How Optimizely is Evolving to “Empower People to Unlock Digital Potential”
Under the banner of a new unified vision, to “empower people to unlock digital potential,” Optimizely (formerly known as Episerver) recently outlined its B2B commerce product roadmap for the remainder of 2021 and beyond in an information-rich webinar for customers and partners. The presentation touched on Optimizely’s year-over-year growth, went deep on recent product updates and those that are coming soon, and clarified some crucial points about the always expanding company’s product strategy.
There is no escaping the fact that we are in the midst of a massive transformation in how customers engage with brands. Naturally, this was a theme throughout the Optimizely webinar. After the COVID-19 pandemic forced nearly all interactions online, many business leaders shifted their priorities to digital—and in this environment, Optimizely says, the adoption of a digital experience platform (DXP) like theirs increasingly became a strategic imperative. The company’s growth proves that out, as they shared in the presentation that Optimizely saw an 82% year-over-year revenue jump, with 50% of new customers choosing to leverage broader Optimizely functionalities like content, intel, experimentation, and the customer data platform (CDP).
As many of Optimizely’s B2B commerce customers upped their commitment to delivering superlative digital experiences to their own customers, the Optimizely team rolled out product updates to assist in that mission throughout the early months of 2021. Enhancements were made to its B2B Commerce Cloud, B2B Mobile App, PIM services, Commerce Analytics, and more. (For specific details, be sure to check out the webinar.)
Of course, the Optimizely team didn’t stop there. The webinar audience was treated to an exciting preview of new updates in the works for the company’s B2B commerce products. A few that stood out to us:
Learn about the Optimizely platform here.
Optimizely Marketplace
Expected to launch in the second half of this year, the Optimizely Marketplace will expand, opening up the platform to third-party developers and allowing tech partners to deploy connectors to Optimizely products. This will increase the number of features available in B2B commerce products and allow for greater customization of products by Optimizely customers.
Commerce Analytics, Powered by Zaius
Optimizely launched analytics for its B2C Commerce Cloud in the first half of this year, and it now plans to enhance for B2B commerce customers their tactical view of users’ digital engagement or disengagement. It will do so by leveraging the infrastructure of Optimizely’s Customer Data Platform—which is powered by Zaius, a recent acquisition—for data analytics. Customers can then migrate off of Google Analytics and Tag Manager and onto Optimizely’s behavior tracker instead.
Optimizely Unified Search Service
Emphasizing the critical importance of Search for its B2B commerce customers, the Optimizely team outlined its plans for the continued evolution of its Search functionalities. Specifically, the presentation focused on the unification of the B2B Commerce Cloud’s Search tool with Optimizely’s AI- and ML-powered “Search & Navigation.” The result will be called Optimizely Unified Search Service and will offer customers the best of both worlds.
Finally, following the product update previews, the webinar offered a look at some key points within Optimizely’s product strategy. We learned that Optimizely uses four guideposts in steering their B2B product strategy:
- User-driven roadmap features (listen to customers)
- Optimizely shared services (bring everything together)
- Capabilities via app marketplace (bring customers together with third-party vendors)
- Global availability (bringing all products to all markets).
Among a number of interesting product strategy highlights that you can view in the recorded webinar, one in particular jumped out to us as worth an extra mention.
Optimization-as-a-Service
Pulling together multiple intelligence products, Optimizely describes Optimization-as-a-Service (OaaS) as “an integrated solution with distinct capabilities.” An OaaS offering allows Optimizely customers to access technologies for targeting, testing, and recommendations all in one place. This unified approach would both simplify and enhance customers’ ability to create personalized, compelling, data-driven digital experiences.
It’s no surprise that there are many exciting this to come from Optimizely as this year of evolution and digital-first experiences continues. As an Optimizely Silver Partner, we have been fortunate to get to see the company grow and innovate over the past 14+ years and we look forward to continue our work together to “empower people to unlock digital potential.”
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