short-lived marketing campaigns, time-sensitive offers, and loyalty schemes. Creative teams can collaborate internally and with agencies to create digital assets for marketers to use or for advertising campaigns, taking advantage of integrations with creative tools such as Adobe Creative Cloud applications.

Sector Adoption Score
To help executives and decision-makers assess the potential impact and value of a DXP solution deployment to the business, this GigaOm Key Criteria report provides a structured assessment of the sector across five factors: benefit, maturity, urgency, impact, and effort. By scoring each factor based on how strongly it compels or deters adoption of a DXP solution, we provide an overall Sector Adoption Score (Figure 1) of 4.2 out of 5, with 5 indicating the strongest possible recommendation to adopt. This indicates that a DXP solution is a credible candidate for deployment and worthy of thoughtful consideration.

The factors contributing to the Sector Adoption Score for DXP are explained in more detail in the Sector Brief section that follows.

Figure 1. Sector Adoption Score for DXPs

This is the third year that GigaOm has reported on the DXP space in the context of our Key Criteria and Radar reports. This report builds on our previous analysis and considers how the market has evolved over the last year.

This GigaOm Key Criteria report highlights the capabilities (table stakes, key features, and emerging features) and nonfunctional requirements (business criteria) for selecting an effective DXP solution. The companion GigaOm Radar report identifies vendors and products that excel in those decision criteria. Together, these reports provide an overview of the market, identify leading DXP offerings, and help decision-makers evaluate these solutions so they can make a more informed investment decision.